RBPB4 [SPOILERS] - De Gaulle of the Egyptians

[Lord Parkin]

I noticed in Civstats that Plako got a city from WarriorKnight last turn. What really irks me is that (a) it happened after both Plako and WarriorKnight had already played, making it an illegal move if it was a military capture, and (b) the fact that WK went down 5 points and plako went up by the same amount means the city had to be size 2 (I think), and didn't lose pop in the transition, which rules out a capture. (Talking with Luddite it seems it was only one city that plako gained, so it can't have been two size 1 cities - which wouldn't have been capturable anyway this early on with a non-Creative leader due to autoraze.)

So basically, all of this points towards a city gift as some part of a peace deal. I'm a bit angry about that to be honest - it seems that poor play (and/or lack of play) on WarlordDR's part has given plako a huge advantage very early in the game. Chatting with Luddite (who's met plako), it seems he now has 4 cities while most other people have 2. Plus he's Imperialistic. If there ever was a clear-cut early runaway in a game, this is it. He's even overtaken me for the #1 score spot now, despite Stonehenge.

Ah well, I guess it's not all bad. Getting such a huge advantage early on in the game should serve to make him a target and focal point for aggression, which will somewhat negate the advantage that the free city gives him. Plus, it should take some of the attention away from us if he's the one with the higher score, so it might even serve our own interests a bit. We'll have to see.

[Lord Parkin]

(I'm not yet up to date on their thread so this is unspoiled speculation)

It seems to me that if they were concerned with you sharing the (quite limited)info they just gave you, they would have asked for confidentiality BEFORE telling it to you. This implies that they want to share other, more valuable, information, but want assurances of secrecy first.

Yeah, I guess that sounds plausible. I'll have to send them a reply shortly, been a bit busy today. Hopefully we can find out some useful info from them.

[Lord Parkin]

While I remember, I was just thinking about the tech path... I think we need to be heading towards Pottery fairly soon in order to keep up in the tech race. Sure we have multiple Forge resources, but we know for a fact that others do too, and it's more than likely that everyone has access to their own stockpile of high-commerce resources if the map is balanced. Thus in order to keep in the game we can't just stick with our bonus commerce, we have to build up cottages as well - and soon.

This actually fits in quite well if we're wanting Fishing soon anyway (which we are, for the probable next city), since that reduces the beaker cost of Pottery. So I reckon our tech path for the near future should be BW -> Fishing -> Pottery. Sound reasonable?

[Lord Parkin]

Not much new on the home front. The Gold mine is underway, and will conveniently be completed on the turn Magadan grows. Still considering whether to send one of the Workers back to the capital to chop forests after that, leaving just one to hook up the Corn at the next city - thoughts?



Max doesn't reveal much to the north-west, apart from more tundra. Not looking like an ideal Horse spot, that one.



To the southwest, James Cook confirms that there's a 1-tile lake next to that proposed city spot I marked. Looks like plenty of forests around that location too... not bad at all.



Joe continues down south...



...and Bob continues further west.

[Lord Parkin]

Sent the following to Nakor:

Hi Nakor,

Nice to hear back. No worries, one day is hardly a "delayed response" in my books.

Sounds like you're doing quite well if you've nearly met all but one of the players in the game! Our start had some tricky geography that limited early contact, plus perhaps we were unlucky with missing passing scouting units until now. In any event, we're only a measly third of the way there, but are hoping to meet some new civs soon. If you can point us in the right direction to meet anyone it'd certainly be much appreciated.

It's great news that you've accepted the NAP proposal - hopefully this will be the start of a long and mutually prosperous friendship between us! We're quite happy to agree not to sell or give away map knowledge either of us has about the other to any third parties as well, as you wish.

Since we're agreed not to trade away map knowledge, and our NAP has secured a long-term friendship between us, we're happy to share some more detailed map information with you. Our capital is about 25 tiles north of our meeting place, and given that Stonehenge has revealed the equator, I've calculated that the north-south dimensions of this map have to be between 50-60 tiles. That suggests N-S distance between civs is likely to be 30-40 tiles, assuming a 5x2 layout (which for a number of reasons that would take too long to go into, my lurkers and I decided a long time ago was the most likely setup for this map). We've already found that the E-W distance between capitals seems to be in the vicinity of 15-20 tiles, which matches up with the expected 5x2 layout as well (75-100 tiles in total across the map east-west would fit in with the regular X:Y ratio for a map with 50-60 north-south tiles).

