[SPOILERS] The Peaceful Centaur: a Study in Possibility

[Mardoc]

Well, it sure took a while, but we finally got another turn!

Is this the end for Veeson?



I checked - this isn't the same hill, or next to the hill, you mentioned in your report, so there must be at least 2 scorpions out this way.

The demographics look nice still

[Mardoc]

[COLOR="SandyBrown"]Hey guys!

Sorry about my lack of responses for so long. Heck, I haven't even responded to the previous email. I'll try to keep things faster from now on. The players seem to be losing interest in the game (maybe I'm just seeing things), so I'll try to start making things more interesting.

First things first: the Mistform threat is gone. I had a quick email exchange with Selrahc when I met him and he told me that Sciz mentioned that he killed a Mistform in his capital. That's a relief! Gotta be more careful with dungeons from now on... Well, not so much, since if I don't explore them, others will (like they did with the dungeons near my borders)...

About RoK. That's a very important topic. I absolutely need the holy city and I urge you not to tech WotE before me. My big objective in this game is to summon the Mithril Golem, so I need to have the holy city, one way or another... Even if I have to take it from cold dead centaur hands...

Nah, I'm obviously kidding... Of course I'd like to get the RoK holy city (why would I want less when I can get more doing the same thing), but it's not something I'll lose my sleep on. There wouldn't be much advantages, especially since I don't think I would be able to shrine it. Even if I could do it, I would have to think about it. The bonuses it gives aren't worth that much to me, except for the gold. I already have earth mana... Of course, there's the fact that I can't use it, too, but that's a minor problem :P

So, if you get the prophet I don't have anything to stop you from getting RoK. I simply don't have any bargaining power about it, other than say I would be very happy about you letting me get it :D. I could lend you mana, give you a thane for free spread once I landed it, but I don't think that would make you change your mind. So I have to hope you get a scientist!

About your second city. You said it'll get the reagents and the sheep east of the dungeon. That's pretty close to my capital. Of course, it's probably close to your capital too and I fully understand the difficulty of finding good spots to settle. I have a settler almost ready in my capital (not bluffing, it's something like 3 turns away) and I could found a pretty nice city in that area, with the sheep, reagents, 2 oasis and incense, especially now that you told me your plans. But, as a gesture of good will, I'm willing not to do it. Maybe we could use this as a starter for a settling agreement. I would like you not to place cities further west of this one and we should discuss about northern lands too. Do you think you can agree with these terms? Of course, we can work things with further details (especially now that the guys are taking 12h turns). Ah, you mentioned gold in your last email... Are you talking about the gold 5/6 tiles W of the reagent/sheep area? That would be stretching a bit too far from your area of influence, in my opinion. Well, we should chat some day about it, to work things out with more details.

That could be a very nice kick start to our relations. I have another deal ideas to discuss.
Are you planning to get KotE soon? I would be pretty interested in springing some of my land, but getting KotE is a very bad idea with a civ that can only get adepts. It's a lot of wasted beakers. So, if you are going to get some springing adepts, I'd like to borrow their services for some time. Can you use spring in foreign territory? I'm guessing that you can. Of course, you'd be payed to do it. I thought about an interesting way of doing it: whenever I get a mana node in my territory you can choose which type of mana you want it to be and I'll lend you for X number of turns. I'm not interesting in going the magic route this game, so mana is not worth my time. But that's just an idea.

Ah, just to be sincere with you, I'll probably offer similar deals to other players. You are the first one I'm offering it, though. You have to understand that I can't commit to a deal with you if you are going to take 100 turns to tech KotE or you are not going to build any adepts in the forseeable future.

Second deal: trade routes. If I'm right about my guess, your second city will be very close to my capital. We could use this as an advantage to get fast foreign trade routes. The problem is: I have a lot of techs ahead of cartography in my tech list. If you are going to get it soon, we could work a deal like this: I use my spare worker turns to build a road to your second cities borders and you use your spare beakers to tech cartography. How does it sound? Ah, and I'd also want to discuss about the Pact of Nillhorn. I have interest in getting it (if only to boost the ego of my little civilization) and you'd be a strong competitor by getting an early cartography. Maybe if I abstain from another wonder, like the Bone Palace? Would that be a fair deal?

