RB Pitboss #1 SPOILER - Hatshepsut / India

[Dantski]

I'm busy scratching my head

carry on!

[regoarrarr]

Quick chat with Dreylin (though it might have been Kalin - they both use that same gmail account)

me: hey there
did your warrior / scout make it past the bears?
Sent at 11:26 AM on Wednesday
me: or was he eatennnnnnnnn
Sent at 11:37 AM on Wednesday
Dreylin: Warrior is now healing
me: ah cool
Dreylin: stationed at the Western edge of the NW/NE passage
me: i have 2 warriors running away from bears currently
one near you
Dreylin: Well we've met already, so that's OK, but Broker's on is way this way, so we'll try and coordinate a meeting between you
me: ok
so have you definitively confirmed that there is a passage?
Dreylin: you run into ZPV yet?
me: yes
2 turns ago
Dreylin: aha
and is he the one?
me: lol
that's the way i am leaning
i'm trying to get a hold of him here on IM
Dreylin: haven't definitively confirmed the passage
but there is a strip of land leading NE from our Warrior
me: it was lookign like it was possible that the lake bent to the west
Dreylin: couple more turns of healing to be safe before we move on though
me: right
brb
Sent at 1:41 PM on Wednesday
me: back
Sent at 1:53 PM on Wednesday
Dreylin: me too now
Sent at 1:57 PM on Wednesday
me: neat
Dreylin: did we have anything left to talk about!?
me: dunno
where is broker's warrior?
or krills?
Dreylin: Broker's Scout is due West of sunrise's Cap
on it's way to meet him
from there we'll direct him North to meet you
me: ok
Dreylin: don't know about Krill
sunrise might know
I mentioned to Krill that we had met you & Broker
but not that we knew about your neighbours
or the hints of Ruff
He claimed that they have not met anyone else
and hail from the far North
me: krill is from the far north?
Dreylin: is what he said
me: ah
Dreylin: Oh we found the Southern border a while back
me: of the map?
Dreylin: yep
no Ice
so maybe no wrap?
me: how can you tell it was the southern bordre?
Dreylin: same way as in the pbem
the edge
looks different than fog
straight lined
me: hm
Dreylin: same as the "Farmer's Gambit" start is on the Northern border
me: right
Dreylin: I suspect that all the water is large lakes
me: that is my suspicion as well
Dreylin: and that most area encircled by land
me: so have you ever played on a toroidal map?
Dreylin: I think so
iirc it looks seamless NS in the same way a "regular" map is WE
me: that's what i would expect
Sent at 2:06 PM on Wednesday
me: have you seen the north coast of your lands
possibly lake?
Dreylin: there is water
but still a ways North to go
me: yeah my warrior is up there
i suspect krill is on the other side of the lake
Dreylin: maybe
Sent at 2:09 PM on Wednesday
me: interesting that you appear to have ruled out the toroidal map
i was sure we were on one
Dreylin: I will check again this evening, but that's how it looks to me
me: where is this?
south of dsplaisted?
Sent at 2:12 PM on Wednesday
Dreylin: haven't met dsp
south of Broker
me: oh
i haven't met dsp either
how many civs have you met?
Dreylin: just the 2 other from the alliance & Krill
me: broker, sunrise, me and krill?
Dreylin: Yeah
you've met ZPV
&Imhotep
& ????
(can't remember)
shadyforce?
me: shady, zpv, imhotep, you and sunrise
Dreylin: Broker has met Ruff
leaves mh/Kodii & dsplaisted to meet
/locate
me: dsp is to the south of shady / zpv
Dreylin: Ah
that makes sense
ok, only mh/Kodii to locate

Some interesting takeaways
* We have the (basic) locations for everyone besides m_h.
* He seems to have found the bottom edge of the map. My calculations seem to indicate that there is world wrap in all 4 directions. He's going to explore more, and I may do a WB test to figure out what a toroidal map looks like, though it seems odd that it would look like an "edge" of a map.
* Heading to meet broker's scout hopefully soon
* AFAIK I am still "winning" with 5 civs contacted.
* I am leaning towards including ZPV in the 5-way tech trade.

