08-02-2003 20:00									#1
	Turn 51, 1750BC Tired of ads?

To be edited by the leaders of the Scholia.

Status:
- Researching Writing at 100%, ready in 3-4 turns.
- 74 gold cash, -2 per turn.

Urgent questions:
- none

Military:
- Settler founds (Name?) at Gold Hill, Gronk fortifies.

Economy:
- EotS juggles tiles to complete a warrior next turn with minimal shield waste.
- Worker #1 finishes irrigation, starts irrigating next road toward Bolderberg/Cyclone.
- Worker #3 finishes road, moves 9 to start work on next mine/road.
- Gold hill city (Tempest?) starts building a worker.


Diplomacy:
- Continue figuring out what we want to do regarding possibly involving Vox in the Great Library project.

Last edited by nbarclay on 09-02-2003 at 18:45

	08-02-2003 20:11									#2
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request: move that warrior 8-8 from Bolderberg onto the hill before settling the gold city. Where it is now, it can't do a lot of good, while there is a possibility that the incense desert holds a camp.

If we want to have as much as possible areas where barbs can rise, we need to move him too, as he takes one extra FoW tile.

DeepO

	08-02-2003 20:47									#3
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Perhaps we should build the spearman in EotS. This will allow the city more time to grow before it returns to building workers/settlers, and allow Hurricane to switch to the Great Library earlier.

	08-02-2003 21:03									#4
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Shiber, that won't do any good in Hurricane, we need the spear to get the forest chop bonus. And if calculated right, we only have an excess of 10 shields (possibly 11) before EotS is big enough to get to worker building again, that's not enough for a spear...

DeepO

	08-02-2003 21:17									#5
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You're right, I completely forgot about the chop.

	09-02-2003 04:02									#6
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How about giving the new city a hebrew name?

Perhaps "Tel-Zahav"? (in hebrew gold hill/mound)

	09-02-2003 07:44									#7
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Zeit, I have nothing against Hebrew, but what about the Hebrew for storm, or one of the forms of storm? Gold hill seems too obvious.

DeepO

	09-02-2003 16:29									#8
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I like Tel-Zahav. And what exactly has Bolderberg to do with storm?

	09-02-2003 18:14									#9
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'bolder' is a more poetic form of thunder in Dutch... actually, it's one of the adjectives / nouns used in combination with thunder, or in places where thunder is implied (like in a landslide, the rocks 'bolder' down if you want to be poetic).

I don't have anything against the word per se, I just want to avoid that we give away too many clues. I'm sure there are other Hebrew speaking people on the teams, 'gold hill' might be too literal...

DeepO

	09-02-2003 21:41									#10
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Quick Hebrew dictionary of GS-related words:
Gathering Storm - Hasufa Ha'mit'asefet.
Storm - Sufa, or Se'ara.
Eye of the Storm - Ein Hase'ara.
Gold - Zahav.

If we want to avoid giving cities obvious names, how about Tel-Sufa? Tehila (Glory) is another option that I've thought about.

Names in foreign languages tend to have a mystical quality to them. Researchers claim that there are certain trends in the western world towards which eastern language sounds mystical the most.
In the '20, for example, it was Chinese. The Chinese game Mahjong was gaining popularity at that time (the game has a similar relaxing quality to that of Domino). Also, stage performers, especially magicians, used to have many Chinese artifacts or Chinese writings on their stages. This reminds me of a funny story, told by an American Chinese person, who once watched a magic show where the magician unveiled mysterious-looking Chinese artifacts at the start of the show. As the performer pulled the cover over a Chinese writing, the person, who was sitting among the audience, suddenly burst into laughter. When asked after the show what made him laugh, he said that the supposedly mystical Chinese writing that the magician used as part of the set actually read: Please do not pee in the alleyway.

	10-02-2003 01:41									#11
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I have nothing against Hebrew, but I propose 'Maelstrom' for this city. It's a very powerful, evocative word, which will be perfect for a city that will eventually be a production powerhouse.

Concerning diplomacy, is the GL project not dead? The loss of pop in Eye hurst our chances even more, unless we really cripple our growth by building and joining Workers.


Dominae

	10-02-2003 01:51									#12
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quote: Originally posted by Dominae I have nothing against Hebrew, but I propose 'Maelstrom' for this city. It's a very powerful, evocative word, which will be perfect for a city that will eventually be a production powerhouse.

It's an excellent name!
Maelstrom is a powerful word indeed.

quote: Concerning diplomacy, is the GL project not dead? The loss of pop in Eye hurst our chances even more, unless we really cripple our growth by building and joining Workers.

