[Spoilers] Victoria of Korea - Mardoc and SevenSpirits

[T-hawk]

On a related note - how do I turn off the clouds when zoomed out?

Use flying camera mode, Ctrl-Alt-F. First you need to enable it in CivilizationIV.ini (should be in My Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword.) AllowFlying = 1.

It's also possible to raise the cloud altitude with XML hackery, but a PBEM game might not respond well to changed assets.

[Mardoc]

T-Hawk - thanks! That works perfectly.

[SevenSpirits]

Should we put Hinduism back on the agenda? With plako presumably sticking to one religion, luddite and GES told us they don't want it, and Amelia made a deal with us not to go for it, that only leaves Tatan and Adlain to compete for it.

I think we might want to do so. (Ideally, at city #2, after wheel and pottery.)

Step one, sent this off to Tatan:

Hey Tatan,

Things still going nicely I hope?

Mardoc and I have been eying Hinduism. Do you have any plans that could conflict with us getting it? (i.e. researching poly soon ) I'd hate for either one of us to waste some beakers on it and not land it.

Seven

We'll need to check with adlain too, as soon as he next replies to us. Also, plako. He already grabbed Buddhism earlier than we thought was good, so we'd better check he's not doing anything else silly like that.

After that is confirmed, let everyone know we are going for it.

I feel this has a good chance of working, as long as we don't get a negative response back immediately; the rewards are quite nice; and the failure case probably involves Judaism + Organized Religion as consolation.

I have come up with an actual Devil's Advocate second city location, but so far I've managed to talk myself out of it. That is, if anyone chooses to rush us, we're putting our second city away from copper (and away from horses, most likely, since I can't imagine Ruff making that spot that lush).

I find it really hard to imagine a rush occurring in this game, let along against us. There are three reasons for rushing... hurt a rival, gain cities, claim territory. And the last two don't apply in this game; maintenance costs on another platform should be really irritating early on. If someone does rush, it will have been a really dumb move on their part. And that's if it works.

In terms of what to do with our units - I think scout/warrior on the rails should stay there. There's no particular spot we need to uncover, but if Ruff happened to deliberately or not put anything interesting out on the rails, we ought to find out about it (more sea resources, or accidental omissions, or sea - based silkworms...). Plus, that's our trading card to GES for home screenies. Our new warriors; well, probably leave one home and explore our square with the other? For the convenience of planning without alt-tabbing, if nothing else Plus, well, if Ruff mixed in other resources or made a mistake in duplicating, we ought to try to know about it.

I think we should recall them to map our homeland first. The main advantages of overall map understanding, circumnavigation, and contacts, are all moot now. Whereas knowing the entire layout of our own land as quickly as possible is extremely valuable in this phase in the game, which should primarily involve lots of settlers and workers. After that, we can put them back on the rails. The only interesting thing we can find there is a mistake by Ruff, and frankly it probably wouldn't affect us at this point anyway (like the silkworms).

[Mardoc]

I think we should recall them to map our homeland first. The main advantages of overall map understanding, circumnavigation, and contacts, are all moot now. Whereas knowing the entire layout of our own land as quickly as possible is extremely valuable in this phase in the game, which should primarily involve lots of settlers and workers. After that, we can put them back on the rails. The only interesting thing we can find there is a mistake by Ruff, and frankly it probably wouldn't affect us at this point anyway (like the silkworms).

I agree homeland knowledge is more valuable to us, now that we have contact and missed circumnavigation. But! That's the whole point of the deal with GES. He's made it clear, I think, that his screenshots to us stop when we stop sending him stuff. However, and meanwhile, sending him mostly worthless pictures of railroads gains us useful pictures of our (well, of his) platform. Essentially, we're indirectly scouting our platform anyway by riding the rails.

In the absence of that deal, it's be obvious we should head home. If I thought GES would keep sending us screenies without us reciprocating, I'd vote for home then, too. But as it stands, it seems to me that the choice is explore home, or explore rails and home (indirectly).

On the religion front - I agree with that approach. Hopefully by the time we're putting beakers into Hinduism, we know if we should, and it would be nice to have.

[Mardoc]

Ok, I'm going to have to give in to bringing the scouts back home after seeing GES' latest reply. And for that matter, to stop making diplomatic mountains out of molehills Or at least to keep that in mind for the future. The number of times already that I've made assumptions about what someone would want when we could just ask...

About all I will request is that we endeavor to take a different route home than we took outward, which shouldn't be any trouble given the plethora of paths Ruff gave us.

For novice's sake, the exchange was as follows:

Hey GES,

Mardoc and I are now debating what to do with our scouting units since
we've now located everyone, as well as determined the railroad luxury
resource layout. I'm in favor of recalling our units home to uncover
the last unknown home tiles (like, near the marble) all the more
quickly, while Mardoc thinks we should continue revealing the fogged
rails in case there are any anomalies, or significant mapmaker
mistakes.

Since you're also a beneficiary of whatever info we uncover, I thought
we'd check if you have a preference on what we do.

