RBP4 [SPOILERS] - Shaka of Zulu (sunrise089, regoarrarr, and friends)

[regoarrarr]

In other news, I whipped the settler in Vine, and as you probably have seen in other threads, Mackoti built the Pyramids and revolted to Slavery and Representation.

In other Mackoti news, sunrise and I agreed that it was a bit cheesy to use the reload to all of a sudden "not" declare war. But whatever.

[regoarrarr]

Why didn't you put the mine on the grassland hill by the river? It even has a road on it so you would save Worker turns.

To get back to this question from earlier, if you're asking why there is a mine on a non river grass hill instead of the one on the river, it's because when we were mining grass hills, the one on the river had a forest and we didn't have BW yet.

[regoarrarr]

Email to mackoti

Hey guys,

Been awhile since we talked so I thought that I would write you something quick. I had been meaning to ask about what happened on with the whole luddite war but now I see that congratulations are in order for your big pointy building!!!

So what happened with luddite? It sounds like you guys figured things out but I have to say I was pretty confused at first. It doesn't help that we still have not met luddite so we didn't see anything in our event log. Since we haven't met him, now's your chance to give us the "real" story and sway us to "your" side ;-)

So, I think that we are still interested in Open Borders. I seem to remember that you did not want to sign them right away which is fine, but I thought I'd drop you another note on it. Do you have the coast between SleepingMoogle and us defogged? Since you said you have Sailing, that should be all you need to have trade routes with us as well.

Obviously with us having GLH, trade routes for us are more important than maybe they are for you, but they still are not meaningless to you? Not to mention it would be nice to start to have closer relations. Of course with tech trading off there's not much that can be done, but I'm sure you've noticed some of the "factions" that have started to be formed?

Anyway it's not a huge deal - if you don't want to sign open borders, we understand - just thought I'd bring it up again

Note the me totally making up the "factions" in the 2nd to last paragraph. Which isn't to say that they aren't really happening...

[regoarrarr]

Sent the following to Locke, Adlain, Lord Parkin, WarriorKnight and Nakor (With minor modifications such as changing the name of each person in each one)

Hi Locke,

How's it going? Not much over here, but I always find it interesting to touch base every now and again just to see what's going on. Over here we're excited to found our 5th city in a few turns, but it's tempered somewhat by the fact that some people already have 8 :-( Ah well, we'll continue plugging away and I guess see how things go.

Our traveling warrior has enjoyed seeing the sites and looks to shortly be out of your hair over to Nakor's lands.

So in other world news, it seems kind of early for the Pyramids to be built, don't you think? Especially given that I haven't seen any stone (or marble) on the whole map? As for us I think we're done with wonders, at least any time soon, given that there are 4 Industrious civs on the map. Do you know who it was that founded Judaism? It just showed up as "in a distant land" for us but I don't know if it was luddite (who we haven't met) or if just meant that we don't know about the actual city where it was founded?

Anyway, just checking in - hope to hear from you soon

[NobleHelium]

I hope you didn't mess up with those "minor modifications".

[regoarrarr]

I hope you didn't mess up with those "minor modifications".

Yeah I tried to be careful. In retrospect, the one thing that I wished I'd have done was modify the paragraph about Judaism to Lord Parkin.

The reason is that he and I chatted a few days ago about his prophet and what he might do with it - so I should have mentioned that in the paragraph. Oh well - I did get a response back from WarriorKnight

Not much happening over here either. Mostly we're just building stuff and exploring, which is typical right? It is saddening to see plako on 8 cities already, but I guess it's expected from an Imperialistic leader. (although that doesn't make it any less worrying)

It does seem early for the Pyramids to be built, but with all the Industrious civs out there I guess they can't afford to slack off on wonder building either. As for Judaism... plako got it. What's really annoying is that it was founded in the city I gave to him. I'm guessing that's why he didn't want a reload since that's probably one of the best places for him to get the holy city culture. Oh well.