Judging by what we hear from the mainland, our chances are actually better than ever. There's a lot of tension between the four civs on the mainland (and I heard some rumors about a war building up in there), so I don't think any of them is going to concentrate efforts on a wonder right now. Vox is stupid and weak. Chances are, we are competing only with Legoland.
IMHO, the recent losses due to disease were severe, but not unrecoverable.

	10-02-2003 01:56									#13
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Legoland may be very good competition. We should be very careful of the decisions we make to ensure they're not biased by the belief that we're going to get the GL.

	10-02-2003 02:19									#14
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Legoland is our prime competitor, but we already knew that before starting. But it depends on their isolation, if they can see land without stepping onto a boat, they might want to get the G. Lib, otherwise the G. Lighthouse might be a better option for them. I doubt that they'll go for both this early in the game.

Anyway, I would still aim for the GL, but as discussed earlier keep a few other choices handy if someone beats us to it. Don't forget leaders, they can finish the GL everywhere in 1 turn... if a war breaks out on the main continent, there is always the chance of someone using a leader.

Names: Maelstrom certainly is an appropriate name, and I like the Sufa or Tel-Sufa names too... but please don't make me memorise the translation for GS, I speak 4 languages but none are even remotely similar to Hebrew

DeepO

	10-02-2003 02:19									#15
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IMHO Legoland is likely to build the Great Lighthouse, although there's no actual way for us to know.
Maybe we should strengthen our diplomatic ties with them.

	10-02-2003 03:01									#16
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Sufa sounds really good, its a short name with a nice tone (when expressed in english/american accent). Malestrom is good too, but i'd rather have this city a short catchy name, and not a heavy and powerful one like the ones we've used so far.

	10-02-2003 06:00									#17
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I opened the turn, and we have a complication. Vox is operating on the assumption that we have a "give each other all techs acquired for the time being" deal (not surprising after the chat), and just offered us Warrior Code and Mysticism. If we accept those (they're being offered as gifts from the game's perspective), we need to give them Writing when we discover it. (That would be a swap slightly in their favor in terms of costs, but about as close to even as can reasonably be hoped for.) They're also asking what they should research next; I don't know whether that means they've held up research waiting for an answer from us or not.

Anyhow, I can't get past the diplomacy screen without doing something about Vox's offer, so I'll let things sit here until I get word on what to do. By the way, the fact that Vox trusts us enough to do this is a good sign for the possibility of a long-term working relationship with them, at least as far as I'm concerned.

Nathan

	10-02-2003 06:14									#18
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I suggest refusing the deal this turn, if for no other reason but to make the point that things we discuss are not final unless we say so. When will they get it together?


Dominae

	10-02-2003 06:35									#19
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Dominae, as I recall, they had every reason to think the tech exchnge deal was a go. You can check out the chat logs if you want to, but it seemed to me that the people involved in the team chat on both sides were more or less treating it as a done deal by the time Sir Ralph left.

It looks like contacts aren't going to be a problem for us. The rest of the world is interested in contact with us, so Vox has a chance to make a profit selling contact, and that could also help make Vox a more useful partner longer than they would be otherwise.

What I'd like to do is go ahead and accept these techs and give Vox Writing when we get it. Then we can arrange for them to research Philosophy while we do whatever we end up doing (probably Literature and then Code of Laws, since it looks like we won't be needing Map Making for contact). And I think for the time being, a "trade all techs" relationship works okay for us. It might help Vox more than it does us, but Vox isn't our main competition. (Note that to whatever extent Vox can profit by trading contact with us to other civs, it makes them a stronger trading partner than they would be otherwise, and we profit by getting contact without having to pay or do anything.)

Nathan

	10-02-2003 06:44									#20
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I think we should go ahead and accept this, and give them writing later.

there is also the possiblity of hbr thrown in later. (confused about that situation)

Thats three techs for one. And three required techs, we would have to get them eventually.

And it will foster a sense of partnership between the two teams.


reading betas accounts of the mainland teams, it would seem that they are having as many problems iwth each other as we have had with vox, if not more.

	10-02-2003 07:02									#21
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I sent BetaHound a PM asking for clarification on the Horseback Riding issue, but he's not online at the moment. If Vox's not trading Horseback Riding to us was part of their deal with GoW, I'm inclined to think there's no hurry to our getting Horseback Riding anyhow. Even if it's separate, we could delay getting Horseback Riding from Vox, until we have a chance to put on a big show with GoW about how uninteresting the tech is to Egypt (and for a while after that to avoid creating any foul odors) in order to avoid being part of a situation that antagonizes GoW.

