RBP3 [Spoilers] Capac of Mali

[Swiss Pauli]

Turn 24 played: no ponies in view

BW selected as planned, due in 15t so the sim is also holding up (so far). Settler due in 12 turns, so over the next few days we'll need to put some more thought into where city #2 should go.

[Swiss Pauli]

T25 done as well. We grow and finish our 2nd warrior next turn.

[Swiss Pauli]

A photo update:



Renamed the warriors Mick & Keef.

[Swiss Pauli]

Draft proposal to Babylon. I sent them an acknowledgment email yesterday morning, and planned to send a reply last night, but didn't have time for CIV

Hi Kyan,

A bit later than anticipated, but better late than never

We think you're right that the tundra and FP strips typical of a TB script will have been edited out. It also seems that the long rivers found in a TB script have been cut to some degree as well.

Although it will be some time before tech trading is available, we'd like to discuss some ideas. One thought we have would be agreement that if one of us lacks convenient copper and therefore needs early IW that the other will trade in IW for tech(s) of similar beaker value. Given that you're CRE, trading in Mysticism from us might be sensible (as we'll need Monuments for early-game border pops). What do you think of these ideas? We'd also like to form a 'tech-club' with some other civs, but we'll need to meet them first!

We assume you are located to our east, so we will scout in other directions initially.

Best Wishes

Emperor Capac

[Swiss Pauli]

Logged on to find that we were the last to play. I was sure I'd ended T26, but T27 had already been and gone, and I've now played T28 as well :




Settler's due in 9, and I've been a bit more bold with our warriors. Hope this doesn't backfire on us Very disappointing for Mick to reveal 3 tiles of desert to go with the corn. Have to hope that Keef has more luck in the NW.

Will send the letter to Babylon shortly.

[Swiss Pauli]

Big chat with Kyan. Most salient points:

- Babylon is very close to our east*
- Not happy with their start (ours marginally better)
- All civs have jungle river silver (no great shock)
- No horses very close either (if we believe them)
- Not sure whether he's being 'economical with the actualité' regarding copper. I thought they'd opened AH-BW which should be complete judging by their score...hmmmm...

* we need to follow up on claiming a city-spot between us: I suggest 1N of the corn. Will leave the marble up for a culture battle, but seeing as we're heading down Alliance Street that shouldn't be too much bother.

20:23 Kyan: Hello there!
20:24 i'll be about for around 15-20mins more so if you see this give me a buzz (19:24 GMT time of writing)
20:29 me: u still there?
20:30 Kyan: hey
me: how's it going?
Kyan: not bad at all thank you. It's Kyan by the way
20:31 yourself? I'mm gonna guess at Swiss?
me: Yup
and i think you're logged in as kyan
20:32 Kyan: in that case great to meet you guys properly. I find emails awfully rigid and with my poor attempts at humour, often just end up offending people ha
me: emails can be tricky
but so can chat
Kyan: true. but how bout we show our hands a bit to 'prove our friendship' ?
20:33 i genuinely want our civ's to become friends, i can see no good reason to do anything else
me: not sure i've got much of a hand to hide, so why not?
Kyan: ha well, how much if any map info do you have mate?
me: relationships are key in these games
20:34 Kyan: indeed and i'm a newbie to these games. talk about thrown in at the deep end!
me: map: very little. Conservative opening
more or less circled our capital
not the land of milk & honey
Kyan: ha so true
20:35 our start was horrendous
which reminds me to ask, as we have a disagreement in our team regarding the starts
at the very start of the game, i.e. when you logged in for the very first time, what did you see?
me: you moved your settler IIRC
Kyan: yep we did
20:36 and i'll tell you why
we had exactly one resource showing, and it's not much of a nugget of info as im sure you had it too, jungled silver
me: some food, hills and a bit of jungle
Kyan: but ZERO food
nothing
me: silver
20:37 no food visible? ack
Kyan: exactly, after moving warrior we found 1 resource and decided to found on a plains hill for production bonus and to get a food into our first ring
me: how about after moving the warrior?
20:38 cross post, or what u call that in a chat lol
Kyan: the resource itself was poor but i couldn't justify waiting much longer to found so our capital is awful and will be moved eventually
ha indeed
20:39 bah if we're friends, why am i calling it a 'resource'. Let me guess, you guys had plains sheep and a corn/rice/what- probably dry?
*wheat
me: plains river sheep, and river rice
so not too bad
Kyan: heh it's better than any site we've found so far with all our scouting
20:40 me: we're not likely to move our cap based on what we've found so far!
20:41 no horses either
Kyan: hehe that's very trusting to admit that
we haven't seen any either
20:42 me: well we have scouted enough to know that horses are completely out of range
bummer for my metagaming
i see from the EPs that you've not mayn anyone else
20:43 Kyan: i much rather you be like that than dissect every email word for word
me: *met not mayn
Kyan: nope, we've scouted a wide circle around our capital and then mostly eastwards
hoping to find someone
*westwards
im so bad with east/west, it's untrue
we're really close to you by the way
me: don't worry i'm hopeless with that too
20:44 you must be if you circled
before heading over
Kyan: i wouldn't leave your capital defenceless at any point just in case- we won't attack you but who knows where krill/rome are
me: near korea
Kyan: ha touché
20:45 me: hoping that civs are now thinking about teching rather than an elimination chance
20:46 but we're dead if I'm wrong
Kyan: one can hope so.
20:47 we're definitely not playing an aggresive open altho our power rating may be a bit scary at the moment.
me: not been tracking the power per civ much
20:48 Kyan: well, at this stage it's not a particularly relevant stat anyhow but maybe it'll be a deterrant if anyone tries to play games
me: AH & BW opening?
Kyan: ha i believ you would know the answer anyway but yes
20:49 me: well with agri & wheel to start then it's the obvious choice
we're working on BW now
Kyan: yeah
me: so any copper in our hinterland
Kyan: you mind me asking how long til BW? maybe we can confirm whether you have copper?
20:50 i understand if you wouldnt want to say
me: 10t now but prob down to 9
Kyan: ha identical to us then
hmm let me guess
20:51 you have a settler/worker beign built which will finish before then allowing you to work another riverside tile?
brb
me: close, but no cigar
river hill being mined
20:54 Kyan: we have been trying to debate your intentions in our thread regarding your leader pick. financial is an easy one but industrious? I was a little surprised you chose HC over Mansa Musa
not that it's a bit trait of course, i guess i just am not that experienced with it
20:55 me: mints (or forges) are good value at half price
Kyan: ah of course. duh. how dim of me/us
me: not so good at full price
20:56 I like peri of babylon
Kyan: pericles is underrated in my opinion. He's one of my favourites in SP
20:57 Babylon wasn't our first pick or anything near it to be honest, but i'm not too disappointed
me: good starting techs for MP though
Kyan: there's a lot worse! eg. portugal on a map with no use for either of their traits
indeed
me: yeah. not sure why they got picked
Kyan: we initially was going to go for korea- maybe that was a blessing we didnt get it with their fate haha
20:58 me: we nearly got ottomans
i thought they'd go a lot early than 15th (IIRC)
20:59 Kyan: around that
me: ruff came up with one of his wacky picks
Kyan: ruff is crazy. super friendly but impossible to read. I'd love to see what he's roleplaying over in his thread
me: hoping his not chanelling the respective AIs
21:00 Kyan: au contrare, i hope he is
napoleon of Aztec = aggresive nutter on the loose. BUt his jaguars can't touch either of our unique units
meaning he'll go wreak havoc on someone else, which can only be good for us
21:01 noticed how im throwing 'us' into convo now. Oh yeah, things are getting serious... haha
me: we just need to have enough of our UUs around not to get blindsided by woodyIII jags
Kyan: indeed
21:02 me: i think ruff founded buddhism. do you make him for that?
Kyan: right mate, it was a pleasure. i really have to go. i have a football match kicking off in 21 minutes and i haven't even left. I can't really be late since i'm captain. Telling myself off would be awkward
yes ruff definitely got buddhism
no other civ fit it properly
me: ok. have a good game!
Kyan: thanks

