[SPOILERS] - scooter's thread

[scooter]

Well I've been a little lax about updating this lately, but here's a couple pictures from last turn (not today's) while I wait for the turn from Dazed. First, the city I will be founding today:



Also a flying camera shot of everything I've explored so far:

[scooter]

Serdoa declared on Dazed and supposedly Dazed's new city is toast. Interesting... Hopefully it's still size one and auto razes because I don't want Serdoa with three cities already...

[scooter]

Consider Dazed and Serdoa's threads are practically exploding right now, I'm guessing they're doing a good job keeping you all posted on the drama right now. I'll weigh in with my thoughts though on some messages I've gotten... First I woke to getting this from Serdoa:

scooter,

I am sorry, but I need some answers from you quickly. I am in "peace talks" with Dazed and I want to offer him some points, mainly:

- NAP till turn 45 (maximum, if possible I do not want any)
- he will receive a settler by me (as late as possible, but I guess turn 35 to 40)
- he is not allowed to settle anywhere more north then his cap and never in a way that his 2nd ring goes over the 2nd ring of my cities

That assumes that he loses his 2nd city of course.

The plan would be that you will be prepared to take the settler from him (I will try to place him within his borders in a way that you could take it easily) so he will be left with nothing AND will not prepare many troops. To make that work, I would need answers to the following questions:

- Do you have a NAP with him and if yes till when?
- Do you have any other agreements in place which would prevent that?
- Are you able to get an axe (better two) near his borders (without being visible) and till when?

I hope you can help with that because from a strategic perspective it does not make sense to put Dazed so much into a corner that he will only be able to go on full war against me. Basically if I raze his settlement, he has lost this game and the only thing remaining would be to put a dent into my plans as much as possible - I guess you understand that this is not in my best interest and I think it isn't in yours too. If we can hold him small for now but still feel not to unsecure, that should be enough till around turn 50 where we hopefully will finally be able to crush his cap.

My first reaction was "cool" then thinking about it for five minutes and my thoughts were "I hate that idea"... My response:

Serdoa,

I don't have a NAP with him, and I don't have any agreements in place that would prevent that. Yeah I can get an axe over there, just tell me what turn I need to be at and what tile I need to be at. And I REALLY wish screenshot trading was allowed. I'm tempted to post something in the IT thread asking if we want to vote to change that, because (if I'm remembering right) both you and Dazed have said something to me about not liking the rule.

What are the exact terms of your peace agreement? Did you raze the city already?

Honestly though, I don't know how nuts I am about making an enemy out of him just over a settler this early, unless we are planning to choke once I take the settler. Is that something you were wanting to do? Actually if you have a long NAP that takes the option off the table...

scooter

And then I got this from Dazed:

Fellow Leaders,

Serdoa does have an axe that has arrived that I did not know about that puts Aslan's How (my new city) in grave danger. I am writing to let you know that he is attempting to pressure me into gifting him my second city (along with numerous other game long demands) for a nebulously defined future gift of a settler and galley. I do not plan to agree to such terms. While losing the city would be terrible to the people of Narnia, giving Serdoa a third city instantly without any work on his part would give him such a huge advantage that I do not believe anyone of us (especially someone who just lost a city!) would be able to catch up. I understand that you cannot offer military assistance (unfortunately) but since our interactions have always been good, I wanted to continue the good will by keeping you updated. I also continue to keep the conversation with Serdoa going in order to hopefully reach an agreement in time!

Dazed

1. WOW that deal would be terrible if it worked. Serdoa with three cities at this stage? AND he's the Exp/Imp civ?? AND Dazed settles everything towards me?? And all I get is a settler out of it which, by the way, I'd have to declare war and get marked as "enemy" just to get??? No, thank you. Obviously it's not my deal to make, but I do not like it at all.
2. I'm very glad Dazed doesn't like the deal... Though I'm afraid of what deal they might arrive at. Ideally Serdoa would just raze the city and then they'd sign white peace.

[scooter]

Some goofy correspondence with Dazed, these are the emails that came after the email above. Note that this has nothing to do with Civ or the game, but it was fun to read and write, and with all the drama I figured I'd inject a touch of lightheartedness to mix it up

Dazed,

Wow.. A third city this early would be death for the rest of us... Thanks for keeping me updated! Hopefully you're able to come to a more reasonable deal...

scooter

The best part was when he suggested that if he had not built the extra axe to attack me he would "almost have his 4th city" by now and so he is being gracious in his request!!!

