[SPOILERS - PBEM29] spacetyrantxenu - Mao of Babylon

[spacetyrantxenu]

More diplo exchange with Sian, first his message:

*finish puking on a nearby Bush*

sorry 'bout that ... just pay in mind that the Democrats would be center-right in europe and that we're not to fond of rightwings

otherwise if you keeps your troopers out of my backgarden i'd try to keep mine out of yours, given that i know where it is

any interest in a short NAP, as to get a feel on each other?

Our reply:

Great Sumerian Dictator,

If I can go out of character for just one moment to explain our team name, I'm naming the cities for the current Republican candidates because it's going to be great to whip Newt Gingrich, etc., over and over

(Back in character now)

As supreme dictator of the Republican Party I can assure you that none of our soldiers would intentionally cause provocation in your territory because any act of insubordination is met with execution under the current Chairman's rule. And as Chairman I can assure you that we have nothing but goodwill planned for our neighbors, until such time as they plot to do nasty things to us Republican folks. But for now, I agree that we'll keep our military forces out of your borders. I assume this does not constitute a no scout agreement, especially since you say you know where we are but we do not know where you are. I'd at least like to find your borders so that we may in the future establish trade routes.

As for an official concordat regarding military non-aggression, I see no reason for it and am generally opposed to such agreements on principal (and have no plans to sign one with any party for any reason). This is not to show the Republican Party to be a war loving state (heh, irony!), but rather that in the past I have seen that NAPs have had a rather chilling effect on the practice of realpolitik and the periodic need for one state to rapidly alter its foreign policy direction given changing circumstances abroad. I hope you do not read this refusal to sign an agreement as warlike in intent, we just like to keep our options open (and it makes for a more fun diplo game for the lurkers).

Speaking of foreign policy, we have made acquaintance with team Slowwalk, which you likely have also. Have you met with anyone else? Do you have any ideas about the map layout, or would you like to discuss it?

Hail Ronald Reagan,

Mao,
Chairman
Republican Party

[spacetyrantxenu]

Our information fishing expedition was successful. Sian's reply:

no, no clue where you guys is, but given that you says you've met Slowwalk i'm guessing somewhere south of the tundra area, in his end? ... fits my knowledge of the map, which is that each player have 2 exits, one leading to the tundra (meaning that Persia should be somewhere to the west of you, and south of me) and one leading into a dry/desert area, and two small straits leading to islands.

That sounds like what we had been thinking. I don't believe the fog southwest or northeast of Newt leads anywhere, though I'm less sure about the northeast since we see land in the fog. If we had kept Neal Conan exploring further SE we'd have more info down there, but I didn't want our first foreign contact to go anything like this:



Animal Husbandry completed, we've set research onto Hunting going toward Archery so we can build bowmen. While focusing on growth is probably the most important early game goal, we were dealt protective Mao of Babylon, may as well get some life out of the bowmen. Our medium term goal is to try to grow a large HR powered capital, working cottages wherever possible since the map has a lot of plains tiles that we don't want to work elsewhere. We should try to get as much commerce going in the capital as possible, as soon as possible. I haven't built a sandbox yet to get an estimate going for when expansion starts, but after we finish the second worker it will probably be very close to time to build a settler and get another city settled.

Since we're not going for Fishing right now we're going to change the proposed second city site to move NW to use the sheep:



We'll need to get the fish netted soon after founding that city so we'll probably slip that tech in once we decide how to pop borders up there. I've also marked a proposed city 3 location, since that is the direction from which we've met both Sian and team Kitty. The C3 site isn't nearly as good as the floodplains site SE of Newt, but it would seal off the area after a border pop. We need to claim as much land in that middle area as possible, I think, because it is likely to be designed to be a conflict zone at the intersection of each team's starting area. One thing nice about protective bowmen is that if we do decide to pink dot someone we have a strong chance of holding the territory. I don't know how good that will be for diplomatic relations, but if we want to win this game we need to have more land than our neighbors.

We caught up in score, so we were probably just a turn late researching a tech. I assume that's because we worked the PHF instead of the FP tile that we assume everyone has available in the captial's BFC -- we see one in Sian's capital anyway. Extrapolating: everyone has similar starting terrain, if not identical. My guess is that Commodore copied the land for each section, or rotated, and then hand edited for a more diverse appearance. We'll see when we have a more complete map, it may be that Commodore owes Novice a royalty payment for using his awesome map design/balancing tool.

In demographics, we lead in soldier count, tied with one other person. Our count jumped by 2,000, which is probably attributable to researching AH. I'd have to search for it unless someone has a list or post showing the soldier count value for each researched tech.



