RBP3 [SPOILERS] - Zara of the Ottomans

[Pegasus]

Well as you guys had sleep or things to do, needless to say T24 ticked over literally 5 minutes after you guys signed off :neenernee

So I made the moves we agreed on.

Conan moved SW onto the forest hill



Nothing much to really report here. I suggest Conan moves West along the forest next turn.

Red moved NW ready to go North next turn.



Looks like we found that pesky Lion I was worried about

I still think we have the better odds, but would have preferred to have got to the forest north first.

I have left demographics shot in usual place on photobucket.

[WarriorKnight]

Here is the latest DIM message.

A4

DIM were pleased to receive your new message! Your openness regarding your future plans makes us much more willing to reveal our own thoughts to you and work towards a tighter relationship.

The key short-term sticking point is the NAP; as we said, our primary concern is aggressive settlements. Exchanging screenshots as you suggested is the ideal way to get around it. While we’re willing to go down this path, it goes without saying that the visual map info we exchange stays between our two civs. We’re willing to provide you with a screenshot of everything we’ve explored W of our capital and E of yours. If you’re willing to do the same, we have a deal.

As you're aware our thread’s been very active, but one thing we haven’t discussed much beyond a cursory first analysis is what possible map settings we’re looking at. What are your thoughts on the map? We know from civstats that this is a Shuffle map, but not much else.

If you agree to the screenshot exchange NAP discussions can begin in earnest. Not that it matters that much as we’re also interested in trading tech with you and any trades would come long after the T60 expiry you proposed.

Alphabet would be attractive to us as we’re currently planning on going for either CoL or monarchy. We're also looking to trade for writing in exchange for e.g. monotheism once alphabet is discovered. If we were to come to an agreement over techs, how soon do you think you can get to alpha? We’re kind of struggling to come up with a realistic ETA because we’re yet to build a sandbox so aren’t sure how much the maintenance costs will affect research once we have more than one city.

We believe more counterparties will need to be included as with 16 civs out there, the likely outcome is we'll get 3 or 4 trading blocs forming.

This might be pie in the sky at this stage but what we'd like ideally is to have alphabet, maths, monarchy, and CoL involved in a 4- or 5-player trade; if a tech trading agreement is reached, are there any other techs you would like to see included? And would you be willing to lobby new civs you meet – assuming they don’t have hostile intentions – to join the first round of trades?

More talking

Meatbalz for DIM

My thoughts:

Exchanging screenshots seemed to be accepted, and ad hoc's one looks fine. I would probably crop out our research & city build screen (whatever you want to call it) though. We are not that friendly yet.

Seems that they would also like to trade with us. CoL would be of more benefit to us (we are ORG too & we have hammams) but Monarchy is more even in terms of beaker count.

Trading for writing sounds good, but we don't have any of the religious branch, nor do we plan to for some time. Might have to do some negotiations there.

We can't actually find an ETA for alpha soon because I suspect we will have a 3rd city by that time. Dunno what to say about this.

More civs included is unquestionable. We would have to include some more people into this trade. I think that CoL this early is a mistake though. Other techs that might be included that we are interested in are HBR and Iron Working.

I might start a reply sometime later, although not right now.

Question for the lurkers. Do you appreciate what we have put in our spoiler thread? I know that some teams have about double the amount of posts we have (including DIM, grrrr) but I don't see how we can keep spamming posts like some of the other teams.

[WarriorKnight]

Nothing much to really report here. I suggest Conan moves West along the forest next turn.

Are you kidding? We have fur in plain sight. We'll have to get hunting at some point soon.

Maybe Conan can move SW? We will reveal most of the tiles we missed in the border expansion in 2 turns anyway. Also it looks like we will have to spend a turn in a non-defensible tile anyway. After that, we can move to that forest SW again.

Looks like we found that pesky Lion I was worried about

That sucks. Ran a test and it looks like we have a 67.8% chance to win. Let's hope we do.

[WarriorKnight]

Well I have done some math regarding our future path of techs.

ATM we are probably going to go BW, pottery, writing, alphabet but we may need to research some cheap techs first. In the near future we will need masonry, hunting and the religious line

In terms of even beaker count and our interests, we can trade DIM writing for meditation/masonry and hunting. Monotheism isn't really in our interests yet, nor is fishing or archery (the other 2 techs we might be able to trade).

meditation and masonry are both valuable. Masonry is actually useful to us, since we need that for hammams and have marble over there (although it could belong to DIM) and has no prerequisites. However, masonry doesn't really help clear the prerequisites for monarchy while meditation goes straight to priesthood.

Maybe give DIM the chance to decide. Hopefully we can trade writing to another trade partner later on for some more stuff.

[WarriorKnight]

OK, here is an attempt at a response. I have numbered some paragraphs because I need some feedback from the rest of you.