Dazed

All I have to say to that is this... hahahahhahaa. and i'm the easter bunny.

Really? Can you make sure to bring the solid chocolate bunnies this year? Because the hollow ones are a rip off!

Yeah I can swing it... Had major budget cuts last year, you know with the state of the economy and all. Had to lay off some of the elves. Little known fact: Santa contracts out some of the elves to help the easter bunny during the Christmas offseason.

Wait, do they have immigration papers?! I hope they're not illegal!

Don't ask those kind of questions! Do you want to put the Easter Bunny out of business? Do you?? Keep asking questions and then you can explain to all the little children why there are no chocolate bunnies for Easter. So you're going to be dropping it right? Right? Good.

Okay fine it started out as relevant and went downhill fast. If you read this far, I just wasted five minutes of your life. I think you'll live.

[pocketbeetle]

I liked it! ^^

Made me think of this video that did the rounds a couple of years ago:
College Humour link
or
Youtube link (slightly worse quality)

That's another 2 minutes of time wasting!


And ontopic:

What do you actually think of the deal Serdoa is offering? (As far as you understand it.)
Would you take it, are you (slightly) trying to discourage Dazed from taking it?

[scooter]

PB that's awesome . I hadn't seen that, and I think that's the funniest youtube video I've seen since the David Blaine's street magic videos from a few years ago... You get five points for that. I'll update my points table..eventually.

Well... from MY perspective it's terrible for me. But I think that makes sense and I explained that? But for Dazed..eh he should probably take it. I think. It depends on how prompt that settler/galley pair is. Thing is, I don't think Dazed is as clued in on the importance of land off the strip as myself and Serdoa are. He doesn't get how useful a settler/galley pair for free would be. At least that's the impression I get... Serdoa seems to feel as strongly as I do about getting OFF of the strip, Dazed seems to be thinking in the mindset of "Fill out this land, then go overseas." I think that's a critical mistake.

Also - if he's operating under that assumption, the "don't settle north" will likely be a deal breaker. If Serdoa drops that, well maybe Dazed will take the deal. Not sure.

When you think about it, it's a generous deal for both sides:

1. Serdoa gets to THREE cities already. This has me about to mess my pants, and I'm trying to nudge Dazed away from the deal only for this reason. LAST thing we need is the Imp/Exp civ to be at 3 cities at this stage
2. Dazed doesn't lose his second city, he trades it. Sure it DOES set him back a little bit in his growth curve, but not as much as losing 65 hammers for nothing does. Serdoa is basically saying to him "I'm going to hurt you, but if you help me out I'll hurt you less." The question is if Dazed is willing to help him.

Another thought. Serdoa told Dazed apparently that Dazed is likely out of contention if he loses that second city for nothing. I actually disagree with that sentiment, and it SEEMS like Dazed does too. Look at PB2. Korea lost MUCH more early on, and they turned out to be (IMO) the 2nd place team. And placing 2nd to India in that game is, in my opinion, NOTHING to be ashamed of. Sure Dazed would be a tad hamstrung, but this game has an even bigger lift raft. In that game, Korea rode out the small islands and used that to claw it's way back. Thing is, in THAT game the islands were a low priority. In this game, they're likely not, unless the bulk of the land is unreachable until Galleons.

Let's say Dazed loses that city for nothing. He would be badly behind yes, but when you're badly behind, take bigger gambles. Go all out on the islands. Play OCC on the main strip while pushing cities overseas. If there IS much better land out there (as I've theorized) that's easily accessible, and you end up being the person to get the best start over there... well suddenly things are looking pretty good! And yes it's a gamble, it could definitely backfire... But losing that city is NOT game over for Dazed. It would just be time to play a little more unorthodox and take a chance to get back into contention.

So the short of it is... I don't remember. Oh yeah. He should probably take the deal... But I can totally see him not taking it (quite possibly wishful thinking). And I think you can make a decent argument for why he should skip the deal - meaning don't let Serdoa get further ahead than he already is.

