[SPOILER] Suryavarman II of Maya - Whosit & Ravus Sol

[Whosit]

BLUH BLUH Double Post!!

Actually, if I tech Fishing instead of Animal Husbandry next, the new city could work the Crabs (and earn some meager income at the same time) while building a Work Boat, whip the Work Boat, grow to size 2 again while building a Granary, whip that, grow to size 2 again, and build a Worker while whip unhappiness wears off. Build Holkan while growing to size 3 (extra defense), another Worker while any remaining unhappiness wears off--or just build another Worker 'cuz, and finally grow to size 4 and be a Worker/Settler pump. Yay!

That's probably the ideal way to develop the city at this point, but I'm going to sim it out before the next turn, just to make sure. Fishing should be cheap enough to finish before the Settler gets in place. Once the capital has a couple more Workers, I'll start building the road to connect the two cities.

[Whosit]

So, I've pretty much been dead last in all the important categories for most of the game: Food, Production, GNP. I also think that someone has already founded a second city. Not sure who, since I can't find a correspondence in score. But the average rival population jumped by 16,000 points, which could be a 15,000 increase (size 2 to 3) plus a new size 1 city (1,000 points). A new city wouldn't add very many points, right? Just like a pop's worth. Weird that I can't find a score bump that correlates to the new city since it was founded last turn. It also added 8,000 to the leader's land total, so it was one of the Creative leaders and it has a water tile in the radius. I really, really hope that this wasn't England settling on the Lake, or I will be sad. I won't know 'till I get there since I didn't really have a Warrior to spare to just scope the place out.

Speaking of, still haven't found Malakai's Warrior. I may have gone off-path a bit too much. Well, I'll give it another shot.

[spacemanmf]

Wait... the average rival population went up by 16,000?

[Whosit]

Wait... the average rival population went up by 16,000?

Sorry... that was after I multiplied it by 5. Maybe I should have phrased that as: Total Rival Population increased by 16,000. Sorry for the confusion.

[spacemanmf]

Ah ok, could it be 3 moving from size 1 to size 2, plus 1 new city?

[Ravus Sol]

ughhhh Sorry Whosit. My internet basically went down and this was my first day of to sort it out.

I'm glad you were able to do some simple back and forth diplomacy while i was gone. Did you go for the option to let them arrange a meeting for you? But it sounds like the meeting didn't work out... Suspicious...

I've looked at the Pink Dot City by the lake deal. Seems good. Why do you not wish to send the current worker with the settler/warrior party or merely delay it a turn if it's only a turn behind building the worker?

I assume you will want to backfill between the new city and the capital with the rest of the expansion?

[Whosit]

ughhhh Sorry Whosit. My internet basically went down and this was my first day of to sort it out.

I'm glad you were able to do some simple back and forth diplomacy while i was gone. Did you go for the option to let them arrange a meeting for you? But it sounds like the meeting didn't work out... Suspicious...

I've looked at the Pink Dot City by the lake deal. Seems good. Why do you not wish to send the current worker with the settler/warrior party or merely delay it a turn if it's only a turn behind building the worker?

I assume you will want to backfill between the new city and the capital with the rest of the expansion?

Hey! Glad to see you're back! I should have assumed something as simple as an internet blackout. Heh heh.

I think I just missed the Korean Warrior. I wasn't exactly skimming the English border, and with all the trees, visibility is bad. It might not be a bad idea to ask the English to update us on the Korean unit's current position, if you want to do that. I really can't think of a reason they'd lie to us. Well, I can, I just don't think that it's highly plausible.

I didn't want the Worker to trail because there's a decent chance it could get nicked by barbarian animals in the woods, and there's a great distance to cover. I didn't want to delay the settler by a turn because that's a total waste of a turn. Doing badly as it is, any.... god, I hope that the English didn't settle by the lake. Settler will have to backtrack to another position.... Anyway, even without a starting Worker, I can get the city up and running fairly quickly. I'll tighten up the plans a bit, but I think that within 20 turns, I can get in the basic infrastructure (Granary, Library.... yeah, I guess that's it), a Work Boat for Crabs, and a couple of Workers, plus a Holkan or two. Main problem is running out of things to build. Can always spam Workers/Settlers, which is kind of the plan, I guess.

What I'm failing on, though, is a Worker plan for the capital. I'm using one Worker to build a gems mine and another to chop a forest, but I really need to stop and evaluate what would be the most effective use of the workers over the next 20 or so turns. I do want to get the Gold and Gems worked, of course, 'cuz we badly need the income. I'll need some more Workers, too, since I'll eventually send these two out to build that long road (with Holkan protection). We will be backfilling at least one city between lake (probably "DropShortALiter" since I can make that fit), but still working on ideal spots. Have had several good suggestions, but they aren't all compatible with each other.

[Whosit]

A couple turns have been played since last update. We have Fishing, working on Animal Husbandry, Settler/Warrior ran into a Wolf, which vindicates my decision to not send a tag-along Worker, 'cuz he'd have been eaten.

Still no real progress on the Demographics numbers. I'm sure you'll hear that again. More updates later today assuming I haven't met an untimely fate on the road.

Ravus, since you're back, there's some diplomatic opportunities for you!

