Last turn of GA, so I revolted to Bureaucracy. I was sad to discover that Bureau doesn't compound, for some reason I was under the impression it did. Still, 9h and 15c isn't bad. My capital is probably the most pathetic of all, haven't really gone vertical anywhere. I'm trying hard to whip less everywhere, I need growth badly now. I thought about switching to Theocracy while I was at it, reasoning that I won't get another free switch for another 15-18t. I decided that my military needs during that time will be minimal, I'm in full REX mode now and the next GA might coincide quite nicely with a military buildup.
I decided to regain my senses and go Meditation/Philosophy for Nationalism rather than Divine Right. It's cheaper and I can wait with Spiral Minaret. CC and HH both have useful stuff to do in the meantime: Great Wall + Forum for CC (will wait with CI and just work 3 specialists for a while instead for a total of 13 * 1.25 = 16 GPP) and Forge + Palace in HH after Moai finishes. AA should be done with AP by the time HH gets the palace and I feel confident AA can snag TM without the Palace bonus. Which reminds me, a courthouse in MM won't be great at all as it'll be right next door to the new palace. Switching that next turn.
Demos at EOT. No longer quite as sexy, but at least I don't look like a runaway. I'm quite pleased with the numbers, given that the high rival numbers don't all belong to the same player:
Azza and Superjm both have good MFG, Azza has good crops and Superjm has good GNP. And both are less well suited for rapid expansion than I am, getting an extra 4 cpt in each new city makes a big difference. And having more cities, my pop growth should be a little faster. Me and Azza have taken turns being the pop leader for quite a while now, looks like we're pretty close to each other.
That said, I still feel like I'm cutting a few too many corners in my continuing quest for MORE. Azza and Superjm both have awesome size 11-12 capitals with an academy, and they both have several high pop cities. My population is more evenly distributed, I don't have anything bigger than size 8 even though I have plenty happiness to grow taller. I wonder if I'm whipping too much, but it's seemed like the right decision every time. As mentioned earlier, I'm trying really hard to whip less. Any guidelines for when I need to ease up on the whipping? I think I will try to only whip workers and settlers for a while, letting other projects complete naturally unless I need them urgently (like for culture).
Had some interesting diplo exchanges with Sareln, he seems to embrace the diplo system
Quote:2012/9/13 Hans Christian Noe <catwalkutopia@gmail.com>
I will decline that offer. Both of my previous offers will stand for the next 3t, as promised.
2012/9/13 Sareln <Sareln09@gmail.com>
Another counteroffer
- NAP, OB, Borders as per previous
- 20 GPT as previous
- Closed borders with Azza for duration of NAP
-Sareln-
On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 2:35 PM, Hans Christian Noe
<catwalkutopia@gmail.com> wrote:
> Correct, the idea is to not really discuss or argue proposals but simply
> exchange proposals until an agreement is reached, or either player tires of
> negotiating. This is both to limit the role of diplomacy and to save the
> players a lot of time.
>
> I wish to present the following counteroffer:
> - NAP, OB and borders as per previous proposals
> - 5 gpt for Sareln on the same terms as previously
> - a lump sum of 25 gold for Sareln to be gifted on t86
> - Sareln keeps borders closed with Azza for the next 20t
>
> The previous offer of terminating our current agreement still stands.
> Respectfully,
> Catwalk of Rome
>
> 2012/9/13 Sareln <Sareln09@gmail.com>
>>
>> Hail Catwalk of Rome,
>>
>> I looked at your offer, I'm not sure how much opinion I can offer on
>> the terms inside this diplo structure, so have a counteroffer:
>>
>> - Rolling 20t NAP (can be cancelled with 20t cooldown)
>> - OB for the duration of the NAP
>> - 25 gpt for Sareln (falls away if Sareln initiates cooldown, if
>> Catwalk initiates cooldown it doesn't fall away until cooldown is
>> over)
>> - Borders defined as follows (same as your offer)
>> http://tinypic.com/r/29ypd04/6
>> Catwalk will not settle past the purple line, Sareln will not settle
>> past the grey line. Furthermore, Catwalk also give Sareln permission
>> to revoke our current agreement.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Sareln
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 2:58 PM, Hans Christian Noe
>> <catwalkutopia@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Greetings Sareln of Byzantium
>> >
>> > We wish to make you the following proposal (negating our current
>> > agreement):
>> > - Rolling 20t NAP (can be cancelled with 20t cooldown)
>> > - OB for the duration of the NAP
>> > - 2gpt for you (falls away if you initiate cooldown, if I initiate
>> > cooldown
>> > it doesn't fall away until cooldown is over)
>> > - Borders defined as follows (let me know if it shows up properly)
>> > http://tinypic.com/r/29ypd04/6
>> > I will not settle past the purple line, you will not settle past the
>> > grey
>> > line. Furthermore, I also give you permission to revoke our current
>> > agreement.
