[SPOILER-PBEM14] Bismarck of Maya

[Gaspar]

Sent this to Lewwyn. See if you can read between the lines:

Lewwyn,

It appears my scouting unit Mortician made an exciting 2-for-1 combination contact with yours and Serdoa's units this turn. So - hi! I'm about to head for work, but since you get the game directly after me, I didn't want you think I was rude by not saying hello.

Anything interesting going on in Turkish lands? Have you misread any tea leaves yet? Are you totally convinced that scooter is the mason and Serdoa and Sandover are werewolves? Can I tell you I'm the baner?

...

Wrong game, my bad. Anyway - nice to meet you again, good luck and I'm sure we'll have plenty to talk about down the road.

Gaspar

Serdoa, I just sent a perfunctory hello to.

[Gaspar]

I think I'm just going to be a dick in diplomacy this game. My play might not be good enough to back it up, but it'll make the game itself more fun, ultimately.

Lewwyn replied to me with this:

Hey Gaspar,

Good to finally meet you. I couldn't figure out where you were for the longest time. Thought you were east of me for a while. Not much else to say atm. And yeah, I'm sure we'll have plenty to say later.

Gratz on Stonehenge by the by!

Lewwyn

I sent this reply:

Lewwyn,

Heh, I'm sure we will indeed. Already found your SevenSpirits this game? Will that make me TRD or Nakor, I wonder.

Enjoying some tea,
Gaspar

[Gaspar]

Actually, I thought I might add to that. How the hell did we get this collection of personalities in one game?

Sandover - Complete sociopath.
Scooter - Completely torn from the pages of the Prince.
Lewwyn - Complete patsy to the first nice guy he meets.
Serdoa - Complete snake.

<I'm> the borderline rational one in this group. This is gonna be a hell of a game to lurk.

[Gaspar]

More banter with Lewwyn. Having a good time with this.

lol Gaspar,

I think you're forgetting one. Why couldn't you be Ruff? :D And no one could be my SevenSpirits; he's on his own level of partnership. After all he gave me that super pick in PBEM 18... Go scout, go!

What about yourself? Getting comfy with anyone? It's humorous to me that you're the last one I meet.

Lewwyn

Lewwyn,

I suppose there's some logic there, but I'm far more likely to be eaten up Sandover than scooter, and the likelihood of you chumming up with Sandover is extraordinarily small. Still, I like it, I'm going to go with scooter = SS, Serdoa = TRD, Sandover = Nakor, me = Ruff and you = Lewwyn. I will say that if I had Agg/Chm Rome, someone would be seeing the ass end of praets long before I sat around waiting to get invaded. :D

In game news, I think my diplo with you has been better than with anyone else in this game. If that doesn't tell you what you need to know about my situation, I'm not sure what else does.

Shame we hadn't met earlier, you were my pre-game pick for most likely ally. In fairness, that's has as much to do with the fact were in a game full of psychopaths and sociopaths as anything to do with our personal relationship. You really couldn't have picked a curiouser group of personalities if you tried. I think I qualify as boring in this group. Should make for fun post-game reading, if nothing else.

Thoughts on the map?

Quaffing Earl Grey,
Gaspar

For those with no context clue reading ability, I'm probing to see if he A: Has figured out the map B: Is really in bed with scooter as I'm suspecting and C: Will lie to me early on. Its easy for me to push his buttons because I know him better than the other players. WW2 was excellent for getting into his psychology.

[Gaspar]

Fairly meaningless reply from Sandover, which I'm including solely for Roland's benefit. Clearly just trying to egg me on, which, if you've been reading along thus far, is quite unnecessary. However, much as I think Sandover (unbelievably) is my best bet for an ally in the game, probably best to at least let him think there's a possibility I could team up with scooter. Will have to work on that for the next message to him (yes, this means you're up, Roland. :neenernee ).

Prophet Gaspar,

I know firsthand what it's like being in a game without friends so I can see why you'd want to avoid that.

I asked scooter what his diplo relations are like and he's having some trouble figuring you out it seems. I could see his frustration between the lines!

[Roland]

Oh, I could have fun with this. Maybe now I don't have to worry about cleaning up your mistakes with the last Sandover message that I never got around to fixing before you popped it off.

