12-05-2004 21:20									#211
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Email from Vondrack in response to my request for dyes again.

quote: Hi, guys! > You're up. Thanks for Replaceable Parts. And I must really be out of > it. I had thought last turn that the dyes you guys were sending had > been switched to a standing order but they disappeared this turn. > Would it be possible for you to send them again? Thanks. The ingame luxury trade mechanism is weird. If you watch the F4 trading screen, you can see them going down to "[1] dyes", then just "dyes" on the following turn - and then simply disappear. I did my best to send you the dyes prior to the previous gift deal expiring, but you apparently had no chance to accept them. I am 100% sure I sent Replaceable Parts AND DYES in one package (terminated the current dye supplies in order to be able to add them to the deal) - it seems you got only the tech, but not the dyes. Sigh. The better I know it, the more often this game is driving me crazy. Just btw... there is a partial workaround for the luxury "1t gap" problem. Let's say the dyes expire after you end your 900AD turn and we renew them immediately in 900AD (which is what happened). Now, when you get your 910AD save (and accept the dyes from us), use the first 'build complete' pop-up to go into the city screen and use the arrows to scroll through all your cities after the one that has just finished something. For each city, take a worker off any tile and immediately put it back there - it forces the game to recalculate the happiness, actually putting the renewed luxury into effect (which would not be the case if you did not use this trick). Prevents riots, prevents losing WLTKDs... it's legal now (after the teams approved using the F1 tricks in general), though very weird. :| And last but definitely not least - guys, would you be able to use some extra workers or labourers? We are getting into troubles with our research - we cannot compete with the GoW+GS tandem. We already miss Sanitation (which ND+GoW+GS have), Scientific Method, Atomic Theory, and Electronics (which GS has), and we are likely to start losing even in the middle tech tree branch soon. If you were able to speed up your research to some 200+ bpt, it would really help, since you would be able to do the techs others have researched, but refused to trade to us at a fair price. E.g., Sanitation is now at about 1500 beakers, which could be like 7t. We are not really having that much spare cash now, but we would be easily able to send some extra workers to you - to be used to improve your terrain, or (more importantly) to be joined to your cities to boost your commerce. Are your cities ready for extra population? Would it be okay to send you a couple of new citizens? If yes, how many? Let us know. Best regards, Radek aka vondrack

	12-05-2004 21:49									#212
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

My email response to Vondrack

quote: Hi Radek, That must have been my mix-up with the trading. I thought the way it worked was it just said dyes (1) and then the next turn it was gone (like SP games). When it just said dyes with no number I assumed you had just had it continue indefinitely. Oh well, live and learn. And yes, the only thing that appeared in the FAM box was the tech not the dyes. Maybe Civ4 PBEM/MP tech trading will be more intuitive...I hope. Regarding the workers, I haven't talked with my team yet, but I think we'd be interested. I currently have a plan in the works to get all of our cities up their max. tile production. It will take a little while longer to get it finished up, though replaceable parts will help speed that up a bit. Now that we have electricity and railroads our cities will start growing again. Some of the cities won't grow too well though, so adding some workers to them would certainly help. I was intending to get all our tiles fixed up and then start adding the workers to the cities that need them, but if you need us to research faster then we can work on that. I'm trying to set up our growth cycle for several cities to grow to size 7 at the same time so we don't waste any of the luxury deals we've worked out with other teams. Depending on the amount of workers you send we could add them to Resurrection, Eternity and Panama Vox to get them closer to size 6 in preparation for growth beyond, as well as giving us the extra commerce points. So however many workers you think you can spare for joining to our cities, we can use them. Regarding our research, we are about 8 turns more to communism (though that would speed up with more commerce points) and after that we can get sanitation for you if you need it. We can't really speed that number up with the slider without going into negative gpt numbers. On the military front, our first ironclad will be hitting the waters soon, with a few more to follow. Now that we have replaceable parts we will no longer need saltpeter since we can build artillery instead of cannons. We're also slowly trying to build up some gold for upgrades of our units using the ND communism deal. Our railroad network is finally up and running around all our cities (not just through them) so that in the event we are attacked you would be able to get around to our entire island with cav's etc. Which leads to one further thing...what would you say to one or the other of us establishing an embassy with the other? I've currently been holding around 70gold as our lowest point. It would cost us about 66 gold or so to establish the embassy to be able to request a right of passage agreement for you to use our rail network in the event that we are attacked. If we go ahead and establish the embassy now then I don't have to think about keeping gold for that particular reserve. Thanks again, Rhoth

