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Lord Parkin Wrote:As requested, I can sub from 5-19 June. Let me know if there's a particular plan you want me to follow (so I don't go off on some random tangent  ). Also let me know if you're involved in or are anticipating a war with anyone. Peacetime turns are of course quicker and easier to sub for, but I could manage wartime turns if necessary... just need to know what the situation is ahead of time. 
That's fantastic. Thanks mate. The basic plan is 'nab all land possible. Grow cottages everywhere or work lighthouse'd coast to afford it'. Don't die.
I have no NAPs and no wars at the moment. I could probly get a few NAPs though so i'll try to get those cleared up before i hand over. There will be a significant update after my next turn (sometime tonight) as there will be a lot to report i hope!
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Ok, significant update was kinda hi-jacked by craziness on the diplo front. (sorry LP!)
First things first, i landed the HG with 11 cities and my crop yield is now ~30 better than second place which is sweet. Need to leverage that food into tech though. Currently teching Metal Casting so i can produce forges and triremes. Triremes maybe vital unfortunately...
To the matter at hand and which i'm sure i'm being slaughtered for in the suddenly active again lurker thread: Novice+Spaceman. Nospace for short. Nospace have played a great game thus far. They have the pyramids and ten cities and are doing well in the demographics. However, all that is kind of irrelevant besides the fact they have The Great Lighthouse on a continents + islands map.
Why was this wonder not banned? How stupid of us all not to pick up on this before hand. On this map, The Great Lighthouse is the alpha, the omega, the jesus christ himself. Nothing beats it. Nothing. Any average player with The Great Lighthouse- on this map- would win. That is not me saying that Nospace are average. Far from it, they're very skilled. This is stating a fact. The Great Lighthouse should be alongside war elephants in being automatically banned from games. It's overpowered beyond belief.
Let's take The Great Lighthouse out the equation- as if it never existed and Nospace had spent those hammers in settlers+workers (the next optimal situation). Nospace would most likely be in first place currently in terms of crop yield and mfg. However, they'd be dead last in GNP. Just look at Rego- his GNP is woeful being the only non-financial civ on this crazy map. This map demanded financial. The only way to counter-balance financial was to build the Great Lighthouse. This is evidenced by the only two non-financial picks- Bismarck of Inca and Sury of India. Both of these picks were made with the intention of building The Great Lighthouse. Nospace beat Rego to it and Rego is now irrelevant in this game. Nospace outplayed Rego. I put to you that NO player, in my shoes from turn 0 in this game, could have kept up with Nospace thanks to that crazy GNP. Not Sullla, Speaker or anyone. If you want evidence of that, look at the other people in the game and just how far everyone is behind. Everyone in this game knows their civ.
However, could any of the rest of us have beaten them to it? Nope. India was already gone and nothing beats fast workers unless i also went industrious... with inca and india off the table. My best pick would therefore have been Huayna Capac of Dutch. Would this have beaten expansive Fast Workers to the great lighthouse? Possibly but i remain unconvinced.
Every other civ has declared war on Nospace to kill their trade routes income and force them to build some military. Some broke agreements to do so. Darrell and Krill had made a deal which let them settle on Nospace's jungle arm in exchange for open borders. Shoot the Moon had agreed to let them send a Great Merchant his way for a trade mission safely. He promptly killed it. Both of these are huge betrayals and worse than breaking a NAP in my opinion and i encouraged them both. Does that make me as bad as them?
That depends on your view i guess. I would not have commited either act myself but i don't think that encouraging someone to do something and actually doing it are anything like the same thing. Of course i wanted them to do it. I want to win and thanks to the overpowered wonder, it was an impossibility. I'm in second position and would prefer to be in first. It would be wrong of me to *not* play to win. At what cost? My Morals? Nope, not for me but apparently yes for some people. I don't feel bad about what's happened or my role in it.
Let's review the situation i had with Nospace this game:
they are aware of my location but we haven't officialy met. They abuse this knowledge to attempt to settle islands significantly nearer both Shoot the Moon and myself without my knowledge. Islands clearly under my sphere of influence. They get caught in the act and novice's attitude is 'So what'. Those were his words. I bluffed a war declaration to force them to back down and had to offer open borders to get this to happen peacefully. I have 11 cities, but was at 9 for most of the period of OB. They were therefore getting ~18g per turn from my OB which they had for five turns.
I think 90g is more than enough gold considering there was no official agreement in place. In fact, not only was no agreement, they didn't even reply to my email. Nada. Just an offer ingame of OB. I was never even told that their units were leaving although i haven't seen them since. How long should i leave the borders open for this to be fair? Their GNP even without open borders with anyone is #1 by a distance. So, what was the correct action, to call the game and replay with banning the wonder probably. However, Shoot the Moon, Krill, Darrell and Rego through the 3 others all wanted to act. They were willing to break various agreements to do so. I helped make it happen. This game is a contest once again and i'll probably be slated for saying this but there is a significant diplomatic failing here by Nospace. Why didn't they get fixed durations of open borders with people? Minimums at least. Why didn't they sign NAPs as part of their deals? Perhaps it's naivete diplomatically but this game was always going to be cutthroat.
