[SPOILERS] The Peaceful Centaur: a Study in Possibility

[Irgy]

Whatever we use needs to be simple and easy for the other teams to remember. Maybe Irgith Lorda and Marglith Lorda, depending on who's talking?

That's kind of what I've been doing already, but what I meant was the name as it appears in pink in the little score box in the bottom right - currently "51: [Cardith Lorda] (Good)"

Probably best to keep our mind open and decide as the situation warrants.

Agreed.

At the moment, if we rush anyone, it probably shouldn't be Ichabod,

Agreed.

although it might be worth a detour southward to make Dantski burn his worldspell?

Much better if someone else does it for us.

Looking at the graphs isn't terribly enlightening, but a couple things stand out. First, Dantski settled first turn, although I think we already knew that. Dantski's been all over the place with what tiles he's working - his manufacturing has been at 3, 5, and 4. There's an amusing culture pause at turn 3 - I'm sure he switched civics when the pop-up came . Finally, it appears he's built 2 warriors already.

Dear oh dear. I'm guessing he starts in pacifism too, right? Or is it religion? It must be pacifism because he wouldn't have bothered switching out of religion surely. I can't really talk when I forgot to revolt T0 as well, though at least I had the sense to postpone it and build other things to compensate. I can't really criticise his warriors + Mysticism start either when I've done it myself, although if I'd had irrigated wheat and sod-all else to work I'm pretty sure I'd have gone worker+agriculture instead.

I'm fairly well inclined to leave him be really. I'm probably being arrogant in saying this and may well regret it, but I'm not that concerned about him as a long term threat. He's not that great to rush either because we have to give him 20 turns to prepare. So I say all else being equal we let him do his own thing.

Although maybe you're right about getting him to pop his world spell. I wonder how he'd react to us saying the following at some point:
"Look, we've declared war, but we don't really want to wipe you out. We just want to force you to pop your world spell, as we can't conscionably go into the late game with you still having that world spell available. Once it's gone though we'll be happy to co-operate with you for the future. We hope you understand."

[Mardoc]

That's kind of what I've been doing already, but what I meant was the name as it appears in pink in the little score box in the bottom right - currently "51: [Cardith Lorda] (Good)"

Hmm. The Lorda Family?

Much better if someone else does it for us.

Good point. There's a lot of potential aggressors in this game, particularly given the paucity of good land. If we can just demonstrate our strength, one or another is bound to divert south.

Dear oh dear. I'm guessing he starts in pacifism too, right? Or is it religion? It must be pacifism because he wouldn't have bothered switching out of religion surely. I can't really talk when I forgot to revolt T0 as well, though at least I had the sense to postpone it and build other things to compensate. I can't really criticise his warriors + Mysticism start either when I've done it myself, although if I'd had irrigated wheat and sod-all else to work I'm pretty sure I'd have gone worker+agriculture instead.

I'm fairly well inclined to leave him be really. I'm probably being arrogant in saying this and may well regret it, but I'm not that concerned about him as a long term threat. He's not that great to rush either because we have to give him 20 turns to prepare. So I say all else being equal we let him do his own thing.

Although maybe you're right about getting him to pop his world spell. I wonder how he'd react to us saying the following at some point:
"Look, we've declared war, but we don't really want to wipe you out. We just want to force you to pop your world spell, as we can't conscionably go into the late game with you still having that world spell available. Once it's gone though we'll be happy to co-operate with you for the future. We hope you understand."

I, um, I don't know what to say

[Irgy]

Message sent to Dantski.

[COLOR="Magenta"]Greetings!

As you have presumably seen for yourself by now, our scout has reached the borders of your lands. We saw them in the fog last turn and diverted to make contact.

So far we have made contact with both yourself and also Ichabod's dwarves. Both of us are to the north, with Ichabod then a little to the west and ourselves a little to the east, forming something of an equilateral triangle sitting on its tip between the three of us. Have you made any other contact? Based on our guess of the map layout, we expect you'll find other civs to your direct east and west, we'd be interested to hear which ones they turn out to be.

We have yet to find anything other than plains, desert, and a little bit of tundra. Have you had any better luck?

We are hopeful for peaceful and co-operative relations, and look forward to working with you in the future.

Irgith Lorda of the Kuriotates[/COLOR]

I specifically don't mention Ichabod's mistform problems, for now at least. For reasons which seemed compelling earlier but frankly escape me now. I think I just didn't want Dantski taking the opportunity to rush him?

[Mardoc]

And on that note, message received from Ichabod, which explains how he still has two warriors, among other things:

[COLOR="SandyBrown"]Hey Irgy and Mardoc,

You may have noticed that I dropped the roleplaying and in-character speech. It takes me a long time to write it and it isn't that good anyways (not to say outright bad - my dwarf seemed more like an irish man or a pirate). I thought about just talking about dwarven stuff without the accent, but I don't know much about dwarven lore, so there's no point. This way I can make myself more clear and avoid misunderstandings.

