[Spoilers] SavageMoogle of the Celts

[SleepingMoogle]

Turn 25 this morning. Germany researched a tech, and the Khmer capital regrew to size 3 after being whipped earlier. There were no other score increases this turn.

The Panther finally gave up on my Scout as he travelled further east, and it looks like he will soon contact the Civ to Bibracte's south, who planted his capital a bit to the west of where I expected it to be:



As mentioned earlier, Scooter isn't my top pick for a neighbour but we'll see what can be done. There is quite some distance between the two cities, so we both have lots of land to expand into.

Finally, after the turn was ended:



:2dance:

[Rowain]

Grats

[SleepingMoogle]

Thanks! I got the full movie this turn (and I'm definitely not showing off *cough*)



So, the first step of the plan a success, the question is what to do next. Starting from T25, it will take 34 turns for the great Prophet to spawn. For now I still intend to use him to bulb Monarchy, so the tech list remains fairly tight. The Wheel finishes at the end of this turn, which I'll follow up with Agriculture -> Animal Husbandry, and then Priesthood. Pottery will be rather late, but the Marble, Fur and Sheep will generate a decent amount of commerce once the tiles are improved.

Bibracte is now set to an Archer. Next turn I'll whip him to completion, with the overflow going into a second Worker. While the first Worker is building a Quarry on the Marble, followed by a road to hook it up alongside the Deer, the second one will build a Camp on the Furs and then build a road towards the second city site. I think I'll chop the forest NE of the city to go into the Settler eventually, but for now I'll stick with Archer (whipped) -> Worker -> Archer -> Archer -> Settler.

The first Archer will stay at Bibracte for defense, while the other two escort the Settler and keep the second city safe. With the additional defence on the way, I started moving the promotion-ready Warrior towards the west. He will scout out the terrain immediately west of Bibracte and then head NW towards whoever might be found there.

In the south, my scout revealed Scooter's land so I sent him a quick introductory message. I also sent Timmy a short message to make sure I don't reveal anything he doesn't want me to share. A set of mountains impedes progress further west for the moment. I think I'll head back south, and see if it's possible to slip past the Khmer lands that way.

[SleepingMoogle]

Stonehenge also gave a better idea of the map (sorry for the size):



The Green dot is the location of Scooter's capital, and the blue one is approximately where Timmy started. Red dots are still unknown, but likely where the remaining three Civs are found. It makes the lake/sea look a bit thin. Perhaps there are several smaller lakes rather than one big one?

Also, looking at the map there is less land available than I first thought. I'll have to try and claim the south fairly quickly before Scooter, or there won't be much left. Hopefully we can agree to some sort of settling plan soon.

[SleepingMoogle]

Some diplomacy to pass the time. Hopefully Sandover and Twinkletoes can work out where the save went.


Here's the initial messages between scooter and me:

Greetings!

One of our scouting parties has found Etheopian land, and the Celtic people are overjoyed to learn of another nation south of its ancestral homelands. We would like to offer a friendly greeting towards the Etheopian people and its leadership, and hope that we will be able to forge a strong friendship between our civilizations.

Advisor to Brennus the Great,
-SleepingMoogle

Welcome to Ethiopia! We are pleased to meet you and your fine Buddhist nation, we hope you don't mind that we are yet heathens ourselves. How have things been for you? Anything interesting happen so far? The game has been pretty slow thus far in our corner of the world, as you can imagine. We are in the lower-right corner of the map, although I'm sure you can gather that from your exploration.

Are we safe to assume your warrior comes in peace? We are a reasonable nation, and do not mind your exploration at all, but in safety's name we would just like to confirm that we will not have to fight your warrior . (Well it could be a scout, but Strike is still playing turns (and will be for another 5 or 6 days), so I haven't actually seen in-game if it's a warrior or scout)

scooter

Greetings scooter,

There is no cause for concern, as our scouting party discarded their clubs in favor of travelling speed and we have no intention of crossing your borders without prior consent. The exploration of land so far has had some interesting events, though it mostly consisted of encounters with aggressive wildlife so far. We have found another civilization to your west calling themselves the Khmer, whose leaders have already expressed interest in meeting you.