I hope all this babbling made some sense. I just want to make some interesting deals rather than NAP until turn 300 and mana for mana trades.

Regards,

Ichabod[/COLOR]

Hmm, interesting stuff. First, we should clarify that we mean the gold to the southeast of the reagents/sheep, and possibly work out a border with him in general.

Ichabod proposes several presumably independent deals here. He wants RoK, and I can't tell if he's serious or not with his thane/mana offer. I'd be inclined to take him up on this - a noncompete for Kilmorph in exchange for a thane and earth mana when we don't really want to go for Kilmorph anyway seems like a good deal to me

Renting a Spring adept is an off the wall idea that just might work! I'm sure we can think of all sorts of things to buy from him in exchange for some springs - mana, money, maybe some Kilmorph priests to build temples in our settlements. In general, I like the idea of having a neighbor with no magic whatsoever and slow stacks, it makes me feel much more secure; give us some collateral and Centaurs and we can defeat any invasion force he brings.

On Cartography - well, that makes Ichabod the second to propose early open borders. Might be a good idea, for border security if nothing else. I'd be willing to sacrifice the Pact, we ought to be getting a form of collateral that can keep up with the horses - Empy and/or mages. Just have to decide what we want in return.

[Irgy]

Is this the end for Veeson?

Yes, it was.

Some good news - we found Jkaen's borders. No contact quite yet, but next turn. The good part is that this means the civ opposite us, i.e. the only civ that's further away than the others, is Sciz and his Hippus. Perfect. Also note in this shot the incoming free xp from wolves (surely we can't lose that one at +140%...)


I've sent a party of warriors SW to start making their way to the possible second city site, and uncover a bit of the fog to the SW along the way.


Capital is building a warrior and growing to size 7.

Thought on the diplo to come, but in short I'm fairly keen on pretty much all of his suggestions.

[Irgy]

Well here's a start:

[COLOR="Magenta"]Hi, good to hear from you. That's good news about the mistform.

We are talking about a gold directly south and slightly east of the sheep/reagents, we haven't seen this one 5/6 tiles west of it. We certainly have no intention to settle (even settlements) any further west than this location.

Cartography is the classic tech that everyone would always prefer everyone else to research instead. Given we get less out of trade routes than other civs (with our more concentrated set of cities), and that we already have no particular interest in Pact of the Nilhorn, we have less motivation than others to be the ones to do it. Still, it's just a question of priorities, so I won't write off the possibility of us researching it ourselves. In any case, connecting trade routes between us is a good idea, and we're happy to contribute to the road building required to do it.

We have indeed decided to prioritise Knowledge of the Ether a lot higher than we normally would, due to all the desert tiles not just in our planned expansion but everywhere really. We would be quite happy to make a deal to lend our adepts' efforts to springing your lands as well.

Once we have a prophet, there's limited other things we'd want to do with it. However, it's not too quite too late to stop us from running a priest and potentially generating one. [more about this...][/COLOR]

I'm a little stumped at the moment over the best approach with the prophet we no longer plan to generate. I'll ponder it some more, suggestions welcome.

[Mardoc]

I'm a little stumped at the moment over the best approach with the prophet we no longer plan to generate. I'll ponder it some more, suggestions welcome.

Maybe something like this?

[COLOR="Magenta"]Hi, good to hear from you. That's good news about the mistform.

We are talking about a gold directly south and slightly east of the sheep/reagents, we haven't seen this one 5/6 tiles west of it. We certainly have no intention to settle (even settlements) any further west than this location.

Cartography is the classic tech that everyone would always prefer everyone else to research instead. Given we get less out of trade routes than other civs (with our more concentrated set of cities), and that we already have no particular interest in Pact of the Nilhorn, we have less motivation than others to be the ones to do it. Still, it's just a question of priorities, so I won't write off the possibility of us researching it ourselves. In any case, connecting trade routes between us is a good idea, and we're happy to contribute to the road building required to do it.

We have indeed decided to prioritise Knowledge of the Ether a lot higher than we normally would, due to all the desert tiles not just in our planned expansion but everywhere really. We would be quite willing to make a deal to lend our adepts' efforts to springing your lands as well.