	13-05-2004 21:21									#213
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Vondrack's response...

quote: Hi, Jared! > Maybe Civ4 PBEM/MP tech trading will be more intuitive...I hope. Frankly, I do not hold my hopes too high. I believe that the whole concept of Civ (SP) is not very suitable for MP... what I ultimately find the biggest flaw is the absence of "alliance victories". There is only one winner in every game - which makes it an extremely hostile game. Even allies become foes sooner or later, inevitably... I have come to hate this aspect of the game - but what would you expect from a guy that only played Doom MP in cooperative mode...? > Regarding the workers, I haven't talked with my team yet, but I > think we'd be interested. [...snip...] So however many workers > you think you can spare for joining to our cities, we can use them. > OK, I will present the plan to my team and once approved, send workers at will. > Regarding our research, we are about 8 turns more to communism > (though that would speed up with more commerce points) and after > that we can get sanitation for you if you need it. We can't really > speed that number up with the slider without going into negative gpt > numbers. Understood. Getting communism fast is not a priority - Sanitation would be (much) more important. But at least for a couple more turns, we'd prefer you not losing money on research, as we are not generating any extra gold to fund your deficit. We do have some cash reserve, but that should remain just that - a reserve. > Our railroad network is finally up and running around all our cities > (not just through them) so that in the event we are attacked you > would be able to get around to our entire island with cav's etc. > Which leads to one further thing...what would you say to one or the > other of us establishing an embassy with the other? I've currently > been holding around 70gold as our lowest point. It would cost us > about 66 gold or so to establish the embassy to be able to request a > right of passage agreement for you to use our rail network in the > event that we are attacked. If we go ahead and establish the embassy > now then I don't have to think about keeping gold for that > particular reserve. Good news about the roads/railroads in place. And a very good point about the embassy. I will bring that up in the forum. Best regards, Radek

	13-05-2004 21:34									#214
	Full PM-box? Change here!

And my response...

quote: Hi Radek, I completely understand what you mean about alliance victories. Over at MZO there was an Age of Discovery PBEM going on with Arnelos, ZargonX, conmcb25 and UberKrux. I was watching on the sidelines for a while since three of them are in my American Imperialist team. UberKrux was quite a ways in the lead so the others formed an alliance to take him down. Arnelos was the only one that profited from it though as he was the only one in position to win after the alliance finished off UberKrux. Hopefully the added workers will speed communism up a turn or two. Then we can start researching sanitation a little sooner. That one shouldn't take too long though, once we can get to it. Either one of us can do the embassy if it's okay with your team. I'll leave it up to you whether or not you want to establish it or have us do so. Thanks, Jared (Rhoth)

	19-05-2004 07:57									#215
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Had a chat with vondrack on Sunday. The notes made it into my workstuff - and are now at work. Will post tomorrow.

	20-05-2004 16:16									#216
	Increase the size of your Attachments

These were the highlights from my chat with vondrack of Lego:

They need our help to win. That is clear to them now.

In particular - they need research help. After communism, they are thinking we should be researching sanitation, scientific method, atomic theory, electronics and the like. The so called deade-end techs.

They do not have excess cash to fund our research. But they can provide population in the way of workers. They are set to start sending them

The will establish an embassy with us.

Militarily - continue stressing defenders, including arty and a naval.

Please send world map next turn.

And we discussed luxes - but I can't recall what we talked about. I think it was the mechanics for ensuring we get their luxuries.

All this jives pretty well with your conversations with him as well, Rhoth.

	26-05-2004 07:08									#217
	Tired of ads?

PM from Vondrack

quote: Hi, Jared! (ccing to Beta) Thanks to some extra cash we've recently made, we are now able to fund your deficit budget - whatever it is, I believe. Guys, if you can, fire up your research to as much as possible (even 100% if you have the necessary cash reserve) and just tell us how much you need to cover your deficit. I will make sure to send the gold immediately. This has already been unanimously agreed to by the Lego team. Take care, Radek aka vondrack on behalf of Legoland

	26-05-2004 07:15									#218
	Suffering from ads?