>> >
>> > Deals have to be accepted before the recipient plays his turn, unless
>> > otherwise stated. I will let these offers stand for 3 turns, so until
>> > the
>> > start of t88.
>> >
>> > Respectfully,
>> > Catwalk of Rome
>
>
My previous agreement with Arch was 20t rolling NAP and very generous borders. It's not in my interests at all to allow him to cancel that agreement, but I'm hoping to curry favour with him by showing a bit of sportsmanship and not saddle him with a bad agreement from his predecessor. 20 gpt is still way too much, but I'm glad that he made a counter offer which included closing borders with Azza. I tried closing borders with Azza during my last turn, his income was lowered 12 and mine was lowered 1. If I can land a NAP with Waterbat and get Sareln to close borders with Azza, I'd be set to close borders with Azza myself which would put him in a hole economically.
Went ahead and sent the following to Waterbat:
Quote:Greetings Waterbat of India
We wish to make you the following proposal:
- 20t NAP (or a minimum of 15t)
- OB for the duration of the NAP
- you close borders with Azza for the duration of our NAP
- I gift you 3gpt for the duration of the NAP, 5gpt with a 20t NAP
- I gift you 1 Praetorian, you gift me 1 Fast Worker
Respectfully,
Catwalk of Rome
I might be shooting myself in the foot here, as offering concessions for a NAP suggests that I'm desperate for long NAPs. This could in turn make them negotiate hard and/or do aggressive posturing. I'm hoping their greed will win out, I think I'm offering some very reasonable bribes
What do you mean by compound? All civ bonuses of the same thing are additive, not multiplicative; however the additional commerce is multiplicative with bonuses to science, gold, etc. after it is transformed by the slider.
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.
That's what I meant, the commerce bonus is additive as it increases base commerce which is then boosted by other modifiers. The hammer bonus doesn't increase base hammers, it boosts them similar to other modifiers.
Waterbat replied:
Quote:Thanks Cw. I'm really interested in this, but have no idea the impact economically. Give me a bit to figure it out.
Sent from my iPhone
Violates our diplo rules a tiny bit, but no biggie. Looks like I have good chances of sticking it to Azza. I'd prefer not spending too much cash on this, though. Main reason I'm directing this at Azza is that he's most vulnerable to losing trade routes with his 12 cities. Superjm with 9 cities would likely feel no impact from 1 player closing borders and little from the 2nd. I think Azza will be going majorly paranoid if 3 players close borders with him in short order. I'm trying to find out if my OB agreement with Azza is binding or not, I can't find any proposal which mentions it.
Planting a new city leaves me dry on trade routes, so I'm going to plant yet another island city instead of claiming the horses. I will be taking the other site on Superjm's side, blocking him off pretty good. I have a t88 NAP with Superjm, so I will need to either extend it or get Praetorians there pronto. Going to propose a t94 extension now. May as well try adding an offer for him to close borders with Azza while I'm at it
Quote:Greetings Superjm of the mighty Mushroom Kingdom!
We wish to make you the following proposal:
- NAP until t94 (current NAP expires t88)
- I will gift you 2gpt each turn you have OB with me and not with Azza
- Alternately, I will up the offer to 3gpt if we sign a NAP until t98
Note that the second clause is an open offer, accepting the proposal does not require you to close borders with Azza or maintain OB with me.
Respectfully,
Catwalk of Rome
I think this approach is good, as it means he'll be accepting a proposal where he gets an incentive to close borders. He'd probably decline a proposal requiring him to close borders, whereas there are no downsides to him in this one. Just plants a seed in his mind...
It's risky offering Superjm money, as he's one of my strongest rivals. If he gets in the habit of feeling entitled to handouts for me, I could be getting myself in trouble.
Trying Xenon too:
Quote:Greetings Xenon of the Ottoman empire.
