Agreed. The most important factor in whether we settle the SW shore of the lake immediately is the diplomatic situation. (I'm not sold on its tactical and strategic value). So let's see where that leads us and take it from there. we could use some better map knowledge. Damn barbs. (Although civplayas also admitted to scouting difficulty)
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Best dating advice on RB: When you can't hide your unit, go in fast and hard. -- Sullla
I got your purposals and we are currently considering it. I am sure we will be able to arrange chat during few next days. Unfortunatelly, I am very busy today and cant afford to spend enough time.
Heh, their turn player spoke too soon - their diplomat just responded too:
CivPlayers Wrote:Greetings scooter,
Allow me to introduce myself: I am Decebal, Plenipotentiary Minister of Foreign Affairs and your direct link to the ears of
our Central Government.
Your agenda contains basically most of the things we have intented to start with our discussions.
I'd like to give you a short answer before we can start detailing things:
1) 10 turns NAP is fine and we can also agree on the NAP cancellation minimum time, on the condition that our
fine relationship is not shattered by scandalous behaviour by any of our sides. I was gonna write down an example,
but we can chat about it. Your T110 should be fine, we can start from there.
2) We can start talking about those as soon as you see fit, so both our civilizations can plan ahead their developments.
3) We can sign those up as soon as we have the trade routes in place. I'd just want to point out that Open Borders
agreement is mainly for trading, it does not include right of passage. That is a separate thing to be discussed.
Looking forward to talking to you directly,
Decebal
Sounds promising. He didn't actually say when he can do a chat, so I'm going to send him a reply pretty quickly here. I'll get to that in a second.
(January 28th, 2013, 15:13)scooter Wrote: Heh, their turn player spoke too soon - their diplomat just responded too:
CivPlayers Wrote:Greetings scooter,
Allow me to introduce myself: I am Decebal, Plenipotentiary Minister of Foreign Affairs and your direct link to the ears of
our Central Government.
Your agenda contains basically most of the things we have intented to start with our discussions.
I'd like to give you a short answer before we can start detailing things:
1) 10 turns NAP is fine and we can also agree on the NAP cancellation minimum time, on the condition that our
fine relationship is not shattered by scandalous behaviour by any of our sides. I was gonna write down an example,
but we can chat about it. Your T110 should be fine, we can start from there.
2) We can start talking about those as soon as you see fit, so both our civilizations can plan ahead their developments.
3) We can sign those up as soon as we have the trade routes in place. I'd just want to point out that Open Borders
agreement is mainly for trading, it does not include right of passage. That is a separate thing to be discussed.
Looking forward to talking to you directly,
Decebal
Sounds promising. He didn't actually say when he can do a chat, so I'm going to send him a reply pretty quickly here. I'll get to that in a second.
That's a mostly encouraging reply. #2 seems that they are open to leaving that area empty for now. I could be wrong. #3, I have no problem with no scouting. Trade routes are more important. The only thing you want to address, via chat so it comes of more spontaneously and sincerely, is the phrase "on the condition that our fine relationship is not shattered by scandalous behaviour by any of our sides". We want to define the parameters of this scandalous behavior. Assumed possibles scandals to include (but not limited to):
Thanks for the quick response - much appreciated. From seeing your comments on those 3 issues, it seems like we're thinking along the same lines. That's a good sign, so I'm optimistic we can come to agreements.
Unless OT4E was speaking for both of you, when are you available to chat? My best availability is basically anytime after 6pm/1800 EST (GMT -5), but I'm not sure what timezone you're in and what day/time works for you. I can probably do a different time if know in advance. Just let me know on that one when you get a spare minute. Thanks!
scooter - Team RB
The window of approval/disapproval on this one will also be pretty short for obvious reasons.
I'm going to move discussion ahead assuming a chat will happen tonight, even though I kind of doubt that will be the case. I figure we want a solid plan in place. Our aims:
1) We want a NAP until when exactly? We're on T93, and I'm guessing we probably want it to run til T160 or so - so we can stagger it with the other NAPs we have signed (T130 CFC, T150 Germans, T175 WPC). I will plan on being willing to flex down if needed (T125 NAP would still be fine IMO), but I suspect 160 or so would be the ideal.
2) Open Borders - they of course made the distinction between OB and scouting. It sounds like their default is no-scouting, but they're willing to entertain scouting rights. I suspect we would rather allow scouting than disallow, but I also believe the team is OK with no-scouting clause should CivPlayers insist on it. So my operating assumption would be: ask for scouting allowed (don't be pushy though), but be willing to agree to a no-scouting clause
3) Border deal - this is the only one that's particularly pressing. If we can get them to agree to not settle between their newest dot and Seven Tribes (and us do the same), we can settle some of the more desirable spots. I think I may make this the top priority when I actually chat with them. The other stuff we can afford to be flexible. So the goal here is to make sure no more cities are settle between us, which means there will be a clear border. There will be some dead "no mans land" between us, but with so much superior unclaimed land out there, I think we'll both be fine with this.
Ok. Any of my assumptions on team consensus faulty?
