[SPOILERS-PBEM15] One Noob and his Helper - v8mark and Kyan are Darius of HRE

[v8mark]

Turn 8

Time for a catch-up post.

First of all, I don't need to post anything other than the screenshot to convey my thoughts as to the land I've just uncovered. Behold, the land of milk and honey...



Other than that, I've got demographics for the last two turns to catch up with. However, here are Turn 8's - there were no changes whatsoever between these and the Turn 7 demographics:



One of the really frustrating things about playing these games during the week is that I have very little time to stop and analyse things. But you can see that, on Turn 7, three people discovered a tech. Here's what I think they were:

Piet: Hunting. A 4-turn tech, so it really must be. Additionally, top GNP's gone up to 21, which I'm sure is Piet teching AH after discovering Hunting.

TT: A 6-turn tech, so either Ag or the Wheel. He started with Wheel, so it must be Agriculture.

Ioan: A bit more puzzling. A 7-turn tech. There are no 7-turn techs in the first ring, and we know he didn't research anything with a pre-req because he's creative and his GNP was only 19.

Here's what I think happened. Remember that on the first turn, top GNP was 20? I think Ioan started researching something with a pre-req (he starts with Mysticism and The Wheel, so probably a religion) and then thought better of it. So I think he's picked up a 6-turn tech, which, once again, must be Agriculture.

Techs so far:
Piet (Mansa/Ottomans): Fishing, Hunting
JKaen (Hannibal/Zulu): Mining
TT (Huayna/Mali): Agriculture
Ioan (Louis/Byzantium): Agriculture

That fits with the soldier counts: just the 2000 soldiers for Piet's Hunting, while Agriculture doesn't give any soldier points.

Turns out this C&D lark's rather easy after all...

I'll start thinking about city sites in a bit more depth tomorrow night.

[v8mark]

Turn 10

Yes, OK, I missed one. It wasn't a very exciting one. But this one is, for it brings the arrival of our first worker. That reminds me - I need a naming scheme for workers; any ideas?

Demographics are as follows:



Everyone will now have finished their worker, apart from TT who finishes after my next turn. Interestingly, someone's MFG has gone up to 4, which means they're working an 0/3 tile. I am second on 2, sadly lacking, as I do, a 3/0 tile. The farm will finish in 4 turns (another nice bonus to settling 1E was that we could reach the wheat tile and start farming on the first turn the worker came out -- we couldn't do that if we'd settled in place).

So the 0/3 person is almost definitely building a work boat, unless they're dumb, which I don't think they are. The only person to have teched Fishing so far is Piet, which means that he is the culprit. Everyone else is surely building a warrior; as am I. He's due in 4 turns.

Further exploration yielded a mountain range to the south west, which is interesting. The plan is for the scout to circle round to the south then back out to the west, going round in concentric quarter-circles, or thereabouts. There's nothing of interest to the north or east, certainly.

[v8mark]

Turn 11

More goodies in the south but ending turn revealed no horses

[v8mark]

Turn 12

AH splashscreen on loading. The tremendously disappointing lack of equine activity has already been noted.



In other news - contact!



We have met Piet of the Ottomans (rebranded to the Morporkians - glad to see some more Discworld references on RB).

[COLOR="Green"]Hi T-I,

appended is your save.

our warrior met your scout north of our capital. Hope he had a good travel through the wilderness so far.

How are the holy roman people ? I hope you had some good years until now. Did you by chance meet anyone else already ?

Looking out for a good neighbourship.

Piet[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Yellow"]Hail and well met! Our scout has been on a long and lonely journey, and he was very pleased to meet a warrior as friendly as that of the Morporkians (I presume he came from Ankh instead...?)

You are our first outside contacts in the world -- have you happened across anyone else in your travels?

Looking forward to a long and prosperous friendship. If there is anything your people need from us, do not hesitate to ask.

Yours cordially,
T-I[/COLOR]

Now, if he were one tile closer, this would constitute an emergency. However, he's 4 tiles away from my capital as things stand, and my warrior is ready in 3, so we're OK. He'll see my cultural borders next turn. Hopefully he doesn't get any poor ideas.

Currently, we know the following about Piet:
- he has researched Fishing and Hunting so far
- he has four water tiles on his capital
- he started worker first, and is building a work boat



TT and Ioan have discovered a technology! Over to the C&D department...

TT
Started with Mining and The Wheel, researched Agriculture first. He last discovered something 5 turns ago - I thought it must have been with a pre-req, simply because Rival Worst GNP has been up as high as 19. But there's soldier point increase, so it's not AH or BW - so unless it was Pottery, it can't be anything with a pre-req...

It's too many beakers for Fishing, and we know he only has two lake tiles. This leaves Mysticism? This would make some sense - he's Industrious, and so he may be going for an early Stonehenge; we know how much he likes his shinies. I'd like to know why his GNP was higher than 17 though. Maybe he's been working one of his lake tiles? In which case, I'd have thought he'd have discovered Myst last turn... confusing.

