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

[Maniac Marshall]

ZOMG Lurkarz. We have found the mythical beast!



(If you're not familiar with old school Doctor Who, you wont get the reference in the picture, but I know Ref will =) )

It's good to hear from you guys. Really. Unfortunately, this is a rather weak reply to your inquiries in the short term. Please excuse me as:

1) I'm exhausted from all the travel this weekend (see above posts)

2) The game is currently down, and thus, screenies are unpossible.

I will attempt to properly answer everything tomorrow, but, with no Civ game, no Cardinal game, and a need for sleep, the need for sleep is the thing I'm going to be addressing tonite. Z_Z-{Zzzz}

[Maniac Marshall]

With the pace of this game having slowed to a crawl, and with the extra time that MIGHT allow me the next 10 days or so... Are you still interested in that "relaxed pace" project we started in December Ref? I might actually have time to move that forward this week.

[RefSteel]

With the pace of this game having slowed to a crawl, and with the extra time that MIGHT allow me the next 10 days or so... Are you still interested in that "relaxed pace" project we started in December Ref? I might actually have time to move that forward this week.

Yes.

I was just going to leave it at that, but I think it needs more exclamation marks and smileys and pictures and stuff. You'll have to imagine the smileys and confetti images, since I'm all out at the moment, but:

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gotta go, but I'll try to answer some of the lurker questions later tonight if I get an opportunity (and you don't beat me to it).

[Maniac Marshall]

I was in the process of trying to answer their questions when I saw you online. Feel free to improve on any of my answers later

[RefSteel]

Okay, just a few more things:

1) Thanks very much to the lurkers who posted; it makes me feel like keeping the thread up to date really IS worthwhile! And particularly to Azoth: I'm exceptionally proud to be able to say one of our RBCiv lurkers got here by way of my *Orion* site! (Most would expect it to go the other way 'round.)

2) Awwwww, isn't the aggedor cute? (Did I spell that right?) Uh ... somebody get me a mirror though, okay?

3) I too noticed and am grateful for our most persistent lurker. In fact, though I loved Zelda II and read the explanation of where the handle really comes from, my "mythical creatures" line was indeed an oblique reference to that very individual. (Yes, I know. Practically ALL my references are oblique.)

[Maniac Marshall]

Speaking as one of those mythical creatures...

• The large number of teams make the game intrinsically difficult to follow.
  
• Huge threads make it hard to just jump on in and start following.
  
• Walls of text are fine, but they need pictures, paragraph breaks, and other visual aids for the reader's sake.
  

So I suppose if you wanted to attract some lurkers, I'd throw up a map of the known world,

Here's what the world looks like as far as we Kittens Know. Yes, there's a big black area in the middle of CUDDLE unfortunately. I expect Ref could provide a better world map eventually.

The civs in the top half, including us, are in PAT, with the exception of that grey blotch to our west, which is Byzantium. They, and everyone in the lower half of the map are in CUDDLE.

a diplomatic summary,

There are 2 alliances in the game, PAT, which we belong to, and CUDDLE. The alliances are not "borg" alliances, but were primarily formed as tech alliances. We DO work together, in other ways to various degrees.

Currently, there is a large war going on in the North/South wrap area of the map. Egypt/England/Carthage V.S. India/Ottoman/Portugal. Carthage had a size one city razed very early in the war, 3 turns after it was founded, but has refounded another in the area since. It is my understanding that very few units have been lost on either side so far.

Portugal has been a late comer to the war, and is at war only with England presently. England killed a unit of theirs in neutral lands a couple turns ago, and Portugal demanded reparations for peace. England 'd at that since Portugal is one of the civs even lower in power than us.

There will be another war shortly, when Mali declares war on Inca. Inca has the weakest military in the world, and might actually be in some trouble. Unfortunately, they seem to have deduced an attack is imminent, and will likely be preparing accordingly.

As regards to our specific relations with other civs...

OK... this is mostly a repost from a couple of months ago, but I changed it where needed.

Note: We have Open Boarders with every civ on the map except Inca, which refused, and Ottos, who canceled them some turns back.

PAT -I'm only listing the people who are actually doing stuff on these teams

------

BABYLON (Kyan, Whosit) - PAT's Philosophical sometimes 3rd techer. Kyan was also very active in relations with certian CUDDLE members. He's recently turned most of the actual turn playing over to Whosit because of time issues, which is very unfortunate for us. These guys are our best friends in the entire game. Not even close. I trust them 100% completely. If there were only 3 civs left in the game, I'd trust them to work with us over anyone else in the game, and that's how we feel about them as well. Our biggest lament is that we didn't get them as a direct neighbor. If we can't win, we want them to win.

