DIPLO: RollPlay Team contact LOG

[DeepO]

Togas,

we're currently at turn 191, 760 AD. I hope I will be able to play it, but I guess not... it'll have to wait until this evening, I fear.

Good to hear about the horses, although you could have gotten them from us as well, we're not building any horses anymore... you could have gotten our only source.

DeepO

DeepO,

How many turns from now is turn 196? We've lost track of turns as we now simply keep track of things by year.

We're 14 turns from Navigation.

We struck up a deal with Vox for horses and are now building horsemen which we plan to later upgrade to Conquistadors.

We are also, of course, building markets and banks and other necessary commercial and growth related buildings.

--Togas

[Cort Haus]

to Togas

Hi Togas,

We can send you Metallurgy next turn, and Steam Power the turn after that.

Thanks for the WM - we've wanted to hold ours while we're RRing, to prevent Lego guessing our Wonder Cities but now we're not sure whether it gets seen anyway. We saw some RR on other lands from your map - did you get a map from somewhere or does this get updated automatically when a map is traded.

Can you see our rails?

Regards,

Cort.

[DeepO]

Togas,

we'll be sending you Metallurgy next turn, after the NDA runs out. So Steam in the turn after that one.

Medicine we received from GoW, so we can't give that to you before the NDA runs out (Turn 212). Nationalism holds an NDA to turn 215, and probably Industrialisation will arrive next turn, so NDA to 216. Please don't pay for those techs, as you will receive them from us once we can.

Also, now that you will get steam, and we have most of our territory RRed, we can improve your land for you. Please move all your workers out of the way, and set them to chopping the remaining forests. I can't promise that you'll see our worker gang in 2 turns already, but its better to get your territory up asap, so if that means our mountains have to wait a while, so be it. If you want mines somewhere instead of irrigation, tell so now, and I'll put it in the plans. Oh, and your hills will have to wait until after ours are done

greetz,
DeepO

[DeepO]

Togas,

Mettalurgy is normal: we had to wait one more turn. I'll be sending it to you this turn, so you receive it at first chance.

Furs is not so normal: I noticed the trade ran out (20 turns have passed), I offered it to you again, accepted. Didn't you receive this offer? That's not so good. I'll be sending it back this turn, of course.

RRing: I can't say for sure, but I think I can work it in the turn before you get steam, so that when you accept steam, your land is immediately upgraded. The reason I can't tell is that it is difficult to foresee which city will benefit from getting hills or mountains RRed, if no special need arise I can probably RR all your flat land in 2 turns. But we can't chop in your territory, you will have to do that yourself. If you want mines as you will otherwise frown in food in some cities, please tell, and I'll do those too.

DeepO

DeepO,

We didn't receive Metalurgy this turn and, worse yet, the fur trade stopped.

Can you send us Metalurgy and furs next turn? Also let us know when you are able to build RRs for us and we'll move our units out of the way at that time. ... but feel free to RR the land that isn't occupied by our units.

--Togas

[DeepO]

Togas,

steam is under way. Also, we've RRed 7 of your tiles this turn, and will be able to RR another 9 next turn. This should cover all 'free' flat land. We've got a Galleon sailing closer, which can serve as lookout, so you will be able to move your sea wall out of the way for 1 turn, so that we can RR the rest of your tiles, I think it's a bit quicker than what your workers can do.

If I counted right, I've got 3 workers extra, so you can pick one tile which we can mine next turn, on top of the 9 RRs. Or, you can switch a RR for an additional mine. I prefer to not risk anything with the sea wall next turn, so we'd like to keep your defenders in place, but other then that you can have 30 workers at your disposal for one turn. (maybe 33). I'm not promising these, as plans do change at last instance when the new turn arrives, but normally no problem should be there. So if you have any preferences, let me know.