I expect to see some city growth soon by the other teams. We should be the last to grow to size 2 since I think we were the only team to open worker -- the other teams consistently had a higher food yield than us. On the other hand, that may also mean everyone else was using food to build a worker instead of hammering it out, since we're the only EXP team. We'll see.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Northern scouting update:

Now that we have visibility of team Kitty's capital we can track city builds via the Espionage screen. Currently they have about 4 hammers in something. Not very useful on its own but as the hammer count passes 10, 20, 33, 40, and 65, or up to 80, we can cross items off the list that we know they aren't building. These are the hammer costs for all potential current builds - warrior/scout, work boat/monument, barracks, worker, settler, and Stonehenge respectively. I left out spearmen because there is no way anyone has copper hooked up yet.

I'd like to get early visibility on other capitals if possible but I only have up to 15 turns until capitals reach ring 3 borders. At that point it will probably be impossible to see the city center tile, excluding maybe hills on the diagonals.

Speaking of Espionage, I've adjusted my EP allocation to focus on team Kitty for now, since I've located their capital I can make an unfounded assumption that they are tied for the closest civ to my territory, so I may as well get demographics visibility on them before moving on to the next civ. Likely we'll come to some sort of EP allocation agreement before we reach the See Demographics threshold (currently at 30 points) so I can probably switch to someone else after that without losing their charts.

Given that I've met both Sian and Slowwalk in the north, and that I can see Slowwalk's capital, I'll make a guess at the map layout. Given that we observed Sian's scout facing SE when we made contact we can generally assume he was eastward bound, so coming out of the west. Since I've guessed at the toroidal nature of the map from camera flying my guess for where Sian is located would be that he's to the west of Slowwalk and is probably further from me than Kuro is. The map may be designed (at least in this central tundra/bonus/world wrap area) as an X, with land extending out SE of our starting area, NE of Slowwalk, NW of Sian, and therefore SW of Kuro. I assume Commodore has put some outlying islands on the map similar to what he did for PBEM 23 but that's conjecture at this point. This turn my warrior found a strip of land east of my main area and I can't tell for certain but believe it is not connected to my area -- at least via flying camera fog gazing it doesn't appear connected. See the NE part of this image:

Demographics for this turn:

Looks like no changes from last turn. One of these days I need to put together a tech spreadsheet with the beaker counts for each technology. That is, unless someone has already done that work on quick speed? Also, does anyone have a link to the soldier counts for each tech? It seems like there used to be an article on Fast Moves with a list but I can't find it now (the site is gone?) Or is there a good C&D thread on RB somewhere with an intro to the full C&D game? T-Hawk's C&D the easy way thread was really good for showing how the espionage formulas work. Anyway, that's a lot to ask of lurkers, I should probably just forum dive and find these threads.

[Ceiliazul]

One of these days I need to put together a tech spreadsheet with the beaker counts for each technology. That is, unless someone has already done that work on quick speed? Also, does anyone have a link to the soldier counts for each tech? It seems like there used to be an article on Fast Moves with a list but I can't find it now (the site is gone?) Or is there a good C&D thread on RB somewhere with an intro to the full C&D game? T-Hawk's C&D the easy way thread was really good for showing how the espionage formulas work. Anyway, that's a lot to ask of lurkers, I should probably just forum dive and find these threads.

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy...aphics.php

That's the power points, if you come up with a spreadsheet for tracking techs I'd be interested to see it.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Ceiliazul, thanks for the article. It's been bookmarked for future use. I haven't put together the spreadsheet yet, I'll work on that when I get home. I'm still out of town with family for the holiday.

Speaking of the holiday, I don't think you get a free pass for doing this:



[SIZE="5"]-3 diplo modifier!!![/SIZE] :mad:

[spacetyrantxenu]

More diplo so if you don't care feel free to skip.

I've been sick for about a month now and on Saturday night I took a combination of medications I hadn't taken together before. The result was that sleep was impossible until about 5 AM or so, hooray! The beneficiaries () were the other players I had met in game as they got diplomacy emails to unwrap on Christmas morning. It's the best gift of all time! [SIZE="1"]You'll shoot your eye out, kid![/SIZE]

To Sian:

Dictator Sian,

Your description of the world generally matches the maps our scouting detachments have sent home from abroad. We have been able to guess that your lands are most likely to our northwest, based upon the directions your scouts were heading when we made contact, and the fact that our scouts have themselves seen Slowwalk's capital and can place it with certainty on our own maps (quite a fine Grail they have there!). Our best guess is that if there is some other nation in the unknown, they must surely be to our west and likely to your south. But we've not met another such nation and know nothing about them except that they seem to hold the turns for a long time.

If you Sumerian people celebrate holidays, may they be pleasant.

Hail Ronald Reagan,

Mao,
Chairman
Republican Party

I had received a message from Catwalk a few days ago and thought I had already replied to it when in fact I had not. That's the trouble of quickly reading email on my phone and not wanting to type out a reply on the crappy keypad, I think. I sometimes forget to go back and send emails and in my mind I've already filed it as done. I'm sure this will get me in trouble eventually but for now I've blamed it on one of Mao's messengers.