Treaty: We have a "permanent" MPP in regards to Byzantium only. Otherwise, none as it simply isn't needed.

MALI (Swiss, displasted) - PAT's other sometimes 3rd techer. We like these guys... They're very businesslike, but nice enough. I trust them about 93%. They'd never sneak attack us, but they cetanly wouldn't be above not telling us the entire truth, or using us for their own ends to a reasonable degree. They are getting ready to declare war on Mali.

Treaty: Other than the landsplit agreement what gives us settling rights for Savannah and "green dot", I don't think we have one.

CARTHAGE (ShootTheMoon) - Mr. Nice Guy seems to have recently gone awol, which will probably hurt this civ a lot. One of the world's top 2 techers most of the game, they have fallen off just a bit recently. We like these guys a lot too. We had a rather difficult time coming to a landsplit agreement with them a while back, and I thought they were going to be... for lack of a better word... jerks about it, but it turned out they were not. I think they were just pushing us to see if we'd cave in, and when we didn't, they backed off. Other than that, we've had no problems with them, and in fact, they've been very helpful. I hope we can work with these guys till the end, but, they do seem to be very tied to Krill, so this may not be possible... We're currently being gifted their spare furs.

Treaty: Landsplit agreement which gave us settling rights to Smithsonian Park, Red River Valley, Lyons, and (Ref)Steel Claws.

ENGLAND (Cynheard) - PAT's primary funder and military strongman. Also one of the internal leaders. We're pretty friendly with them. I enjoy talking to him a great deal about things other than Civ. Cynheard has been very helpful with ideas and strategy. I trust him 100%... for now. We're far too useful for him for him to want to do anything that would hurt us. I think of all PAT members, he's the one most likely to win the game.

Treaty: We have a 10 turn autorenewing NAP

EGYPT (Krill ne Havelock) - PAT's secondary funder. The nominal leader of PAT. I think we trust him. He's been very friendly towards us and seems to like us a good deal in both game terms and in terms of someone interesting to talk to. Of course, when it comes time to win the game, all bets are off with him. No problem there. Knowing what to expect is the key.

Treaty: I THINK we have a 10 turn autorenewing NAP

CUDDLE
----------

BYZANTIUM (Bobchillingworth)- OK, this is going to be a long entry... We like Byz, but they are a major enigma. Why they had to make this so damn hard and not join PAT, I have no idea. They seemed fixated in an illogical hatred of Krill for a long time, and maybe that was part of why. This seems to have recently abated, at least somewhat.

They have, at times been a little difficult to deal with... like, recently with their inconsistent with ours interpretation of the land split agreement. Earlier in the game, we seemed to have a bit of a philosophy difference. They were looking for someone to fight (Krill being the top of their list) whereas we were more interested in peaceful building given our location and land availability us.

For the most part, they've been very helpful neighbors, and I'd never turn on them unless absolutely required to protect Kyan or Mali. This might actually prove to be our downfall in the long run as I think their lands would probably ensure us having a real chance at victory.

Treaty - Land Share agreement allowing us to settle the Marble/Wheat/Silks city. I'm told that we have an autorenewing nap with them, which was unknown to me. Maybe Ref knows the details?

INDIA - (Darrell, Regoarrarr, Sunrise, soooooo+/- some o's) - Durrning the early years of the game, we declared war on them and razed a single city at first contact in a surprise attack. We hated doing it, but our group at the time (Sumeria, Rome, Byzantium, Babylon, and Mali) felt it was our only hope of keeping Sumeria alive long enough to get Alphabet. In hindsight... it worked... barely. After that eventy, you would have expected them to hold a grudge against us, but they actually haven't. I really regret that we are not on the same side of this game as them. We're gifting them our spare gold resource as oart of a landsplit agreement.

Treaty - Ten turn autorenewing NAP. We can void it if they attack Mali or Babylon, They can void if we attack Byz or Aztecs. Also: Landsplit agreement. We get blue dot, they get a gold resource from us in perpetuity. In retrospect, they might have fleeced us a bit here, mainly because of the landsplit we made with Aztecs.

AZTECS - (Ruff_Hi) - As close as these guys are, they are the last civ we met! Ruff seemed extremely paranoid of us at first, but now seems to like us rather well. The feeling is mutual. He's not the best at answering emails in a manner that is easy to comprehend, but I trust him to do what he says, though not necessarily trust that he has no hostile intentions. However, his early war with Inca pretty much crippled him, and he has no real military to speak of right now. To be honest, if we're serious about trying to win the game, we probably will have to attack him or Byz at some point. The fact that we're unlikely to do either probably means that we will NOT, in fact, win the game.

