RBP3 [SPOILERS] - Friendly Kittens (Ragnar of Maya)

[RefSteel]

As suspected, that's their capital. (Suspected because of the location of horses relative to their borders.)

On the diplo message: You only get one first impression. Telling them not to read too much into our silly first message doesn't change the fact that our first message IS very familiar and silly. I'd like to set the tone a little more seriously at first (and then, if they seem ammenable, start being silly later). I'd also like to start with a tone of open friendliness, hopefully encouraging them to treat us the same way ... in part because, given their location, players, and civ, I think they could be a good match for us as a long-term ally this game. Here's something I threw together:

Greetings, Swiss and dsp! Looks like we finally met in-game! Prrsha's in the woods just to the west of your borders, grateful to finally find your people after a long trek through the wilderness. So, what's going on in your part of the world? Have you met any other civs? (We Friendly Kittens have been LONELY Kittens to this point; Prrsha probably went right by a couple other civs on her way to you, never knowing she missed 'em!)

Since you're our first contact, we don't know if it's too early or late to start discussing tech trades, so I figured we might as well jump right in. We're thinking about heading toward Mathematics or Iron Working (lots of jungle right around home - sort of like the real Maya!) - or Alphabet if we can meet enough people soon, but those plans are subject to change, for instance if you've got deals lined up for those and are looking for other things! We can also give you some information (and screenshots, due to the rules of this game - call 'em really detailed cave paintings!) about the area Prrsha's explored to your west, if your scouting in that direction's been limited.

In the meantime, we're trying to decide which way to send Prrsha next (all we've decided so far is that we want to keep her in cover as much as possible to improve her chances of survival against the barbs). If you could direct her toward one of the other civs you've met, that would be terrific. If you HAVEN'T met anyone else, and let us know where you've scouted, at least we could eliminate those areas.

Sorry for sending a novel; we're just eager to finally get communication started! It's great to meet you at last!

- The Friendly Kittens (Ragnar of Maya)

[EDIT: Some changes added at the end, since I realized we'll want their advice/requests on where to send Prrsha.]

[Cull]

Diplo message sounds perfect to me!

[RefSteel]

Cull: Which one? [EDIT: See Maniac's proposal a few posts up; he's also working on a counter-counter proposal!]

SW for Yalara sounds good to me, since she's now an Officially Designated Scout, with W planned after that. Tile bleeding says there's a grass forest hill NW of that, but we'll see what she sees in the meantime.

[RefSteel]

And just because I can: Here's something NOT to send! (Maybe with a later message, but it makes the first message too long without helping our in-game purpose.)

P.S. Okay, I've a confession to make: We love telling stories and roleplaying and things. We're NOT going to go all Aidun on anyone, and we're certainly not going to let it mess with our gameplay - we make up our stories to fit what happens in the game, not the other way around - but if you're interested, we'd be delighted to send messages that are more "in-character" than this one. My personal preference would be to speak in two voices, as it were: In-Character negotiations between the Friendly Kitten and Malinese empires, and Out-of-Character discussions about the metagame and so forth. I'm hoping in the endgame, when we're finally the last two civs left standing and you pull off a brilliantly-executed surprise attack on our forward city, I'll be able to simultaneously rain down curses upon your civ (speaking as Ragnar) and - speaking as myself - say, "Sweet move; well-played, guys!" Obviously, I don't expect we'll actually be exchanging stories like the one that follows back and forth all the time ... but this is a special occasion!

So, if you don't feel like reading in-character stories, and you'd rather just do all diplomacy "out of character," team to team, that's fine; there's nothing more of substance in this message anyway, so you can just skip the rest. But if you do like stories about the game, here's one to start us off:

***

Their songs and laughter greet you from the distance as the sun sinks low: The songs of a strange people from a distant land; the laughter of strange voices, far from home. As sunset fills the western sky, shining golden far beyond them, the people of the small band can be seen moving through the woodlands, scouting, surveying, singing a traveler's song. Many eyes turn toward you, bright with curiosity and wonder; a few, less disciplined than their fellows, call out greetings and wave from afar. Tall, lanky warriors lean easily on their heavy clubs, watching for wildmen or beasts nearby, as patient as they are powerful, and from their midst, out of the thick of the woods, strides the captain of them all: A woman clothed in the skin of a hunting cat, tall and beautiful as the sun. She raises her hands, palms open, in a gesture of friendship and welcome, and stands in the light of sunset at the edge of the western woods: An Amazon warrior born in a land not far from the true Amazon, a maiden bright and beautiful as the sun that bronzed her flesh, her eyes shining with a curiosity to surpass even the most eager of the people in her band.