[regoarrarr]

So I was trying to figure out if I had to road all the way between the 2 cities to connect them up for trade route purposes. I read a few articles on CFC but was still not sure, so I sent a PM to someone who had made several posts on the matter - DanF

He was gracious enough to respond pretty quickly

Hi regoarrarr,

interesting situation, unfortunately you'd need to put down roads all of the way to establish a trade network link before Sailing. The trouble is that a land tile with a road cannot automatically link to an adjacent coast tile --> you need some sort of port for this, i.e. a city or a fort (I recommend checking out PieceOfMind's article on forts which has very good information).

I did a bit of terraforming to reconstruct your scenario and let a snippet of Python code color the extents of the cities' plot groups:

Miami's plot group can only extend as far as the roads go, the road cannot connect to the coast. (Had to move the capital there in order to make my code work.)


Likewise the situation for the capital's plot group:


Connection established with a fort: coast links to fort links to road links to river (Miami has full BFC).


Connection via 3rd city and only 3 roads :D:


Cheers,
Dan

So that stinks. But good to know!

[regoarrarr]

Also from the fort article forts can be used as canals if the land between the waters is 2 tiles long. So I have the ability to do it by the sheep / clams city, regardless of whether or not I put a city up there, and maybe between East Fork Lake and shadyforce's lakes (need to explore over there more)

[regoarrarr]

Quick chat with sunrise - he researched a tech this turn and will research Masonry next turn (Which he had previously delayed). He will then go for Monotheism, hopefully founding it in his 2nd city ( in I assume 10ish turns). After that he will start on my missionary.

