RBP3 [SPOILERS] - Zara of the Ottomans

[Sockboy]

welcome back SB, things have moved a pace so its going to start getting interesting

Yeah, things have certainly moved a pace! We need to keep an eye on which tiles to work to keep to our plan, but I think WK has been on the case (Did you work the riversidehill first? The hammers in the settler make it look like it).

Diplowise, I think making friends is about all we should have in mind for the moment, there's no point antagonising anyone until we know the lay of the land (both metaphorically and actually). Rego&Co certainly will make things interesting. One thing I strongly disagree with is us researching Alphabet. Mathematics is a *much* better option for us, particularly if we want a shot at the Hanging Gardens. In fact if we're shooting for that, we actually don't want the first round of trading to happen until we've got a bit of a head start As I see it, alphabet only really lets us build research and we're not going to be doing that for a long time (if ever). Spies are disabled this game, and as long as someone researches alphabet, we get the benefits anyway. I think alphabet is a weak tech at this stage. (I suspect everyone else will think the same, but there's no reason for us to be the ones to bite the bullet)

In trade I'd like to pick up Iron Working and/or Monarchy. I think they're the short term priorities. Hunting is welcome too, we'll need spears sooner or later, and I guess for Monarchy we'll need to pick up some of the religious techs. I saw some discussion on which ones earlier. (EDIT: I like Masonry more now, I didn't realise it was a prereq for Hammams, only question is whether we research it ourselves or get it via trade.)

WK - I think Exploit is the other civ at size 4, but we got there first . Have you been keeping an eye on the techs people have been researching? the only two I'm having trouble with is Ruff_Hi and SSS. My best guess for Ruff is Pottery then Masonry, which just look like strange choices. it looks like SSS took Bronze Working first, but then took Archery ? It's what seems to fit best with the timeline and soldier points, but maybe it was just that many people built warriors on the same turn.

AH - I like the dot map, although I think we should think about maybe moving the horses one to the West. We're creative so anything in our second rings should be safe, and making a claim for the spices could be seen as a little aggressive. Is red dot a plains or grassland hill? I prefer yellow over green, although both have a lot of peak tiles, but we can't do much about that. Blue I quite like, but we'll need to negotiate that. I've put a few signs up in game, one to the NE and one S of our capital (wheat and Furs). I think we should try not to expand to hard in any one direction, at least until we have a better idea as to who/what is around us.

[Pegasus]

welcome back SB, things have moved a pace so its going to start getting interesting

And don't worry i've been keeping Ad and WK in check for you.


WK - I think that message is fine to go to Team Nice. No problems there.

Of course we will have to attach our picture of Conan

But of course

AH - I like the dot map, although I think we should think about maybe moving the horses one to the West. We're creative so anything in our second rings should be safe, and making a claim for the spices could be seen as a little aggressive. Is red dot a plains or grassland hill?

I believe they are both plains hills. At first I was favouring 2 W of horses too, but now I think 1 W is actually better. It is a little more aggressive but we can claim to not settle any further their way SE and E.

Regarding research, I definately think we should try and word it right so we get to research Maths. I appreciate this might be difficult. But we should aim for this.

In terms of sending DIM a map of land we want, something similar to Ad's dotmap looks good enough just minus the yellow/green elements. Do you agree?

[Sockboy]

If we're going to negotiate, then perhaps we should initially push the Blue site out to the East/South, then move it back when they complain . When you say without the green/yellow elements Pegasus, do you mean only show them two city sites (red/blue)? Do you mind explaining why?

Should we arrange a rough settlement timeline with DIM? Are we all agreed on horses for second city? We should look at planning out the next 20 or so turns in a sandbox too. (Although we may have to wait til the city is planted to understand city maintenance properly...)

If both the hills are plains then I'm happy either way, 2W of the horses is a little safer in terms of troop movement, but not until we get construction. I'm not sure we'll have the worker in place to improve tiles until we get a border pop in either case, 1st border pops are five turns right?

[ad hoc]

been in and moved Conan, Nothing to report of interest, map and demo in usual place

[Pegasus]

When you say without the green/yellow elements Pegasus, do you mean only show them two city sites (red/blue)? Do you mind explaining why?

Yes, sorry, I did mean red/blue. It's a border agreement conversation, I just didnt think yellow/green has any relevance to the dispute as it will probably not be our border to them and they can probably guess we will backfill from red/blue.