Given welcome, she approaches, seeming-young but ageless in the way of all those who came from the world that was, before Midgard's thrashings split the lands and seas assunder and remade them in a form as yet not wholly known. She wears the skin of a lioness almost as though it were her own, even to fetishes made from the wild beast's teeth, so that in the form of her cloak as well as the grace of her movements, she seems almost a lioness herself. A single man accompanies her, at a distance to show respect, bearing in his hands the tools of his trade: Chalks, charcoals, fur brushes and tree-sap paints. He is a painter of cave walls, come to record the scene of meeting, and perhaps to paint the story of his band's wanderings thus far.

The Amazon bows in greeting, a smile lighting her face as curiosity and wonder gleam still in her eyes, and she says in a voice half straining to sing, half to purr, "I am Prrsha, chieftainness of the warrior band before you, emissaries of the Friendly Kitten people through the dangers of the wilds. We have journeyed long to find you, and greet you now in peace and pleasure. I would speak with you at your pleasure of our futures and our pasts; we yearn to learn your people's ways and tell you of our own, and to someday share discoveries we make in times to come. My journey has been a long one, but no longer in vain - for we have met at last."

[Maniac Marshall]

Edit: Hashing out the exact language via messenger... No, we're not anal or anything...

[RefSteel]

Okay, working on a modified version, trying to combine the best of Maniac's ideas and mine; this is being edited extensively as we chat.

Hola, Swiss, dsp, and Broker, rulers of the mighty Malinese!

It looks like we finally met in-game! Our warrior, Prrsha, is in the woods just to the west of your borders, grateful to finally find your people after a long trek through the wilderness.

So, how have things been going for your empire? Have you met any other civs? (We Friendly Kittens have been LONELY Kittens so far; Prrsha might even have passed someone on her way here, never knowing she missed them!)

Since you're our first contact, we don't know if it's too early or (eep!) too late to start discussing tech trades, so I figured we might as well jump right in. We're thinking about heading toward Mathematics or Iron Working (lots of jungle right around home - sort of like the real Maya!) - or Alphabet if we can meet enough people soon, but those plans are subject to change, for instance if you've got deals lined up for those and are looking for other things! We'd also love to exchange information, or even screenshots (really detailed cave paintings?) - if you're interested in Prrsha's discoveries to your west, for instance.

Now that we've finally met you, we're trying to decide which way to send Prrsha next (all we've decided so far is that we want to keep her in cover as much as possible to improve her chances of survival against the barbs). If you could direct her toward one of the other civs you've met, that would be terrific. (Even if you haven't met anyone else, if you let us know where you've scouted so far, that would help us figure out where the others might be hiding!)

Sorry for sending a novel; we're just eager to finally get communication started! It's great to meet you at last!

- The Friendly Kittens (Ragnar of Maya)

[Maniac Marshall]

The above message is filled with win

OR

I'm Maniac Marshall and I approve of this message.

[RefSteel]

Sent as (now) recorded two posts up, with the subject line, "Greetings from Ragnar of Maya!"

And since we're on the subject, let's talk about Mali! First of all: They're pretty far away; I would estimate there are at least 2-3 civs that started closer to Fierias than they did, in various directions. We may even have gone right past one to the south. Of course, we also don't know yet if we're seeing the edge of their capital's second ring or their first city's first-and-only ring. Time will tell.

For those who are wondering, here's how their opening has played out so far, as best I can tell based on CivStats and limited guesswork:

Huayna Capac of Mali: Financial/Industrious; Mint+Skirmishers; Wheel+Mining.

Turn 0: Found in place or on flatland 1 tile from capital. Start Worker, tech Agri, probably working a 3f/h+1c tile (like our sheep).

Turn 5: Borders expand.

Turn 10: Agriculture complete; tech AH.