And my response

quote: Hi Vondrack, We can set our research to 100% next turn. It will shave two turns off our research of communism so that we only will have two turns to finish it. Our deficit at 100% is currently 83 gold. Thanks, Rhoth (Jared)

	26-05-2004 21:06									#219
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

From Vondrack

quote: That's great news! I will start sending 100g every turn then. We should be able to maintain this funding at least until the discovery of Sanitation. Take care, Radek aka vondrack

	28-05-2004 10:52									#220
	Inflate your Upload Space

To Lego with the save.

quote: You're up. Thanks for the workers. We set our research to 90% not 100% as there is no way we can bump it to 1 turn, so I scaled it back enough to still get communism in 2 turns. Our deficit was 69 gold for this turn. Also, we have our first ironclad out and about with a few more to follow. I want to keep our (currently meager) naval strength a secret though so they will be holed up in towns for a while.

	17-06-2004 05:49									#221
	Full PM-box? Change here!

To lego with the save.

quote: You're up. Thanks for the workers. That is about all we'll need at the moment. In about 5 turns we'll finally be ready to explode beyond size 6 in several cities, but thanks to your assistance almost all our cities are at size 6 at the moment. By the way, we have currently suspended our navy at one ironclad. Now that we know we have oil we are going to wait to build destroyers when we have that technology. In the meantime our artillery/infantry build up is slowly progressing.

	24-06-2004 21:18									#222
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Email from Vondrack in response to the text I included with the email.

quote: Hey, Jared! > You're up. I made a few WF moves as we're about to grow past size 7 in a > few cities and lo and behold it shot our sanitation projection up to 1 turn. > We'll be able to send it to you next turn. :-D That's AWESOME news! Helps me do a coupla things "optimally". I am amazed by how fast you are now able to research. I am going to start a discussion in our forum immediately about what research project we'd prefer most for you now - there are two available, at the same beaker cost (Espionage and Scientific Method, both at 2160 beakers). Can you briefly tell me what your beaker-per-turn output now is? Just to have an idea of how long it's going to take you to research a tech. BTW... shall we start sending workers again? We would be able to send at least one, sometimes two per turn (we've got two cities designated as permanent worker pumps). And last, but not least... will you, from time to time, send your world map, please? It's not that there would be so much new stuff in terms of uncovered shroud (over the sea), but due to a glitch in Civ3, the ingame map updates tile improvements everywhere - even where you should not be able to see it (same principle as with sending WMs back and forth to reveal barbarian camps outside one's visibility range in the early stages of a game). So, with a map from you, we can see how Bobians and GS develop their lands. Take care & thanks for the great news. I am starting to think that with your great help, we might win this game "in a builder way" even against the de facto coalition of Bobians and GS... BTW, we shall finish Combustion in 2t (1030AD) - as someone has just discovered the tech this turn (the research cost went down) and it thus makes no sense to sit on it, we will send it to you right away (you will get it in 1040AD), so you will be able to renew your navy building efforts. Best regards, Radek aka vondrack

	24-06-2004 21:29									#223
	Put an end to popups!

And my response

quote: Hi Radek, At the moment we were thinking espionage since it's not a tech anyone else is likely to go after, but if you need us to do scientific method we can do that instead. Do you want the next tech quickly? If not then I was thinking of possibly ramping back research a bit to build up enough gold to upgrade all of our straggling pikemen and the last few catapults to current technology. I'm not at home right now so I don't have our current numbers for research. I'll try to send them later today. Pretty soon we'll have completed improving the island and our own workers will be joining back into our cities as well (after electricity I was finally able to set up a 2-turn worker pump of our own). If you want to start sending workers again that would be great. It will still take a little while to build up to our max city size though so extra workers are great. We can send you the map every turn if you want. Or every few turns. I'll make a note of it in my turn orders. That's great news about combustion. We want a nice navy and once we knew we had oil there was no reason to continue with ironclad production. Thanks, Jared (Rhoth)

	25-06-2004 04:01									#224
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Response from Vondrack