Seven

M7,

I am probably 10 turns away from being able to seriously reveal the tiles west of the marble. While it would be nice to know what is over there, I think there are plenty of effective city sites that have already been unfogged, so I don't have a huge preference. You guys have been great to work with so far, so you really should just do whatever you think is best for your team, and I will be pleased if some benefit comes to my civ. Let me know what you decide, because I am definitely trying to get one or both of my units over to defog west of the marble once the NE has been fully revealed.

Eventually I am going to have to get out on the rails and meet the neighbors too I suppose.

GES

[SevenSpirits]

Yeah, when just being kind and considerate is sufficient, we don't need to overthink things.

Also just had a chat with Adlain:

Adlain: Greetings Seven/ Mardoc
me: hey! (it's seven here)
Adlain: Hi Seven
Just wanted to say thank you for the map you sent me
me: you're welcome
Adlain: my scouting has, im afraid, been less impressive than yours. I had guessed a similer map to yourself (although far cruder) but i am glad to see my suspisions confirmed
me: cool
yeah, I got kind of obsessed with figuring out the layout, haha
Adlain: i know the feeling
me: I like the early game a lot and I like puzzles
hey btw, mardoc and I were discussing the possibility of grabbing hinduism
Adlain: yea, you never know what stratagy is the best at this stage imho
me: did you already have any plans in that direction?
Adlain: Hmm, let me check
(damn my scatter brain)
me: sure
Adlain: No, i dont have any imediete plans in that direction
however i may be open to some missionary love
me: ok
nothing's set yet, we might not even go for it, don't want to be racing anyone
but I should be able to let you know in a couple turns
Adlain:cool, np
me: awesome
Adlain: and yea, racing somone for religion can get quite painful as you are generaly neglecting other useful techs to get it
me: yup
Adlain: Well, i have to run, unless you have somthing you wish to disscus with me. Just saw you online and a chat is always preferable to Email imho
me: agreed!
all right, cheers man
Adlain: Good to speak to you, and i hope we can get along in this game
me: me too

So it seems we are good there. (But Tatan is still the main competitor, and we haven't heard from him.)

Not sure exactly how much he thinks a missionary will benefit us vs him, I just ignored that thread for now.

[Ruff_Hi]

It's also possible to raise the cloud altitude with XML hackery, but a PBEM game might not respond well to changed assets.

No can do this. It kills your access to pbem games.

[SevenSpirits]

T18 played (it keeps coming in late...)

Our gem mine completed. GES and us got The Wheel.



Summary of the Hinduism situation:

GES: "Thanks for the tip on religion. I am not planning to go that way early on."

Luddite: "Anyway no, I'm not going to go for hinduism, I'll be fine without it." also: "How about you let me know if you start teching hinduism (and it hasn't fallen yet) and we'll do the same?" "yeah, no problem"

Amelia: "Would you be interested in agreeing to not pursue
Hindu if we agree not to pursue Buddhism?" "Sure, that would be ok =)"

Adlain: "No, i dont have any imediete plans in that direction"

plako: ??? got buddhism

Tatan: "I have absolutely no plans for Hinduism."

I'll double-check with Plako now, then we can set the plan in stone (pottery, then hindu) and tell everyone we are claiming it.

sent:

Sup again plako!

Mardoc and I are planning to grab Hinduism. Just wanted to double-check with you that this won't run afoul of your own research plans. Do let us know if there's a conflict, the last thing I want is for either of us to waste beakers unnecessarily.

Seven

[novice]

What a novel idea, tracking techs by asking people instead of doing C&D. Nice to see you putting those early contacts to good use.

[SevenSpirits]

What a novel idea, tracking techs by asking people instead of doing C&D. Nice to see you putting those early contacts to good use.

Hehe. If we can establish any new kind of successful diplomatic style, I will be very happy. Here is hopefully the last of the Hinduism diplo:

Got plako's confirmation:

Hi,

Go ahead. I've other techs in my mind currently.

Good luck,
Plako

and replied:

Thanks.

Sent to Luddite:

Hi again,

After some extensive discussion, Mardoc and I decided we are going to go for Hinduism. I assume this is still fine by you but let me know if it isn't.

Seven

Sent to Amelia:

Mardoc and I eventually decided to go for Hinduism. If you'd like Judaism, let me know, we can tell you when we're expecting to land it so you can be close behind without stealing Hindu from us, and just about guarantee Judaism. Not sure that's the best choice for you, just want to offer the option.

Seven

To Tatan:

OK, thanks for being forthright about it. Barring any sort of broken promise by another player, we will be landing Hinduism pretty soon.

Seven

To Adlain:

It's confirmed (unless someone lied to us), we'll be getting Hinduism pretty soon.

Seven

And half-unrelatedly, sent this to GES yesterday:

OK cool, I am sending at least our scout back home. He'll be able to start exploring the SW corner area in 3 turns I think.

By the way, we may well go for Hinduism (in our second city, fingers crossed). We talked with people and no one else seems to want it that much. Yay for having contact with everyone! If you find yourself considering going for something (a wonder or first-to-tech bonus) and still haven't met everyone at that point, feel free to ask us to ask around for you.

Seven