The easiest way to reach me is when you take the eastern fork, stay close to the coastline in the south. Following it will take you on an almost direct route to my borders. OB is fine with me.

Regards,
WK

So it was plako that got Judaism, as I'm sure you already know

[regoarrarr]

So while we're waiting for the turn to roll, and while I'm stuck in an awful meeting, it's time to catch up on some diplomacy

First off, a note to SleepingMoogle

Hey SleepingMoogle,

So as Patriarch of the Somnus, I was hoping that you could interpret some dreams that I had last night.

1st one - I was trying to get on an airplane, but they kept sending me to a very rural part of the country (North Dakota) rather than where I wanted to go. Somewhere in the middle of this, a large flowing black "cloudlike" structure came floating towards me, enveloping me. I knew that it was "bad" but couldn't fight it off.

2nd one - A group of friends and I challenged Lebron James and the Miami Heat professional basketball team to a match. Even though none of us had any great basketball skill, we managed to beat them and injure Lebron.

Thanks for your services

He is styling himself as the "Patriarch of Somnus" and all of his cities are sleep-related, as you've probably seen. I've been wanting to send him an email like this for awhile - I've just been waiting for some good dreams.

And yes, these were actual dreams that I had last night, though I forgot some of the details of them in the hours or so that I've been awake.

I figured darrell especially would like that 2nd dream

[regoarrarr]

Response back from WK

Not much happening over here either. Mostly we're just building stuff and exploring, which is typical right? It is saddening to see plako on 8 cities already, but I guess it's expected from an Imperialistic leader. (although that doesn't make it any less worrying)

It does seem early for the Pyramids to be built, but with all the Industrious civs out there I guess they can't afford to slack off on wonder building either. As for Judaism... plako got it. What's really annoying is that it was founded in the city I gave to him. I'm guessing that's why he didn't want a reload since that's probably one of the best places for him to get the holy city culture. Oh well.

The easiest way to reach me is when you take the eastern fork, stay close to the coastline in the south. Following it will take you on an almost direct route to my borders. OB is fine with me.

Regards,
WK

I did offer OB in game - I believe that if I can defog the coastline between us, we should be able to get another set of foreign trade routes - it will probably be 10t or so at least.

I replied back with

Thanks for the directions - my warrior will head that way and you'll probably see him before too terribly long. You'll have probably seen that I proposed OB in-game.

Thanks for the info on Judaism - he had told me he was working on Masonry a few turns ago as part of a plan to build the Pyramids - so it makes sense that he'd follow that up with Monotheism. I guess we really didn't need him to get ANOTHER bonus, though like you said, at least somebody else got the Pyramids...

So, if you wouldn't mind, could you explain to me a bit of geography in your part of the world? Maybe we should start "naming" some of these geographical features - it at least would make things easier to talk about than saying "that one fork of land where we met that one time". So let's call that fork / narrow neck (where we first met, has a copper tile, jungle rice, etc) ... Bob's Fork.

Unless you have a better name :-).

Okay so Bob's Fork has 3 outputs - northwards, you reach Zulu lands in about 6 tiles. We followed the southwestern fork, and there's a small area of land to the west, before it turns southwest again and we saw plako's borders. The southeastern fork is the one where we are heading now. Can you explain a bit more about what we'll find there? There is a connection between you and plako to your west as well, right? Is that where the Jewish holy city is? When you say follow the southern coastline, which one is that? Does the SE portion of Bob's fork continue going southeast? Or does it turn to the east or the south?

Have you explored all the way to the bottom of the map? If you have - how many tiles is it to say the copper tile of Bob's Fork? Next time I'm in game I'll check how many tiles it is to the top of the map - that will let us know how tall the map is (unless you already know that)

Anyway, hope to hear from you soon

[regoarrarr]

Reply back from Locke

Hey it is good to hear from yuo too. We also try to keep up with plako. I guess Cre/Imp is very good in early game. And plako got city from Warlord in war. All that put him in front but it is long game still to go.