quote: Hi Jared, > At the moment we were thinking espionage since it's not a tech > anyone else is likely to go after, but if you need us to do > scientific method we can do that instead. Do you want the next tech > quickly? If not then I was thinking of possibly ramping back > research a bit to build up enough gold to upgrade all of our > straggling pikemen and the last few catapults to current technology. After thinking this over, you are probably right. Espionage is a fine thing (spies are, actually) and it does not really matter how long it will take you to do it, as it is a dead-end tech... we better do the Scientific Method ourselves as it will keep all our options open. As for the research pace... we would actually prefer if you keep it at 100%. We really need those techs from you - it's easier for us to give you more gold than to "research faster ourselves" to balance your own slower research (the 4t research cap interferes). Thanks to Sanitation and a number of hospitals coming online very soon, allowing most of our workers to join cities, we should be able to generate some extra gold to pay for your upgrades. How much gold do you need to upgrade (all of) your military? > I'm not at home right now so I don't have our current numbers for > research. I'll try to send them later today. OK, thanks. > Pretty soon we'll have completed improving the island and our own > workers will be joining back into our cities as well (after > electricity I was finally able to set up a 2-turn worker pump of our > own). If you want to start sending workers again that would be > great. It will still take a little while to build up to our max > city size though so extra workers are great. We already have plans for this coming turn, but starting from the next one (1030AD), I will do my best to send you at least one worker every turn. > We can send you the map every turn if you want. Or every few > turns. I'll make a note of it in my turn orders. Every few turns would be great. Not that we would rely on that info, but I like to check from time to time... > That's great news about combustion. We want a nice navy and once > we knew we had oil there was no reason to continue with ironclad > production. Agreed. We still plan to build a couple of picket ironclads, replacing all those caravels and galleons, but generally, we have been waiting for Combustion to start building our navy up. Unless we tell you otherwise before you get to play 1020AD, go ahead and pick Espionage as your next research goal, please, preferrably at 100%. Take care, Radek aka vondrack

	25-06-2004 04:07									#225
	Increase the size of your Attachments

And my response

quote: Hi Radek, Okay, we'll go for espionage at 100%. As to the amount of gold it would take to upgrade all of our forces I don't have the numbers with me, but it's basically 120 gold per upgrade for each one of them. We have about 18-20 units to upgrade so it's in the neighborhood of 2400 gold for all of them. I'm currently trying to peddle communism to the last two teams that don't have it (GoW and RP) for some gold or techs so we'll see how that goes. Thanks, Jared (Rhoth)

	27-06-2004 01:13									#226
	Inflate your Upload Space

Email from Vondrack

quote: Hi Jared, > Okay, we'll go for espionage at 100%. Great, thanks - we have internally agreed on going for Scientific Method in 4t ourselves now (after finishing Combustion), saving cash and letting others research Mass Production and Flight first, lowering their costs for us - the leading researcher is than us... we've caught up by 2t on them on Combustion alone, I think. We'd be done too fast with Mass Production and would only lower the cost... > As to the amount of gold it would take to upgrade all of our forces I > don't have the numbers with me, but it's basically 120 gold per > upgrade for each one of them. We have about 18-20 units to upgrade so > it's in the neighborhood of 2400 gold for all of them. I'm currently > trying to peddle communism to the last two teams that don't have it > (GoW and RP) for some gold or techs so we'll see how that goes. This sounds doable. How fast would you like to upgrade? I think we should be able to send you 100gpt to keep you researching at 100% plus 120gpt to let you upgrade one unit per turn. This might improve soon - I am not exactly sure how much we gain by growing our cities past pop 12, which is going to happen very soon. Would that be acceptable? We shall, of course, do our best to deliver the upgrade gold faster to you, but I am trying to be reasonable here... 220gpt is what we can afford at this very moment and at least for the next 5 turns. Also, we shall need some gold for our own upgrades. Our likely research path from here is going to be Scientific method - Mass Production. Then Atomic Theory, Electronics, Motorized Transport, Flight, and Radio (Flight looks like a very good one for you, after you finish Espionage... it's a mandatory, yet basically dead-end tech...). GoW/GS/ND tech-embargo us, so we have to research everything ourselves, thus being able to deliver all techs you might need to proceed to the modern era. If you trade your techs to others, you might prefer gold over techs or pick optional techs. Have a nice weekend, Radek

	27-06-2004 01:25									#227
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

And my response

quote: Hi Radek I finally had a chance to get to Civ today. Our current science output at 100% is 263 beakers per turn. That will obviously start rising dramatically in a few turns though as our cities grow to size 7, and then a few turns after we'll be joining about 20+ workers to the various cities. Regarding unit upgrades it will cost us 2140 gold to upgrade all our laggardly units to current standards. Regarding how fast we want to upgrade, that is more dependent on your team if you're going to subsidize our upgrades. I want to get the remaining catapults upgraded first, then the pikes. The pikes aren't quite as important as the catapults in my opinion. Researching flight after espionage is fine with us. Espionage shouldn't take us all that long to research so we'll have flight ready for you before you need it to advance to the next age...plus we get that nice free tech in the next age too. :-) Thanks Jared (Rhoth)

	27-06-2004 06:22									#228
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Nuff said.