Treaty - We have a ten turn autorenewing NAP with him. We can void it if they attack Mali or Babylon. They can void it if we attack India. We had a landsplit agreement with him that enagled us to found Ornata, HV, and Thundara (as long as it didn't compete for the spices). We have agreed to allow a single sentry within each others boarders.

INCA - (Jowy, Athelete, Nakor) - I trust these guys about as much as any other pathalogical lying cheating bastards that turn around and attack people with gifted military that I know. Which is to say, not at all. They've been spamming out settlers to Nobody likes these guys, and I have a hard time seeing anyone in CUDDLE leaping to their defense honestly. Oh, CUDDLE will be bound to help them out as they can't afford to lose a funder, but they'll do so only reluctantly.

Treaty - Seriously? These guys could be trusted to honor a treaty? (Well, MAYBE Jowy could be if he were playing alone)

ROME - (Sandover) - These guys were allies early on. They were a very active team early, but now seem to have faded into virtual non existence. I think they've lost all interest in the game. Square Leg and Scooter aparelty quit the team at some point. Not sure what happened there. Sandover hasn't posted his thread in months. I can't say as I blame them. It's hard to keep optimistic when you've been made virtually irrelevant.

We got fishing and iron working from them, allowing us to do Metal Casting, which was the big break that got people to see us as something other than irrelevant, and it got us back into the game. As such, we gave them Metal Casting when we researched it, even though we didn't have to as they were no longer in our alliance at that point. Wow, long entry for an "irrelevant" civ.

Treaty - None that I know of.

PORTUGAL - (Mukha, Dantski) - I like these guys, particularly Muha. However, I don't really trust them, or wouldn't if we shared a boarder. They definitely lied to Rome like crazy in a manner similar to what apparently happened to France They gave us Sailing early on. We gave them Metal Casting later on, even though by then we were in a different alliance. They offered to make up the beaker difference. We told them not to worry about it hoping that the good will of this would count for something later... Not sure it will at this point. That was a LONG time ago now, and Dantski seems to now be the primary player, which is the complete oposite of how it was before.

Treaty - We have a 15 turn autorenewing NAP with them.

HRE - (Ilios) - Not much to say about them. Such limited talk as we had with them was ended long ago really.

Treaty - None that I know of

Ottomans(Warrior Knight, Sockboy) - Very little contact with this civ until recenty, when they decided it was important for them to get our research... Not much we could do about it unless we wanted to throw real money at it as they more than double our non slider EP. I honestly get the feeling they're trying to set us up for a CUDDLE attack in the future, but we should have rifles and cannons in time to stop it I hope. What contact we had was not inclined to make me think it would be a civ I would be excited to work with, although they certanly seem to know what they are doing. I'm not exactly sure what it is with WK, we just don't seem to communicate well for some reason.

Treaty - None that I know of

your current grand strategy

Our curent grand strategy is, as far as I know, to settle our 15-17 cities peacefully, turtle up, research our way to the space race, and then launch before everyone else... If the other team members have other/differing ideas, feel free to share

and then the turn's minutia.

Maybe it's just me, but I think we do a realtively good job of this, we just tell you what we're doing each turn in advance, BEFORE we do it. We also try to keep you updated on what each city is doing severy 5-10 turns with overview reports... unless you really want micromanagment details both before AND after implementation... If there is something you'd specifically want us to include with each turn's playing, please elaborate

[Maniac Marshall]

Ok, I have to be honest... I KNEW we had people lurking our thread, because we're 4th in thread views, where once we were in the lower half. As of this post, we've nearly caught Carthage for 3rd.

I say this not as some kind of "Woo aren't we Kool killerz kiddies!" achievement thing, just pointing it out because if people were NOT lurking our thread, then we wouldn't be getting a lot more views recently than anyone other than India.

Being that we seem to be getting more views than anyone but India recently, I was genuinely interested in what people WANTED to see from us. I WANT requests, so if there is anything you want to know, please ask and I will try to provide the answer if I can.

[Maniac Marshall]

Is there something I'd like to see more of? Well, yes, some broader, empire-wide observations and analysis would be nice.

I will see what I can do here. One reason I have not made many of these recently is because we made them about 20 pages back, and we've played like... 5-6 turns in the last 25 pages!

Another reason is... We really need to discuss among ourselves our empire plans.

For example: You have been complaining about a lack of workers just about forever. But you haven't expanded particularly far... which is to say, your rivals have generally been ahead in city count (I think?) and now they are settling cities right up to your borders.

