[Spoilers] Mahala in the Mist - the Doviello

[Mist]

A border pop at the end of the turn showing some land around

Hilly, lots of rivers. With new river revealed city no 2 definitely goes to the spot NE. It's more than likely to become capital site once I'm able to relocate the palace.

Sciz got 11 points on the score. A tech from the hut, looks like I'm not the only lucky person around.

Amelia settled down, she found a spot with 4 coast tiles in the first ring.

[Brian Shanahan]

Mist , you wouldn't mind resizing down your screenshots before posting would you?

It's just that at 1152*864 it's still very akward seeing any posts with pics in them.

[Mist]

Nah, I don't mind. It's just that quality is crap after shrinking the images and it's hard to see anything. But if it makes reading the thread easier I'm all for it.

Does this size work?

[SevenSpirits]

That size should definitely be fine. Personally I find 1024xWhatever to be good dimensions. But it does appear after some brief research that ~25% of web users have dimensions that won't be able to fit that on the screen (though for the most part, only by a tiny bit - their resolution is 1024x768 ). I'm not sure how much smaller that percent is for people who play and read about civ - probably at least somewhat. For steam users it's only ~10%.

[Mist]

Now this is unexpected. I have first contact. And it's turn 4.

[color="lime"]
Hi, glad to find someone out there to talk to, congratulations on your free tech (Exploration?). Hopefully my scouts will find one for me too, so far they've turned up 30 gold and a map showing a ton of useless frozen wastelands to the south. Have you met anyone else out there yet?
[/color]

Elves. A scout showed up SE of my capital by the mana node. There's no immediate threat of decapitation, Lucian will cut off the only approach to capital on next turn ( see? told you the peaks will be useful on defence ) but the game suddenly turned that more interesting.

[color="deepskyblue"]
Hello there,

Welcome in the Valley of Mists. We have found the land here pleasant and the locals surprisingly accommodating. It's unexpected to encounter other travelers this soon and it's without a doubt good to have the Elves of the Summer court as neighbors. I'll have to make sure to revisit your land (S-SE I take it? ) in the near future.

To answer no question - I have met no other people out there yet, nor did I expect to. If I do I'm sure some sort of meeting can be arranged. Given the encounter will be civil of course, my people have been given completely unjust label of aggressive savages and sometimes this leads to misunderstandings.

I'm sure we'll be working fine together. I'm certain we don't want to explore alternatives to cooperation :]
[/color]

I'm quite sure I'm able to take him out at the moment ( his speed-bump of a worldspell notwithstanding ) and I'm sure he's aware of that. Fortunately for him, elves are one of the few civs on the map I'm interested in working with. On my terms.

Stay tuned for some southwards exploration and gunboat diplomacy

[Brian Shanahan]

Nah, I don't mind. It's just that quality is crap after shrinking the images and it's hard to see anything. But if it makes reading the thread easier I'm all for it.

Does this size work?

Grand thanks, you could also use spoilers if you want to keep the more detailed, e.g. empire-wide, screenshots from expanding too much.

[pocketbeetle]

I'm sure we'll be working fine together. I'm certain we don't want to explore alternatives to cooperation :]

That made me go

Stay tuned for some southwards exploration and gunboat diplomacy

[Mardoc]

my people have been given completely unjust label of aggressive savages and sometimes this leads to misunderstandings

I like the iron fist/velvet glove you have going there!

I feel certain we can expect more action from you than we're getting from the Hippus in Game 1 (turn 134 and they still haven't attacked anyone. And they're on the low end of the Power graph, too).

[Mist]

Seems I finaly managed to tempt Pocketbeetle into commenting, once I get a short story from Maksim this thread will officaily become a succes

That made me go

And out of curiosity, how would you answer?

The truth can be pretty scary sometimes, can't it. Anyway, yeah. This the kind of reaction I hoped to get.

I'm the odd man out in this particular game, everyone expects me to be the chief neighborhood bully. And I'm going to ride that fact for as long as the mythical 'early rush' scares them wittless. Of course when someone calls my bluff I'll have to actualy do a rush of some sort and (probably) bury my chances in the game, but that's an entirely different matter.

Going to war at the moment equals to pressing big red selfdestruct button. Sure I can roll over elves. Even with the bloody treants in the picture. But it will set my early growth back massively and spook everyone around. I won't have a chance to catch up. Nevertheless I can't afford having uncertain borders and having a march of the trees roll over my land would screw me up completely ( that's an S10, 2 move unit for each forest square in elf territory, for five turns ). So I'm going to try strongarming Uberfish into long term cooperation.

Think about it as a 'with me' or 'against me' choice with a bunch of tasty carrots on one side and heavy stick on the other.

I like the iron fist/velvet glove you have going there!

I feel certain we can expect more action from you than we're getting from the Hippus in Game 1 (turn 134 and they still haven't attacked anyone. And they're on the low end of the Power graph, too).

They had bad luck early game, medicore start, bad events and a disenchanted player. I hope to go to war around turn 100, but that requires some good RNG ( for a prophet to bulb religion or engineer to bulb bronze working ) and a weak neighbor. If lady luck doesn't smile my way there won't be any wars till I get slavery and bronze weapons.

[Brian Shanahan]

That made me go

That's not a gunboat! This is a gunboat.