We wish to make you the following proposal:
- NAP until t105
- For each turn we have a NAP, you have OB with me and closed borders with Azza, I will gift you 3 gold
- Borders as per our previous agreement
Respectfully,
Catwalk of Rome
If all 4 accept, I'm going to end up broke I'm not willing to go higher than 5gpt, so it will probably be hard to strike a deal with Sareln. I will probably offer him the same deal as the others, gold for OB with me and closed borders with Azza but not imposing a requirement. Also, I notice a lot of activity in Sareln's thread. He seems to be a good player, and he may well end up being a competitive rival if he has access to lots of advice on top of that. His position is bad, but if he can make the most of his underdog role he just might catch up.
Just realized, I could go full circle and demand cash from Azza for maintaining OB I will need to clarify in my proposals that the closed borders are one-sided, although I do think it says so already. The biggest difference with this diplo system is that all ad deals are secret. That has big implications, and can actually lead to diplomacy having more impact than we wanted it to. I wonder how much diplo the other players have been conducting, I'm guessing not much. Sareln joining seems to be acting as a catalyst for diplomatic activity, and the game has reached a point where there's a lot more potential for conflicts.
Superjm and Xenon both accepted the NAP extensions (Superjm until t94), including the clauses about accepting bribes if they decide to close borders with Azza. I think they're both going to see how much closing borders is going to cost them, hopefully they will know how to use demographics to see how much Azza is getting out of them. The seed has been sown
This also means that I'm free to settle my third island city, I have another 10t to being reinforcements over and I might have a NAP with Waterbat at that time. He seems quite pleased to get a NAP, which is really good news to me. I thought for a while that he was seriously considering pressing his military advantage and using it to extract concessions from me, it doesn't seem he's in that mindset currently.
Azza researched Alphabet this turn, which gives me tech visibility on him. Tech list:
+ means he has it and I don't, - means I have it and he doesn't. I'd say we're about even there, we both sidetracked the main tech paths for a handful of fluff techs. The good news is that I will certainly beat him to Philosophy, which is due in 3t (possibly 2t if I focus heavily on research). I guess holy cities don't matter all that much, but I'd rather I have it than he does. Would free religion and spreading a bunch of religions around be worth it if I only land Apostolic Palace? On that note, I'm feeling confident about landing AP so I will put some 90 hammers of failgold into GW in AA before starting on AP (Hagia Sophia finished this turn, yay!).
In even more important news, I'm now rapidly catching up with Waterbat's post count with all this nonsense rambling I've been doing. That bodes well for my chances of victory, it's all about the posts.
I just went through all my correspondance, and I am indeed free to cancel OB with Azza. I have a NAP with him lasting until t95, and our border agreement lasts until then as well. I will likely close borders next turn, I've had peace with Waterbat for a while now so I think I will be able to get full trade routes with him soon. And it's going to cost Azza a lot to lose OB with two players, especially since I have 2 (soon 3) island cities that are worth extra to him. I'm also getting a Fast Worker in exchange for two Praetorians and a NAP with Waterbat until t105.
With a little luck, this is going to tank Azza's economy a little at a critical point. He just researched Philosophy and has Civil Service, so he might be chasing Taj Mahal as well. I landed an engineer from AA, I think I will hang on to it in order to deter others from building wonders. Ideally it will then be used for a GA in 18t, giving me a double GA together with Taj Mahal (triple with MoM). I will also be able to shift my Praetorians to the Azza border before my NAP with him expires. Waterbat seems quite happy to cooperate with me now, so I hope to be able to secure an extension of our current NAP which lasts until t105. I have 7 Praetorians total on the Waterbat border, 1 on the Azza border and 1 on the island. 1 or 2 will be shipped to the island, 2 will stay on the eastern border and the remaining 3 or 4 will guard my western border.
Superjm is also being contained a little bit, as I've hampered his natural expansion by taking the island. With another 10t of peace (at least), I will be able to lay a solid claim to the entire island that will be difficult to dislodge. This will also give me a credible military threat against him, as I will be in striking distance of the mainland with my NW city once it reaches the 3rd border.
I still don't have an answer from Sareln, so I don't know what our relations will be like.
