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

[Whosit]

Sorry, I don't have as much time as usual right now.

Barbs: Not 100% sure on the factors, but let's not assume that we are safe. I was playing a SP game recently (actually, one of the old Extreme Adventures, which I fail at), and I think that Barbs entered my territory before I even had a second city down.

Umm, not much else to comment on right now. I should probably actually log into the game someday, but that day is not today. It sounds like the plan is moving forward, at any rate. Have we made any good progress in our explorations (aside from new civs met)?

[Kyan]

Emperor Capac,

Thank you very much for the heads up on the barbarian. Vile creatures they may be but no threat to our two fine civilisations. We very much appreciate your patience as two of our chief advisors were temporarily stricken down.

It would appear you are not the only ones to have met Ragnar, our Byzantine neighbours are also reporting similar news. This has led me to believe us four civilisations form a horizontal strip accross the planet.

We appreciate you informing us of your contact with HRE, we can actually return the favour as the Incans have discovered our capital. We will direct them towards yourselves as a priority. I intend to sound them out also and find out if they are aware of any other trading blocs forming. I am excited by the potential of this union. I do think it is important to distinguish between trading partners and allies. We would consider you to fall into the second category.

The next paragraphs i am also going to send to both England and Byzantine:

Greetings friends,

Although early, it never hurts to be prepared so i would like to start putting some concrete plans in place in regards to technology trading. There are obviously some key techs we will want to be focusing on within our group if possible. Please state your preference for research and we will try to find the best and most efficient path for us as individual civs and as a group.

Babylon: Writing -> Alphabet
Mali: Monarchy?
Byzantine: Iron Working?
England: Hunting -> Archery -> HBR?

Obviously these aren't exact trades and beaker values are way off. I believe this is the general direction we are heading currently?

We have recently met Inca and will speak to them to discuss whether they are currently forming or joining a bloc. We would appreciate the other members also sounding out Maya and HRE.

Your Friends,

Kyan
Kysit's Periwinkles

[Kyan]

Greetings friends,

I appreciate your patience as our team has temporarily had some issues connecting to the internet.

Although early, it never hurts to be prepared so i would like to start putting some concrete plans in place in regards to technology trading. There are obviously some key techs we will want to be focusing on within our group if possible. Please state your preference for research and we will try to find the best and most efficient path for us as individual civs and as a group.

Babylon: Writing -> Alphabet
Mali: Monarchy?
Byzantine: Iron Working?
England: Hunting -> Archery -> HBR?

Obviously these aren't exact trades and beaker values are way off. I believe this is the general direction we are heading currently?

We have recently met Inca and will speak to them to discuss whether they are currently forming or joining a bloc. We would appreciate the other members also sounding out Maya and HRE.

Your Friends,

Kyan
Kysit's Periwinkles

[Kyan]

Greetings Team Jank,

Apologies for lateness of reply. It appears you met us at the worst possible time in terms of prompt replies. I assure you this is not the norm.

Have you any particular scouting plans from your current position? We have met a few other civs and could direct you to them if you would like?

May i ask which civs, if any, you have met? And if you have met any, have you discussed future tech trading?

It strikes us that finding friends to trade tech with will be extremely valuable in this regard. As a result, plans have been put in place. If this is something that would interest yourselves, please let us know.

Your potential friends,

Kyan
Kysit's Periwinkles

[Twinkletoes89]

Yay you're back!

I'm glad you guys are as I am pretty ill at the moment! Nothing too serious but it does limit my playtime. I would really appreciate it if you could take the next couple of turns Ky, as it gives me a break from computers and you can see if I've wrecked the place in your absence!

[Kyan]

Yay you're back!

I'm glad you guys are as I am pretty ill at the moment! Nothing too serious but it does limit my playtime. I would really appreciate it if you could take the next couple of turns Ky, as it gives me a break from computers and you can see if I've wrecked the place in your absence!

Of course. Empire is looking tip-top. We haven't made a particularly amazing start but it's solid and considering the shambles that is our capital city- i'm happy enough.

If we can get this right, this early diplo and potential tradings could be just the catalyst we need. I'll put my utmost into making sure this works.

[Twinkletoes89]

Some more diplo to deal with:

SPECTRES

Hi Kyan (and TT and Whosit!),


No worries about any delay; RL can't be helped, and I don't think anyone expects immediate responses in a game of this magnitude. I know my team doesn't

I will discuss with Mania and Moogle regarding what tech we prefer to research, but I think Ironworking sounds about right, given that I suggested it.

We are interested in meeting the Inca, and would appreciate any directions to them you have to offer. Thanks for letting us know you've found them.

A note, however- I would be wary of inviting too many people into our burgeoning tech "cartel" (we should call it a syndicate, sounds much more sophisticated I have spoken with Maya, and I think we are in agreement that the ideal alliance would consist of you, us, them, England, and Mali- all powerful techers with close borders (although England is a little bit of an outlier). Maya believes that more members than that may invite a dogpile against us by the remaining teams, and I am inclined to agree. Maya is interested in working with my team to secure guilds ASAP so that we can begin constructing cataphracts, with batches of them being gifted to alliance members. This plan appeals to my team for fairly obvious reasons, but I think would also benefit the entire group as a whole. Regardless of what we elect to do in the end, the immediate goal is for the five teams to all obtain contact with each other as quickly as possible, so that we can discuss in tech paths, strategy, and other concerns together, possibly in a group chat. To that end, I will send you and Maya screen shots showing how you can reach each other's scouts. Thanks to the maps you sent us earlier, my team should have contact with England in the next couple turns, leaving only Mali to go.