Actually, we were the 3rd civ, after India and Portugal, to 10 cities... We have not founded many lately, Thundara being the exception, but we have 2 more planed in the next 10ish turns.

For the record, here's a current city total:

India - 12
Maya, Ottoman, Portugal, Carthage, Byzantium - 10
Egypt, England, HRE, Inca - 9
Mali, Babylon, Aztec - 8
Rome - 7 (Btw, If you had any doubts as to how much Sandover is enjoying the game, his last 2 cities have been named Bullshit Game, and Praet Fail...)

So what seems to be the problem? Are you actually building farms and then replacing them with cottages... everywhere?

Actually, no. We've been building farms and... uh... more farms! We're relying on the whip for hammers, as we have few hills. Let me show you this picture:



At first glance, we're getting pwnd in GNP, by #1, but, let me point something out here. No less than SIX civs are currently in a Golden Age, and that incudes the one civ ahead of us. That civ is also researching a tech known by multiple civs, whereas we're researching a new tech, so, in reality, we're doing remarkably well here.

Now, as for food, no, we're not #1 in food anymore, but... We've whipped away/lost to the evil avoid growth thing a total of aproximately 25 population in the last 10 turns, (I'm guestimating as best I can remember here. If anyone is really excited to know, I could research it, and it might even be MORE than 25) and we're STILL near the top of the game in real pop (pop points). We're definitely ahead of everyone in PAT, Byzantium, and Aztec. I'd be stunned if we're not ahead of Rome, Inca, and HRE in that as well.

Actual hammers has become hard to judge how we're doing with so many people in a GA.

Or is it just a matter of rough terrain? (floodplains, jungle...) For that matter, just how many workers have you built so far?

Our workers happen to exactly fit!



(That's 18, I won't make you count)

OK, so we exaggerate a little. We're not DYING for workers, especially since we slaughtered a crapload of people recently (at least 2 at every one of our first 5 cities in the last 4 turns, all but the capital in the last 2 turns!), but with the grocers in place, we'd really like to start growing these cities into our cottages. Also, with 2 new cities in the works soon... I hate having to give that one worker to Byz, but, we'll have to make do with 21 workers for 12 cities. And, actually, with some cities getting close to done (Kilrah, Fierias, Pride Rock) it will help out a bit.

The ammount of floodplains has been both awesome, while at the same time a health problem and a worker turn sink because of the extra turns required to improve them.

I hope this answered your questions? If not, let me know what I didn't get accross. I appreciate you asking them, and if you have any more, please do not hesitate to ask. That goes for anyone else out there as well.

[Maniac Marshall]

Yes.

I was just going to leave it at that, but I think it needs more exclamation marks and smileys and pictures and stuff. You'll have to imagine the smileys and confetti images, since I'm all out at the moment, but:

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gotta go, but I'll try to answer some of the lurker questions later tonight if I get an opportunity (and you don't beat me to it).

OK, [strike]I'll attempt to find my novella on the preturn stuff[/strike] I found the novella on the preturn stuff (almost 4500 words!), and herd up the pictures and such (including the bear smoking the cigar I had you make). I THINK I can manage to get it together and continue still. If nothing else, I will need something to do next weekend in Atlanta, and maybe writing will fit in nicely.

My one BIG regret about sinking so much time into this game is that I've not been able to even play a game of MoO in months

Zed even convinced me to ask for Sword of the Stars for Christmas, and it's still in the wrapper...

Maybe soon... this game won't go on forever, even with all the pauses, right?

Oh, and while I'm thinking of it, "soon" on those spreadsheets would be optimally by Sunday, but whenever you can do it is fine. I just figure it would increase planning and communication. Also, the cities you were afraid were not working the tiles I mentioned are, in fact, working those tiles.

I'll slip in an empire question here as well. Since we're leaning towards putting the iron works in the capital (maybe even ripping up 2 of those cottages eventually?), I'm going to assume that's the death knell for PR getting that shared hill back. At this point, I wonder if we shouldn't just transition the cows over to that new city we just had the spat with byz about? Those plains hills will need feeding, and I honestly think that city now has more long term potential than PR, which is just too overlapped for it to ever become a powerhouse. This was my concern when we dot mapped this way. However, just because my fear of this has come to pass, it doesn't mean that we should have placed the cities any differently. PR was a good city in it's day.

[Maniac Marshall]

Oh, just one more thing™ Since the game has been down and stuff, I will once again do an empire overview for T140 UNLESS either Ref or Morgan volunteers to do it. After that, I will NOT be doing another one till T150 unless the game goes down for a LONG, LONG time.

Not worth it's own post, but Ottos are now in a GA as well.