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Gillette Diplomacy Thread: Dossiers, Scheming, and Puppet Strings

scooter Wrote:I'd throw in a question about map info. Something like "In the meantime, how about some geography lessons? Are you located to our east?" Something like that.

Okay. I think I'm actually going to lift that wholesale, so thanks!

Sent with scooter's line added after the sentence with three regoarrarrs (which was really fun to type wink )
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.

1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.

2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.

3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.

4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
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Um yikes, apparently nobody is checking our team email. We have two emails from 6 days ago and the last login was... me 7 days ago lol. I thought we had a lot of people interested in doing diplo..? Merovech, you still wanting to doing this or not really? Anyways, here's what we need to respond to:

Trolls Wrote:Be sure to let regoarrarr know how disappointed we are in him. You've given us a great idea for the next challenge. Place your capital at the center of a Cartesian coordinate plane. What is the coordinates of our capital?

Tropical Trolls

Menagerie Wrote:To our fine fresh-faced fellows,

Thank you for the kind offer of disposable toiletries. The pigs ruling the farm are quite fond of them. Though we do value our own flesh rather highly, we may be able to find citizens that can spare some wool that is quite useful in making itchy turtlenecks that you can use to cover your naked necks when it gets chill. We also look forward to a long and prosperous relationship between our two great realms. Imagine our future enemies trembling at the awesome sight of mighty bears with gleaming razor blades.

We have not met any others yet, but our fleet foxes are searching far and wide across the land, and we hope to meet others soon.

PS: We would also like to apologize for the delay in response, which was due to some urgent matters, which we had to give deeper consideration.

Definitely going to need to apologize for delays.
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Just popping in from the C&D thread to say I think Menagerie researched Animal Husbandry last turn (T14). This might be something we want to refer to in our next correspondence with them (but I'd wait until someone like Cyneheard can confirm this info, first).
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Apologies, I have completely forgotten to check the email, just been checking the team thread. I can't send anything tonight, test tomorrow, so if you could do a round Id be very grateful. But yeah, sorry and I do still want to be doing this.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.

1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.

2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.

3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.

4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
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Okay, well, done with the test, so Ill wrte up qan apologetic letter to Team Tropical Trolls now. Do you also want me to respond the Team Menagerie?

edit: Actually, I want someone more experienced's views on how to answer Team Troll's question: "You've given us a great idea for the next challenge. Place your capital at the center of a Cartesian coordinate plane. What is the coordinates of our capital?"

Do we want to be giving them the information that we (think we) know how the map is set up?

Also, regoarrarr, they're dissapointed in you not out-spamming scooter.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.

1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.

2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.

3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.

4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
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How about I'll manage correspondence with Menagerie and you can take Trolls since that's how we've started. But yeah, I highly recommend logging in and using some sort of forwarding (IMAP, filters, etc) so you get notified when a new message comes in.

As for the Cartesian coordinate thing... Well, I'm guessing by now they should have a decent idea that the map is circular and probably Donut-like, otherwise they would have asked it differently I'd guess. So I don't know, maybe we're (-2, -6) or something like that? I'd flip that and ask them what their coordinates are with that in mind.

I'll draft a Menagerie message and post it here.
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For reference, this was the last message we got from Menagerie:

Menagerie Wrote:To our fine fresh-faced fellows,

Thank you for the kind offer of disposable toiletries. The pigs ruling the farm are quite fond of them. Though we do value our own flesh rather highly, we may be able to find citizens that can spare some wool that is quite useful in making itchy turtlenecks that you can use to cover your naked necks when it gets chill. We also look forward to a long and prosperous relationship between our two great realms. Imagine our future enemies trembling at the awesome sight of mighty bears with gleaming razor blades.

We have not met any others yet, but our fleet foxes are searching far and wide across the land, and we hope to meet others soon.

PS: We would also like to apologize for the delay in response, which was due to some urgent matters, which we had to give deeper consideration.


Ok, messages have been moving slow, so I'd like to get some info. I'd like to figure out if they've met anybody else and if they have wonder plans. The latter is what I'm far more interested in, but I'll tack it on at the end. They do have some motivation to tell us too. Yes they're IND, but they can still easily lose a wonder race to us or have to pay too much for it if they suspect they're in a race. So let's hope they just tell us. I think Henge is a no-brainer from them, which is really too bad as it would be great for us. Anyways, my stab at it:

Gillette Wrote:Menagerie,

Ack, we are so sorry for the delay in replying. We had a breakdown in communication so two members each thought the other was sending our reply to you! We're working now to ensure that this was just a blip as we get used to this format. Thankfully it's early so nothing particularly urgent was missed.

We still have yet to meet anybody besides the Tropical Trolls team. We will alert you if we meet TEAM or Pirates before you do. Mind doing the same for us? Our map nerds are trying to determine where everybody is, and they keep demanding that the diplo folks feed them more info :P. We believe Trolls are far east of us, but we haven't actually confirmed that yet.

Ok, so I'll ask the question, and you can feel free to cleverly evade it if it's prying too much wink. Any wonder plans? We have a couple wonders we are potentially interested in, but we would definitely like to avoid racing the only IND civ if at all possible. We have little doubt that you would win a head-to-head battle in most circumstances, so our slight preference is to simply aim for things you are less enthused about. We think this is a great way to grow trust and cooperation between our great nations. We may even be willing to send you sheep shearing tools at drastically discounted prices!

Thanks,
Gillette

Comment, suggestions, criticisms welcome.
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Okay,
I'll type up a draft right away. I think I'll wait just a teenie bit more before sending it because I want to give anyone time to object to give information away, but I will probably send it in 30 or so minutes.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.

1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.

2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.

3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.

4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
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Here's the draft: Note, I am totally guessing with my coordinates, my quick search ccould not find how large we thought the donut was. Also, am I correct in assuming that Team TT is more or less directly to our East, with both of us as lower points in a pnetagon? I don't actually remember seeing where they came from.




Hello again!


I would first like to apologize for taking so long to return your message-Sadly, I can't even pretend it was someone else's fault, as I somehow went a whole week without checking to see if you responded. While this reflects poorly on me, please understand it is not Team Gillette's official policy ot let our valued customers' and partners' emails go unanswered!


Now for your challenge, we believe your capital to be at appproximately (14,-1), if our capital is at (0,0). Our challenge, somewhat uncreatively, is "If you place your capital at the center of a cartesean plane, where do you think our capital is?" It would be interesting to see if our guesses align.


Merovech

Team Gillette


P.S. I posted a notice for regoarrarr letting him know of your dissapointment, but I am not sure if he has read it, since he never posts anything!!!


Edit: I really don't want to send this without feedback, as I make a few assumptions inside it.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.

1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.

2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.

3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.

4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
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I don't see any problems there. I'll probably go ahead and send my draft to Menagerie too very soon.

Well, I'll make one comment. I'd maybe be a tiny bit less specific on why the email didn't make it to them. I worded mine the way I did because I'd rather them think we just mixed up who was doing what than get them to think we're uninterested in the game or anything like that. It probably doesn't really matter though - being down-to-earth is usually a good policy too, which your message does nicely.
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