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Ooh dear - I wasn't expecting this!
I can see where you're coming from but its a very very fine line you are treading here. It sounds like you have all shafted nospace pretty royally and brutally.
I can't see how you can put this as a diplo failing by nospace when you said before that a lot of you guys broke deals to achieve this. Seems like they had it sewn up well and I don't think anyone could have reasonably seen it coming. The Great Merchant thing sounds completely vicious!
What I don't understand is how you guys didn't see the Great Lighthouse being so broken before the game, especially as you all knew the layout of the map?
Ah well, what's done is done even if it could be something which tars a lot of you in this game for a bit. I think the lurker thread could be fuming right now!
"You want to take my city of Troll%ng? Go ahead and try."
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Twinkletoes89 Wrote:Ooh dear - I wasn't expecting this!
I can see where you're coming from but its a very very fine line you are treading here. It sounds like you have all shafted nospace pretty royally and brutally.
Well, not really. They still have The Great Lighthouse and have a large tech lead. Their GNP still dwarves us and we're second.
Twinkletoes89 Wrote:I can't see how you can put this as a diplo failing by nospace when you said before that a lot of you guys broke deals to achieve this. Seems like they had it sewn up well and I don't think anyone could have reasonably seen it coming. The Great Merchant thing sounds completely vicious!
Very vicious! Well, he could have signed NAPs with people for one, but you're right in that they may have been broken regardless. If he'd have offered me a NAP, i'd have taken one and i wouldn't have broken it. If he'd set a minimum duration on the OB, i'd have followed this. I'd have cancelled the turn after but i'd have gone through on the agreements. If i hadn't said yes, then the dogpile scenario probably would never have happened.
However, it's still royally harsh as others clearly broke explicitly stated agreements.
Twinkletoes89 Wrote:What I don't understand is how you guys didn't see the Great Lighthouse being so broken before the game, especially as you all knew the layout of the map?
Not a clue. It's so obvious and we all should have known better.
Twinkletoes89 Wrote:Ah well, what's done is done even if it could be something which tars a lot of you in this game for a bit. I think the lurker thread could be fuming right now!
It probably is but i just wanted to put my perspective for them to tear into.
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Well i won a game (pbem9) where were lot of islands (not exactly like here) but were quite a few and the builder(Kodii) was financial too.The solution very easy don't open borders and get some military presure on the enemy.I think loosing the mids to them was the final point because having both they became very strong.Mids and good food can beat GLH, but yeah nothing can beat Mids ,GLH and good food.
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mackoti Wrote:Well i won a game (pbem9) where were lot of islands (not exactly like here) but were quite a few and the builder(Kodii) was financial too.The solution very easy don't open borders and get some military presure on the enemy.I think loosing the mids to them was the final point because having both they became very strong.Mids and good food can beat GLH, but yeah nothing can beat Mids ,GLH and good food.
I agree with your last sentence entirely.
The problem is that this game has been set up as a builders game essentially, with everyone having their own continent etc. If i had spent hammers on military and sent them at Nospace, they would have been slowed slightly, but so would I. I would just be last and give someone else a slightly better chance at catching up. All the players in this game are too good to not punish slip ups.
The Great Lighthouse > all on water heavy maps. I believe it was Sullla who once said that he believes the wonder should be banned. I, along with the others, should have picked up on this way before it started though.
So dumb 
Oh well, said my piece to Spaceman tonight. He was fairly nonchalant but i expect some trouble. I finish MC next turn and will build a few triremes. Darrell had a city razed by nospace this turn. What i don't understand is why people still think diplomacy is an almost illegitimate part of the game. It's far from it, it's so incredibly key in multiplayer civ and in games on these forums so far. An average player with incredible diplo can beat an incredible player with average diplo. Nospace admitted they didnt want diplomacy allowed, they voted to ban it but were outvoted. However, they didn't adapt to that decision and did not even try to set up NAPs with people. When you are in first place have have double GNP of second place- that's a diplomatic failing however you spin it.
On that note, i have now:
NAP with Shoot the Moon until turn 100
NAP with Darrell until turn 130
Rego is getting back to me regarding the length of a NAP. He thinks im 'the next runaway' and wants to keep his options open. He won't find the diplomatic channels quite so easy to stir though. Worst case scenario at this point is Nospace and Rego both gunning for me. Bearing in mind Darrell wants revenge for having his city razed, that's a 2v2 at worst. I can deal with that.