Once we have a prophet, there's limited other things we'd want to do with it. However, it's not quite too late to stop us from running a priest and potentially generating one. After all, a sage has considerable value too. Some of your suggestions earlier seem quite attractive so long as we're not yet committed; perhaps if you could spare a Thane within 20 turns of founding Kilmorph and a 10 turn at our leisure loan of earth mana?

One possibility that occurs to us as a trade for our adepts' services would be Runekeeper-established Temples of Kilmorph in our eventual settlements; we just need to figure out how many Springed tiles per temple is a fair exchange. Of course we expect the ratio to be slightly more in our favor if you have the shrine . We're also potentially interested in your palace or otherwise acquired mana sources; again, the trick is going to be working out a fair price, more than anything else.[/COLOR]

[Irgy]

Main news: Contact with JKaen.


The northern scout survived on 1.7 and will take 2 turns to heal. I figured we should make contact before resting rather than after.

The southern scout took a bit of a risk moving SE to desert, but it was the only option that gave it a two move turn next turn. It looks like I got away with it.

Finished a warrior and grew to size 7 at the end of the turn. Can probably build a worker next or a warrior in between, I expect it doesn't matter much either way.

One thing I've noticed about this map, no ruins, barrows or goblin forts. Evidently the mapmaker considered them unbalancing. It's a big shift from the test game, fwiw, and makes the need for centaurs a little bit reduced.

[Irgy]

Maybe something like this?

I sometimes hate the way it leaves out quoted text when you requote.

Anyway, it looks good to me, and since you must like it because you posted it I'll send it when I get a chance. I'm a little dubious as to whether we really have an interest in his palace mana - we're probably already getting earth from him, and what on earth would we want with law, really (not to mention we'll get it from one of the shrines we hope to build ourselves)? It also looks at this stage like "other sources" have been left off the map entirely. But it doesn't really matter, I'm happy to say we're interested in it anyway

[Rawkking Goodguy]

Will we be getting a shot of your city screen once that warrior finishes? Curious to see how the kuriotates megacity is doing.

[Azoth]

After that northern scout heals, you might want to go rob the graveyard three tiles northwest. Graveyards are more like tribal villages (goody huts) than other lairs: they often give gold but sometimes yield a free tech! And the worst they can do is spawn a couple of strength 3 skeletons or spectres. Also, I think that robbing graveyards does NOT take up any movement points (though you might want to check this), which means that a scout can usually run away if something nasty pops. In my SP games, I usually rob graveyards on first sight.

Speaking of which, have you guys come up with a strategy for handling lairs? (With no barrows, ruins, or goblin forts, I guess you're left with just dungeons.) I normally wait until I've built my first hero+stack before exploring them (this, after a few conquest losses from early lair pops). It's certainly safer but you do miss some opportunities (for free early missionaries, GP, etc.) Any thoughts?

[Mardoc]

One thing I've noticed about this map, no ruins, barrows or goblin forts. Evidently the mapmaker considered them unbalancing. It's a big shift from the test game, fwiw, and makes the need for centaurs a little bit reduced.

Looking good. As does the likely fact of Sciz being opposite corners from us. We'll still want AH early, of course, but maybe we should plan on delaying Horseback Riding a bit unless/until we have an indication they're needed. Since we don't need stables, we can afford a tad less preparation on that front, just as long as we maintain a healthy GNP.

It's true, Law and Earth mana are both somewhat unlovable as loans (would be nice to have permanently), but I didn't want to burn any bridges, and there's a good chance we'll want to build one or more of the Towers at some point, if nothing else.

I don't think we've really thought much about dungeon crawling. We might be in a pretty good position to start popping them shortly, with good Warrior production capabilities (I think we're up to 1/turn now!). If you find any on the far end of the map, definitely 100% pop them, even at the likely cost of a scout; when it's heads we win, tails someone else loses, that's a good bet . Which is why we probably should go ahead and explore the one near us in the near future. I wouldn't bet on them surviving that long, though, since we switched from a beeline to exploring our own lands.

Finally, we're going to have to look around and see if we have a third city site yet.