03-02-2003 14:02									#1
	Turn 48, 1870 BC Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

To be edited by the leaders of the Scholia.

Status:
- Researching Writing at 100%, ready in probably 5-6 turns.
- 80 gold cash, -2 per turn.

Urgent Questions:
- Do we want to push back the fog of war or leave it for barb farming?
- Do we want to found our new city (Tempest?) at Gold Hill (extra commerce and worker pump) or Site #4 (better for a barracks)?

Military:
- See Urgent Questions.
- Gronk escorts the settler whichever direction the settler goes, and Crush moves to EotS to take over garrison duty. We'll get a new warrior to take over the Hurricane garrison in another turn.

Economy:
- See Urgent Question #2 regarding where to send our settler. The Chief Economist slightly favors Gold Hill (after all, it's the more economic-oriented site ) but could live with either.
- Reshuffle tiles worked in EotS to work three FPs and one irrigated fur, and start building a worker.
- Switch Hurricane back to working two irrigated furs.

Diplomacy:
- Note to Roleplay, regarding Writing (if not already sent).
- Answer to Lux Invicta, regarding contact (if not already sent).
- Send Vox word of our ratified border treaty proposal (8-1 looks like sufficient ratification) and ask if they can accept it.
- Start work on a proposal to Vox regarding their possible participation in the Great Library project, assuming we want to involve them.

	03-02-2003 15:40									#2
	Re: Turn 48, 1870 BC Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

quote: Originally posted by nbarclay - Do we want to push back the fog of war or leave it for barb farming?

As long as we can intercept any barb warriors (assuming that barb horses are not a reality at the moment), why not?

quote: - Do we want to found our new city (Tempest?) at Gold Hill (extra commerce and worker pump) or Site #4 (better for a barracks)?

I vote for the gold hill.

quote: - Start work on a proposal to Vox regarding their possible participation in the Great Library project, assuming we want to involve them.

I'm getting second thoughts about this. Can we really trust Vox, whom we have already established are opportunistic and foolish, to keep our secret?
Something tells me they might leak it to another civ (particularly RPG) for some immediate reward. Actually, leaking this information to RPG while helping us build our own GL would be the smart thing to do - if RPG finishes the GL first, they'll thank Vox and might repay them, whereas if we get the GL first, we'll repay Vox for their cooperation, as promised.

How about this - we ask them for two slaves, and tell them that in return, we'll use these slaves to irrigate all the way to Dissidentville. Then, we join those slaves to Hurricane. That way we can get Vox's cooperation without disclosing any information about what wonders we intend to build, and we don't have to repay them in expensive medieval-age techs later. What do you think?

	03-02-2003 17:45									#3
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Vox has a lake, so they don't need any irrigation from us.

There are three issues regarding whether or not we let Vox in on the Great Library scheme:

1) I don't see any feasible way to get them to contribute workers to the project unless they stand to gain a great deal from it. Early workers are simply too valuable. And for them to know what they stand to gain, they have to know about the project itself.

2) If Vox stands to gain from the project, and especially if they have workers of their own invested, they have an extra incentive not to attack us should we appear weak at some point while we're working on the Great Library. And if Vox invests workers, it will be significantly harder for them to get in a position of military advantage to begin with.

3) We'll be slowing our REXing down a bit (two and a half settlers from EotS and at least one potential settler from Hurricane if we don't get Vox's help), and that could cause problems if Vox gets their side of the border settled and we don't have ours settled. If that happens, Vox will probably feel like the borders were negotiated in bad faith unless they see good for them coming out of what we slow down our REXing for. (It might be useful to run some calculations on how quickly each of us is likely to settle our side, but I don't have time at the moment.)

Nathan

	03-02-2003 19:52									#4
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quote: Originally posted by nbarclay Vox has a lake, so they don't need any irrigation from us.

Right, I forgot they told us that.

Regarding the wonder, perhaps we could lie to them, saying that we're building The Colossus, and offer them a free tech per a certain amount of workers. This makes sense, because the Colossus does increase your income, and thereby speeds your research. We could tell them that this is why we're offering them free techs, and they probably won't suspect that we're really going for The Great Library, or at least won't have much to base their suspicions on and won't tell RPG that we're building the GL.
By the time they find out that we lied, we could always say that we've changed our minds, but kept our end of the deal so it doesn't matter.
This isn't 100% failproof, but it's better than spilling all the beans and telling them that we're building the GL, IMHO.