Everybody is spending EP on me lately, annoying. I'll try to see if I can land some "no EP spending on me damnit" agreements, already I'm losing several graphs. I have graphs on Xenon, he's behind as expected. His power is high and climbing, so it looks like he's been playing a paranoid game without putting his troops to good use. He would have been able to bother me pretty good on my NW border, maybe extracted concessions from me or razed a city. Waterbat has churned out a ton of cities last few turns, he's now up to an impressive 13, on par with me and Azza. I'm finally growing my cities somewhat decently, still have to resist the tempting whip every turn.
I decided not to close borders with Azza until next turn, I need the extra island city. Right now it would cost me 10 gpt, that's too much. Nationalism will complete in 8t, same time Apostolic Palance is planned to be done. I've dropped the idea of using HH as a tertiary GP farm, AA and CC should suffice and I think I will be able to get the wonders in AA fast enough. Taj Mahal will finish in 8t with a little bit of overflow, hopefully that will suffice. My competitors are Azza and Superjm. Both have Civil Service, and Azza got to Philosophy 1t before me. He is also before me in turn order. His income at 0% research is 101, mine is 149 (146 after bribing Waterbat). That should put him at 12t for Nationalism, maybe closing borders can push him to 13t. However, he also has 2 GLib scientists in his capital and an academy, so his tech rate might be uncomfortably close to mine. What's worse, he has 185 gold stored. Looks like I'll be in a pretty tight race here!
One advantage for me is that I have a forge in my capital, giving me a 25% bonus to base hammers and allowing me to employ an engineer for a net bonus of 8 hpt. That puts me at 57 hpt, he will be at 49 hpt unless he works more than 1 plains tile. Given that his capital is size 13, he most likely is. 3 plains tiles would put him at 55 hpt. I have 1 forest available for chopping, taking me down to 7t.
If only I was able to finish AP one turn earlier, I'd be able to spend a turn getting overflow and AP hammers from a monastery. Kicking myself for spending a turn on GW failgold now I will be able to get failgold from GW to speed up Nationalism, but it won't make any difference as hammers are the bottleneck. I could delay AP and build up overflow instead: If I spend one turn on a temple and a monastery and whip them (delaying completion), that gives me 31 base overflow hammers. That's 14 hammers short of finishing it in 5t. Building walls and overflowing to a missionary ought to give me enough overflow for the 5t finish. I will be single whipping 2 pop off and delay AP vastly.
I will also need to crash fund Nationalism with the GW. I can complete it in 4t, giving me enough cash to shave off around 2t. I'm not sure if all of this will be worth it, but I'm sure I'll have fun with it. Slow building it would be preferrable, but I just can't rely on that.
Yet another idea: Selling Waterbat additional Praetorians for cash. He has 99 gold saved currently, I could sell him 3 Praetorians for that. 33 gold for a Shock Praetorian is quite the steal, and I can spare those at present. I would still have 2 Praetorians left over for the island and the western border, with another arriving from HH, giving me a total of 4 Praetorians + 1 Axeman on the west border. Sending the following:
Quote:Greetings Waterbat of India
We wish to make you the following separate proposals:
A)
- gifting you 1 Shock Praetorian for 50 gold
B)
- gifting you 2 Shock Praetorians for 90 gold
C)
- gifting you 3 Shock Praetorians for 120 gold
Both proposals also include a 2t NAP extension (to t107).
Respectfully,
Catwalk of Rome
That gives me a bit of flexibility to let my prices be negotiated down. Considering he just expanded massively, he might actually be interested in extra troops to hold on to his possessions. Since Azza finished Philosophy before me (thereby founding Taoism), he might not be on to me racing for Taj Mahal.
![[Image: t84-demos.JPG]](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/42444862/PBEM37/t84-demos.JPG)
![[Image: t84-GNP.JPG]](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/42444862/PBEM37/t84-GNP.JPG)
![[Image: t84-MFG.JPG]](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/42444862/PBEM37/t84-MFG.JPG)
![[Image: t84-crops.JPG]](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/42444862/PBEM37/t84-crops.JPG)
I'm not willing to go higher than 5gpt, so it will probably be hard to strike a deal with Sareln. I will probably offer him the same deal as the others, gold for OB with me and closed borders with Azza but not imposing a requirement. Also, I notice a lot of activity in Sareln's thread. He seems to be a good player, and he may well end up being a competitive rival if he has access to lots of advice on top of that. His position is bad, but if he can make the most of his underdog role he just might catch up.