Longer chat with ZPV, who I invited to our 5-way tech trading alliance

ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: *hits up*
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: hello
me: hey there!
me: how's it going
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: not too bad - I've almost explored the land between us
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: how about you?
me: not much
me: trying to figure out how best to connect my 2 cities
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: I didn't see your email about worker-stealing until your borders had already popped - sorry if I messed up your build plans.
me: nah
me: for some reason your warrior popped east
me: which is perfect
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: closer to home
me: right
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: we're going to have to have a border discussion at some point - although I don't think we're quite ready for it just yet
me: agreed
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: any ideas who the buddhist founder is?
me: broker
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: ah, ok
me: so, speaking of agreements, have you talked to anybody about tech trading here in the near future?
me: or given any thoughts to that?
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: I've thought about it - need someone to research Alphabet.
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: I've asked dsplaisted to research it - so I'll see what he thinks about that
me: okay
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: How about you?
me: i believe dreylin is going to research it
me: we've had some discussions between him, sunrise and myself
me: about a 5-way tech trad
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: I'd better go meet him then
me: and we're looking for someone to research HBR
me: and it seemed like you would be a good candidate for that
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: which techs are these - I'd gladly research HBR
me: the other 4 of us (including broker)
me: would be researching alpha, maths, monarchy and IW / Sailing
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: well, I will pick up Sailing right after writing, but then I can go for HBR
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: As I have high research, this shouldn't be a problem
me: what do you think your turn estimate would be for HBR?
me: i.e. what turn do you think you'd have it
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: I'll have to check how much it costs - but I'd guess 60s
me: 375
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: I'll need to load up the game to make sure
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: but unless Dreylin already has writing, he won't get Alpha before I get HBR
me: yeah
me: latest estimate i heard from him (and obviuosly it's all rough at this stage) was T93
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: :-O
me: but that might improve depending on things
me: not sure what that estimate is based on
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: I guess t67 is a bit early from my side, then
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: T93 is too late. But it should improve when he hires scientists with the Library
me: right
me: i'm currently looking at T80ish for math which is what i'm researching
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: btw, who is taking which techs?
me: but it's hard to say with building any new cities or hiring scientists, etc
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: sunrise = Monarchy?
me: broker - IW / Sailing (or some other way to make up beaker differences)
me: yes
me: and me math
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: Will I need a cheap tech to make up beaker differences?
me: potentially
me: at this point we've just kind of agreed that we'll figure out a way to make up beaker differences and pre-reqs
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: I'm sure we can sort it out.
me: right
me: that was the thinking
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: I haven't met Dreylin or Broker yet. Do you know where Broker is?
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: I know Dreylin is to sunrise's west
me: broker is to the south of dreylin
me: he has a scout between dreylin and sunrise
me: so i'm trying to meet him
me: if you have (or can send) a unit that way we will arrange a summit
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: OK. I have a scout near there too - so I should meet him soon
me: cool
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: It seems like Broker (+Krill?), Dreylin (+?) Sunrise, you+shadyforce, and I each have our own peninsulas
me: i think krill is north of dreylin
me: anyways, as you will obviously have realized, this kind of a tech confederation gives us a huge leg up on the other folks that are not in it
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: yeah
me: they asked me to pick the final participant between you and shadyforce
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: dsplaisted kind of got shafted by being on an island
me: so feel honored
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: thanks
me: nothing against shadyforce
me: who seems like a good guy
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: Immortals are no fun :P
me: i thought that the main reason was that our lands meshed well together, which goes back to your border agreement, hopefully we can keep this a 2-way border agreement
me: rather than a 3-way one
me: if you know what i mean
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: hehe
me: so, again i'm sure you have figured out that it is in our best interests to kind of keep this on the down low with the other participants
me: as well as kind of discourage (as much as possible) them meeting each other
me: and setting up their own agreements
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: yeah. Encouraging dsplaisted to research Alphabet was not exactly sound advice. He needs Sailing to get out and meet people
me:
me: the thought was that this agreement could kind of be the stepping stones to more of a relationship
me: both from a subsequent 5-way trade (like col, calendar, construction, etc)
me: as well as, for you and me, military coordination against shadyforce (potentially)
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: seems fair enough
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: I'd take compass on the next one
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: I'd watch out for Imhotep - you could be a target for an Impi-rush
me: yeah?
me: we seem awful far away
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: I was under the impression that you were his direct neighbour
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: is this wrong?
me: i am from teh sense that i hve not met any civs between us
me: but his capital is probably 20-25 tiles away
me: do you think that's not that far?
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: Hmm. I guess there should be someone closer
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: Impis have 2 moves even through forest, but yeah, that is too far to be worth it
me: so what do you think your timeline for alphabet would be?
me: if you went writing->alpha
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: somewhere between t70 and t80. I'd still research Sailing first, for trade routes.
me: do you expect sailing will get you external trade routes?
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: yes
me: or do you mean connecting your cities
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: definitely foreign
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: I have explored the coast to shadyforce
me: ah
ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: so Sailing will bring trade routes

I plan on sending an email off to sunrise and the lins to confirm, as well as see if we want to switch techs, if ZPV really can get it in the 70s.

[regoarrarr]

Email sent to the Lins and Sunrise

Hey there Lins and Sunrise,

I spoke with ZPV today and invited him into our tech trading cabal. He said he had no problem researching HBR, but was planning on researching Sailing and Writing first. He roughly estimated T67 for HBR which shouldn't be a problem.

He was also claiming to have one of the higher GNPs and thought he could get Alphabet between T70 and T80. I don't know Dreylin if you had particular reasons to take Alpha rather than one of the other techs (like for denial value or for potential trading it to other civs), but I thought it at least made sense to bring it up here. Note that I did not mention this possibility to ZPV at all.

But if some of our partners get their tech earlier and have to sit and wait for 20 turns, that might povide chinks in our agreement. Let's take ZPV for example - say he researches HBR on T67 and then has to wait till T93 to get Alpha or Math or any of the other techs? What if dsplaisted or shadyforce or whoever researches Alpha earlier and wants to trade? It would seem tempting I'm sure. Or maybe he'd want to research Math or something else earlier.

Do you still think your estimate of T93 is accurate? Does that include hiring scientists in a library, or founding very many cities? I understand it's a very rough estimate at this point but I just thought I would bring it up so we could talk about it.

ZPV did say that he has a scout near sunrise so he is wanting to be invited to the Broker-regoarrarr summit.