	03-02-2003 19:56									#5
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

The team agreed, no lying, remember?

	03-02-2003 20:49									#6
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I honestly don't. Maybe I forgot there was a concensus against lying within diplomatic relations, or maybe this issue was discussed before I joined.
In any case, I withdraw my proposal.

	03-02-2003 21:16									#7
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First of all, the message to RPG will be sent immediately after this one, sorry to be late (busy weekend). It's good to know we're only 2-3 turns behind RPG in getting writing, I think I'll use that to delay them a little.

I prefer the gold city too, as it is both towards Vox, and a better commerce city. We should have adequate defense for the time being, with an extra 2 vet units planned...

I don't want to tell RPG at this point that we're going for the GL, we should make sure we will get it, and only then start negotiating with what we could gain from it. Vox is something else, I agree we can't lie to them, but we could just keep the whole truth from them. What if we tell them that we're considering to build a wonder (without specifying which), and that for each worker they are willing to commit in 15 turns, we give them a tech in return (minimum tier 3, if they want to)? It keeps us from lieing, it won't mess up our relation if we somehow are beaten to the GL, and it will mean they'll be peacful for a time.

BTW, I seriously doubt that Vox is going to attack us while they still haven't built a barracks.

DeepO

	03-02-2003 21:41									#8
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quote: Originally posted by DeepO BTW, I seriously doubt that Vox is going to attack us while they still haven't built a barracks.

If Vox started a barracks right after the settler who founded Dissidentville, they could have one very soon. I'd just as soon not make any assumptions about their barracks situation.

Nathan

	03-02-2003 22:01									#9
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quote: Originally posted by DeepO First of all, the message to RPG will be sent immediately after this one, sorry to be late (busy weekend). It's good to know we're only 2-3 turns behind RPG in getting writing, I think I'll use that to delay them a little.

didnt vox say thar lux already had writing?

I'm not sure if its been commented upon, but if Vox was correct then it would appear that its a bit frigid over on the continent. Perhaps Lux and DG have allied? Thoughts, speculations? RP is up there score wise, have they built stuff like temples at the expense of research?

	03-02-2003 22:09									#10
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quote: Originally posted by nbarclay If Vox started a barracks right after the settler who founded Dissidentville, they could have one very soon. I'd just as soon not make any assumptions about their barracks situation.

True, but I still feel speculating on Vox' situation a worthy pass-time. And for the moment, Vox doesn't have a barracks, and can only get one in 6 turns at the earliest, a second one 3 or 4 turns after that.

asleep, Vox did say that Lux has writing, but maybe this is a chance to find out about how trustworthy Vox is. We still have a message to Lux that needs to be sent, so maybe we can ask about writing...

Otherwise, we can push the subject with Vox, asking for writing for contact with Lux again.

Last possibility is that RPG seriously didn't know Lux was Civ X, and therefore didn't know that trading writing was no option to us either way. But I hope RPG will respond to my last message with some comments on that, they have been very open with us this far.

DeepO

	03-02-2003 22:12									#11
	Put an end to popups!

According to the list of top 5 cities, there must be temples in GoW's Imperial City and RP's Madrid. Otherwise they wouldn't have gone ahead of EoTS in the list while having 3 and 4 citizens less, respectively.

	04-02-2003 01:23									#12
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With respect to a temple in Imperial City: I find that kinda interesting. They're mil/ind, and they stopped to build a temple in their capitol? That's usually one of the last places I build a temple (don't need it for border expansion, usually pumping settlers/units out of it, luxury slider works well because of the absence of corruption). RP building a temple as a religious civ, OTOH, is unsurprising.

Re: next city, I vote Gold Hill.

Re: barb hunting - only if we are reasonably certain we have enough barb killers to cover ourselves should we actually lose a battle (unlikely, I know, but unlikely things happen. Just ask my 9hp swordsman army and its companion elite swordsman, both of which I recently lost to a single regular spearman*).

-Arrian

* - he was fortified on a hill, so he was defending at 3.5. Still, I threw 14hp of swordsmen at him and succeeded in knocking of 2hp (both by the army), and promoting the little ****er at least once.

	04-02-2003 03:47									#13
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quote: Originally posted by asleepathewheel didnt vox say thar lux already had writing?