EDIT: I made a minor wording change to the above draft to remove the phrase "flex a bit" which may not make sense to a non-native speaker
(January 28th, 2013, 15:26)Boldly Going Nowhere Wrote: That's a mostly encouraging reply. #2 seems that they are open to leaving that area empty for now. I could be wrong. #3, I have no problem with no scouting. Trade routes are more important. The only thing you want to address, via chat so it comes of more spontaneously and sincerely, is the phrase "on the condition that our fine relationship is not shattered by scandalous behaviour by any of our sides". We want to define the parameters of this scandalous behavior. Assumed possibles scandals to include (but not limited to):
aggressive settling
harmful acts of espionage
aggressive positioning of troops
etc
Thanks, scooter.
Agreed on all counts. I agree that it's primarily the border issue (will be addressed) and harmful espionage (which I should mention at some point).
Quick thought, it may be good to pin down an EP agreement too, if possible. Just enough to get graphs and then move on to others? They have an incentive to invest in us since we're the leaders, anyway to dissuade that and keep some semblance of parity would be good.
I'm good on that NAP expiration as a starter. Use your best judgement on how far/hard to push. Open Borders: Our C&D is top notch (awesome work kjn), more info is good for us. But, if they don't want to share, no big deal. I agree the border issue is the most important issue to resolve quickly. Good luck.
Agree with BGN (and thanks!). Due to APTmod, graphs are probably even more important than usual, and this is the team that can easily outspend us right now.
Furthermore, I consider that forum views should be fluid in width
Very nice work, scooter. I agree with giving our diplomats a free hand if we think we're dealing with time-sensitive information. Everything looks solid to me. With regard to those three specific questions:
1) NAP for as long as they're willing to agree, basically. I can't see any reason why we would want to fight CivPlayers when we have such weak targets to go after. Indefinite peace on our western border can only be to our advantage.
2) More information is always good for us. Asking if they're willing to let us scout but not pushing for it sounds very good. We can actually have a trade route set up in as little as two or three turns, might want to mention this so that they'll go ahead and sign Open Borders quickly.
3) Trying to prevent CivPlayers from settling more cities on our western border is indeed the top priority. I would feel a lot better about diverting this upcoming settler to the east if we had something in place with them.
ok, so i admit to slightly trolling this thread earlier re: Fintourist and doing C&D on cancelled worker actions. The point was made that CFC might see us roading. I said that Sullla cancels the actions, but they would be able to find out that we roaded it anyway with waypoint tricks.
I'm going to spoil the whole thing here to not derail the conversation, but posting the same thing in the C&D thread.
And in fact, your questioning made me doubt myself, so i fired up a quick hotseat to verify. I discovered some useful tips in doing so. i've been having some trouble with civ4 crashing lately, so it crashed before i could finish testing everything - but i got some screenshots. Actually, some things didnt sit well with me, so i loaded up the autosave and had at it again.
Indeed, since you can ROAD in another team's borders (provided you have Open Borders Agreement), if you have vision on their tiles, you can determine if any of those tiles contain half finished roads with the use of waypoints. Loading the game up again allowed me to find the trick for other improvments! Yes we can find out turns into MINES, FARMS, PLANTATIONS, etc.
Here's a shot:
Here, after waypointing a move (holding shift and moving) to the dye tile, i then hover over the "road icon" (marked with light blue) and it tells me... 1turn to road! So i know my opponent has put a half turn.
Unfortunately, there is a quite limiting and very important prerequisite. The worker you chose to investigate the tiles MUST be able to do those actions on his own tile himself. So if are checking for turns into a ROAD, he must be able to road himself. If he is on a roaded or city square, forget it. Same way with MINES - if you want to check how many turns a team has into a mine, you must be on a HILL or un-tapped minable resource. so.... when we need to know just how many turns that nasty neighbor has into his FORT - we just need to find a tile we can fort to do so. If we want to find out how many turns he has into his banana plantation - we need to find a worker on an untapped sugar/spice/banana/silks/incense/etc. to do it.
Note the picture above: My worker is on a un-roaded hill (one outside my borders although that doesnt matter) as the icons below indicate i *could* build a mine or a windmill. If i waypoint to the hill 1E of the dye and then hover over the Mine icon.... i get 1t to build a mine! So we know Tokugowa put 2t into it. The ideal tile to be on in that situation would be an unroaded forest hill - that way i could check all 3 tiles indicated: forest chops, roads on the die, and mine turns.
Also WARNING: if you do this with a worker with movement points, it is very easy to give him false orders. You must hold the shift key during this entire process - if you release the shift key at any time, the worker will move. In order to circumvent this - you can use a worker with no MP - just subtract one from the total indicated on the HUD to determine how many more turns are left in the improvement. You can then use the cancel button to clear the waypoints. What i do when using a worker with MP - I continue to hold shift at all times , click on the worker icon (marked with red arrow in pic above), then click the worker itself and select "SLEEP ALL" from the pop-up menu. Only then release the shift key. This seems to be the only way to reliably give the worker real orders (wake him and then issue new orders). Using the cancel button is inconsistent in my experience.
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Best dating advice on RB: When you can't hide your unit, go in fast and hard. -- Sullla
I agree with giving our diplomats a free hand if we think we're dealing with time-sensitive information. Everything looks solid to me. With regard to those three specific questions: