Turn 194: 790 AD

[DeepO]

Safe has arrived. I will only have time this evening to play it, and can't really wait for input then.

So one question that should be resolved: What about the Natiolism deal from Vox? I don't say we have to decide now, but we should send them something back, this is becoming impolite!

DeepO

[Arrian]

FYI - I did shoot Rhoth a PM late last week, apologizing for our delay and indicating that our core members (myself included) seemed pretty busy IRL, so the team's diplo activity was low. He understood.

But more time has passed. We need a response, yes. Do we have a plan for a deal?

-Arrian

[Cort Haus]

They want Electicity for Nat + Demo, right?

Can we say "yes, but not yet?". We don't want to help Lego.

We could check with ND meanwhile and ask what happened to the Nat-for-Steam deal.

[Arrian]

"Yes but not yet" is the right answer, IMO.

As for ND... did we actually have a Nat-for-Steam deal?

-Arrian

[DeepO]

Arrian, could you PM Roth on this?

For me, everything is fine... I'd like to have a electricity deal with them, but only if it means that either ND or Lego will have to research elec as well. I don't know if that will be possible, though.

Oh, and wouldn't it be an option to give them a Nat for Elec deal, and forget about demo and future luxuries? I think that is in their advantage (don't know for sure, but will check in an instance), so they might show some sympathy that we won't want it right now.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Nat is 2880 beakers, Electricity is 3360. 480 beaker difference should be enough to ask for some time to trade Electricity around first.

DeepO

[DeepO]

I'm starting the turn. I will have to run right after completing it, (and I am currently eating a pizza while typing, quite a messy thing to do), so someone please look into the Vox thing!

DeepO

[Krill]

I'll PM him now if you need to know what to send.

Arrian has games tonight, IIRC

[Cort Haus]

We don't want to send Vox anything in-game, just a PM saying "we're interested in Electricity-for-Nationalism, but not yet - not until certain other parties have researched it".

Vox are possibly up to their old tricks of trying to get techs out of us either to naughtily pass on to Lego, or at least to devalue them to help Lego.

{edit : punctuation repaired}

[DeepO]

Start

- Cyclone builds worker. Starts worker
- SS builds worker, starts worker

- 137 gold, 80%, 627 bpt, -59 gpt
- 39 workers

Moves
In general, the specific worker moves are not covered anymore, it gets too tedious. Only important stuff is mentioned.

-RR on SA 77
- RR on BB 6, 7, 3
- mine on BB 3, 9
- RR on WW 2
- RR on OG 3
- RR on Sufa 8, 7, 74, 41
- RR on Typhoon 98, 9(only 2 workers, so not complete)

- Galley2 moves 9999. All of Antarctica spotted, returns home. Lego picket still at its spot
- our Southern most galley (off the Lego coast) Moves 222
- our Western most galleon moves 8888. Will return towards Stormia via the North. Spots two more Lego pickets, a galleon and a caravell.
- Northern most galley moves 888. Gow Galleon and Lego's caravel are still at the same spots.
- last Galleon (to the South of Stormia) moves 8988. Goes towards Elipolis, passing by ND's scouts. Spots a couple of scouts, the land is well guarded by both GoW and ND

workforce shuffles
- Cyclone set back to ideal pattern (needs this every turn)
- SS set back to ideal pattern
- BB gives hill to OG. Uses Coast instead. Together with the RRing, this gains 2 spt - 1 bpt (for OG), plus 2gpt instead of 1 spt for BB.
- Monsoon takes mountain instead of sea, and will end the uni in 2 turns from now on, not wasting a single shield. Disadvantage is that it won't grow, as it loses its last food.. am thinking of adding a worker in 2 turns, to get it at size 12, 0 fpt. But only once the uni is built.
- Inchon takes hill from Eli, gives grass instead. Currently at -2 fpt, needs improvement badly!

Current Builds

Changed all builds to the factory prebuilds, as layed out in the Smith's thread. This assumes we will go for industrialization after SM. Can be changed back everywhere later on.

Eli : Aqua in 1. growth in 7 (can either grow in 2 or 3 turns, depending on -fpt of Inchon next turn)
Inchon : Aqua in 19
WoC : Iron Works in 14
Inchoff : market in 29
Diss : GLib in 18
Santa Ana : Uni in 22
Blizzard : Uni in 12
Monsoon : Uni in 2
Arashi : ToE in 2 via Palace
WW : Uni in 35
Tempest : Oracle in 11
SS: worker in 2
Hurricane : Hanging gardens in 13
OG : uni in 22
EotS : Hoover Dam in 12(via Sistine). Perfect what shields are concerned: in case Lego somehow finishes Sistine next turn (they are not building it now), it can still go to starvation and a GLib prebuild, and without loss of pop build Hoover in 13.
BB : uni in 9
Cyclone: worker in 1
Tornado : Uni in 8
Typhoon : Uni in 21
Sufa : Uni in 18

Other
- with the shuffling, we're at 626 bpt, -57 gpt at 80%.

- #2 in production again.

- ND got Medicine from GoW

- turn sent

Next Turn
- further improvement of Typhoon. After that, Elipolis and Inchon get RR, pure for the food and not the shields. Elipolis will be a lot better of with more fpt, as most of its extra fpt will go to waste. Any remaining workers start on shields for SA, or growth for Blizzard. (needs one fpt more for perfect growth)

DeepO

[Arrian]

I sent a PM to Vox explaining that we do want to trade elec for nat, but not yet.

The question now, of course, is if not now, then when, exactly?

Has lego gotten the prereqs for Electricity yet? If so, when did they have them?

We need to estimate their discovery date (I'd assume 4-5 turns to actual research the tech) and beat their date. Otherwise, Vox has no reason to trade us nationalism for a tech they can get from Big Brother.

In the meantime, we need to figure out what we're doing vis-a-vis GoW and ND with regard to Electricity. Are we selling to one or both, and if so, for what?

This all needs coordination, or we will once again get screwed.

-Arrian

[DeepO]

I doubt Lego is even going for Electricity, if I knew I was behind in the race towards ToE, I would focus on industrilaztion and sanitation instead. They might think they have a chance, as our prevouis wonder builds weren't perfectly timed (we got them nevertheless), but not for ToE, they should realize that the moment we discover it, we build it.

DeepO

[Arrian]

Ok, then the question remains: how long do we want to hold on to Electricity?

I really don't think "until Lego is 1 turn away from it" is possible.

Let's try and work out the best deals we can with GoW, ND and Vox.

Nationalism from Vox. Fine.
Sanitation from GoW?
Industrialization from ND?

-Arrian

[asleepathewheel]

re: elec time frame.

it is a prereq to rep. parts, right?

on that assumption, we might figure out when we move on either lego or ND and count backwards in turns, ie, if we plan to hit one in 25 turns, then we might hold elec for another say 10 turns, giving our troops ~10 turns of action before the heavy defenders come online.

Alternatively we could negotiate a more extended NDA.

The key to the above is to trick those two teams into believing they are safe while waiting out the 20 turns, assuming that that is the plan.

[DeepO]

Could that be an option? to explain to them that, as we consider elec such a vital tech (and Nat a lot less, as RP would obsolete rifles at once), we want to protect our tech more. Something like "We understand your eagerness to be able to irr, so would you agree to a 30 turn NDA, and we will deliver it next turn?"

The only problem is RP, if we can't trade Nat to them, it might take them a long time to defend themselves. Or we should get lucky, and find 2 sources of rubber on Stormia.

DeepO