Other stuff: Next turn, we'll be sending you electricity. Other techs will have to wait, as they haven't been traded to others yet, or were obtained from others and carry NDAs. Further, we're currently en route for Hoover (should get it too), and are at least 12 turns in advance in tech to anyone else. Plans are being made to go offensive in a short while (tanks), but nothing really concrete has emerged yet. But it will be a good idea to have some horses, or conquistadores ready, apart from the markets and banks. Oh, with a few boats to transport them of course

greetz,
DeepO

[DeepO]

Togas,
Okay, an update. I'm sorry we're not more chatty lately, but as usual our diplo corps is nearly non-existant... the team has been quiet as there aren't many exiting things happening.

Tech:
We're researching Corp, and have electronics (from ToE). Further, we got Sanition from GoW. (Indus from Lego).

It looks like we're going to enter some kind of alliance with GoW, but there has been little talk about this, just some kind of mutual understanding that if we don't do something, we're both dead. We're hoping that we just traded our last tech to Lego, which from now on (hopefully) will get isolated, at least in techs.

ND has been erradic as of late, they're buying their techs, while in full expansion. I don't think they can keep up the pace, techs are coming at 4-turn between. They are the primary reason Lego hasn't been isolated already, as they freely traded for Lego's techs. (which were in most cases the same as ours)

GoW is also doing a good job of building unis... So far, we're trying to split the tree with them: their going for Rep Parts, we're going for Coorp. Normally, we'll do steel, they'll do refining. After that, nothing has been decided yet, but we should get to both tanks and marines at the same time. After that, it won't take long until war breaks out (should be in some 25-35 turns, as a rough guess). We would love to take on Lego, GoW is obviously also looking to ND. Nothing final yet. Main thing is that GoW does not get any idea of invading us, they probably wouldn't be able to destroy us, but would seriously damage us nevertheless.

Don't move your units out of the way next turn, but the turn after that (so not in 830, but probably in 840). Please wait until we can spot if any boats from others are close by. We've got a perfect defense so far, no need to compromise it.

Currently, we're RRing all flat land, so once that has been done for you, we'll return home with our workers and RR all our hills and mountains. After that, we'll return for you. If you have any other things that need to be done, just ask, we've got plenty of workers, and are planning on having lots more. But you understand that as long as you didn't benefit from it, we looked at our own territory first to improve it. The forest is the only thing we can't help you with, though, we can't cut it as the game won't let us.

What to build: riflemen is of course good, but you might also think on prebuilding factories (enough ancient wonders doing nothing), we will be able to give Indus to you in 19 turns. Nat will have to wait another 18 turns. We will give those to you, so don't spend money if you don't have to... the next 19 turns, you are guaranteed to be safe behind the sea wall, marines won't appear for another 25 turns at least. And we'll probably be the ones getting them first. By that time, we'll probably be in mobilisation, as it is one of the only possibilities we have of keeping up with the others... we're #4 in land.

I trust this does not go any further then our 2 teams, most of the things mentioned here were not told to any other team.

Any questions: just ask...

DeepO

DeepO,

We're cutting forests per your request, and would ask that those tiles be RR'd too ... they should be done within 3 turns.

Should we move the seawall out of the way NEXT turn or the turn after? Would you be able to come back later and RR a few tiles that got missed, like the forest tiles we're cutting?

Also, my team has asked me for an update on the world picture ... who has what and who's doing what. If you wouldn't mind, could you fill us in on who's where in the tech race and on what schemes are currently underway ... who's going to attack who?

We're going to build riflemen as soon as we get Nationalism. Vox has offered to sell it to us. Can you give it to us or should we buy it from them?

We're going to build Conquistadors and Galleons as well, once we complete Nav in 6 turns.

Thanks again for your help

--Togas

[DeepO]

Togas,

a bit of a miscommunication, we were planning on doing the tiles covered by your sea wall in 2 turns, as then we could scout with our galley if there was no risk in removing the defenders. But no harm done, nobody invaded us

Please cover your hill again, we're not RRing that one yet (only after our hills), and cover the forest (chopping, probably). If you want any extra mines: tell us now!