[WarriorKnight]

(Did you work the riversidehill first? The hammers in the settler make it look like it).

I sure did.

One thing I strongly disagree with is us researching Alphabet. Mathematics is a *much* better option for us, particularly if we want a shot at the Hanging Gardens. In fact if we're shooting for that, we actually don't want the first round of trading to happen until we've got a bit of a head start As I see it, alphabet only really lets us build research and we're not going to be doing that for a long time (if ever). Spies are disabled this game, and as long as someone researches alphabet, we get the benefits anyway. I think alphabet is a weak tech at this stage. (I suspect everyone else will think the same, but there's no reason for us to be the ones to bite the bullet)

You are absolutely right. The only reason to research alphabet is to enable tech trading, which is probably the best thing in this game. However since someone else is researching it, we can probably claim maths.

WK - I think Exploit is the other civ at size 4, but we got there first . Have you been keeping an eye on the techs people have been researching? the only two I'm having trouble with is Ruff_Hi and SSS. My best guess for Ruff is Pottery then Masonry, which just look like strange choices. it looks like SSS took Bronze Working first, but then took Archery ? It's what seems to fit best with the timeline and soldier points, but maybe it was just that many people built warriors on the same turn.

It seems that Ruff got meditation for Buddhism first. After that it appears that I missed him getting a tech on T22 () so I am not entirely sure what he got there. I think it may be something without soldier points (agriculture?)

BW first for SSS, but there was an 8000 point soldier increase on the turn of the next tech. It couldn't be archery (they don't have hunting) but we simply have to guess how many warriors everyone got on that turn. I think it might be the wheel.

If we're going to negotiate, then perhaps we should initially push the Blue site out to the East/South, then move it back when they complain .

What if they don't complain? There is no point ticking them off for no reason, so I would be against this.

Should we arrange a rough settlement timeline with DIM? Are we all agreed on horses for second city? We should look at planning out the next 20 or so turns in a sandbox too. (Although we may have to wait til the city is planted to understand city maintenance properly...)

We all agree on horses next because chariots are needed to contact people and kill barbs and we haven't explored much else yet. We definitely need to make a sandbox for the next 20 turns, the reason we haven't IMO is because we have been unsure about red dot's location.

If both the hills are plains then I'm happy either way, 2W of the horses is a little safer in terms of troop movement, but not until we get construction. I'm not sure we'll have the worker in place to improve tiles until we get a border pop in either case, 1st border pops are five turns right?

Well, we will hopefully get construction soon enough anyway. We argued a bit between 1W and 2W but 1W won because of horses in first ring (important cause we need chariots ASAP) and claims spices which means another city is not needed for it.

[WarriorKnight]

OK, sent this to Carthage:

Greetings Team Nice Shot

We apologize for the delay in sending this message, as a 4 person team we don't have the luxury of sending messages as early and as often as we would like to.

Conan flexed his muscles as he passed your warrior Karen. However don't feel alarmed, he does that to everyone he meets.

Seriously though, we have no desire for conflict between our civilizations, and therefore we look forward to many years of peace between our civilizations. Have you found any other civilizations in this vast world? Yours is the second we have met.

Enough Talking!

WarriorKnight of A4

P.S. Enough Talking is (going to be) our standard way to sign off. It is not a hostile action. See the attached picture.

Practically the same as before, but included my name in (I need to be recognized ) and a small apology for the delay

Also a draft to DIM

Honorable triumvirate of DIM.

There is no need to apologize for a delay. We sometimes suffer from the same fate.

We have penciled in writing for hunting/masonry or hunting/poly. We can accept your offer to be able to cancel the deal. It look like this isn't going to be the case though.

Regarding India, we appreciate that you have given us directions to them. We also would like to make contact with them ASAP to try to get in the group. However, it seems that we won't be able to get a unit to their capital until about T50. To that end, could you tell them about us and try to negotiate a meeting between the 2 of us? More specifically, could you ask if India has a unit to the S of their capital that could possibly meet up with Conan? He is currently some 5 tiles SW of our capital but will move up NW if requested.

About the border agreement, we think that actually deciding city sites will be more likely to avoid tensions between our civilizations. Attached is our first dotmap of border sites in the area in question. What do you think?