[dsplaisted]

I would like to know exactly how close their capital is, before we talk about drawing up borders.

[Swiss Pauli]

Email from Babylon:

Greetings Emperor Capac,

We are definitely open to ideas of a tech-bloc as we feel they will, unfortunately, become an integral part of the game. There are different avenues open to us of course. What kind of area of the tech tree are you looking to focus on? We are leaning towards some of the more religious techs so maybe we can find a way to come to a fair trade with yourself using those? Religions seem to be a key way to generate gold in pitboss games! If we found one we can of course discuss missionaries and the like.

From our recent scouting, we have some further thoughts upon the map, we now believe we are in the Northern Hemisphere as we have found desert with floodplains to our south and we would imagine that it is similar in your surroundings. This suggests that my initial assumption was wrong and the desert in fact still exists- complete with flood plains. I bet you could verify this yourself by heading south.

Which brings me nicely to my next point. Since screenshots are allowed to be swapped early in this game what would your thoughts be to combine our initial scouting. We are aware that currently you haven't scouted much of anything but with a view to the future. We will likely be sending Novice the Intrepid Lion-Slayer past your civ and proceeding due west. If you would like, perhaps we could share scouting duties, and we could share with you details of who and what is W of you, and you could scout north or south and let us know of any civs you meet?

Your friends,

Kyan
Kysit's Periwinkles

[Swiss Pauli]

T29 Update: India completed Stonehenge, the first Wonder of the game. Mick moved back into our borders whilst Keef uncovered a couple of peaks & forest to our NW.

Thoughts on Babylon's email:

- Religion: given they are CRE & PHI, I think they'd be better off bulbing Philo if they want a religion. Plenty of civs in this game start with Mysticism. With India buliding Henge, I can see them bulbing Theology with their Prophet (assuming they don't found an earlier religion).

- Which Hemisphere: IIRC rivers should flow to the equator. The one in our cap behaves oddly (part N, part S), but maybe that's a side effect of editing. For the most part, it seems to flow north. We have some FPs to our north, of course.

- Scouting: I think we're likely to head N & W at first, given the land looks a bit better than in other direction.

- Screenshot trading: if we want to do this, I made a bare map screenshot



I'd be in favour of this trade seeing as we get more information than they do: they know where our capital, and they've seen the corn, and possibly the pigs and marble already.

[dsplaisted]

I am in favor of a screenshot trade.