[SPOILERS] The Peaceful Centaur: a Study in Possibility

[Mardoc]

Well, we're not planning to switch, we're planning to play both simultaneously. Which, I believe, requires a temporary switch to pitboss and back, but they figured that out in PBEM1 for Hyborem, so it should be doable.

Hopefully that will mean that there's never any time where Basium isn't controlled by us. But on the other hand, that also means that giving up the megacity isn't as much a wrench, so long as it doesn't depend too heavily on the third ring for its strength at that time; it's still part of our empire, just with a different flag. It would certainly be nice if we can manage to get tailors and jewelers into all of Basium's cities.

On the other hand, given the caliber of the land out there, maybe our third megacity will be sad enough that we're happy to let it go

You're probably right on the game duration point. Even a successful Centaur rush, followed by a successful centaur archer or lancer attack, won't win us the game, not unless everyone else is playing a farmer's gambit. Copper warriors are just too tough to crack, particularly given how early they can come.

[Irgy]

So to prevent this in future: I'm currently in GMT -4, and you are? I think you said GMT -10 at some point, or maybe it was GMT +10?

GMT+10. Midnight (so 10am your time) is about my limit normally, was up until 2am for a couple of the blitzes though.

Azoth: Welcome! Awkard yes, but worth it I think. I think in a pbem, because we're not last in turn order, Basium won't get an AI turn. Might be something to test though at some point so we know for sure.

We have a longer message from Dantski:

[COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]Hey Irgy good to hear from you!

I got the turn very late yesterday otherwise I'd have sent more than just an ingame greeting message so I apologise for that. Hopefully you got the message about the Hill Giants, if not there's a couple hanging around 3-5 tiles west of our meeting place.

Thankyou very much for sharing information on other civs positions, I have met a scout of Selrahc's to the east, but he hasn't responded to my greeting yet so I cannot 100% confirm his land is in that direction. He is my only other contact at this point. This leads to the obvious conclusion of there being 3 civs near the top of the map and 3 to the bottom which I'm sure you've already deduced.

As for the terrain you mentioned, I haven't seen anything different from what you've encountered, hopefully that palace water mana will make itself useful this game!

Like you I am looking to make friends not enemies and would look to work together in the future.

What I will ask of you at this time is whether your scout followed the river to reach me, if so does it connect to your capital too? Could see some nice trade route income there.

Regards

-Dantski[/COLOR]

[Irgy]

I've continued to hog the save. Dantski wasn't joking about the hill giant:


I went 1NW. From there, I can safely head 1W onto a plains hill unless I see the giant has moved NW himself.

At home, the farm has finished, and growth is now just 2 turns away:

[Mardoc]

I've continued to hog the save. Dantski wasn't joking about the hill giant

And, now that you have scouted the same tiles I did in my slightly different play this morning, I can talk now without feeling like a dirty cheater! I was definitely going to leave this save for you regardless to make sure that spoiler knowledge didn't affect our play.

In particular, the sheep makes me think that c??? might actually be a decent place to found, so long as we either get Dantski's permission or resolve to ignore it since we have Centaurs and he doesn't. . That gets that site up to 3 animal resources, an oasis, a gold, and a lot of river; add a Spring adept and it's probably even better than our capital. Water mana will be precious this game, but is surprisingly common - we, the Elohim, and the Lanun all have it.

At home, the farm has finished, and growth is now just 2 turns away:

What makes sense with the worker while we wait on further techs? I'm inclined to suggest now's the time for a couple more farms; worst case we can always pave them over later for urban development. They might be useful, and besides, there's nothing else for the worker at the moment anyway, the downside to going Mysticism first.

[Irgy]

In particular, the sheep makes me think that c??? might actually be a decent place to found, so long as we either get Dantski's permission or resolve to ignore it since we have Centaurs and he doesn't. . That gets that site up to 3 animal resources, an oasis, a gold, and a lot of river; add a Spring adept and it's probably even better than our capital. Water mana will be precious this game, but is surprisingly common - we, the Elohim, and the Lanun all have it.

I think we should be able to claim c. No-one else will want the site itself, though they might want to overlap the rings. More to the point though, we're only going to settle 3 cities, so if we settle one there it just gives them a chance to expand into our land instead.