Turn 15: Worker complete; start Warrior, working a 3f/1c tile. (Pretty sure. Note that we didn't have such a tile however; they probably had a river rice, which is better than our wheat until Civil Service, by which time our one extra food per turn will be a tiny drop in the sea. Little things do matter. Luckily, I don't care about that sort of thing - and if our biggest complaints about this map are the danger of jungle spreading to that hill it didn't spread to, and 1cpt on our best food tile, the mapmakers are doing great!)

T19: Grain resource farmed (probably 5/0/1).

Turn 21: Grow to size 2, work farm + sheep-equivilent (2/1/1 or 2/1/0).

Turn 24: AH complete; tech Bronze.

Turn 26: Warrior complete; grow to size 3. Start Settler.

Turn 35 or 36: Settler complete; start Worker (I think) If their AH tile (I'm assuming they have one) is a cow or pig, they could finish the Settler T35. If it's a sheep like ours, it's T36.

Turn 37: BW complete; start Mysticism (I assume). Second City planted. Start ... Warrior? (I guess.)

Turn 40ish: Worker complete. Start Warrior. (Probably.)

Turn 45: Capital grows to size 3. (Or city2 grows first, and capital grows the next turn)

Turn 46: City2 grows to size 3 (or see above). Mysticism hits. Start Hunting. (Really just guessing at this point, but they want to get their Skirms out, right?) Start a Monument at City 2. (Warrior complete, maybe.)

Turn 48: The present. They PROBABLY have four Warriors (minus barb food) and no way to build any other kind of unit, plus two workers. Their cities are at size 3 and size 2, respectively. They MIGHT have finished a monument in their second city this turn, but definitely not sooner. They might even have a third worker that I'm missing due to heavy chopping. (Maybe.) And that's all I know for now about their opening. We can get more information (if we care) when we see their bar graphs for the first time.

Since they started with The Wheel, their second city might even be at a pretty good distance from their capital (up to 9 tiles away, in theory, if they built the settler on T35). I'd say they planted for horses, but the horse tile near Prrsha is obviously close to their border and obviously doesn't have a city by it. Do they have two? They can't have planted for copper unless they got incredibly lucky; their settler was on the move before BW came in. Of course, we got lucky with copper right next to our pre-bronze-planning 3rd city spot, so maybe they do have copper anyway. In any case, being Malinese means they don't NEED to plant for strategic resources early on, so they probably built their second city to grab gold and figured defense would take care of itself. Of course, you need Hunting and Archery first.... And though they planted their second city before we did, ours will have its first border pop at least as soon as theirs, because they didn't have time to grab Myst before founding their city! But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

If I had gone with this civ+leader combination, it would likely have been with notions of Oracling Metal Casting and chopping out the Colossus. If this was their plan too, they have probably been disappointed to find no coastline with their (probably limited thus far) scouting. If they haven't figured out that the map is 100% landlocked yet, we may have to bring them the bad news. I'm going to guess that they're now going with a different plan entirely though, having either planned something else from the start or realized that - given whatever land they've scouted thus far - Colossus won't be of much/any use to them. At all events, their Industrious Mints will provide a cheap (though smallish) bonus for their Financial Cottage Cheese, and their Skirmishers will be great for defense and/or pillaging in the period when they're too far away from us to worry about anyway. Our UB and traits probably give us a slight advantage over theirs in the later game, but everything will depend on what happens between now and then (and whether either of us survives to see it.) Given this, the distance between us (not too far, but not too close) and the nature of the players on their team, these guys could make be great mid-to-long-term friends. Let's aim for that if we can.

Oh, by the way: Thinking about the distance between our capitals made me realize that 32 steps on one diagonal by one warrior/scout and 32 on the opposite one by another would be enough for someone to achieve circumnavigation! So, someone can make a really early gambit to get +1 movement for all their ships!

...

...

... for all their what, now?

Yeah, so let's not bother pursuing that one, okay?

[Maniac Marshall]

Hi Friendly Kittens,

Pleased to meet you!


We've had a little more luck in meeting teams: we met Babylon quite early, have just met England, and Byzantium (thanks to Babylon) is heading to our eastern border to meet us as we write.


The best route to meet Babylon and Byzantium would be to skirt our southern border (which will pop on T50) and then head up the eastern border. England lies to the northeast, so you can head north once you reach Babylon.


We're at the early stages of tech-trade discussion, so you're certainly not too late to join this debate.


Kind Regards


Emperor Capac

[Maniac Marshall]

Turn hastily played before mork. nothing earthshattering. more later