In any case, our Buddhist monks are ever looking to spread their message. Once formalized relations have been established, and the land between our cities can be more easily traversed, they will no doubt be happy to send a representative towards your lands.

-SleepingMoogle

And some followup with Timmy:

Greetings Timmy of the Khmer,

It has been a while since our last communication, unfortunately several matters required attention recently and kept our diplomatic office busy hauling rocks instead of writing messages. Now that this project is completed, I would like to let you know that our scouting party has indeed found a civilization located roughly east of your lands and south of the Celtica. A greeting has been sent and we are currently awaiting a response. Would you like for us to make this civilization aware of you, or share any other information?

Additionally, we are still interested in a more direct conversation between our Civs. Would this be possible this weekend perhaps?

We eagerly await your response,
-SleepingMoogle

Sorry I've been rather non talkative, real life continues to be busy. I really appreciate you telling me right away when new civ was met, and would like to be put in contact (fine to tell them I'm to their west). I will return the courtesy to you if I meet any other civs before you do.

I think a chat this weekend will work but not sure of time yet, will send you another note tomorrow or Saturday morning.

Thanks,
Timmy

Hey there,

Our scouts have shared the general location of your lands and we are confident that the next message will include more details on our mutual neighbour. Given our brief contacts so far, it is not our wish to start a diplimatic incident.

-SleepingMoogle

[SleepingMoogle]

Alright, the game's running again! I decided not to whip Bibracte, as it would probably lead to some lost hammers (this is something I've caught myself doing a few times and try to avoid these days). The archer finishes on its own this turn anyhow. Instead, I'll probably whip a Barracks so the upcoming units will get the XP benefit.

I'll gain visibility on the Khmer's demographics next turn, so I moved some espionage points over to scooter. Timmy hasn't yet met another Civ (or at least hasn't spent any EP on them) and I'll have to play catch-up with him before long. His capital seems to grow rather quickly, so maybe he put in a Granary already?

More diplomacy:

SleepingMoogle,

Great, glad to hear you don't have hostile intentions - I didn't think so but it's always nice to make sure . Interesting to hear you have met Khmer, are you and them interested in granting me contact with them?

Do you have any interest in a map exchange? I'm sure at some point we will want to discuss our borders as they will eventually meet, but that can probably wait until the game has progressed a little further. Perhaps we can agree on city sites between us, so that both of us can settle more aggressively to our west? I think such a deal might be very beneficial to both of us, as it would allow each of us to claim more land. Might be too early to agree on a deal like that, but I figured I'd throw that out there to see what your interest level is.

Either way - out of disclosure my next city IS going north, but not very far north - around 4 tiles north just so I can claim horses.

scooter

The Khmer have shown interest in meeting a representative from Etheopia, although they haven't yet indicated if this is doable in the immediate future. If you are also looking to meet them, then we can of course try to arrange a meeting.

An exchange of maps would be a good idea. Celtic cartographers have indicated a potential future city site due south of our capital, however most of the lands in between our lands remains as yet unexplored and our first city will probably be placed to the west instead. Brennus indicated that he had no objections towards your current expansion plan, however did request that any further expansion towards each other would be mutually agreed upon.

I'll task our cartographers with drawing up a map to share; are there any specific details that are of interest to Etheopia?

-SleepingMoogle

Alright, obviously I'd rather have scooter expand west than north, but I understand why he wants to pick up Horses. We should make some sort of agreement on further Settlements though; if I were to settle the plains hill south of Bibracte, there's probably room for 1-2 more cities in between our lands at best.

A map exchange will probably benefit scooter more than me as my explorations seem to have been more substantial, but if I can get some visibility on the patch of unexplored territory between our capitals, it would help a lot with city planning. Plus it would give me some diplomatic leverage.