	29-07-2004 22:09									#229
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Message from Vondrack. I'll respond later today after I get home from work.

quote: Hi, guys! Just sent you the usual amount of gold (is it still enough to cover your deficit plus upgrade one unit every turn?), some workers, and Scientific Method. Mass Production coming your way in 4t. Just a couple of things: 1. Unless we expressly tell you otherwise, you are free to sell any tech we gift (or have gifted) you. We are now completely out of the trading loop, with others basically embargoing us - GoW/GS because we've got nothing they'd lack and ND because they want GoW/GS to be as much of a threat to us as possible (and perhaps because they fear repercussions if they traded with us). ATM, GoW & ND lack Scientific Method - if you are able to sell it to either of them (or to RP) for anything even remotely reasonable (gold, luxuries, workers), then go for it - whatever you are able to make out of a deal, it's yours. 2. Unless you have already arranged deals for Espionage, we'd prefer if you kept the tech for yourself and us only. 3. How many workers you can still reasonably use? No problem keeping them coming, just wanna have some idea about the scope of it... 4. What is your current beaker output? 5. How much gold needed to finish upgrading your military? (I guess it will be around 1500g, but I admit I am not keeping track of the gold) 6. After finishing Mass Production, we will most probably plunge back into the lower tech-tree branch and do Atomic Theory and Electronics ASAP. We would like you to go for Flight after finishing Espionage - still at your maximum research rate. Well, that's it. Let us know if you need anything. Best regards, Radek aka vondrack Legoland

	30-07-2004 05:26									#230
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Response to Vondrack

quote: Hi Vondrack. The gold you're sending is still enough to cover our expenses and one upgrade by about 2 gold. 1. We can work on seeing what we can get for scientific method, but communism wasn't wanted by either GoW or Roleplay...probably because they both just kept forgetting there was a deal on the table. 2. We haven't arranged any deals for it yet so we won't 3. In two turns we will be joining about 20 workers to our cities. We'll still need more after that though since most of our cities don't grow very fast on their own. We still have a 2-turn worker pump going too. 4. Current beaker output is 325 beakers at 100%. That will go up moderately significantly in 2 turns. 5. There is only one more catapult to upgrade which was my primary concern. After that are 9 pikeman and 2 rifleman, and then finally 4 Immortals. We'll take as much as you want to give for our upgrade efforts. 6. We'll have espionage in 3 turns and then head for flight. Thanks again for the recent and soon to come techs. We should have a few destroyers popping out soon so we'll have a decent navy on its way. Rhoth

	31-07-2004 22:46									#231
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