We appreciate the info on the Aztec's. In return, A Carthaginian warrior (Karen) appeared about 5 tiles south of our capital a few turn ago and seemed to be heading E. We are unsure about where they are now but they are probably going ENE.

We acknowledge that you switch off EP's on us when you met India. We were meaning to do the same but forgot about it as it was late in the turn. We hope that you can forgive this error on our part.

Enough Talking!

WarriorKnight of A4.

The T50 is an estimate. We won't settle until T39, hook up horse till about T41 and build a chariot until T44-45. If those of you making growth plans can try and get a proper guess of the timeframe, that would be very appreciated.

[Sockboy]

Firstly, great job on the Diplo front WK It's much easier to assess once something is in place, these drafts are excellent starting points and often pretty close to the end product WRT the DIM letter, I like it a lot, the only change I'd make it is which sites we show to DIM. perhaps we should say something like.

About the border agreement, we think that actually deciding city sites will be more likely to avoid tensions between our civilizations. Attached is our first dotmap of border sites in the area in question. This is obviously a first pass and we're happy to consider slight repositioning of the sites to accommodate your needs. What sites were you interested in?

I think it's worth saying we're open to negotiation on our proposed sites and are not presenting them with a fait accompli. If we are seen to accommodate them, we gain leverage to request the same from them. If we present them with our minimum requirements and they ask us to reposition, we either need to say no firmly (which looks bad) or accede (which *is* bad). Let's give ourselves some wiggle room. It also gives us time to negotiate whilst we find where the copper pops, I don't want to lock us in and then find out that we miss the copper by a tile.

The T50 is an estimate. We won't settle until T39, hook up horse till about T41 and build a chariot until T44-45. If those of you making growth plans can try and get a proper guess of the timeframe, that would be very appreciated.

Turn 50 looks like a pretty good estimate to me, if maybe a little optimistic. In an attempt to improve that estimate I've updated our sandbox to include the region around the horses and have played it out to turn 32. This is with 3 turns to go to the settler. We have a bit of flexibility with our worker, he only needs to be back on a forest the turn before BW completes. We also can move Kull around to the proposed city site to determine the timing of when we should start moving him. Don't forget to switch production to workers after the settler finishes, I think there's a warrior left in the queue which will complete if you don't watch for it.

We should work out goals for the next 20 odd turns as well, as a start I think the following make good goals.

1. pottery and granaries ASAP for both cities.
2. improving the wheat and connect the horses
3. build a chariot

4. getting a minor road network up
5. Plant/work some cottages
6. Next settler

Any other short term goals? I think the top three are important, the next three are more questionable.

It's probably worth naming the workers A, B, C. so we can all replicate each others plans. I assume we're teching Pottery -> Writing in the short term. I've removed the copper from the save as I like to assume the worst. If copper pops in our borders we'll need to rethink.

[Sockboy]

It seems that Ruff got meditation for Buddhism first. After that it appears that I missed him getting a tech on T22 () so I am not entirely sure what he got there. I think it may be something without soldier points (agriculture?)

Ok, I missed that Buddhism was gone. Meditation makes sense. The other tech didn't have soldier points and cost less than meditation, Which probably is agriculture. That makes a lot more sense than what I had earlier. He just picked up another tech too, which I reckon is Mining.

Whilst we're on the topic I've got DIM down for mining the turn just gone too. I think that's everyone with Mining now. No, I looks like SleepingMoogle & Co are the only one's lacking it now.

[ad hoc]

A message from Pacal, seems okay as a first message, haven't noticed anything about the peaks, i wonder what they are thinking.

we could tell them of DIM,India and Aztec.

Greetings A4 (is it proper to refer to you as A4?)

No problem with the delay. I can certainly understand the need to consult with the whole team before taking action.

I'm sure that Karen was impressed by Conan's arm-flexing. Although truthfully, Karen is more interested in her children. She doesn't spend that much time thinking about men, as she has had bad experiences with them in the past. I hope you won't take her life story personally.

You actually bear the distinct honor of being the first civilization we have met. I assumed you had met someone else based on your EP numbers, but that was just a guess. May I ask who else you have met? Also, may I be so bold as to ask whereabouts on this planet your civilization is located?
Even if you aren't comfortable discussing capital location, I'm curious about one generality... have you noticed anything interesting about the way that peaks are placed on this map?

Talk to you later,


Mr. Nice Guy of Team Nice Shot
Pacal II of the Carthage