[SPOILERS] Vive l'Afrique libre : Bowsling and Aivoturso are Mansa Musa of the Zulu

[Aivoturso]

Boat built and fish worked. I decided to finish a warrior first as we have some barbarians and animals to take care of before we can move our next settler safely. I'm moving a scout to map around the copper plot. If there is nothing obviously better around I'll settle either 1W of copper or 1 N of copper. Currently I'm leaning on 1W since that'll give some overlap with Alcatraz and instant access to the wheat. 1N could be better city in a long run, but it would be crap before the first culture pop. Which reminds me, I think that after Pottery we should probably tech Mysticism.

BTW, unfortunately I have not had any time to do any simulations. I'm just winging it with intuition at the moment.

[Aivoturso]

Big news. Turn 50 and we met team Yossadorn. I sent a short greeting message: "Hi Yossaria and Caledorn. Nice to meet you. Our team's e-mail is bowaivo@gmail.com. We're really looking forward to working with you. Sorry for the curt message, but I have to go now unfortunately. We'll get back to you shortly."

We'll have to decide how to deal with them. My suggestion as before is that we should look to be long term allies with them and I will continue on that avenue, unless you seriously object before I have time to write a email suggesting NAP & cooperation details.

[Aivoturso]

Here's the initial diplomail from Yossadorn:

Bonjour Aivoturso and Bowsling,

We are very happy that our intrepid scout Moiraine has found your borders! It's nice to meet fellow CFC'ers, and hope that our future can be one of friendship and cooperation in this game. We'd like to start by offering a NAP to Turn 80, although we can go with a longer NAP if you prefer. If a NAP sounds good to you, we can also start discussing other ways that we can cooperate together.

Looking forward to your reply,

Blame Caledorn

[Bowsling]

Man, I'm so sorry to have done this to you. This is the first time I've logged in in half a month. Great job with the turns, hopefully I should get a more normal schedule soon!

[Aivoturso]

Nice to have you back! We have two big things to decide ATM. Our third settler has completed and we need to decide where to plant him. My suggestion is 1W from copper. The city will never be a great one, but it should be good enough for a while and we'll get immediate access to copper and wheat. 1N from copper as I initially suggested will need a culture pop before it is useful at all, so that's why I think we should change our plans to this. And I want to hook the copper for Impi ASAP so we can send explorers that can stay alive. If I remember correctly, we just lost another scout to a surprise barbarian.

The other big thing is our diplo with team Yossadorn. My suggestion is that we'll first agree on their suggested NAP and work slowly towards an alliance with them. They are not likely to be first top contenders and the strenghts the guys have will be very useful to their allies as well.

[Bowsling]

Yeah, I like 1W of the copper as well.

I also agree that we should co-operate with Yossadorn.

[Aivoturso]

Settled 1W from copper and sent this short message to Yossadorn:

Hi Caledorn and Yossarian,

We are very glad to find you as our neighbours. We agree with a NAP until turn 80. We would like to assure you that we are not looking to expand aggressively in your direction. As soon as we both have some sort of idea what kind of lands lie between us we'd also like to agree on borders. We are hoping to have a long term cooperation and friendship with you and want to avoid any unnecessary tensions. Did you already have some ideas on how we could cooperate?

BTW, sorry about the delay. We're both unfortunately somewhat busy in RL at the moment. Hopefully this should let up in a week or two.
Looking forward to working with you,
Aivo & Bow

[Aivoturso]

Response from team Blame Caledorn is in:

Hi Aivo & Bow,

Thanks for your message, we're glad to hear that the NAP is in place! Let us know when you are ready to work out a border agreement. We don't think there will be any problems or tensions there. These maintenance costs are pretty steep, so we're planning on sticking near our capital for our next few cities.

As for other cooperation, we were thinking about going for Writing soon, so maybe Open Borders would be a good place to start. Is that something you are interested in? Could you also help us keep our scout alive by letting us know about any nearby animals that might threaten him? We want to get by your borders to continue exploring west. Is there a passage we can get through to your north that you could guide us to? Chat might be better for quick directions, you can reach us at <mail address> and <another mail address>.

We are also interested in sharing map information with you. We just completed Animal Husbandry, so let us know if you need help locating your horses or copper. Our starts seem to have some similarities. We also have a 1-tile island south of our capital with a fish resource. Have you met any other teams yet? The Glorious Gladiators are to our east.

Take care,
Blame Caledorn

[Bowsling]

Played the turn. Roaded to umwhatever and started another worker in Ulundi. Moved a worker onto the forested hill outside Cosa Nostra in prep for a chop and a mine.

I'd be hesitant to actually sign a border agreement before we know where they are. I've sent the scout east from Ulundi; we should try and find them ASAP. I don't really know where the animals are, so I'll leave that up to you. I'm fine for giving them directions around our land.

I also added their emails to my gmail chat, in case I ever catch them online.

[Aivoturso]

A bit more correspondence between Yossadorn and us:

Hi Aivo and Bow,

Just wanted to let you know that we're finishing Writing T62. We were hoping we could use OB to get our scout past your lands. It would land on the forest hill southwest of Cosa Nostra on T64, then would be on his way.

Let us know,

Blame Caledorn

Hi Yossa and Cal,

Sorry again about long response time. OB suits us very well. We are assuming that you mean OB without any restrictions on passing through. There has been some barbarian activity to our west. Currently we don't see any barbarians, but be careful if you head to that direction. We have not met any other teams yet. We actually lost couple of scouts in the beginning. We're hoping to change that soon with couple of scouts carrying some pointy sticks BTW, would you like to have an agreement to notify each other whenever we meet other teams?

Thank you for the offer about sharing info about hidden resources. Currently we don't need that though as we have BW and AH as well. Is there something else you have learned about the world? So far, we've seen that our neighbourhood seems to consist of relatively large areas of land with small seas dotted here and there.

Cheers,
Aivo & Bow