From Vondrack

quote: Hi, Jared! > The gold you're sending is still enough to cover our expenses and one > upgrade by about 2 gold. OK, I will make a note to send a little bit more next turn. > We can work on seeing what we can get for scientific method, but > communism wasn't wanted by either GoW or Roleplay...probably because > they both just kept forgetting there was a deal on the table. Understood. It's unlikely you'd score any huge success marketing those techs... I just wanted you to know that you can try your luck, if you wish. Nobody will buy from us - simply because we are Legoland. > We haven't arranged any deals for it yet so we won't Cool, that's great. Others will either have to spend time researching Espionage themselves or live without spies. Both options help us quite some. > In two turns we will be joining about 20 workers to our cities. > We'll still need more after that though since most of our cities don't > grow very fast on their own. We still have a 2-turn worker pump going > too. Wow, 20 workers - that should have quite some effect! We have one 1t pump and one 2t pump, plus a camp spitting an excess worker every 7t. We are going to add most of our workers to cities this coming turn, keeping only a minimal staff to cope with pollution. But the pumps shall stay on for the foreseeable future. > Current beaker output is 325 beakers at 100%. That will go up > moderately significantly in 2 turns. Great. Absolutely great. You guys are becoming very fine researchers! Flight in 12-13t will help us big time. We should be able to do like 3 techs in the meantime (perhaps bit less, Atomic Theory and Electronics are quite costly and we may need 5t instead of 4t per each one of them - but we shall see how it turns out after adding all the workers and completing few more unis here). Perhaps you will be able to slow down a bit, allowing us to invest a bit more into our own research (we are currently running on a pretty much balanced budget even with all the gold flowing to you - but that's because we've been doing fairly cheap techs). That should leave Radio (the only remaining mandatory tech) and Amphibious Warfare (strategically too important to be ignored) to be researched prior to entering the modern era. Who knows, maybe we will not be that much behind - and your free modern tech will certainly help, too. > There is only one more catapult to upgrade which was my primary > concern. After that are 9 pikeman and 2 rifleman, and then finally 4 > Immortals. We'll take as much as you want to give for our upgrade > efforts. Well, we basically consider it our duty to fund ALL of your upgrades, at least as long as you are researching at maximum speed. The gold shall keep flowing in, I am just not sure we'll be able to keep it 120gpt when we go for the costly techs (Atomic Theory & Electronics). > We'll have espionage in 3 turns and then head for flight. Great, thanks. > Thanks again for the recent and soon to come techs. We should have a > few destroyers popping out soon so we'll have a decent navy on its > way. Perfect. Just an idea here... I know it may be a bit premature, but I thought I'd mention it. You are our best (and only!) ally, but at the same time, our Achilles' heel - since we would have to (and would!) fully commit to your defense if you were attacked. If I was GS or GoW, I would use a diversionary attack at Vox to suck at least some Legoland forces in to Voxtavia - and then cut railroads to make sure they will not be able to fight wherever the real landing happens. I was thinking of how to prevent that - first, we can keep workers on the key tiles. But there are too many and it would only be a matter of bringing enough bombardment power to cut the RRs for that one crucial turn. The other idea I have had was to have a backup naval route... such a route would require us to have one city in Voxtavia, to be able to ferry troops back and forth without losing their movement points. However, any city transfer destroys cultural improvements, so we'd better use some "inferior" city of yours. But there are none like that, right? So - what about keeping an odd settler in reserve? There is a spot between Phoenix and Lux Invicta (SE-SE of L.I.) you could build a temporary port in case of emergency. You'd build it on your turn, gift it to us and we'd then use it to get whatever would be needed either in or out of Voxtavia (our ferry fleet would anchor W-NW of Port Hammer). What do you think? It's just brainstorming for the moment - naval bombardment is only getting into play and bombers are still few turns away. But I believe we should start thinking about a war. One is sure to come - GS knows their shield lead over us is very slim and our fast research rate must be worrying them... they are sitting on a huge pile of gold (like 7000+ gold, we found out by investigating Cyclone two turns ago) and we seriously consider the possibility of them doing something, ahem, unreasonable in a relatively near future - before their tech lead wanes. So - those were just some thoughts... Take care, Radek

	31-07-2004 23:05									#232
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Response to Vondrack

quote: Hi Vondrack, Regarding the gold, since we will be joining 20+ workers in 2 turns that will free up that much gold from our expenses. We'll replace it soon enough with naval expenses I imagine, but for now we'll be fine with the 220 for our expenses and an upgrade. I plan on keeping our worker pump operational for awhile too. We won't have nearly as much pollution as you do as only a couple of our cities will even be able to grow beyond size 12, but I eventually want to have a few for pollution duty as well as growing all our cities to their maximum potential much quicker than they otherwise could. After flight is done we can discuss our options from there. If you need us to continue full bore research we can do that, but if you need your gold for research then we can scale back a bit too. Depending on what you need we might be able to do amphibious warfare for you while you do radio and jump both of us ahead to the next age where we'll get that nice free tech. If you can't fund all of our upgrades that's fine. I wanted to have the catapults upgraded to artillery first and that's almost done. Then we'll upgrade the pikes for support. If the Immortals don't get upgraded I might just disband them in favor of newly built units. We'll see what happens. I've been setting New Voice up to be the primary veteran builder while the other cities build naval units and bombard units. The settler idea is an excellent one. I will make plans to add one into the works right away. Always better to be prepared now in case they attack sooner rather than later. I'd definitely prefer a settler to transferring a city since we have libraries and universities in all of them, though the alternative of losing the ability to have you defend us is much worse. At the moment (before bombers) the only way they could cut any of the Vox rail tiles to prevent a strike is to get into that little sea between us, but it would be much easier to cut one or two tiles around Invoice. Thanks again. As soon as the save is passed on to me I'll send it off to you. Rhoth

	02-08-2004 21:22									#233
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

From Vondrack. There was another one that came in yesterday that I haven't had a chance to log or respond to yet. I'll try to get to that later.