Parkin- i am building settlers for the last few sites which are marked. All i would ask of you is to build the necessary infra in each city (granaries/lighthouse etc) and enough military to be safe. Tech wise, im thinking compass, then maybe feudalism for longbows before getting back on the economic beeline with Code of Laws etc. Let's see if we can't get Lib
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Ok, this may be my last post before holidays as i can't guarantee to get access tommorow. I'll be around tonight if anyone has any questions though.
Plan:
Expand to marked sites. There are currently four marked city locations. One settler is already en route to one and the other settlers are in production and finish shortly. However, to avoid potential mistakes the city locations are:
1. Mid-way up the jungle arm for gems/iron.
2. Top of the jungle arm for bananas and sugar
3. End of my non-jungle arm for horse
4. Island to SW for coastal tiles. Best bet is to farm some of that grassland to let the city grow and then replace these with cottages.
Once these locations are settled, just build basic necessary infra. Economy is goal number 1. We're creative for half price libraries. Granary -> lighthouse (if relevant) -> library is a fairly usual order. My food count is insane so make good use of the whip.
Tech wise, grabbing Feudalism next via monarchy is likely my best bet. Novice/spaceman don't like us much. I would like at least 4 triremes in the water. 3 of these should assist darrell or shoot the moon in defending vs nospace as per previous diplomatic agreements. Generally, just head everything south. Do not look to take on the indian cities themselves. Fight a defensive war and assist the others in doing so but no more than that. The whole world is at war with Nospace.
A great scientist should be born soon, working 1 scientist at boatmurdered currently. Increase that to two once whip penalty has worn off. Use Scientist for an academy in our top science city (the capital i would assume). Build cottages everywhere.
Happiness is an issue. Calendar might be worth slotting in before feudalism *if* we can get it quickly. If so, i'll let you make that call. It will likely be worth it. I don't think we'll need any more workers but i could be wrong. Various other religions will be sending us missionaries. I haven't chosen one for sure yet but am leaning towards judaism. Regoarrar is most likely to built the Apostolic Palace after all being industrious.
Use the galleys to unlock trade routes with Rego and Shoot once they have finished their settler and worker ferrying.
That's all i can think of for now. I will PM you my email account name and password as that will be the easiest by far to use for diplo and playing the turns. All the other civs are on the contact list. They are:
Novice/spacemanmf - Sury of India
Darreljs/Krill - Elizabeth of Egypt
Shoot the Moon - Pacal of Ottomans
Regoarrar - Bismarck of Inca
Egypt owe us 30gold which they should pay back within the next 2 turns maximum. We are close with Darrell/Krill especially but have good relations with Shoot also. Rego is a bit more practical and unwilling to get too tied in with us. We have a 25 turn NAP with Rego starting next turn. I wouldn't be too surprised to see him turn on us after that, but we have a decent chance of securing support in that case from Egypt as we're supporting them a fair bit currently.
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Thanks for the info. Awaiting the next save so I can check out the specifics of the in-game situation.
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Okay, well my first thought is that more Workers are needed. You have 9 currently for 12 cities (soon 16 cities). So yeah, definitely a bit low, even accounting for the archipelago map and low happy cap.  Still plenty of unhooked resources and forests to chop, not to mention cottages and mines to build.
Monarchy is better than Calendar for happiness purposes, as we have Wine and there's HR - so that's probably the way to go as you say you want to head towards Feudalism anyway. (Not quite sure I'd prioritise Feudalism at this point myself, incidentally, but I'll follow your wishes.)
Not entirely sure why we declared war on novice/spacemanmf when we have no army. If the aim was to deny GLH trade routes, closing borders should have been enough. Bit confused about that, as it now leaves us open for attack while we should still be expanding. Hopefully novice/spacemanmf are in a similar predicament so won't want to bother attacking either, but we'll see.
Noticed Thelsamar was working 2f/1c cottage when it could work 3f/3c oasis from a neighbouring city which wasn't working it... oops. Fixed it. Switched around a couple of other tiles too for slight (growth/build) optimization.
I think we need more military around in general, not just because of the war but because HR is right on the horizon. That'll pretty much be a lifesaver for us, especially since we can still spam Warriors (yay for delaying Hunting!). Of course, have to keep an eye on the southern front too. I'll build and prebuild some more Axes particularly in the south just in case an attack comes. Can't start on Triremes until next turn (MC).
Question for the lurkers - is there a particular city naming list I should be sticking with? Looks like there's some kind of theme going on, but I'm not sure what it is.
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Lord Parkin Wrote:Question for the lurkers - is there a particular city naming list I should be sticking with? Looks like there's some kind of theme going on, but I'm not sure what it is. It was dwarven fortresses last time around this subject came up, I think this is still the case. If you look for my post earlier in the thread it has a link to a list of potential names. Maybe some of them are still unused.
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