Or so we'll have them think - obviously we plan to have settlements all over our land anyway...

What makes sense with the worker while we wait on further techs? I'm inclined to suggest now's the time for a couple more farms; worst case we can always pave them over later for urban development. They might be useful, and besides, there's nothing else for the worker at the moment anyway, the downside to going Mysticism first.

Definately farms. We need farms in order to grow to 8 population. We don't want to have to work 1 food tiles yet. The 2f1h1c tiles seem poor, but it's still quite a boost to grow into them.

We farm the two rivered plains north of the capital, then head south and farm the cows, and keep farming down there until Education is in.

The workers (I say plural because we should build another before Education finishes) have literally nothing else to do anyway.

[Mardoc]

I think we should be able to claim c. No-one else will want the site itself, though they might want to overlap the rings. More to the point though, we're only going to settle 3 cities, so if we settle one there it just gives them a chance to expand into our land instead.

Or so we'll have them think - obviously we plan to have settlements all over our land anyway...

Unless we find a better site, then, let's plan on it. It'll mean that KoTE needs to be an earlyish tech, though; even just founding on desert makes me nervous from the defense standpoint, let alone leaving half the extra-big fat cross unusable. Maybe right after Writing?

And, of course half-price settlers are just hard to resist, they're like potato chips!

[Irgy]

Unless we find a better site, then, let's plan on it. It'll mean that KoTE needs to be an earlyish tech, though; even just founding on desert makes me nervous from the defense standpoint, let alone leaving half the extra-big fat cross unusable. Maybe right after Writing?

I really think we ought to get Exploration first. It's not like it's an expensive tech anyway. Crafting I could go either way with. The only other one on the list is Calendar. I think we should decide on that one later. Otherwise I agree that KotE has made its way onto the list of techs to get early.

The other issue is the worldspell. Personally, I'm perfectly happy to blow it popping the borders on our second or third city. Using it to make a massive land grab with settlements in preparation for Basium taking over that land later on is certainly a decent option.

And, of course half-price settlers are just hard to resist, they're like potato chips!

Yum. All the more reason for Exploration though, no point having settlements before then

[Irgy]

So, Mardoc, lurkers, what think you all of this? Haven't sent it yet, as it's long and says a lot of stuff (as opposed to my usual long and says nothing much), and I'd like someone else to look at it.

[COLOR="Magenta"]Hi Ichabod

Thanks for the frank and detailed communication.

I'm not that fussed either way with the roleplay stuff. It's good fun but it shouldn't be a significant barrier to prompt and clear communication. I don't tend to use it much myself, but I'm happy for others to. The stay away from the city stuff I took to mean you didn't want our scout sitting for instance on your 2SE diagonal, from where we could declare war and capture an abandoned city (or one made empty by a Mistform) in the one turn. Which was fair enough anyway. In any case we decided we'd prefer to make new contacts and scout our own territory rather than spy on yours.

We sent the scout south, which I thought was away from your dungeon. I thought the dungeon in question was to the west of your capital, but I gather you just meant to the west of where the scout and warrior met. I think I can see the dungeon itself actually (revealed by the tower). We've found a hill giant wandering about to the south, just northwest of the Elohim borders. It's not named though, so I gather it's not your one? Usually the dungeon bosses are named. The desert will spawn its own hill giants. In any case, our scout is still alive and scouting, and is not under any direct threat this turn.

I wouldn't lose too much sleep over the prospect that you might have sent a mistform into Jkaen's territory. Popping lairs on other players' borders is a perfectly legitimate tactic, if admittedly a somewhat unbalanced and cheesy one. I won my first ever (well, first completed not first started) FFH multiplayer game in about 15 turns doing that, it was great, if a little lame in its way too If there's no agreement to disallow it then it's fair game. That you might have done it somewhat by accident is just the way it goes sometimes. Maybe I'll have a different view when my worker dies to a mistform though

We're glad to hear you've found a spot for your second city. With how close together everyone appears to be, it's actually a little awkward for us to fit our large cities in without stepping over into other people's territories. The best site for a second city that we've reveal so far is actually near that gold. It picks up quite a few resources, mostly in the third ring. It's full of desert, but we can eventually fix that thanks to our water mana. The only trouble is it's right in the middle of ourselves, yourself and Dantski, which we admit is a little rude. However, at the end of the day we only have three real cities to work with, so we don't really expect to end up taking up too much of other people's territory. The site is of course pending our exploring in other directions for alternatives.

I'm kind of glad you raised the question of RoK. Since you've asked straight out, I'll tell you. We have something of a plan to make the most of our temporary philosophical trait by rushing to Mysticism and running some specialists. Ideally we want an early Academy out of it, however we'll get it twice as fast by running both a scientist (from Elder Council) and a priest (from Pagan Temple). This gives us a risk though of popping a Great Prophet instead. And the best thing to do with a Great Prophet at this stage of the game is to bulb Runes of Kilmorph for the eventual Shrine. Bulbing that tech is a popular strategy

We figured you might be likely to use RoK whether you had the shrine or not, making it even more appealing as you would spread it for us. We are fairly confident we could beat you to it, as between philosophical and running both speicialists we can get the Prophet four times as fast as you could. You have a head start with Crafting, but it wouldn't be enough to hard research WotE before we'd get to mining ourselves.

We made this plan before even meeting you. However, we were then a a little unsure about it, as we don't want it to cause a rift - especially since you are in fact our preferred candidate for a long term ally. So I guess I'm saying you might be able to talk us out of it. Or of course we might just pop a scientist instead and save you the trouble

Best wishes,
Irgith Lorda of the Kuriotates[/COLOR]

[Irgy]

This message to Dantski on the other hand doesn't say much at all, so I've sent it already.

[COLOR="Magenta"]Hi Dantski

Your in-game message was somewhat blank. The in-game messaging is a little unreliable at the best of times. You can type text in, but until you press enter it doesn't appear up the top and the message never gets through. However, if you have numlock in the "wrong" position, the enter key doesn't work at all. Just clicking send with the text typed into the box doesn't fix it, you just get a blank message. I've also heard people say it doesn't always get through right regardless when there's nothing to offer to trade, although I haven't confirmed this. Long story short though numlock is probably the key you need.

It doesn't matter though. We moved west, then on the next turn saw the giant you were referring to (one of them at least anyway), and moved safely away from it. Hopefully we'll make it through.

As far as the river goes, we haven't followed it exactly. I expect it does in fact connect, but I would need to reveal a few extra tiles to confirm it. If so though you've raised a good point - researching fishing might actually be worthwhile for the trade routes.

And yes, we agree with your conclusion about the layout, specifically we think it's a cylindrical (maybe toroidal) map with the players laid out:
x x x
x x x

With the info about Selrahc's location, we can just about place everyone on that map, just one ambiguity of Jkaen and Sciz.

That's a symmetric layout, and from what I've seen so far the gods seem to like symmetry.

Best Wishes,
Irgith Lorda of the Kuriotates.[/COLOR]

[Mardoc]

I really think we ought to get Exploration first. It's not like it's an expensive tech anyway. Crafting I could go either way with. The only other one on the list is Calendar. I think we should decide on that one later. Otherwise I agree that KotE has made its way onto the list of techs to get early.

Fair enough. It's probably silly to be planning quite this far in advance when all sorts of things could change our plans. For the moment the focus needs to be on getting our tech rate up high enough that these choices aren't so painful

The other issue is the worldspell. Personally, I'm perfectly happy to blow it popping the borders on our second or third city. Using it to make a massive land grab with settlements in preparation for Basium taking over that land later on is certainly a decent option.

If we do settle c, then we'll probably need the worldspell right away; its first ring has exactly 1 tile worth working at all (pre-KoTE), the desert hill gold. We ought to be able to handle landgrab well enough by spreading Order everywhere, and it's even fairly cheap to do so since most of the time you get your missionary back.

On the Ichabod message, I like it, but I might break it into two messages to be parceled out separately and discussed in series. Probably start with Kilmorph since he asked directly, and later on talk about cities. They're both important topics to us, and we don't want to risk confusion or one being dropped. It's unlikely that anything else newsworthy will come up in the next dozen turns anyway, and so that would also give us an excuse to keep talking, which also usually helps relations.