quote: Hi, Jared! Just an idea here... are you able to offer us any kind of a resource? Like, say... iron, horses, or saltpeter (something you are not going to need)? 'cause if you're we could try setting the dyes deal as "dyes for something", hopefully getting rid of those annoying bumps every 20 turns... Maybe I am asking a stupid question here... but last turn, I was suprised to see that we were able to offer you horses, which you seem to have connected...!? Cheers, Radek

	02-08-2004 21:23									#234
	Support Apolyton

My response

quote: Hi Radek, I think the only resource we have that we won't be needing (after we finish our last rail) is iron. The reason we don't have horses is an ongoing deal with Roleplay that funds a few things since we weren't planning on building any cavalry. Instead what we might be able to do is set it up as a dyes for 1gpt deal. I know that can continue on past 20 turns since that's the way our current deal with Roleplay is. I still haven't responded to your other email as I haven't had a chance to open the old save and check our citizen needs, but I should be able to respond either tonight or tomorrow. Rhoth

	03-08-2004 11:12									#235
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Response from Radek

quote: Hi Jared, > I think the only resource we have that we won't be needing (after we > finish our last rail) is iron.  The reason we don't have horses is an > ongoing deal with Roleplay that funds a few things since we weren't > planning on building any cavalry. > Instead what we might be able to do is set it up as a dyes for 1gpt > deal. I know that can continue on past 20 turns since that's the way > our current deal with Roleplay is. Cool - I did not know that a lux-for-gpt would auto-extend past the initial twenty turns. You'd be unable to offer iron to us, as we have some of our own (and are not really into cutting it , so this would probably be a fine way out. On the turn the current deal expires, just offer 1gpt as unaccepted. I will counter with the dyes and you will accept on the following turn. In case you miss the turn (I'm never sure how the "details" tab should look like on the very last turn a deal is in effect - it's prolly just "dyes" with no number, but I am not sure), at least remind me to offer you dyes, so that you can throw in that 1gpt and send it as accepted back to us a turn later. Or, you can keep offering 1gpt every turn, just for sure. As long as we cannot counter with dyes, I will simply dismiss the trading screen. As soon as I have the option of countering with dyes, I would do so. Whatever works for you. Should the delivery of Espionage mess in, you can safely delay it - we have the Intelligence Agency prebuild under way, but it'll be finished only in 6 turns, so sending Espionage only after sorting out this dyes stuff will be fine. > I still haven't responded to your other email as I haven't had a > chance to open the old save and check our citizen needs, but I should > be able to respond either tonight or tomorrow. No problem, the game is on hold again anyway. Wonder what it takes to run into SO many bugs... we are micromanaging like crazy, too, but do not have the kind of troubles GS seem to be cursed with. Cheers, Radek

	03-08-2004 11:14									#236
	Put an end to popups!

And the email from yesterday that I haven't responded to yet (I'll respond tomorrow...I was too busy setting up the C3C Classics game that most of you are involved in )

