RBP3 [SPOILERS] - Zara of the Ottomans

[Sockboy]

Turn 34: Gentlemen, it is my sad duty to inform you that Conan is no more . He put up a good fight, getting withing a single combat round of defeating the bear despite his wounds from his previous battle.



Otherwise the turn went as planned, with Kull moving to the way point for the settler. the settler will be two turns in getting to the way point, so it might be wise for Kull to fogbust E next turn before returning to meet up with the settler. I think Ad Hoc mentioned there was a wolf running free in the region. Our worker has partially roaded the tile SE of the rice, but will move onto the forest next turn ready to start chopping once we discover out how these axe things work. Can someone please confirm that I have stopped the worker please, I'm sure I did, but I get paranoid sometimes...

Settler ready in 1

Demogs are in the usual place. There were a couple of city growths/new cities. I'll run the numbers to see who grew and who expanded. Oh and Athlete and co picked up another tech, once I run through the soldier numbers I'll get back to you on that one too.

[Sockboy]

Ok another turn done, they're just flying by at the moment! The Alcazar, our worker, is ready to chop next turn once BW comes in. We'll want to revolt to slavery too. I've changed the city build to a worker, which we can whip as soon as we come out of revolt. Our settler is enroute to the way point, but Kull's taken the chance to see what's hiding in the wilderness, there are a lot of animals roaming about! He spied the wolf Ad Hoc mentioned earlier and another lion Hopefully they won't delay us settling Nemedia.



I've run the demog numbers for the last two turns:
Dantski and Mukha grew one of their two cities to size 2. I think it's their capital. Finally.
Exploit has grown his city to size 5!
I'm pretty sure Athlete and Co picked up the Wheel as their tech last turn
and the only person to learn a tech this turn (Exploit) picked up BW. I'd expect to see some of his population put to the whip very soon.

Overall it looks like we'll be one of the first to get a second city up I wonder where everyone else is in regards to settler builds. Now that I've said that there'll no doubt be a 14 new cities built in the next two turns

[WarriorKnight]

Kull's taken the chance to see what's hiding in the wilderness, there are a lot of animals roaming about!

Move him back to protect the settler while outside our borders, last thing we want is a wolf to appear that snatches the settler

EDIT: Never mind, I saw that he was going back next turn

Overall it looks like we'll be one of the first to get a second city up I wonder where everyone else is in regards to settler builds. Now that I've said that there'll no doubt be a 14 new cities built in the next two turns

We've done fairly well here. Keep a compilation of when everyone gets their next city would you?

[WarriorKnight]

OK, here is the beginning of a reply to Nice Shot

Greetings Team Nice Shot

It is slightly ironic that the Ottoman leader ends next to the Ottoman civilization. We briefly considered what would happen if we got Mehmed instead of Zara but good thing that didn't happen.

We met DIM's scout with our warrior somewhere to the NE of us. We can only guess where they are but we assume they are to our E somewhere.

We accept the NAP until T65. We know that you are just throwing a number out there, but we can agree to this. We would be happy to discuss extending it if you would like.

I haven't mentioned the information sharing agreement, because I have no idea if we should accept or not. Accepting gives them knowledge of the contacts we will inevitably be contacting soon enough, and declining is sure to sink relations (although that might be inevitable).

[WarriorKnight]

OK, we got in a chat and agreed that we are practically doing an basic info share agreement on other civilizations anyway, so might as well agree to that. I reread the message and they also wanted an information sharing pact, which is interpreted in several ways so we should stall a bit.

Greetings Team Nice Shot

It is slightly ironic that the Ottoman leader ends next to the Ottoman civilization. We briefly considered what would happen if we got Mehmed instead of Zara but good thing that didn't happen.

We met DIM's scout with our warrior somewhere to the NE of us. We think they are to our E somewhere.

We accept the NAP until T65. We know that you are just throwing a number out there, but we can agree to this. We would be happy to discuss extending it if you would like.

We can agree to share basic info on the other teams we meet (we are practically doing that anyway) under the terms you mentioned. You will need to clarify what you mean exactly by a information sharing pact since our team has interpreted it in a number of ways, any of which could be what you meant.

Enough Talking!

WarriorKnight of A4

[WarriorKnight]

OK, new turn:

BW in, revolt to slavery, set research to pottery, worker(forget his name) starts chopping

Lion moved away while wolf attacked Kull without giving a scratch.

Finally, Copper:

[Sockboy]

Hey, I finally get a chance to do a diplo post We just received the following message from DIM...

A4, as Ilios said I was away for some time, but the delay was worth it as we have important info for you. We now know Korea, which was eliminated, would have been your neighbour to the W. We on the other hand met our E neighbour last turn. This makes it even more in our mutual interest to keep heading in the direction we're currently going, i.e. strong friendship + a secure border, so we can expand - you into the empty space vacated by Korea, us racing our new neighbours. We still have no idea whether their intent is friendly or not. Like I said, great news for you.

We have a counter-offer for you re: the marble site. It's not the marble itself we want, but we have scouted pretty extensively and so far have been unable to find a good hammer location - other than the marble site. From what we've scouted, we have no other site that would even compare to your proposed second city.

We will make it worth your while. It goes without saying that we want to find an amicable solution and we want to arrive at something that's fair to both of us. We believe the offer that follows is a fair one, but you may think differently, please don't hesitate to let us know if you feel that way.

