[SPOILERS] scooter - Zara Yakob

[Strike700]

All yours boss.

[scooter]

Well it feels nice to be back to playing again. Thanks again Strike for helping out! Strike's done a nice job of exploring my surroundings, and I'll do a fuller update with some pictures of my land later tonight, but for now I'll update on the big news for the turn - I met timmy's scout in-game. I sent him a quick and generic greeting message:

Timmy,

As you will see in the save that I just uploaded, I have met one of your scouts so we have officially met in-game. I hope your game is going well so far! Anything of interest happening in your part of the world? As I'm guessing you know, I have also met the Celtic civilization to my north - founders of Buddhism. I hope we can establish friendly relations, and I look forward to hearing from you!

scooter

Hopefully you'll see some pictures of the land around me later tonight... Settler due next turn, which is kinda nice . Timmy's capital is at size 5 - I'm guessing to whip out a settler.

[Strike700]

One thing to note is that You're not in slavery yet. I think the plan was to revolt after the settler finished.

[scooter]

Thanks - glad you said something because I probably would've forgotten. I'll switch next turn while the settler is on the move.

[scooter]

Alright, picture time! First, let's take a look at the inside and outside of the capital:





First off, the worker agenda in Adelaide is to slap down a cottage or two on the floodplains and mine a hill or two. I may farm a floodplain, as that'll help me support two scientists, which I'll be doing in not too long. I'll also want to finish hooking up the gems for extra happy soon, but that can wait a bit longer. I'll also be hooking up the stone very soon, most likely before hills at the capital - and that gets me to the next city...

I haven't totally decided on the name for the next city yet, but it will start with a B. I know, I know, everyone does them alphabetically, but I don't care. I am going to quickly chop out the Great Wall at the next city, as there's a few forests there and I'll have stone hooked up, so it should be fairly quick all things considered. Yes, please flame away at these plans in the lurker thread, as I'm sure I'm doing something dumb here .

Alright, now let's check out the north. First picture is the immediate north, then the extended north, where I think I've got to be close to the Celtic capital:





And here's the south... First the area directly south of me, where you see the corner of the map, then the area to the southwest of me, where I just this turn met Timmy:






Anything else you guys want pictures of? Anything that wasn't clear, and/or any questions? Settler comes out next turn...

[scooter]

More diplomacy, first with SleepingMoogle:

That's great to hear! I kind of forgot about that contact between civs-rule we set up, so apologies for misunderstanding the message at first.

It's good to hear that you are in the southeastern corner of the map, as it provides further evidence for the theory that the Civs are placed on a more or less rectangular map, with one Civ in all corners, and two more in between. Our capital of Bibracte is placed roughly north of yours, close to the eastern edge of the map and although we haven't actually seen it yet, it's fairly likely the north isn't far away. Additionally, there is a body of water placed in the centre of the map that appears to be fairly large (though not nearly the size an Inland Sea script would generate). When the turn rolls around to me, I'll make sure to include it in the map (this is to affirm I am interested in swapping maps).

As for immediate plans, it depends a lot on how the game unfolds but I do want to play around with Buddhism a bit. With the raging barbs, early wars seem unlikely since it's likely everyone will have a sizeable defense to protect their lands from being pillaged. For now, the idea is to simply grow without over-expanding and establish solid relations with the other Civs.

Here's hoping me being tired didn't produce a message that was completely illegible. I'll probably write something more constructive tomorrow.

-SleepingMoogle

SleepingMoogle,

No worries about the confusion - it wasn't very pressing at all, especially with how busy the past few days have been for me.

That's very interesting about the body of water... So I'm guessing it looks something like this:

??????----------??????-------Moogle
----------------water-------------------
??????----------Timmy---------scooter

Water makes sense I guess as it balances out those in the center. I'm attaching a few screenshots, I can send a couple of the land I've uncovered south and southwest of my capital later, but I had time to at least send these. I whited out the land inside my capital's borders, which I hope you don't mind.

scooter

Then with Timmy:

Greetings scooter, good to meet another face. Yes, SleepingMoogle was trying to arrange contact so I had heard you had met him. Not a whole lot else is going on, of course soon enough the barbarians will likely make things a lot more lively for all of us.
Would you be interested in a screenshot swap of the land between our empires?
Also, to give an rough idea of locations I'll volunteer that my capital is 2N and 13W of where your scout that met mine stands now. I reckon you're generally east of the meeting point.

Hey Timmy, my capital is 13E, 8N of where my scout is, so sounds like we pretty much met at the halfway point. Sounds great about a screenshot swap! I'm attaching pictures of the land I've revealed to the south and southwest of my capital. I've heard from SleepingMoogle that there is a lake in the middle of the map, how close are you to that? And how big does it look?

scooter

[scooter]

Got screenshots back from SleepingMoogle and Timmy. First from SleepingMoogle. Edit: I noticed after I posted that these three are huge for the forum, so here's a link to them instead if you want to see them:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5826112/PBEM3/T28%20Map%201.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5826112/PBEM3/T28%20Map%202.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5826112/PBEM3/T28%20Map%203.jpg

And from Timmy:



Got a message from both of them, but that will have to wait til later today.