quote: Hi Jared, (and Bruce > Regarding the gold, since we will be joining 20+ workers in 2 turns > that will free up that much gold from our expenses. We'll replace it > soon enough with naval expenses I imagine, but for now we'll be fine > with the 220 for our expenses and an upgrade. OK, cool. 220gpt should be no problem at least until you finish upgrading all your units. Actually, 220gpt is just about what we can afford to send without touching our savings. > I plan on keeping our worker pump operational for awhile too. We won't > have nearly as much pollution as you do as only a couple of our cities > will even be able to grow beyond size 12, but I eventually want to > have a few for pollution duty as well as growing all our cities to > their maximum potential much quicker than they otherwise could. Can you give me at least an estimate of how many workers from us you will be able to use? If it's going to be a significant number, we would consider setting up one more worker pump... also, depending on what the timeline for your following research projects will be, we may temporarily prioritize adding workers to our own cities (since it seems you will be "fast enough" anyway). > After flight is done we can discuss our options from there. If you > need us to continue full bore research we can do that, but if you need > your gold for research then we can scale back a bit too. > Depending on what you need we might be able to do amphibious warfare > for you while you do radio and jump both of us ahead to the next age > where we'll get that nice free tech. Well, we shall see what your beaker output is after you add all those workers this coming turn. Basically, here is the tentative research timeline we are currently working with: 1110AD - Mass Production discovered 1160AD - Atomic Theory discovered 1200AD - Electronics discovered 1240AD - Motorized Transport discovered Not sure how long it will take us to chew through Radio, but for the sake of simplicity, let's assume just 4t: 1280AD - Radio discovered So... means that in 1290AD, you will receive Radio from us and enter the Modern Era, getting your free tech. It would be optimal to start researching whatever Tier 2 tech you'd be able to immediately. I believe that you are going to finish Espionage in 1100AD, right? That would be 19 more turns to do Flight and Amphibious Warfare. We'd prefer getting Flight ASAP (to be able to build us some airforce), but once Flight is discovered (something like 10t, I imagine), it would probably be better to slow down so that Amphibious takes you exactly those 8-9 remaining turns. Would allow us to max our own research, making sure we do Radio really in 4t. > If you can't fund all of our upgrades that's fine. I wanted to have > the catapults upgraded to artillery first and that's almost done. > Then we'll upgrade the pikes for support. If the Immortals don't get > upgraded I might just disband them in favor of newly built units. > We'll see what happens. I've been setting New Voice up to be the > primary veteran builder while the other cities build naval units and > bombard units. For the moment, it does not look like a problem to keep sending those 220gpt, so unless something bad happens, you should be able to upgrade one unit every turn. > The settler idea is an excellent one. I will make plans to add one > into the works right away. Always better to be prepared now in case > they attack sooner rather than later. I'd definitely prefer a settler > to transferring a city since we have libraries and universities in all > of them, though the alternative of losing the ability to have you > defend us is much worse. At the moment (before > bombers) the only way they could cut any of the Vox rail tiles to > prevent a strike is to get into that little sea between us, but it > would be much easier to cut one or two tiles around Invoice. Cool. As of next turn, I will start withdrawing some of our caravels towards Port Hammer, upgrading them there and anchoring W-NW of Port Hammer. BTW... GS acquired rubber last turn and most likely upgraded all their defenders (went from weak to average vs. us - but we still have like 85% rifles, only starting the real infantry and navy deal here . It's sort of weird, as upgrading NOW makes little sense - draws attention while it's not really time to invade anywhere yet (they will need tanks and marines to do that). The only reasonable explanation I can think of is that they do not really trust GoW/ND and simply decided to play it safe and upgrade while there's a chance. Take care, Radek

	03-08-2004 21:13									#237
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

This is great reading!

But disbanding the Immortals???!!!

We should at least keep one as the palace guard. After all, they are immortal....


And another thought given vondrack's view of where this game may be going militarily - do we need destroyers? I suspect we will not be involved in any landings or overseas operations. This looks like it is hunker down and race to the finish; and vondrack's comments about us being the weak link make sense. Should we be investing in artilliry and infantry instead?

	03-08-2004 23:00									#238
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

quote: Originally posted by Beta But disbanding the Immortals???!!! We should at least keep one as the palace guard. After all, they are immortal....

They can only upgrade to a unit that is already inferior to infantry. Right now they're good because we can use them, but once we have more land units they won't be as necessary.

quote: And another thought given vondrack's view of where this game may be going militarily - do we need destroyers? I suspect we will not be involved in any landings or overseas operations. This looks like it is hunker down and race to the finish; and vondrack's comments about us being the weak link make sense. Should we be investing in artilliry and infantry instead?

I still think we need some naval power. Anything we sink before it can land units saves our existing land units. But don't worry, we will be investing in artillery and infantry too. New Voice is almost finished with it's factory and can then pump out veteran infantry in 2-3 turns. Once we have some naval power (destroyers and battleships), the other cities will work on more artillery.

	06-08-2004 07:32									#239
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

quote: Originally posted by Rhothaerill They can only upgrade to a unit that is already inferior to infantry. Right now they're good because we can use them, but once we have more land units they won't be as necessary.

I know. There is absolutely no logic behind my argument whatsover. I am being nostalgic. I need that link to the past to hold onto. And we do need a palace guard - don't we? What happens when jon miller comes in after a night of drinking?

	06-08-2004 10:27									#240
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Sent to Lego with the save.

quote: You're up. < be able to use? If it's going to be a significant number, we would consider setting up one more worker pump... also, depending on what the timeline for your following research projects will be, we may temporarily prioritize adding workers to our own cities (since it seems you will be "fast enough" anyway).>> Our estimate of workers needed after the current crop of workers join next turn is 16 to get up to pre-hospital population maxes. We have three cities that can go above size 12 so depending on when we can get some hospitals built that's another 15 to get to full max. Thanks for all the worker help you've been giving us. :-)