What we propose is the following:

1) We would like to settle 1N of the marble
2) We would give you settling rights 1E of the spices for an excellent pure commerce city
3) Settling 1E of spices would allow you settle your second city not on red dot but on the even better location 1W of it (note that if you have other reasons for wanting to settle red dot specifically feel free to disregard the following). It's better in the following ways:
- 2 hammer plant
- it's immediately connected to aquilonia for extra commerce
- closer to capital for lower maintenance
- horses available within 5T
- you get +2H from fresh water
- only 1 tile overlap with capital
- it's a great pure hammer site instead of a hybrid
4) We would give you perpetual use of the marble except when we're building a wonder (unlikely but you never know)
5) Green/yellow dots - we appreciate you including them - it's another friendly gesture. Their location is none of our business and completely up to you

We feel this is a fair deal and will allow you to leverage the favourable situation to your west. Let us know whether you feel the same way. We're certain we'll be able to come to an agreement + secure our mutual border, with all the advantages that come with it, not least of which an NAP built on a solid foundation of cooperation.

A secondary matter that can wait - we wanted to ask whether you could ask Carthage to steer one of their units in our direction. We will as requested inform India of your presence.

Regards

Meatbalz for DIM

and they've attached an image showing their proposal.



Off the top of my head, I don't like it. Not because we don't get marble(although that's part of it) but mostly because we'll end up with very long borders with DIM. Also the city site they're ceding to us, has only the spice and no food resource which I'm not keen on at all. If we were going to take this deal, I'd much prefer it one tile south to pick up the sheep, but I'm sure they wouldn't go for that.

As far as their comment about a lack of hammer sites, there's a spot 2S of the cows to their north which does pretty well, get's 4/5 hills and enough food to feed them. I'm going to play around a bit more to see if we can find something which works a bit better, but for the moment I think we'll have to reject/modify this. Thoughts?

[Sockboy]

Had a bit more of a look at the proposed plan from DIM and the more I look at it the less I like it.

Major Issue: Our settler is on the site 2W of horses, if we want to settle it we should do so next turn. Otherwise we have an extra turn. I think in regards to point 3 of their list we say, thanks for the comments but under your proposal it's no longer a border city so none of your business :neenernee Otherwise point by point rebuttal.

Point 1:this is really tied up with their lack of hammers if what they say is true. I think it's worth looking at a city site 1S of the cows for them, maybe giving them an analysis of hammers there. It's the same distance from the capital for them, and I suspect it's an even better production site than their marble site. Hopefully that will take care of them settling 1N of the marble.

Point 2: I think wrt the spice site again we say thanks, but no thanks, there's just no food there and it will be completely surrounded by their culture, a weak place militarily and I'm not too comfortable having our pure commerce city on the front lines

Point 3: See above.

Point 4: I'm happy to reverse the deal. With us working the tile and them having the resource. Except if we're building a wonder sped by it. Same terms, same conditions. See what they say about that.

Point 5: not applicable to discussion, let's leave it.

I think we should also say we're not in a hurry to get the marble site, (we aren't are we?) so we can leave negotiations open a bit longer. The most pressing issue is our settler en route to horses, let's go and plant him as planned. Should we inform them about the settler? I think we should, they'll know soon enough that we've expanded.

I've attached a second go at the dotmap, I'm proposing we take the 2 green sites the red and the blue with DIM taking the yellow,orange and brown (yellow and brown and their offer from before, so only orange is moved). Note that Blue is pretty much the exact midpoint between our two capitals, so we've both got claim to it I guess. If we move with this we should point out that this represents the extent of our interest in the lands E of our capital, and that there is room for another city to the south of Red/Blue that they could settle with quite nice cottage land there. We should also say we expect this to be the extent of expansion in our direction.



Whatever we say, we should stress that we're interested in finding a solution we can both be satisfied with, yadda yadda (maybe mention that the offer they suggested was fair, but not particularly good). Thank them for the info about poor Lobo and maybe ask them about their neighbour to the E? We had an agreement to share info. And we'll try and help them negotiation contact with Nice Shot. What do you guys think, is the dotmap fair? Is this something we can live with?

[Sockboy]

And another post by me... Is this my first triple post?

Anywho, just as I was sending an acknowledgement message through to DIM, Team Nice Shot sent through the following message.

Good Morning Team A4!

The dawn breaks on a new beautiful day for our two civilizations as we enter an era of great cooperation. How splendid it must be to be an Ottoman or Carthaginian citizen on this great morning, to awake knowing that there are many years of peace to come.

Seriously, though, Shoot the Moon and I are both grateful for the NAP which will be beneficial for both of our civilizations.

I can see how "information sharing pact" is fairly vague, and certainly it needs some clarification. We mean simply to put into writing our good faith to communicate with you the same type of information you have shared to date with us ie basic info on other teams we meet, our own capital location, etc. Because you are the only team we have met, all you have right now is our word, but we feel it is important to demonstrate our intentions in writing.

Until later,


Mr. Nice Guy of Team Nice Shot

So it sounds like what we agreed to *was* the information sharing pact I think we can agree to this, I mean we *have* agreed to this.

EDIT: Proposed reply

Greetings Team Nice Shot!

Indeed it is good to know that our southern neighbours are not blood-thirsty brigands hellbent on our destruction, at least not yet May this NAP be of great benefit to both of our civilizations. With regards to the information sharing pact, it sounds like what you described is exactly what we agreed to last message, so consider it done. We'll both keep each other abreast of any contact we make with other civilizations and their approximate locations.

On that topic, team DIM have shown interest in meeting up with you sooner rather than later. Once you can spare a unit to scout in their general direction we'll be happy to provide what directions we can to ensure you both meet up.

Enough Talking!
A4.

[ad hoc]

i don't think the marble site is worth the trouble of haggling and diplo fall out, there is no reason for us to really expand eastwards after red dot. i would much rather just settle red dot, let them have their marble site, we'd declare the tiles that would have been ours from a spice city as a kind of demilitirized zone with no military units allowed... and of course point out that the gold to the north is ours.