1. Just wanted to let you know, Malakai should actually meet your warrior this turn, not next.
2. In anticipation of this, we have diverted EP spending to Malakai. We hope you will do the same, as we have each others graphs now.

Happy scouting,
Nakor & Gaspar

Probably nothing more complex here than saying "thanks" and "yes." Having their graphs should, in theory, help me more with the demographics shenanigans.

Greetings,

I am Emporer Malakai, I am pleased to hear that our warriors have finally made contact in the forests to the South of Gaspar/Nakor's City.

I am unsure how we missed each other on the first pass, I was lead to believe that you were on the eastern border when I was to the west, and that we would both loop around the south of the city keeping to the border? Either way it is all in the past for we have finally made initial contact.

I would like to extend my hand to you in peace for I see no immediate reason for us to be anything other than friends at this time and hope that both great nations will prosper thanks to our contact. To this end I would like to offer an initial NAP with a few specific clauses.

Proposed NAP until turn 50, having just played turn 25 that means that there would be an initial period of peace of at least 25 turns between our great nations.

Obviously the nap would include all the general terms of a nap such as not attacking each others units, founding any cities in a way that would be considered aggressive.
Or any other action that could be considered aggressive or in any way an act of war.

Additional Clauses as follows:

*Agreement to notify each other when contact is made with any other nations that either of us meet, and to facilitate meetings with these.
(this clause would obviously only effect the nap until such time as all civs have been met).

*Secrecy Agreement, agreement to keep all information shared between us and communication between us to ourselves. The content of any of our conversations should not be shared with any other civs without prior agreement.

*Open Borders / Trading: Agreement to keep borders open for trading purposes, (I will offer open borders in game once the nap has been finalised) for the full term of this nap and any future extensions we agree.

*No Spying / Scouting: Although I am happy for each other to travel through each others lands when required, I request no scouting / spying on each other and therefore any information gained through travel into each others lands should not be shared with any third parties.

*Lastly a point regarding espionage, although we would both want to gain graph visibility on each other, which I am more than happy with, I request your agreement that once full graph visibility has been reached that espionage be switched to another player IF possible, I know you can only switch to other nations you have met that that it is possible that similar agreements may have already been reached with other nations. If at any point either of us are unable to comply with this clause, they should let the other party know at the time.

If there is anything specific you would like to include in a NAP or any of the above points you would like to be amended or to discuss in more detail, please let me know, if your happy with the clauses outlined above please indicate this in your reply message.

I look forward to working with you in the future and may both our empires prosper.

Regards


Emporer Malakai of Korea

We missed each other because I don't know how to follow directions. Quite a lot of conditions on that NAP. Personally, I don't really want to sign us up for something like that right off the bat. Maybe this is an opportunity to come up with one of those "Declarations of Friendship" or whatever BS I was talking about before.

Anyway, let me hit this point by point.

*NAP until Turn 50: No harm there, as it's essentially meaningless. Based on the size of the map, and Korea's likely location (southwest of England), there's little chance we'd be a threat to each other for quite some time.

*It's often a point of courtesy to let others know when you have met someone else, but I do not like being required to notify Korea.

*Secrecy, kind of the same.... Also seems kind of pointless this early, anyway. And I wouldn't want to tie your hands with this, anyway, Ravus.

*Open Borders: Blehhhh. We're so far away, the only thing OB is good for is letting others scout us (or vice-versa). I haven't really thought about the kind of OB policy we may want to follow, but I can't think of many good reasons for it until getting Trade Routes becomes important, or if we can "exploit" them to scout someone out before they can get to us.

*Spying/Scouting: Also meaningless with this distance + lack of OB.

*Espionage/Graphs: Pretty normal, don't see why it has to be in a treaty. I'm switching EP to Korea, as we speak, just so we can get their graphs.

In other news, fingers still crossed that the lake is unsettled....

[Whosit]

OK, I let Malaki know that we'll get back to him. After a little more thought, well, I guess it's obvious, but we don't want to antagonize him. The plan is still generally to REX with a Farmer's Gambit, so we don't want enemies. It's almost turn 30, but I want to see if we can get 4 cities by turn 50. Should be possible. I think I just need to stop worrying about GNP and focus on growth.

Speaking of, sorta, Animal Husbandry has been teched. I'm thinking Writing > Math next. If there's any Wonder we want, it's the Hanging Gardens, so we'll want to grab that Stone Spot. I still have to work out the best city locations, but I think one in between Lake and Capital, and one for the Stone. That would be 4 total. We should be able to handle that, I think, unless the costs of the Lake are much higher than I'm anticipating.

I think I'm falling prey to whatever flaws as a player I have already. Feels unfocused. Oh, and being about last place again isn't helping. Gotta remember... growth and expansion first. GNP can come later. I think.

[Whosit]

Picture back-log:

This is a close-up of the Stone City spot I was using for consideration:



I made a sim of the city (it was incomplete) to gauge how useful the city might become:



I pretty much have it pegged as a production city. That means that he capital and the other city should probably be commerce oriented. Lake city will probably be too busy building Settlers/Workers to contribute much commerce, unfortunately.

From turn 23, a shot of the capital. Not sure if there was something else here I thought was of note:



The Wolf I mentioned (we won):



Current events:





And another area picture. For some reason.