Honourable triumvirate of DIM

We are glad that you are pleased about our recent message. We are pleased about your recent message too, so at least there is a mutual benefit involved.

We are also glad that you are willing to use screenshots to help solve some possible tensions between our civilizations. We accept our offer of E of our capital and W of yours. We can also assure you that any screenshots that we exchange about this matter will remain between us.(1)

Your thread's been active? We had no idea, seeing as your team thread is currently one of the primary leaders in the post count race. Most of our thoughts on the map have just been incorrect guesses. However, we will share with you that we know that no capital is coastal, and therefore the possibility of ocean on this map is minimal.(2)

We would be happy to research alphabet and writing and trade them to you. We would rather research maths for our UB, but if worst comes to worst, we can get alpha. We can trade writing to you for hunting and either meditation or masonry (or polytheism if you want to take that route, but that makes the trade in our favor). How does that sound?(3)

Trying to find an ETA for alphabet isn't easy at the moment for the same reason that you can't find a ETA. However we will keep researching in this matter and get back to you when we have a answer.

We also believe that finding more parties to trade to will be very important. While we will do our best in this matter, we know that Cortes will have a easier time finding other civilizations. Therefore at the moment it seems that most of this task falls upon you.(4)

We agree about the 4 or 5 player trade. Ideally we would like to end up with alpha, maths, monarchy, IW and maybe HBR. HBR would be useful as we have a supply of horses nearby and IW would be useful to chop our jungle and reveal iron.(5)

Enough Talking!

A4

(1)- This feels unfinished. I think we should include another part to the deal (i.e. we assume that your map of the surrounding area has most of the land between where Conan was and your capital?). Also, there is no way we will be getting a full map from DIM yet so you can forget about that Pegasus (I know I wouldn't be handing out a full map). Also I would like to blank out our city info before sending ad's screenshot off to DIM.

(2)- They were fishing for info with the previous comment, who know's what they have guessed about the map. However, in good faith, I think we should tell them about the lack of ocean in everyone's BFC's. We need to stay on their good side for trading.

(3)- See my previous post, although we could take Polytheism instead should they choose that route.

(4)- We don't really want to give the impression that they will contact the other civs for us. All I'm trying to say is that they have a scout, and therefore will probably have an easier time contacting others (not to mention we might lose Red Sonja next turn).

(5)- Should we mention our 1 jungle tile and see if they have something similar?

[ad hoc]

Made a couple of small changes but quite happy with WK's draft. i would send the map with our message as an act of good faith (after blacking out the info as needed.)

Honourable triumvirate of DIM

We are glad that you are pleased about our recent message. We are pleased about your recent message too, so at least there is a mutual benefit involved.

We are also glad that you are willing to use screenshots to help solve some possible tensions between our civilizations. We accept your offer of E of our capital and W of yours. We can also assure you that any screenshots that we exchange about this matter will remain between us.(1)

Your thread's been active? We had no idea, seeing as your team thread is currently one of the primary leaders in the post count race. Most of our thoughts on the map have just been incorrect guesses. However, we will share with you that we know that no capital is coastal, and therefore the possibility of ocean on this map is minimal.(2)

We would be happy to research alphabet and writing and trade them to you. We would rather research maths for our UB, but if worst comes to worst, we can get alpha. We can trade writing to you for hunting and either meditation or masonry (or polytheism if you want to take that route, but that makes the trade in our favor). How does that sound?(3)

Trying to find an ETA for alphabet isn't easy at the moment for the same reason that you can't find a ETA. However we will keep researching in this matter and get back to you when we have a answer.

We also believe that finding more parties to trade to will be very important. While we will do our best in this matter, we know that the speed of cortes will make this easier for you than ourselves with Conan the Slow but be assured we will endeavor to find some likely partners. (4)

We agree about the 4 or 5 player trade. Ideally we would like to end up with alpha, maths, monarchy, IW and maybe HBR. HBR would be useful as we have a supply of horses nearby and IW would be useful to chop our jungle and reveal iron.(5)

Enough Talking!

A4

Furs good, looks like both health and happy aren't going to be too much of a problem for us

[WarriorKnight]

Message sounds good. We just need to remember to take out the numbers.

Do you know how to black out the info neatly? I would use paint but that would appear messy and n00bish .

[ad hoc]

hows this

[Pegasus]

Had a quick look in game to see how Red got on. I had to set a build in Aquilonia so I set it to Barracks for now.



Even with the slightly better odds we lost

Will come back to you on the messages. Food is on the table and i'm starving.

[Pegasus]

Also, there is no way we will be getting a full map from DIM yet so you can forget about that Pegasus (I know I wouldn't be handing out a full map

Well I live by the rule you don't ask, you don't get

I think after ad's additions it looks good to go, and the amended picture also looks fine.

If I was being really picky you need to change a few a's to an.