[SPOILERS!] Pericles of Babylon. Kyan, Twinkletoes, Whosit.

[Whosit]

Do we still need a couple turns to build the Settler? How long until we could get him to Yellow dot? We probably don't want to press them just yet.

Trading screen shots could work against us in this case. OH! I'd like to hear TT's opinion, but perhaps when you take a shot of our land, temporarily switch Genesis to something non-Settler. We don't want to let them know what we're doing just yet.

I'm really not sure that we could trust any team to not only get the Oracle, but get the tech we want, and then give it to us. And if we DID make that deal, they'd have to get all the right techs to unlock MC. Ugh, I really want to avoid that if possible. Plus, that Marble could be useful to us for all kinds of other things.

So, whatever the draft, we probably want to avoid discussing settling until we're in a stronger position.

[Twinkletoes89]

See, this is why we don't send our opponents a letter of our intentions to settle before we are in a position which they cannot refuse! We cave on that spot, we give up our best plan to be a big player and, ironically our best chance to survive the early exchanges.

I think we should not be swayed, if we are serious about going for the Oracle, we cannot waste any time at all, we need to go for the spot as soon as possible and claim it before they do. We send no more contact until we have our settler in place, then we negotiate with a foot on their throat. We give away our intentions through diplomacy now, and its possibly a settler race. We want to win the race before it has even been noticed by the other team.

AMBITION will win this game for us given our lack of experience. We cave and we lose.

[Whosit]

AMBITION will win this game for us given our lack of experience. We cave and we lose.

I am Whosit, and I approve of this message.

[Kyan]

I totally agree. Hence why i wrote the plan in the first place

I think i just trust Mali more than you guys do. I'm pretty sure i can get them to agree to yellow dot. I used to sell 27.5% apr loans for a living. If people will take those, they'll take this haha.

Ambition is exactly what we should be aiming for, but let's not piss off our potential allies in the mean-time. If we don't reply to their email and instead just claim the site- after they made it quite clear they wanted it- then we're heading for war. A war that skirmishers will be better in than bowmen. Heck, i'm normally the one getting carried away with grandiose plans whilst you two reign me in but let's at least give the diplomatic route a try.

If we ARE in a settler race (and it's totally possible they're building a settler but i think ours will be first) then they'll send their settler elsewhere (ceding the site to us) and then go full military without our knowledge and remove us from the face of the planet. We can't currently afford an early war. It would devastate us economically. If we can get them to agree on yellow dot, which is TWO tiles nearer us than them, we can claim the city the same as before and look like the good guys rather than appearing overly aggresive.

If we want a true friend/ally in this game we have to appreciate it's going to be as much give as it is take.

[Whosit]

What's the ETA to Bronze Working again? Axemen could hold off Skirmishers, though we don't want to fight in the first place.

We shouldn't necessarily ignore them, though we don't necessarily want to let them know our short-term plans just yet.

As far as trust: I trust them enough to be allies, but not give us the benefit of the Oracle. *shrugs* Well, you can always draft a reply and let TT and me tear it apart.

[Kyan]

What's the ETA to Bronze Working again? Axemen could hold off Skirmishers, though we don't want to fight in the first place.

We shouldn't necessarily ignore them, though we don't necessarily want to let them know our short-term plans just yet.

As far as trust: I trust them enough to be allies, but not give us the benefit of the Oracle. *shrugs* Well, you can always draft a reply and let TT and me tear it apart.

5 turns. Let's hope one of those hills near Genesis has copper ey?

Settler is due NEXT TURN!

Plan for next turn. Banshee ensures the site is defogged. Worker finishes road on his current rile. Settler moves to join worker. Novice continues scouting. Two options here, i am happy to scout south at this point if you'd like?

Turn after, settler and worker move to 1E of Exodus site. Then settler moves 1W and founds on T+3. Worker moves immediately to pasture pigs.

In the mean time Genesis is SLOW building another warrior (using farm, not mine) so it both grows and produces another warrior in 5 turns. This gives enough time for Speaker to get back and assist in chopping out a 2nd worker. I would then strongly suggest we start looking at perhaps another settler for that gold site. It will make a BIG difference to our research speed.

[Kyan]

Emperor Capac,

How are the proud Malinese on this blustery morning? You may have noticed Novice moving around your border. He got a bit confused by the brown haze before him that seemed to mysteriously mark your border. He will soon be on his merry way to try and find more civilizations. We will keep you updated with his progress.