Anyway, that's basically what we've figured out about the map so far. Would be great to hear some more from you, especially about locations of borders (yours as well as and any others you've found). That way we can try to meet a few more people in the near future and perhaps slowly catch up to your impressive number of contacts.

Best regards,
Lord Parkin

[Lord Parkin]

Sent to Mackoti:

Hi again Mackoti,

I've now checked with the game rules, and you're right - screenshot exchanges are indeed allowed from first contact. Strange, as I'm used to them not being allowed until later in the game. Anyway, at the moment we don't really see any need to swap screenshots, but we'll keep the offer in mind. Sometime a bit later on in the game I'm sure we'd be happy to talk about a screenshot exchange between our nations.

Hope you're going well with your early expansion. I noticed you founded your third city just recently, well done on that!

Kind regards,
Lord Parkin

[Lord Parkin]

Well, Mackoti's noticed about the espionage. Luckily we're just seeing his research now (Bronze Working in 7 turns). Should be easy enough to throw it off as an accident and a product of hardly meeting anyone in reply, since that's pretty much the truth anyway.

Do you wis for us to have a espionaje agreement, just asking because i se you are using your full on us..., is that winning anithing to you as we are far away..., and BTw nice pit of gold
cheers,
Mackoti

As for the last sentence, I guess his scouting unit just found the borders of Magadan?

[Lord Parkin]

Sent to Mackoti:

Hi Mackoti,

Sorry about the espionage... until very recently we'd only met two civs (you and luddite), so there weren't many choices for who to spend it on, and we already had enough on luddite. I'd completely forgotten about it since then, but since we've just met another civ down south, we'll switch our espionage off you and onto him. We're happy to agree to some sort of espionage arrangement between us as well, if you want to propose anything.

We do have a nice Gold site, yeah... although it seems everyone else has something similar as well. Have you met anyone else recently, by the way? We've met Nakor somewhere to the south of us, so if your Warrior continues that way you should eventually meet him too (if you haven't already). We'll let you know if we meet anyone else - and we'd be glad to hear of any information you can give us as well.

Regards,
Lord Parkin

[Lord Parkin]

So, the next Settler was finished, and we started a Worker in the capital. Bronze Working will be done next turn thanks to the newly hooked up Gold resource speeding our research.

Our third city will be founded next turn at the Corn-Fish-Gold site. Any suggestions/requests on a name?

Done some tests with Magadan, and found that we can get 6 more hammers if we work the grassland-forest at size 3 for quick growth to size 4 and 2 Priests, as opposed to working a Priest at size 3. Only advantage of working a Priest at size 3 is that we get 1 gpt extra six turns earlier, but that benefit is then negated over the following six turns. So working a grassland-forest at size 3 then 2 Priests at size 4 seems to be the best idea.

Incidentally, that plan would get us a Great Prophet in Magadan at turn 76. That's eight turns earlier than we would have got one automatically in the capital through Stonehenge. Seems like pretty good timing, since that leaves the capital free to grab a second Great Person (most likely a Great Prophet) sooner than it otherwise could, giving us a very healthy hammer and commerce boost early in the game.



Max's exploring up north has revealed something rather interesting: a Silver resource! It's even accompanied by two Deer resources as food sources. There could be quite a decent city site up there, perhaps on the spot I marked, or 1W or 1NE of it. Next turn Max'll move onto the western Deer to check whether there's any seafood out there.



James Cook has almost finished revealing everything around the Gems resource. Only thing left is to check just south of the Ivory and over in the east for if there's any seafood hidden out there.

Assuming there's not any unrevealed seafood, where do the lurkers reckon is the best site for grabbing the Gems? It doesn't seem completely obvious... there are quite a few decent spots, but it's tricky to pick a best one. 2W and 1SW of the Gems seem pretty good, and 1NW, 1N and 1NE seem reasonable as well. If there's seafood in tiles we can't presently see, then 1SW+1S and 1NE+1E of the Gems could be good as well.

What do people think?



Joe continues exploring in the south...



...and Bob continues exploring in the west.

[Lord Parkin]

Hmm, just looking at that screenshot with Joe in the south again, it looks like we can faintly see the outline of some green borders... plako's borders. Only it's across the coast... let's hope there's some connection further south. Looks like we're on our way to meeting someone else at last.