On that note, unfortunately I haven't received a note from Timmy to set up a meeting. Our schedules look to be so incompatible that exchanging mails will probably be how we communicate. I'm awaiting confirmation from scooter that he wants to meet up with Timmy, and will send him a follow-up message at that point.

[novice]

Sounds like scooter is referring to the contact-chaining rule, I guess he's asking permission to initiate diplo with Timmy now. Although I don't think he needs it?

[SleepingMoogle]

Good point! Scooter hasn't responded to the last message yet, but it's likely he'll want to contact the Khmer as well. Time to have a quick look at the rules.

[SleepingMoogle]

Turn 28 was waiting this morning.



The first Archer completed, and headed NW to replace the Warrior who was promoted to explorer status. Bibracte is size 6 now, and working 2 unimproved tiles (technically speaking, all but one are unimproved but at least they give additional commerce). I'll double-whip the barracks next turn and let the overflow go into a second Worker. Bibracte is probably the only city for a good while I can actually crack the whip with any kind of regularity. The other cities will struggle for food for a while, so they need to conserve their populations carefully.

The current Worker needs two more turns to finish the Quarry on the marble, and then 5 more to hook it up. The road will go through the Deer tile to get it hooked up as well. I probably could have planned that a little better, but The Wheel wasn't finished yet at the time and the forest chop into Stonehenge helped speed up its construction quite a bit. After placing down the road, the Worker will probably chop the forest NW of Bibracte to speed up the Settler I'll probably be training at that point, and camp the Furs. The Second Worker will start by pasturing the Sheep.

Timmy's capital also grew to size 6 this turn, so it's quite likely he has a Granary up and running. I gained visibility on his demographics and while ahead in most areas, I'll probably need to catch up on Worker activity because he is overtaking me on food production at the moment.

Diplomacy I'll handle later, but Scooter found Timmy's scout ingame so there's no need for me to act as go-between anymore.

[SleepingMoogle]

Screenshot and message-heavy post incoming. Scooter sent me a couple of snapshots of the land he has explored so far, and I sent him screenshots of my scouting so far. We also exchanged some messages back and forth towards a settling agreement.

First the messages:

SleepingMoogle,

I was referring to out of game contact - since you can act as a go-between to grant us contact, I was wondering if you and timmy would be okay with that. If that's okay with you, you have Ethiopia's permission to allow timmy to send us a message .

I have explored more or less in a circle around the capital, so I have some knowledge of the land up to your capital (in fact I probably just barely missed you many turns ago), and I have also seen the land to the east/southeast/south of me, confirming that I am in the lower-right corner of the map. I will have a more complete idea of the map later today, as I will be back to playing turns again today. I will try to take a screenshot of all that I've discovered (I may edit out some/all of the territory inside my cultural borders, which I don't think you'll mind), and send it to you. I think between the two of us we could probably map out the entire east side of the map. I will wait for you to confirm that this is okay before I send it though

Details that interest me most is the land between us and how we can divide it up fairly. I mentioned the one city site that I will be founding, but I will not found any more in your direction without discussing it first - basically there won't be any "Pink Dot" surprises .

No problem at all about the pause between messages, I've been super busy too, but I should be much more available, at least for this week. Maybe this is a heavy question, but what kind of plans/goals do you have for this game? Any idea of how you want to approach the game diplomatically? Some people like to role-play a lot, some like to play peacefully, some like to just let it come to them... Just trying to get an idea of your style . To answer it a little bit myself - it's always seemed to me that one of the keys in these games is to make at least one good friend early on in the game to begin building trust, and make mutual cooperation much easier.

Well this was probably plenty long enough for you, so I'll stop typing and hit send.

scooter

Just a quick note to let you know that I am in the middle of playing my turn, and I have met timmy in-game now, so no need to check with him for permission to contact him.

Thanks!
scooter

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

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