From Catwalk:

Hey spacetyrantxenu

We hope all is well in your empire and that your start is coming along nicely. Our scout is currently heading SW where we hope to find Kuro. We were also wondering about the future relations of our great (well currently a little on the small side) nations. We are interested in peaceful coexistence between the Koreans and Babylonians and as such were wondering if a NAP until turn 30 would be amenable? The short length of the NAP is simply designed to allow both parties to 'test the waters', if we get along well obviously the NAP can be extended. However, if we discover we hate one anothers guts, not too much longterm harm done. If you wish to sign a NAP, we have some plans for the tundra connection which may be of interest to you.

Best regards,
Catwalk of team slowwalk

TL;DR - Catwalk wants a 30 turn NAP and wants to discuss borders.


To Slowwalk:

Oligarchs Catwalk and Slowcheetah,

We apologise for the late arrival of this response. The messenger who dallied in delivering the message has been summarily executed. The new messenger promises to be much more prompt, as if his life depends upon it.

We Republicans are not the war hawks we have often been portrayed to be and find an agreement for peaceful relations between our two nations to be both highly desirable and profitable. However, as for an official concordat regarding military non-aggression, we see no need for it and are generally opposed to such agreements on principle (we have no plans to sign one with any party for any reason during our diplomacy going forward, unless required during a time of a mutual war against a third party). This objection to formal non-aggression pacts should not show the Republican Party to be a war loving state, but rather reveals that in the past we have seen that NAPs have had a rather chilling effect on the practice of realpolitik and the periodic need for one state to rapidly alter its foreign policy direction given changing circumstances abroad. We hope you do not read this refusal to sign an agreement as warlike in intent, we just like to keep our options open (and it makes for a more fun diplo game for the lurkers).

With all that being said, we Republicans agree entirely to being good neighbors as long as you seekers of the Grail are good neighbors to us. Would you like to discuss your plans for the tundra between our lands further, in spite of our intransigence regarding your NAP proposal? We Republicans typically detest border agreements as much as NAPs, if that is what your cartographers and bureaucrats have been working on. We believe that if you are mighty enough to hold territory it belongs to you until someone with a bigger and sharper pointy stick takes it from you. That may sound like a rather aggressive policy but remember, we Republicans do not favor war .

My apologies for writing such a long message, it's difficult to sleep in the Republican empire tonight! Also, if your Korean people celebrate any holidays may they be both pleasant and enjoyable.

Hail Ronald Reagan,

Mao,
Chairman
Republican Party

TL;DR - We're not signing NAPs with anyone and don't want border agreements because we'll be building a ton of bowmen and you guys won't. Also because we reserve the right to Pink Dot if we think we can get away with it. But we're peaceful Republicans so don't go hands full against us!

I played turn 10 the same night I sent out these messages, the one turn I'm apparently going to be able to play this whole long weekend -- I may as well not have gone to the trouble of installing Civ on my work laptop and all the trouble that took [SIZE="1"](I couldn't copy the installation from my main gaming box, couldn't do it from a Steam backup, etc. I ended up having to download from Steam...after realizing that the laptop was joined to my work domain and was being proxied by an unavailable proxy server via group policy...unjoin the laptop from the domain, download the Civ installation via Steam, pack up the laptop...all to play one turn. Doh! )[/SIZE]

Anyway, obligatory F9 shot:

[spacetyrantxenu]

I know I'm horribly spamming my own thread but Catwalk and Slowcheetah get a diplo bonus for this:

http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showpost....stcount=73

http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showpost....stcount=74

They played the turn within about 10 minutes of receiving it. Thanks guys!

[Ceiliazul]

They played the turn within about 10 minutes of receiving it. Thanks guys!

Catwalk has been highly reliable in 25g as well, it's much appreciated.

[spacetyrantxenu]

I'll keep that in mind. Both Catwalk and Slowcheetah seem very friendly and if they're responsible about playing turns on time that's one less reason to kill them first. At this point I'm thinking about ways I can get rid of Kuro already, even though it's pure from a gameplay perspective. I haven't read where this happened before but I seem to remember a reference in a thread somewhere that Bob killed someone solely for taking too long playing turns. Meaning: there is precedent for this and it wouldn't make me a complete bastard for doing it. It isn't Mao's #1 goal, but it's on the list to make sure this game runs quickly.

[Commodore]

I'll keep that in mind. Both Catwalk and Slowcheetah seem very friendly and if they're responsible about playing turns on time that's one less reason to kill them first. At this point I'm thinking about ways I can get rid of Kuro already, even though it's pure from a gameplay perspective. I haven't read where this happened before but I seem to remember a reference in a thread somewhere that Bob killed someone solely for taking too long playing turns. Meaning: there is precedent for this and it wouldn't make me a complete bastard for doing it. It isn't Mao's #1 goal, but it's on the list to make sure this game runs quickly.

Ironically, it was Kuro there too.