We have not seen stone or marble either. I guess there is none in this map. Pyramid is expensive but mackoti does have Ind trait. So it is 333 hammers for him instead of 500. Probably takes like 20 turns to build, maybe faster with chops. I think Pyramid is stupid build because HR is just as good as Rep. Although this map doesnt seem to have much happy resources so maybe it work for them. We see gold and that is about it. Some stuff in jungle very far away. I hope for your sake you have more happy resource than we do.

I think plako found Judaism. He post in email thread that he get "lucky religion spread" on turn that it is founded. During reload discussion he say that. So it is probaly him. It is not Luddite. Civstats say he did not get a tech that turn only 2 points. We are pretty sure religions are like this:

Buddhism - Adlain (he convert and definitely has it)
Hinduism - Luddite
Judaism - plako

We surprised Judiasm last so long. Were going to go for it but then plako take it. We hope to explore plako lands with OB but he is being a jerk about letting people through. Hopefully he step on peoples toes and get in some wars to slow him down. :D

Well thanks for writing stay in touch.
Locke

I replied with

Hi Locke,

Thanks for the reply. It definitely sounds like you're right about the religion spread - I had been talking to Lord Parkin (who recently got a Great Prophet as I'm sure you know). We were talking a bit about what he might do with it, and one of the things mentioned was teching Monotheism and using the prophet for the shrine.

We have OB with plako as well but he is also not letting us actually scout out his lands easier. I guess that's okay - he's got so much land it would probably take us the whole game :-D

Maybe you're right that he'll get caught up in wars, but it seems like this map isn't very conducive to wars, at least not any time soon. I mean it's probably 20-30 turns from the edge of Zulu land to the edge of plako's lands. And we're closer than almost everybody else!! I guess the best we can do at this point is just try to keep up and see where the future lies.

Keep in touch!

[regoarrarr]

Email from mackoti

Sorry for not answering to your previos mail, but the life on our end is more than complicated.The war with Luditte , well i belived we had a border agreement and he apears with an unprotected worker and setler, before saying to me i am a blufer , i have no units well i had a chariot in the area and of course took that pair.I am not very familiar with the rules, GES start yelling at me you double moved and made that intentional(no true), well the reload come and they forced me to move like first time without declaring war(realy stupid i can say).Luditte moved back his setler worker pair so no need to declare war. Thats all about the war.
About open borders will consider that when we will have a conection with you guys.

I am not sure about factions, but i can say that ther are 2 runaways : Plako, and Lord parkin.

I builded the Mids, and you the GLH will see in the long run if that worth 3 setler and 3 axes for me, and you'll see too.I hope that our wonders will help us to overcome becasue right now we are realy lagging behind.

regards,
Mackoti

Our reply

No problem about not responding - there's not a whole lot to talk about this early in the game, but still, it's nice to keep in touch. Like I said in the other email, with no tech trading, there's only a few things (open borders, scouting information, border agreements, etc) that two people can do if they want to try to maintain "close relations" early in the game. Do you have an estimate on when you might have a connection with us?

Have you played many MP Civ games? I have not played too many (PB1 was the first one I ever played). I know that all the different double move rules can be confusing and hard to keep track of (especially when they seem to keep changing for every game). So I sympathize with you on that one.

So when you talk about plako and Lord Parkin, wouldn't you include luddite in that same category? We haven't met him yet so I don't know how many cities he has, but he does have Hinduism, and the Oracle (and a likely prophet for a shrine), and Metal Casting (cheap IND forges). Those guys are the top 3 contenders IMO.

As for you saying that you're lagging behind - you at least have a decent amount of cities - we are pretty far behind with only 4 cities at this point (with most people having 6 and plako having 8). We'll be settling another city in a few turns but that still only brings us up to 5.

Anyways, hope to hear from you soon