[SPOILER] Willem II of England

[Nakor]

Great to hear we have contact!
I'm not that worried about Whosit being close to us, I'm sure we can work out a nice deal with them for now. Holkan's aren't that good and we'll have a warrior in time should he declare.

We should send him a nice message, speaking of cooperation and mutual benefit, like the Dutch.

[Gaspar]

Ok, here's my first crack at a message:

Whovus of the Crazy Empire,

Goed samengekomen! We, Co-Trainers of the Glorious Totale Voetbal Empire, noticed the approach of your club-wielding messenger on the borders of Bergkamp. Imagine our surprised when Feyenoord 1 reported back to the training ground that he had stumbled upon the borders of your capital on the same turn! Clearly Cruyff has smiled upon us and brought us together on this day!

/RP

In all seriousness, the likelihood of both our scouting units taking the exact same path and stumbling upon one another's capitals on the same turn are pretty amazing, no? How about this map, huh? I assume you have largely sussed it out as well, its not terribly complex. Sure must be nice to be India, I can't imagine any of us overcoming their advantage on a map like this, unless Kyan smokes a lot of the pungent , don't you think?

Well, consider this a welcome from our friendly and open peoples, and we look forward to finding ways to cooperate in the future! Perhaps we could have Feyenoord 1 teach your people the 4-3-3 on those Ball Courts we hear so much about?

What do you think of this? Too much RP? It really doesn't say anything, other than the subtle prodding about India's strong position. Really, I just want to get off on a good foot with them so we can tech peacefully for a bit, and I suspect Whosit will want to play up to his persona and give someone a bit of an early rush just to entertain the lurkers, so I'd rather it weren't us.

I'll leave it for you to edit, and send off in the morning afterwards.

Also, Totale Voetbal (am I spelling that right?) as an Empire name seemed like a good name for a bunch of Dutchmen playing in England. If you approve, whomever gets the next save can change the Civ name formally in game.

[Nakor]

Looking good, Gaspar!

Like the Role Playing theme.
I'll send it later today with a few "dutch" corrections.

[Nakor]

Message sent.

Hello Whovus of the Crazy Empire,

Fijn jullie te ontmoeten! We, Co-Trainers of the Glorious Totaal Voetbal Empire, noticed the approach of your club-wielding messenger on the borders of Bergkamp. Imagine our surprised when Feyenoord 1 reported back to the training ground that he had stumbled upon the borders of your capital on the same turn! Clearly Cruyff has smiled upon us and brought us together on this day!

In all seriousness, the likelihood of both our scouting units taking the exact same path and stumbling upon one another's capitals on the same turn are pretty amazing, no? How about this map, huh? I assume you have largely sussed it out as well, its not terribly complex. Sure must be nice to be India, I can't imagine any of us overcoming their advantage on a map like this, unless Kyan smokes a lot of the pungent , don't you think?

Well, consider this a welcome from our friendly and open peoples, and we look forward to finding ways to cooperate in the future! Perhaps we could have Feyenoord 1 teach your people the 4-3-3 on those Ball Courts we hear so much about?

Vriendelijke groeten,
Gaspar & Nakor

[Gaspar]

Nice work, Nakor. Always nice to have someone who can actually speak the language you're roleplaying.

[Gaspar]

Save came in. Whovus moved one tile closer to Bergkamp. To ensure they don't find anything interesting when they do, I micro'd to work the forested sugars tile for 1 turn. (I thought about working the spices to not sacrifice as much Commerce, but I wanted to pick a tile they couldn't see that we were working yet.) We have 3H overflow in the box, so one turn @3H/turn, then move back to the Oasis next turn, with 2T at 2H/turn will get the warrior completed before they can move in our capital. He'll even get an extra turn of fortify before they can hit it, and with +40% culture on a hill, I'd say we're solid. Of course, more than likely they will just walk past our borders, but even more than Fortune Favors the Bold®, fortune frowns on the unprepared.

I moved Feyenoord 1 to the Ice tile outside their capital, Seedshortamelon, to ensure they know that we know exactly where their capital is. They moved to the plains hill which is actually offline of the capital. (All these forests mean you're never getting further than 1 tile visibility anyway.) Guus Hiddink was trained, and started farming the corn, there's 2T left on the mine, then we'll road everything, and get back to chopping before getting the gems online (won't need them til size 4, and even then, probably would prefer a higher food tile.)

Lost a turn towards hunting with the anti-commerce adjustment, but I figure safety was more important. Like I said, I'm sure its me overreacting, but I just didn't want to give them the chance. As I also said, I'm a nice guy, but if the situation was reversed, I might take the chance.

Edit: Checked the event log before sending off, Whovus adopted slavery this turn.

[Nakor]

Good!
We don't need to road the corn yet and can start on a chop a few turns earlier to get that 2nd city running sooner. We can road the corn when we prepare for a city west. We don't need the healt yet.
Chops for a settler long before gems. Speed is everything! We won't be size 4 for a whole long time....

[Gaspar]

Turn came in, played it. Whovus decided to move their warrior SE along our border, so I in turn moved north. I guess that was much ado about nothing, wasting 3 beakers ultimately, not a big deal.