For the Spectre Council,

Bobchillingworth

They sent another with a map to make contact with the Mayans should we choose to.

TEAM JANK

Hi Kyan,

No problem, we're busy ourselves as well, though the end of the big war in RBPB2 should help a bit...

We have no scouting plans as yet, but want to meet as many civs as possible, so we're scouting a wide patern.

We have met Ruff, SsS and uhm... forgot that.
Will take a look once I;m in the game again.

We have not started discussing tech trades yet, but are willing to start some negotiations.

Regards,
Nakor for JANK

MALI

Dear Kyan,

Thanks for the email & for the update on the map. It seems to us that the map is a 64 x 64 tile Team Battleground with the teams spaced at roughly 15 tile intervals E-W & N-S. Maintenance costs suggest a torroidal wrap.

We consider you to be our key ally in this game. We would also like to bring England into our close alliance: the location of our respective civs would allow us to form a mutually supportive, defensive triangle and a solid base from which to expand our empires. That said, our discussions with England haven't progressed that rapidly, however, so at the moment such an alliance is highly theoretical. How would you feel about such an arrangement? It's clear to us that you've already established good relations with Byzantium, so would you consider them a more suitable long-term partner than England?

Returning to more immediate concerns, Maya has expressed a strong desire to us to join in this round of tech trades. From your email below, we can see that Mathematics is missing, so it would be great if they could provide it. I'll send them an email suggesting that they research it and see what their feedback is.

We've only exchanged greetings emails with HRE, so they are much less likely than Maya to join this round of tech trading.

Finally, we lost sight of the barb warrior this turn. Do you know his location? We've promised to keep Maya updated as their warrior will have to go on unforested flatland tiles to meet you.

Kind Wishes,

Emperor Capac

I shall leave drafting to you, Ky

[Whosit]

Things seem to be shaping up in an interesting fashion. My, what a difference tech-trading makes. I think I agree that we want to keep our group small and, if possible, low-key. It sounds like we are all in a similar geographical area, which is both good and bad.

Good: We can defend each other quickly and generally dissuade others from coming after us without sufficient back-up.

Bad: Limits our expansion/war opportunities if all of our neighbors are our allies. Establishing strong borders will be important. Also, if and when this alliance breaks down, we may have enemies on all sides. It may be wise for us to develop ourselves as an accommodating, and indispensable, civilization.

I may need a reminder on our build plan, but I would generally advocate building 2-3 Axemen for Barb defense/spotting (we may want to organize a fog-busting arrangement with our neighbors; it could be a mutually beneficial thing), and build a lot of Settlers.

[Kyan]

I may need a reminder on our build plan, but I would generally advocate building 2-3 Axemen for Barb defense/spotting (we may want to organize a fog-busting arrangement with our neighbors; it could be a mutually beneficial thing),

Totally agree and that is exactly what we're doing. The plan was to put a chop into a barracks and then churn out 3 axemen at Exodus BUT the barb warrior has come knocking (he's currently 1W of the marble), so i've had to put the chop into an axe first before finishing the barracks. Unfortunately one of the axe will then be unpromoted but we have no real choice.

and build a lot of Settlers.

This is a huge toroidal map on emperor. Doing that would be pure suicide. In single player you can get away with wrecking your economy to hell whilst doing a massive land grab then getting yourself back over time. Krill worked this well in PB1. However, in that game, the map was cylindrical and a lot smaller and not on emperor. It's simple not possible here without effectively turning your research off. If we want to be part of a tech group then we need to balance accordingly.

We need to grow into cottages before we can expand. The gold site is going to kind of ignore that trend as it's slightly different in that it is self-funding. Leviticus won't be self funding until size 5 and it's not even size 1 yet! Exodus will grow in 5 turns and will have a cottaged flood-plain ready for it.

I think our medium term plan should be to grow our cities. Genesis still has a lot of riverside grassland underneath those trees which we can use. A chop will also go into a granary tehre to get it up as soon as possible. Our 3rd settler can be chopped/whipped out of somewhere- probably Leviticus. We will also need at least 2 more workers so i would suggest chopping those out reasonably soon. Scouting can generally be put on hold for a moment. Wyrmsbane is healing (6t) but will go find France and the rest of the 'upper tier' after.

[Kyan]

Ok, i have a lot of typing to do it seems. Let's start with an Empire Overview.

Yes it's 4 turns late, sue me.







Bear in mind we have a Settler and Axeman finishing next turn. The axeman wouldn't have been our first choice but a barb warrior has been hanging around our border.

The food production is the main worry there BUT that's what Leviticus is for. It will work a riverside grassland sheep, wet rice and 2 cottaged floodplains. Growing into those 4 tiles will be huge for us.

We have one scout currently but he got rather messed up by a lion and is healing.

Workers: 1 is cottaging the floodplains at Exodus, 1 is cottaging a riverside grassland at Genesis and the last one is on his way to Leviticus to begin improving the tiles there.

I expect this isn't a great start compared to other teams but for a bunch of newbies- we're happy with it