I know they said Lux was ready to give them a good deal on Alphabet, but I don't recall anything about Lux's already having Writing too. Then again, it's not impossible that I might have forgotten.

	04-02-2003 04:37									#14
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

I've been thinking on why RPG proposed this NDA on writing thing, would they want to make sure they don't have to deal with a middleman theirselves? For them it's better if their neighbours don't grow in power at their expense, it's interesting to see how they want to compensate for that.

Perhaps there is a chance of becoming primary trading partner with RPG, it seems they don't consider us such an immediate risk then the rest of their neighbours.

DeepO

	04-02-2003 04:52									#15
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quote: Originally posted by Arrian Re: barb hunting - only if we are reasonably certain we have enough barb killers to cover ourselves should we actually lose a battle (unlikely, I know, but unlikely things happen. Just ask my 9hp swordsman army and its companion elite swordsman, both of which I recently lost to a single regular spearman*).

Once we get the spearman, we'll have one more unit than we'll need for the duties currently assigned (city garrisons and Vox-watchers). That should be okay, if only marginally so, especially considering that barbs don't go so far as to actually capture or raze cities.

	04-02-2003 05:16									#16
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quote: Originally posted by nbarclay I know they said Lux was ready to give them a good deal on Alphabet, but I don't recall anything about Lux's already having Writing too. Then again, it's not impossible that I might have forgotten.

I scanned the vox logs and found this from JM, p. 3 one of the first posts:

quote: Originally posted by jon miller they have contact with many people, and have way more techs than either of us (including writing and the like)

I took that to mean Lux, but it could be DG.

Or more likely, again, Vox didn't know what they were talking about.

	04-02-2003 06:18									#17
	Put an end to popups!

No lies... let's start off by building the Colossus as a pre-build / 'mask'.

	04-02-2003 10:40									#18
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quote: Originally posted by Theseus No lies... let's start off by building the Colossus as a pre-build / 'mask'.

Parent: "Where are you going?"

Daughter: "I'm going to the Library."

Then the daughter goes to the library for a few minutes, and from there to a movie she knows her parents would never let her watch if they knew. Does the fact that she went to the library on the way make her not a liar? And even if you're willing to let her off the hook on technical grounds, how is what she did any different morally, or in terms of how it will affect her relationship with her parents if they find out?

I don't buy the idea that starting the Colossus as a prebuild would make a claim that that's what we're building not a lie. It would be excellent misdirection if all other civs know is what they see on F7, but telling another civ flat-out that that's what we're building crosses the line as far as I'm concerned.

Nathan

	04-02-2003 13:32									#19
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We tell them that we're building a wonder, not telling them which, and offer them the workers deal. We start building The Colossus.
Many turns later, Vox checks their F7 screen and notices that we've switched to the Great Library. "Why have you lied to us?" asks Vox. "We did not lie." we answer, "First, we did not tell you which wonder we were building. It is you who have made the false assumption that we were aiming at The Colossus out of a source which you must realize is undependable. Second, we did not switch builds to deceive you, we switched builds to deceive other civs which may, as far as we know, be building the GL themselves."
They have no basis for accusing us of lying.

Nathan, IMHO the example that you've given is not a complete analogy to our case. In our case, the daughter does not tell the parent that she's going to the library. When the parent looks out the window, he sees her walking in the direction of the library and falsely assumes that she's going to the library. Shortly after she passes the corner and disappears from his sight, she takes a turn and walks in the direction of the museum instead.
The "forbidden movie" is not an analogy to the GL. In your case, the parent would not want his child to go to the forbidden movie, but in our case, while Vox might not be so happy realizing that we're really going for the GL, they have no authority over us, unlike the parent.

	04-02-2003 14:50									#20
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As long as we don't say what wonder we're building, we would also have the additional defense that we couldn't even start the Great Library until we have Literature, and therefore had to use something as a prebuild. That's standard Civ 3 strategy. (Although in regard to hiding our strategy from other civs, starting off with a palace prebuild would be even more effective.) The question is, would Vox be willing to give up two workers now in exchange for such a limited and distant payoff?

In regard to the analogy, one important thing to understand about analogies is that they focus on similarities between issues and may completely ignore differences that are not relevant to the analogy's point. The reason I picked a movie the parents would not approve of as the destination was not that going to a museum or a friend's house would make the daughter's words any less a lie, but rather to provide a plausible reason why the daughter might lie to begin with. (Of course a lot does depend on a person's attitude about lies. Personally, I detest them no matter what the reason, but I recognize that many others view "white lies" as a normal and harmless part of life.)