Other than that, we're working the Oasis again, Jol and Hiddink are Mining/Farming respectively, both ready to resume chopping when those tasks are finished. (Probably we should road the gold, then chop, as moving to the hill will waste a turn everytime in the future, even if we don't need the happy yet.

Oh, and we met Malakai. Or more aptly, Malakai met us:



Malakai is a pretty solid player, at least from the other PBEM's he's in, however, he struggles with English and henceforth diplo is not his strong suit. Given that, we should probably initiate contact with him - we can assume from his scouts path that he is most likely NW of us. Nakor, if I don't get to it tonight, if you want to jot down a quick line for Malakai (no RP, I'd think, since again, he struggles a bit with English to start) just saying hi and warning him about India.

Hunting comes in next turn, then onto AH, which is what I believe was our approved tech path. For completeness sake, AH will take 4 turns, Pottery 3.

[Nakor]

Great! I'll send a message to Malakai. No RP, understood!

Indeed AH - Pot - Wr - Math is our tech path...

Greetings, Malakai!

We hope everything is well with you.

We of England, saw that your warrior has walked through the great forests to come to our capital's border.
We're looking foward to a long and friendly relationship between our two nations.'

Have you met anyone else so far?
We are looking forward to meeting India and see what they do with their Fast Workers in this forested world.
Would love to have one of those myself...

Hope to hear from you soon!
Gaspar and Nakor, Totaal Voetbal Empire

[Gaspar]

Thanks for sending the message, looked excellent. Unlike the mercurial Whovus, we have already received a reply from the Koreans:

Greetings Gaspar and Nakor, well met my friends!

I have travelled for many days through these deep and tangled forests in hopes of finding signs of civilisation.

As the leader of the Korean Empire, I would like to extend my hand in friendship. May our unity bring us strength and help us to bring a bright future to these dark lands. I would therefore like to offer an initial non aggression pact up until turn 50 as a sign of good faith, which would obviously be extendable should our good relations continue to prosper in the future.

I can confirm that you are the first civilisation that we have encountered and wonder if you may have had the fortune to encounter anyone else yourself?

As part of the terms of our proposed NAP, I would like to include:

*An agreement that we will stop spending EP's on each other once graphs become available (on the providance that we have both found other people to switch spending to)

*A promise that we will advise each other if we are to learn of any plans against the other, whether this be diplomatically or the suggestion or evidence of military actions

*An agreement that once the relevant techs become available we will both open borders to each other and continue to keep borders open to allow free trade between our great nations going forwards. However such an open border agreement would preclude the possibility of scouting each others lands for any nefarious purposes.

*Lastly, for the early part of the game, agreement to notify each other when we meet another civilisation if applicable and to do our best to arrange meetings when required (this last subsection would obviously be null and void after such time as we have met all the other civilisations)

Lastly, with regards to your comments of India and their fast workers, I agree that such a unit would give India an extreme advantage in these heavily forested lands, how they use this advantage or what actions we should take, well only time will tell.

In closing I would like to pass on my admiration for the Great British Empire, as I myself am of English blood, and hope that our good relations will continue for the forseable future.

Best Regards

Emperor Malakai the 1st of Korea
(Represented by Elizabeth Regina)

So here's what I read into this post:

1. They understood why we mentioned India, but are not taking the bait, so to speak.
2. They clearly want to be friends.
3. They want a NAP to turn 50, which is utterly pointless for three reasons. First, we don't even know where they are exactly yet, though we can guess very easily. Second, we have so very clearly shown by our Civ/Leader pick that we are in for the long haul. Third, nobody is rushing anyone on this map, as two movers will be useless until at least Knights, if not Cavs, when people have chopped enough.
4. They haven't met anyone else, and so are leaping on the opportunity to befriend us, so I suspect that whomever is first to take his offer will get his friendship.
5. I keep confusing Malachai and Mackoti, and clearly Malachai writes English just fine.

Now normally, I would reject this out of hand. We have no idea how this game is going to play out, and I never like the idea of tieing yourself up this early. Open Borders is pointless, since we won't have any trade routes with anyone without for a long time, since there's no water, we have to wait until borders touch or someone builds a long road (this is correct, yes? I might be wrong on this point, so I'll ask the lurkers for clarification.) EP is fine, I have ours targeted at Whovus for the time being anyway. I'm not interested in using EPs for anything beyond graph visibility until we have everyone's graphs. As far as intelligence sharing is concerned, I'm not inclined to give on this point without getting something from him. So what to get from him? How about:

1. A promise that all communication between our teams is confidential.
2. A mirrored promise to be informed of any communication from others involving our team.
3. A promise not to make any deals beyond a simple NAP with India.

The third point is probably best served to wait until we have established a better relationship, but still, I think one of the things that has served Kyan well in PBEM4 is:

that despite the fact that he's a runaway, everyone still is trading with him, leaving him unmolested, etc.

and while again, my issue is with Fast Workers + 100% forest map, we can't ignore that Kyan has strong diplo skills, so the sooner we get the other Civ's at least wary of him, the better.

Anyway, what are your thoughts Nakor? I'll draft up a response later tonight and leave it for you to peruse. The turn hasn't made its way around yet, by the way.