Thank you for your recent screenshot. We have thoroughly scouted the land between our two fine civilizations and our cartographers have worked extremely hard to map the land so as to provide you with this information. We have located four key resources between us so far. There are two areas where pigs are fairly prevelant, there is some ore that our miners insist will be later useful and there is naturally developing corn farm just outside of your current territory.

Our proposal, therefore, is to split these in half judging by proximity to capital.

http://s849.photobucket.com/albums/ab54/...g&newest=1

This is the best we have come up with. This layout gives minimal overlap with any other cities. Our respective capitals would have no overlap, nor would we with one another. We would also like to stress that we would make no effort to fight a culture battle at this location. If we truly wish to become allies than i'm sure "our close borders spark tensions" will not become an issue allowing the Kysit and Malinese people to live long and prosperous lives.

Your Friends,

Kyan
Kysit's Periwinkles

Ok, rip it to shreds. *puts on flak jacket*

[Whosit]

Not too bad, but shouldn't we first insist on the hill site, letting us "back down" to the desert site? If they say "no" to this settling plan, what do we do? Though I will admit that you make it seem reasonable. What about mentioning that we already have a Settler on the way to our Dot?

I'm still half-asleep, so that's the best I can do right now.

Is the gold site really our best bet for spot #3? It's worth settling, but I'd rather try to grab something further out along the river to stake a claim in our region.

[Kyan]

Not too bad, but shouldn't we first insist on the hill site, letting us "back down" to the desert site?

My only problem here is it's *so* unreasonable. We are already asking them to cede the only good spot they have found thus far, but we're also asking to plonk it right down next to their capital. We also don't have a lot of time for negotiation. With the current pace of replies we're gonna have a settler wanting to found before we come to an agreement.

Perhaps we could say that our initial thought was that location as it has far more long-term potential but as a gesture of good will we are happy to move two further tiles east so as to allow them a valuable city in this direction also. If we take the hill site, then Mali can't make good used of the corn/pigs as our culture will be eating into them.

If they say "no" to this settling plan, what do we do? Though I will admit that you make it seem reasonable. What about mentioning that we already have a Settler on the way to our Dot?

If they say no to this option then i suggest we take it anyway. I believe the phrase you used was "crack a few eggs" ? I really don't want to war with Mali but we have to remember that going full military mode is going to be unfavourable to them also and it really isnt that much of an aggresive settlement. It's nearer us...

Is the gold site really our best bet for spot #3? It's worth settling, but I'd rather try to grab something further out along the river to stake a claim in our region.

You're quite possibly right, i have a fascination with getting gold hooked up. It's so much yummy commerce. A better option may be south or eastwards. Everything we've seen to the west so far is giving the impression it's the best land we've found so far and i expect another civ in that direction approx the same distance from us as Mali are. We need to make sure we can landgrab in that direction also. We can probably hold off on south for the moment as the desert will slow development in that direction. Though the potential for us there is huge longer-term. GP farms anyone?

North would need further exploration but we already have two cities in that direction planned.

=====

TT, i removed all signs in-game to not give them away to Mali. Hence why i posted the plan earlier. We need to stick to schedule at least for Banshee/Speaker for the next couple of turns to ensure no surprises in the fog.

[Twinkletoes89]

I see no reason to trust Mali yet. They may well prove to be good allies, but they need to do just that, prove it. We have to have the settler there before we discuss for these reasons.

1) We have already won (and thus avoided) a settler race.
2) We get Yellow Dot up as soon as we can if they agree.
3) If they say no to both, we take Purple Dot before they can respond.

This is where we find out if we can trust Mali. If they are unreasonable then who cares, we send Novice and find their other neighbour and be nice to them. Just because they are our only contact right now, doesn't mean that they are de-facto best buddies.

I really want to leave it until we are on the way and we have two warriors (Banshee and Warrior 2) around the city for some protection.

And the extra *top secret* bonus we have of having Novice going west of them, is that we can both find out what resources they don't know about yet, but we can maybe sneak behind enemy lines if they do take umbrage with us.

We HAVE to take this spot, whether nicely or against their wishes. Its our Pink Dot moment. Our negotiations when they come should be strong. Ideally I'd like us both to be involved in the chat, simply for double strength and we can react to any unforseen occurances.

ALSO, if it comes to war, we will be on the defensive. Bowmen will be fine for defense, and we may have Axes if we are lucky with BW