Let me know your guys' thoughts

[regoarrarr]

Also, I did a bit of researching as to what the best way is to connect my 2 cities

Amy does all but the last road
lose 4 commerce and 4 hammers from not connecting the southern ivory
Connected on T55

Carolyn does 2 roads
connected on T50
delay FP cottage 2 turns
delay silks cottage 2 turns
PHM delayed 2 turns (or on schedule with silks cottage delayed 4 turns)

Carolyn and Brooke do road each
connected on T50
either delay FP cottage 6 turns
or delay FP cottage 4 turns and PHM 2 turns

I think the earlier connection is better, and I think I am going to delay the Plains Hill Mine at the expense of getting the cottages done sooner, so I can start their maturation. Connecting on T50 vs. T55 gains me 2 cpt * 5 = 10 commerce, plus it saves me 2 turns of ivory (I still am working uncamped ivory for 2 turns, though I may whip Green at size 3).

Still i wanted to capture this so I could review it later - don't need to decide for another few turns

[regoarrarr]

T42 and 43 played.

Brooke finished chopping and Carolyn the new worker is scheduled to come out next turn, at a perfect 60/60!

They are both scheduled to chop forests into a granary - Pottery still on schedule to come in in 3 turns, on T46.

Amy will finish her mine next turn (T44), just in time for Green Twp to grow to size 2. She will then do at least 2 roads to the north.

The more interesting news is that we have confirmation of the land bridge to sunrise and Dreylin's lands.



The interesting thing is that the area I *thought* was a land bridge (the tile to the SW of the Bear T41 sign) does NOT appear to be a land bridge.

The good news is that there appears to be room for 4 decent cities (Sheep / Clams, Crab / Lake, South in the fog, and one for the wheat) up here, and, barring anyone on the north coast of that lake that is close by, it should all be mine.

The obvious spot for a border city would be that plains hill where my warrior is standing right now. That would be a canal city, though if sunrise is close enough to contest that, we could each back off and get a canal city through use of a fort.

[regoarrarr]

Interesting email from Imhotep

I’ve met ruff now too - I stumbled across his warrior on my way back from Persia to my lands. Seems he is in the East too…



Imhotep

My reply

Cool - any suggestions on how I can send my warrior to meet him? You can probably see my warrior but he is currently E (somewhat NE) of your 2nd city. If you could broker a summit meeting between ruff and I that would be appreciated!

He replied

Well, right now ruff is marching towards Persian lands. Maybe shadyforce can send him up to your domain…

So that does confirm that the world wraps horizontally by land, since sunrise mentioend someone (Broker?) had met ruff to my west.

[regoarrarr]

And an interesting chat with sunrise about metagaming and the Krill / Memphus team

sunrise089: Hi Regoarrarr
sunrise089: have you met Krill yet, I forgot
sunrise089: ?
me: no
sunrise089: he is pushing hard for info on the tech trading bloc - he offered to trade me maths and was pretty upset when I told him I already had a deal
me: hmm
sunrise089: he asked who I had deals with, and I've been very cautious
sunrise089: so I've not told him who I have any deal with or what they're researching. He said he'd like to break into the deal by offering several cheap techs if there was no expensive tech available.
me: seems kind of pushy
sunrise089: Very pushy
sunrise089: but I dont want to totally alienate him, so I conditionally agreed to trade for writing with him if he gets alpha from someone
sunrise089: however, he is making two errors.
sunrise089: 1) He assumes we're teching faster than we are, which is sort of sad for us - he says he can get maths by T60 and thinks we can power to CS by T90. Sad if he'
sunrise089: he's so much faster than us. 2) He thinks I have a 3-way deal. I think he's be nervious if he knew there was a 5-day deal he was in danger of being locked out of
me: yeah
me: the error i thought that he was making was not even listed!
me: i think he is approaching things diplomatically alll wrong
me: he's kind of an outsider to RB
me: and while i would not hold that against him
me: from any kind of trading
me: i have noticed a few times that he has made comments on the RB threads about ways we should do things,
sunrise089: well he stacked the meta-game against him hard core
me: which seemed odd coming from a newcomer to a community
sunrise089: outsider, plus outsider partner, plus power-gaming tendencies for both of them, plus harsh comments in public posts
me: right
me: all of that stuff i think is working against him