ETA on reply?

[Gaspar]

Lewwyn finally realizes bantering with me is a losing proposition, and goes with something with more substance:

Gaspar,

You flatter me, and I'd say the game is still young. I wouldn't apply all the PBEM 6 diplo here because I think its going to be very different. I do agree that this game has a lot of personality! But at least that brings a sense of urgency. I'm loving that we're getting a turn a day.

And yeah, that surprises me that your diplo has been better with me than anyone else. Sandover has been very talkative with me... I think I have more diplo with him than anyone else. Though, you are the last to meet people, so that could be a factor. That leads into the map as well.

With this map, I'm apparently in a central position. My scouting absolutely sucks, but I still managed to meet most everyone in a timely matter. And probably more unnerving is I've got you, Serdoa, and Sandover hovering round my borders. Scooter's warrior was around a little while ago. For the longest time I thought I was southernmost on the map. Now it seems the map is like 2 bubbles as you've probably seen from your scouting. I'm guessing a custom pangaea. In any case its sort of like you and Serdoa are on opposite ends. You're just now meeting in the middle.

And yeah I'd be wary. If you are alone on the second bubble of the pangaea with Sandover, all he needs to do is take you out and he can expand through a whole section of the continent with a manageable choke. So... I guess you're either a target or an ally with him there. Up here in the north half it's more of a three-step tango if you will.

BTW you Scooter and Sandover are killing me in the posting department. And I have been active... I'm doing at least 2-3 posts per turn. You're all spammers with too many lurkers. -__-'

Lewwyn

I'll have a think on that one.

In game news, Settler was 2-pop whipped, we'll regrow on the Oracle, and then move along to settler spam. I'm going to just go farmer's gambit now, and if there's a threat, well, then I'm just going to have to deal with it. I'm hoping to spend some quality time today coming up with a medium-term micro plan. I also need to figure out a good production site, as this is the sort of game where you're really going to need to pick a site or two and have them build nothing but military all game. The site with Crab/Fish/Copper will get decent production in the early game with a copper mine and desert hill plus some plains, but its not going to be too exciting when hammer costs increase.

Perhaps if there are some enterprising lurkers out there, I'll repost the dotmap and someone will see if there's something I'm missing. This is very quick, so there's only circles for citysites. If someone wants something explained from the earlier version, let me know.

[Gaspar]

Oh, I could have fun with this. Maybe now I don't have to worry about cleaning up your mistakes with the last Sandover message that I never got around to fixing before you popped it off.

ETA on reply?

You really enjoy messing with me, don't you? Yeah, in hindsight the last Sandover message was really lousy. Anyway, I'd like to reply to him by 2 AM EDT if possible, 24h should really be the standard for messages at this point, where everyone's met and so forth.

[Roland]

I love messing with you, especially since you never fail to present me with an opportunity to do so.

We'll deal with Sandover as best we can. I've lost the threads on him, unfortunately, so we'll have to do some diplo-rebuilding efforts there, but that shouldn't be a problem. 24h is a reasonable window. I was more worried you were going to say something like "2 hours".

Lewwyn seems like a very likely candidate for an ally, believe it or not. What you need to decide is if that's something you want, and to what degree. Keep relations friendly, but noncommittal and you should be fine for now, at least until we get farther along and can get a better read on Sandover once more.

I'll work up a response to Sandover later today. Going to take some thinking / delving to come up with something solid, but I think I can manage it.

[Gaspar]

This is amusing little exchange with scooter:

Gaspar,

This is just a note that I did get your message and will respond when I can. The semester is nearly finished so I have a very large project due Monday, so I've spent almost no time on civ-related things for the weekend. Anyways - my point is that my response will be a little delayed - Mondayish probably. I want to be able to sit down and give you a good response, and anything I'd do now would be really rushed, and since we're in no particular hurry (or am I wrong?), I'm going to need a little more time before I get back to you. Let me know if this is a problem and I'll do what I can.

Thanks!
scooter

scooter,

No worries. My stack of doom hasn't quite made it to your capital yet, so there's still time for negotiation.

Gaspar