[scooter]

Little bit of conversation with SleepingMoogle:

Hey there scooter,

Thank you for the maps that you provided in your previous message. Our carthographers have included maps showing the explored area south of our lands, and it looks like the collection fits together quite nicely. They also agree with your theoratical layout of the world. A tentative southern city location is marked on the first map, although our first expansion is headed west instead. Together with Etheopia's first expansion, this does seem to occupy a fair amount of land in between our Civs, and we would be interested in drawing up an agreement to divide the remaining land fairly, possibly as part of a larger agreement of non-agression. We are eager to learn if you would be receptive to such an agreement.

-SleepingMoogle

SleepingMoogle,

Yeah I'd definitely be interested in some sort of division of the land... It might be a bit on the early side for that (I only say that because of not knowing where iron is), but we can definitely get a head start on things to see what we think looks like a fair division of land. I don't have a lot of experience in editing pictures, but if I get a bit of time tonight/tomorrow I may try to stitch together our world maps so that we have a better idea of what it all looks like put together. I don't really like NAPs personally, but if you would like one I'd be open to signing one, as I definitely do not have any aggressive plans floating around in my head . Just let me know your thoughts on that, and I'll consider anything really.

Maybe this is a question you don't want to answer, but do you have any near-term wonder plans? I have one in mind, and if you have one too, I would be open to swapping no-compete clauses if that's something you're interested in. If you'd rather keep quiet, and/or that just doesn't interest you that's fine too.

scooter

I had an email exchange with Timmy but it was pretty insubstantial, mostly just the picture exchange above.

[scooter]

Another diplo update:

Greetings scooter,

It would not hurt to start deliberations. The maps that we exchanged would be difficult to piece together in their current forms though, as their scales are different. Our cartographers used the method of Alt + F to gain a good overview. If you were to do the same, the resulting map should fit more or less seamless with the ones that we sent you.

On the subject of wonders, our priests have petitioned the construction of a certain wonder in the near future, which is currently being deliberated amongst our leadership. We are fairly confident of being able to build it, depending on the actions of the founders of a seperate religion called Hinduism which we have heard rumors of. As you stated in a previous message that your people have not yet embraced a faith, it seems unlikely our wonder plans would conflict with each other, however the matter might warrant a no-completion agreement nevertheless. We are as yet uncertain about Etheopia's future plans, and do not wish to inadvertently hinder you.

On a seperate note, you may have noticed that our espionage points have been targetting you as of late. This is because our staticians have finished compiling basic information on the Khmer civilization and we are curious about the other civilizations we share this world with. Hopefully this was not interpreted as a sign of aggression; once we have collected data on the most basic of demographics, we plan to shift the attention elsewhere again; hopefully our expected western neighbour.

-SleepingMoogle

SleepingMoogle,

I tried goofing around with the pictures, but the stitch together I did was... really bad. Either way, from looking at the maps I see that there is not a ton of land directly between us, but I think we can come up with a fair exchange. Don't worry about the EP issue - I understand. Would you be interested in agreeing to cap our EP's with each other at 43? I believe this is the magic number to ensure that we see each other's graphs... Actually now that I think about it this number might be lower given that it's quick speed. Perhaps you would know given your EP spending on Timmy?

I'll be up front with you and tell you I have plans to try to land the Great Wall. I would not be shocked if someone beats me to it, but I have stone and some forests to chop so I think it should be doable. I haven't simmed it out yet (pure laziness on my part) or even started on it, but I think it's worth a shot. From the way you talked, it sounded like you have the Oracle in your sights, but I may be wrong..? If so, sounds like we don't have to worry about wonder competition between us or anything of the sort.

scooter

Sounds like no Great Wall competition from him, which isn't too surprising. Still doesn't say anything about the other four, but that's a good start.

[scooter]

I founded my second city, and took some screenshots... I'll try to post those late tonight or sometime tomorrow, but for now just a quick and boring email dump:

Hey there scooter,

The previous message indeed refers to the Oracle, so it looks like our construction efforts won't be interfering with each other. If you prefer to formalize this, then Celtica will agree not to persue the Great Wall, in return for Etheopia not building the Oracle. Either way, we wish you the best of luck with completing the wonder!

On the issue of espionage points, it appears like the formula is no different from normal speed, although the magic number may not quite be 43 (in the case of the Khmer, it is close though). Our nations will most likely be able to see each other's demographics in the 40-45 point range, with the exact figure revealing itself the closer we get to it. We could agree to limit our spending to this cap, and then divert further points elsewhere.

And no worries about the maps. :-) I'm not great at picture editing myself, but could perhaps give that a try at some point. For now, we could simply agree to not further settle towards each other without consent, with specifics to be hammered out at a later time.

-SleepingMoogle

SleepingMoogle,

Great! I don't think it's necessary to formalize it given the circumstances, but I will go ahead and formally agree anyways. I would agree to the EP spending suggestion as well, I'll aim them at you until I see your charts, then I will move them elsewhere.

Yeah I might give the maps another shot at some point, but no guarantees that it will come out any nicer. Sounds good about the settling issue, it would be nice especially to agree on the land between us so that we can both settle west, and then fill in the land between us later. That would allow us both to claim more land, and I think that would benefit us both quite a bit.

scooter