	04-02-2003 17:41									#21
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Perhaps a palace prebuild is the way to go. That way, noone but Vox, and whoever Vox tells this to, will know that we are building a wonder.

quote: Originally posted by nbarclay The question is, would Vox be willing to give up two workers now in exchange for such a limited and distant payoff?

There's one way to find out. Ask them.

quote: In regard to the analogy, one important thing to understand about analogies is that they focus on similarities between issues and may completely ignore differences that are not relevant to the analogy's point. The reason I picked a movie the parents would not approve of as the destination was not that going to a museum or a friend's house would make the daughter's words any less a lie, but rather to provide a plausible reason why the daughter might lie to begin with. (Of course a lot does depend on a person's attitude about lies. Personally, I detest them no matter what the reason, but I recognize that many others view "white lies" as a normal and harmless part of life.)

I'm sorry about that, I was niggling.
And yeah, I hate liars too. I'm really a very honest person in real life.

	04-02-2003 19:04									#22
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Of course a palace is the only possible prebuild, we don't want to advertise to the world that we're safe enough to build a wonder. I've been talking with RPG at the tone of 'that unstable Vox that is bothering us', they would immediately see through that, and assume we have a long term relation with them.

I'm not saying that we have to wait indefinately to change from the palace to the GL, and we maybe can switch to the pyramids some 10 turns before we would reach the palace (which will be at 300 shields, pyramids and GL at 400) to further compromise intelligence reports from other teams. But there is no way we start on the Collosus now...

DeepO

	04-02-2003 19:09									#23
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Agreed.
Good point regarding RP.

	04-02-2003 22:15									#24
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Ah, i just feel good when i think of how everyone will see us as the masters of this land- and as for Vox- "well, there is that one more team down there, but nothing too important..."

For now, we have to manuever ourselves to this position of superiority, but remember to bind Vox to us before this happens, so they won't feel so bad about it...


the combined Great Li--- oops, i meant Great Wonder project as well as a trade partnership will surely help us achieve that.

	05-02-2003 01:42									#25
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Turn arrived.

EotS is struck by disease again. There go all sophisticated plans.

Team Scores:

84 (+2) Gathering Storm
93 (+2) Demogyptica
73 (+1) Glory of War
90 (+1) Role Play
70 (+1) Vox Controli
69 (+1) Lux Invicta
102 (+3) Legoland

Last edited by Sir Ralph on 05-02-2003 at 04:32

	05-02-2003 01:52									#26
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EotS needs new orders.

It has zero shields and four food in the box. To set it at 3 floodplains would be pointless. Disease will strike again next turn.

	05-02-2003 02:10									#27
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GODDAMNIT! That sucks.

I hate floodplains. Hate 'em!

-Arrian

	05-02-2003 02:20									#28
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[Artificial voice]
In the event of disease spreading in the city- it is important to remain calm, prepare yourself for another spreading the turn after, and notify your nearest Economic scholia in order to change worker allocation for your city
[/AV]

Seriously, this really sucks, does that mean we'll take another turn (or more) for writing?

Well, think of it this way: we have to get disease, otherwise it won't be fair...

	05-02-2003 02:36									#29
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

God is a Vox (as in "God is a Woman/DJ/whatever").
Oh well. Just look at the bright side - all the other teams will think that we're building lots of workers unsually fast when we're just getting struck by disease.

	05-02-2003 02:42									#30
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

quote: Originally posted by zeit Ah, i just feel good when i think of how everyone will see us as the masters of this land

quote: Originally posted by Sir Ralph EotS is struck by disease again. There go all sophisticated plans.

"Hybris"... thanks Zeit!
j/k

Well, at least we didn't get attacked by barbarians while unprepared and had to poprush a defender like what happened to Legoland...
Heck, what am I saying?! As if we need to give ourselves an "Evil Eye" in addition to our standard curses.

Anyway, the point is, we get our share of good luck and bad luck. So far we got a great start, 2 luxes and 2 resources, a free settler, a stupid and weak neighbor and luck with barbarians, versus getting struck by disease four times (counting next turn). I'd say that so far, lady luck was in our favor, give or take an instance or two.