[scooter]

Well it appears Dazed and Serdoa will make a deal after all. Not exactly what I wanted to hear, this feels like it could break the game open in favor of Serdoa. I'm not sure what I can do to get ahead either. Prioritizing over-seas stuff I guess.

The deal is that Dazed gifts Serdoa his city, and in return Serdoa gifts a settler now and immediately.

[scooter]

Some correspondence with Serdoa - trying to arrange a missionary-settler trade:

Serdoa,

Would you be interested in some sort of missionary trade? You have cheap settlers, so something like a missionary-settler swap sounds like something we could explore. Quickest way to do it may be by galley. We could swap galleys also to speed it up - I send a galley and gift it to you along with the missionary and you send me a galley and gift it along with the settler. Alternatively, you send settler in a galley, gift them both, I load the galley with a missionary, send it back and gift them both. Something along those lines.

Does that interest you at all?

scooter

scooter,

I would certainly be interested to trade a missionary but I think we will have to discuss the price. A missionary is worth 26 hammers, a settler 65. You are right that I am Imp and therefore can produce them a little bit cheaper, but thats still 44 adjusted hammers for me. Nearly double the value of a missionary. Not to speak of the income from the shrine you will have when I spread it to all my cities or that I will stunt growth for the time I produce the settler.

At least, we should discuss how to make up the 18 hammers difference. I would think somewhere along the lines of some gold. Does that sound feasible?

Kind regards,
Serdoa

Serdoa,

The tricky thing is, a missionary is a little bit bigger investment than that. I'll either have to revolt into Organized Religion (turn of anarchy and higher costs), or build a monastery first, nevermind the fact that I have to research Monotheism. Either way,a missionary is a LOT more than 26 hammers... A settler you can build anytime you want without additional investment - and I'm guessing with the great capitals we have, you can get a settler out *awfully* quickly. I'll tell you what, I'll throw in 10 gold once currency gets in. Honestly I think a straight up trade is fair, but I'll throw in a few coins to talk you into it. Does that sound fair?

scooter

scooter,

that sounds good for me. Though one questions remains, till when could it happen? With Medi you can already build a monastery but from my C&D I guess your last research was Masonry (or PH) which is on the way to Org.Rel. Is it possible to give an estimate?

Hmm.. I'll let you know when the save gets back to me which probably will be tomorrow. I need to figure out what's my priority at this stage.

My thread's been slow so I figured I would at least fill in that part - that's all thats been going on really.

[scooter]

Okay, update on the state of things. First, I netted the fish for my second city, which was a big help:



Next, here's an update on how close I am to locking down circumnavigation. First, scouting to the north where I met Twinkletoes recently:



Stlil haven't sent/received a greeting yet... We've both been lazy apparently. Here's the south, where I'm just to the west of SleepingMoogle:



So all I have to do is cover the land between TT and Moogle and I've got it locked down. Based on the tile breakdown that Serdoa sent awhile back, that's probably 6 turns from now... Give or take a turn. Don't feel like figureing out exactly when it will happen. I'm using my newest work boat to scout out the island:



Okay that peak is VERY interesting. From tile bleeding, all tiles to its W, E, SW, SE, and S are all water. NE appears to be water but it's less certain, and NW is inconclusive. To the north of it seems like another peak! Strain your eyes a bit and you'll see what I'm seeing. My contact lense prescription probably just got one step worse as I spent a couple minutes staring at that peak up close. Pure dedication.

So what do the peaks mean? I have no idea. The only reason there would be peaks in the middle of the water like that is to create a "galley bridge" between lands, so that either means:

1. I can get to Dazed's island
2. There are other islands between us and/or to the NE of that peak.
3. Something else I can't think of

I'll probably message Serdoa about that peak to bounce it off his head and see what he thinks. He seems to be very clued in on figuring this stuff out, so I'd like to get his perspective on it. Which reminds me that I need to get in touch with him about the missionary-settler trade too if he still wants that.

Okay, finally the demographics:



Now THAT'S what I like to see... It's very early, but that's a very nice start that I hope to capitalize on.

[scooter]

Just sent a quick greeting to Twinkletoes. It's the typical generic greeting message with nothing really to say so I won't post it. Now to figure out my response to Serdoa on the missionary-settler trade.