Ioan
Started with Myst/Wheel, researched Ag first. Again, a 5-turn tech, without a prereq. Mining fits, but again, no soldier point increases. Meh, I don't know. Need to think about it.

No pay rises this time.

[Kyan]

Ooh fun times. Considering his unit is a warrior and not a scout... we're rather close. We might look to try and claim that land sooner rather than later.

Or... seek significant recompense for letting him settle there. Including a nice long NAP. He's new to RB so i have nothing on him as a player. I'd advise to be free with giving info, especially you can possibly use the info that we don't have a lot of room to expand into- to try and leverage getting that area under our control.

[v8mark]

Yup, I think so too. We *need* that city with the wheat/rice/gold...

[v8mark]

OK - well apparently we're extremely close, because that site is 4 tiles from his capital he's planning to settle it 2nd. If that's the case there's not a whole lot I can do about it...

[v8mark]

Turn 14

So I need to make a decision about cities.



Piet has told me that he plans to settle 2S of the rice tile as his second city. A curious choice -- without food in the first ring -- but I can't particularly do anything about this. There's a potential city site that picks up the southern wheat and the spices, but frankly it's a bit weak. I might make sure I can settle it later on, as the lakes will make 3-0-3 tiles, and at least allow the city to contribute in some way.

But I think much more important is to cut off the western part of the map with two cities -- one of which will be the aforementioned production city, the other of which will claim the floodplains. I think these are probably my first two cities, and they should go up ASAP.

,

The more I look at it, the more I think it should be split between three rather than two actually. There's certainly enough food for three cities there, and on these settings, having more cities is likely to be better. I'll have a think about it.

In the meantime, the scout will continue south, in an attempt to find Piet before he settles that second city.

In other news, my warrior has been produced, the farm has been finished, and my worker is off to herd sheep. Oh, and my capital grew to size 2 at the end of last turn.

[v8mark]

Diplo:

[color="green"]Hi T-I

Yes, it should be possible to get a deal there. I will try to outline how I would imagine it.

If your capital info was correct without you having the map available (4N2E of my warriors last position, which was 1SE of the pigs), there are exactly 12 Tiles N/S-Distance between our caps, i.e. 11 Rows of tiles between them.
It should be possible to draw a line E/W somewhere there, and discuss possible exceptions as they arrive.
For example, we could start with declaring the 5th through 7th E-W row of tiles as neutral territory which no one of us settles without discussing it first.
Below this it would be my area to settle (f.e. the gold city, wich would be in my 4th row) and above it would be your area (f.e. a city claiming the pigs in your 3rd or 4th row).
Any city planned in a neutral row could be discussed. So if you want to settle a nice city spot later somewhere in the west - which would happen to be in your 5th or 6th row - just ask for it.

When we discover more of the map we can (and should) rediscuss this, according to geography, resources, and so on.

I too have not much space in the E - it is a dead end where I can fit 2 cities maximum. My S and W is at this time yet pretty unknown to me - there is ocean in the E and SE of me which may go further around. I may very well have more space in the S than you in the N - I will hopefully know more in the near future.

As we have limited map knowledge by now, we could limit this agreement to a certain turn (say - 60 or 80) and perhaps combine it with a NAP. We can start to rediscuss the agreement approx. 10 Turns before it runs out.

Would something along these lines be allright for you ?

Greetings from Ankh-Morpork,

Piet[/color]

I decided to take advantage of his limited map knowledge. All the other sites I want to secure in the west are above the E-W line he proposes, so I'm quite happy to agree to that, along with a (reasonably short-term, at first) NAP.

[color="yellow"]Hi Piet,

Apologies for the late reply here. I've finally had a chance to sit down and look at the current situation.

Firstly, to confirm the exact position of my capital, it is in fact 4N3E of that tile -- 3N4E of the pigs tile. That makes the distance between our capitals the same; 12 tiles. (I've just realised that I can *just* make out your borders SE of the peak tile).

I agree with your initial division of the land -- anything between the 5th-7th row of tiles is neutral territory, with one exception. There is nowhere directly south I would want to settle apart from 5S of my capital; just east of that lake tile. I won't want to settle this straight away -- I certainly won't be rushing to the site -- but if I can eventually claim that spot, we have a deal.

If you agree to this, I am happy to sign an NAP until Turn 60. Would that be acceptable for you?

All best,
Mark[/color]

[v8mark]

[color="green"]Hi Mark,

I am ok with that spot you want to settle. So we have a deal there.

- NAP to T60
- 5th - 7th row between our caps is neutral territory
- exception : your city 5S of your capital

Sounds really good to me.

In addition I would like an agreement about espionage. My Plan is to spend EP on you until I have graph visibility, then switch my espionage to another player. Is it ok for you to do the same ?[/color]

So that's all sorted - I think I have the better end of that deal; I have unlimited access to the flood plains, as well as anything west of that. I don't know what he has directly west of him, but it's unlikely it's as advantageous as that.