Nathan

	10-02-2003 07:11									#22
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quote: Originally posted by nbarclay I sent BetaHound a PM asking for clarification on the Horseback Riding issue, but he's not online at the moment. If Vox's not trading Horseback Riding to us was part of their deal with GoW, I'm inclined to think there's no hurry to our getting Horseback Riding anyhow. Even if it's separate, we could delay getting Horseback Riding from Vox, until we have a chance to put on a big show with GoW about how uninteresting the tech is to Egypt (and for a while after that to avoid creating any foul odors) in order to avoid being part of a situation that antagonizes GoW. Nathan

I agree. riding can wait till the end of the age, as far as I'm concerned. Dead end tech, we don't get a unit. Not sure why GoW is so bent on trading it to us.

a very odd situation.

everyone wants to know us. But Vox is holding off for the highest bidder? And will give us what they get? It seems like vox has become even more our patsy in the recent days. Lux doens't understand our partnership with vox. Intersting. This would tell me that the relationships lux has are more strained than the vox partnership.

	10-02-2003 07:41									#23
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If what Vox gets is tech, we'll get it too if the trade all techs deal is on. If it's gold, we won't, but the gold could help their research once buildings start cutting into research more (or they might use it to help buy a tech, which we'd then get).

Horesback Riding isn't quite completely useless to Egypt, since horsemen can travel places WCs can't. My usual approach in SP is that if a city can build a horseman just as quickly as it can a WC (e.g. 15-19 shields or 30+ shields), it builds horsemen, but otherwise, it builds WCs.

Nathan

	10-02-2003 08:43									#24
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Got a clarification from BetaHound. It looks like GoW tried a "By clicking 'Accept' you agree to" bit that was (or appeared to be) intertwined with a deal that was already in the works, and managed to confuse Vox in the process.

My inclination is to advise Vox to (1) go ahead and provide the contacts when they get Writing since otherwise, it might sour relations with both GoW and RP, (2) make that contact contingent on their agreeing not to trade contact with us to Lux or ND (thereby preserving an opening for Vox to trade contact to those teams), and (3) just let Horseback Riding sit for the time being; we don't need it right now so there's no sense in antagonizing GoW over that part of the situation.

Nathan

	10-02-2003 09:39									#25
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It's late... and I've been out and about.

But given all the recent developments, my gut reaction is to take all deals possible (max contacts with a relatively isolated position being an *extremely* good thing), be the nice guys, and then commit armageddon on Vox once we're out of despotism.

I do have a slightly more sophisticated idea in mind though, and perhaps Nathan can run with it:

Someone used the word "auction" above... there is a way for Vox, on our joint behalf, to actually run an auction, whether English (high bidder, serially) or Dutch (in this case, combined bids).

Without getting too complex, it seems to me that there are still some subtleties about who we are (the strat forum guys) that we aren't taking sufficient advantage of... fear, respect, potential partnership, etc.

	10-02-2003 10:53									#26
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More tech quicker is better.

	10-02-2003 11:05									#27
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I need to get to bed if I'm to have any hope of getting my hours bent back to something resembling normal. Sir Ralph, you're welcome to take it if you can find a consensus once the European folks start weighing in.

	10-02-2003 13:39									#28
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If we take the techs (and so far I think we should), we are morally obliged to give them all our new techs too for free. This would also include all techs we obtain through the Great Library, if we really get it, without any compensation. How is the opinion of the team on this?

OTOH, if we don't take the techs, it for certain would be understood by Vox as a sign of danger. That's also not very good, given their past behavior based on fear.

What do you people think?

I will play the turn as soon as I get home from work (approximately 5pm GMT/noon EST). Before work I usually don't have the time to play a demogame turn, with statistics and screenshots. It's barely enough for "simple" PBEMs.

	10-02-2003 14:38									#29
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I think we should take the techs. I think we should give our techs. This 'alliance' may last forever, or for the next 40 turns. That is largely up to Vox.

The bottom line is that we are most likely behind at least 4 of the other civs. 5 if you count Vox having tech right now that we do not. We will not win the game of catch up on our own. Cooperate with Vox. It cannot harm us at this point.

The future is far from written, but right now we are lagging. Fix that!

	10-02-2003 14:50									#30
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I don't think we can accept their techs right now. It would implicitely ratify our proposal of exchange all techs, and I don't feel that to be the best we can get, certainly not in the future. Instead, I would send Vox a message, saying we'll accept what they offered now for writing, if they want to. As we're not in a special hurry to get these techs, it doesn't matter if we now decline, and accept them next turn.

Further, we need to get the slaves deal out to them urgently. The longer we wait, the longer it's going to take us too...

DeepO