The whole don't scout my capital area was just dwarven role-play. You can take a look around the city if you'd like, but I must warn you that there are a lot of dangers around (I talk with more details about it later). I'm bordering tundra to the north, so there's nothing much to see up there. There are some resources to the east, but mostly desert and plains. I haven't scouted west yet.

The problem is that I stopped scouting after popping the dungeon. It was a really dumb move and I'm still kicking myself about it (together with the WW3 game that was going on, there was a lot of kicking happening, rest assured). When it happened I was really worried that my game was going to take a major setback. Only after some turns I realized that I could have ruined someone else's game with my stupidity and I felt really bad about it. I think I got a little bit delusional with all the good lair results from the other PBEM games and since I couldn't pop dungeons in my last game (playing as the Clan), I was really eager to do it. Truth be told, I would have probably reloaded the turn if I knew about the mistform (the dungeon popped a mistform and a hill giant), since it can be a major game breaker, but I only found out about it when reading the event log in the next turn.

I'm afraid that the mistform may have gone to haunt Jkaen's city, due to a comment that he made on Square Leg's FFH PBEM V thread (I cannot confirm, since I didn't meet him yet). It has been quite a few turns since I popped the dungeon and the mistform haven't attacked my city and from what I understand about your message, it hasn't attacked your scout either, even though he went that way (since you know about the gold). Well, I'd have to wait and see.

Did you find any good spot for your second megacity? The game's map is looking to be very though to the kuriotates, since they are all about cities with a lot of population (you can get a pretty big happy cap) and that's going to be very difficult to achieve here. My civ is about a few powerful cities too, but at least my bonuses are connected to gold, not population, so it's not that bad. But look at the bright side, at least we didn't have to walk 4-5 turns just to find water to settle our capital :P.

I found a nice spot for a second city. I thought about settling the gold with the second city, but decided against it. The surrounding terrain is just too bad and is a little too far for a second city. The only benefit would be the commerce, anyway, since I have the palace gold.

Well, guess that's all I have to say right now. The game is just beggining, anyway. Ah, just a last thing: if the mistform end up going your way and you manage to defeat it, please let me know. I'd like to compensate the one damaged by my stupidity. Maybe a palace mana loan for some turns or something like that.

Well, another last thing before I say goodbye: are you planning to tech Runes of Kilmorph? I'll do a beeline of some sorts to it, since it is really helpful for the Khazad. I don't exactly need the holy city (the mithril golem is not my plan to win the game :P), but it would be a nice bonus. Feel free to not answer the question if you don't want to. It's just out of curiosity. I'm a trusted villager, so you can believe me ;D. Well, I was, at least...

Good luck on the next turns and on the game!

Ichabod[/COLOR]

I don't see much point in keeping quiet anything in particular we have to talk about. I like his reference to being all about few cities - that suggests he wouldn't be too put out if we have to settle towards him.

And...now's the time to start our negotiations for leaving RoK behind like we always intended to

[Acalostas]

The other thing I forgot to ask is what to call ourselves in game. I'm happy to stick with Cardith Lorda mind you. We could have some hybrid thing like "Irgith Mordac" or whatever you'd prefer?

How about Mardith Lorda and Irgobates?

[Irgy]

The highlight of this turn was the following important missive from Ethne:


Oh and I moved the scout west.

[Mardoc]

At this rate, we might manage two turns today, too! We may not be able to organize a blitz, but we're smoking otherwise!

I had assumed you'd be asleep and grabbed the save myself, so I sent out a 'please delete' message to Jkaen regarding mine.

[Irgy]

Oops, hope you moved the scout west as well then

It was only 10pm here when I played it you know. Daylight savings has shifted our time difference 2 hours closer together.

[Mardoc]

Oops, hope you moved the scout west as well then

It was only 10pm here when I played it you know. Daylight savings has shifted our time difference 2 hours closer together.

I guess I was still in PBEM 3 mode where the blitz ended about then because it was midnight your time. And I thought that was something you could only do on weekends.

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?

[Azoth]

...and I've now finished reading the thread. I might have picked a poor time to start lurking (end of term exams are just around the corner) but that means I'll have some more time to hang around the forums very soon. Because if its opinions you're looking for, I tend to have more than my fair share...

Overall, I have to say I'm impressed with the amount of thought and planning you've put into the Mercurian strategy. I don't think you need to worry about a pre-Gate victory; so long as there's some Copper around, human players with Bronze warriors will last until Tier III units at least, and that should be enough time to get the angels into play. (A centaur pillaging party might be a good idea either way.)

Still, the Kuriorates seem an unconventional choice for a Mercurian rush. A strong early economy helps you get to Fanaticism faster but you will need to give up a megacity to the Mercurians when they arrive. (You'll want to test this, but in SP, a summoned civ is controlled by the AI for one turn even if you choose to switch. And the Basium AI will always use his ability and claim the Gate city, which is why you can't build the Gate in your capital.) So either you plan for one of your megacities to be the permanent Mercurian capital with a normal city radius; or you line up three settlements to gift to the Mercurians right away, so that they can rebuild the palace somewhere else and eventually gift the megacity back. A bit awkward, no?