Next turn, we should have all your flat land, so we'll be gone to our hills. We'll return later for the rest.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Togas,
please cover the open tiles on your coast with units again. 3 flat tiles are not RRed yet, as they weren't open, if they are open next turn we'll get back.

hills and mountains will have to wait for a while. Mines can have priority, if you need those. (as they only cost 3 worker turns, instead of 6 or 9)

DeepO

[DeepO]

Hi Arnelos,

Sounds good to me, a bit of cooperation can't hurt at all. an e-mail discussion is certainly a possibility, I would suggest chat as well if something was not amiss on my side, and I could enter the 'poly server.

planning of course is not purely our thing, however it would probably be best if you could, in some 30 turns time, more or less take care of your own defense. Around that time, GoW is going to receive marines, and even if we are gearing for a Lego invasion with them, you can't ever trust them. Further, for our trip abroad, conquestadors would be superb, toghether with the means to transport them.

Building plans should probably be focused to that: gold and units. In 14 turns time we can give you industrialisation, so prebuilding factories in your best cities might work well.

As to diplomacy: ours has been lacking, as usual. That includes the communication between us and RP... simply too little activity, I guess. It is not ideal, however, that you acquire things from other parties which we can also provide you, for free. As much as possible, I tried to give you the end of our NDA's on techs in last PM to Togas. Horses you can have for free, coal you don't need as we'll RR everything for you, iron you're already receiving. The only thing we can't really help you with is lux. I do understand your wish to participate actively in this game, which for your team means a lot more chatting to others then it does for ours, however sometimes the results of this aren't really productive, or could at least be handled more efficiently.

Anyway, It seems I'm starting the discussion here, instead of over e-mail or in chat My address is steven.bex@chello.be, please use that, and I'll include everyone on our side who is interested in following it live (it will be posted in our log, of course). Please feel free to ask whatever you want.

DeepO

DeepO,

With Togas' absence, I am now in charge of RP Team. I just read through the turn reports over the past 20-30 turns and Togas' commentary on other issues. What I need now is some discussion with your team about plans for the future and how best we can fit those plans. I have some general inklings from what Togas was focusing on and what I know from our internal team discussions about 15 turns ago about plans regarding Legoland, but we haven't heard much since then AFAIK.

Frankly, I think it would be highly productive if we had a joint planning session of some sort where you guys could inform me/us of what precisely what you're intending to do and how we can fit within that. My primary concern is what I should focus on with building priorities over the near future and knowing what you guys are planning to do is critical for those decisions.

The other area of interest is that we seem to have something of an odd issue here with diplomacy. I have some ideas about how this might be conducted differently in the future with our teams to take better advantages of our strengths as well as to collaborate more, but it will require some discussion.

Frankly, I'm tempted to suggest that some means of an alliance forum or discussion location or format would be helpful... perhaps an e-mail discussion (using a short list of people on each side), assuming people don't mind receiving the e-mails?

Let me know about these things.

- Arnelos

P.S. I'm CC'ing Arrian, Cort Haus, and asleepathewheel with this PM, since Trip informs me that they are also relatively active on GS right now.

[DeepO]

Arnelos, I'll try to get into chat right now, but no promises, I tried a few days ago as well, and it didn't work. If you don't see me appearing in half an hour or so, I'll answer your PM.

DeepO

DeepO,

I think I would prefer that we had a chat if you guys can actually make those. Our experience with setting up chats with your team in the past has been relatively spotty, however... so that's why I suggested an e-mail discussion. If you can do a chat, I'm on 'poly's chat server much of the time. If we can schedule a chat, I'll be there.

As for other issues you brought up, thanks for the warning on the timing for industrialization. I'll definately have us plan ahead on when to start factory pre-builds. In the meantime, most of our cities have already completed markets, banks, temples, cathedrals, aqueducts, etc.... so pumping out a few conquistadores and/or riflemen wouldn't be bad. I know we're running at 20 spt in both El Paso and Monterrey right now, less in the other three, so it shouldn't be too difficult to pump out a few before starting on the factory prebuilds (unfortunately, conquistadores take 70 shields, no? If so, a few more RR's wouldn't be bad to get us up to 24 spt if possible).

The other issue is replacing the catapults on the wall with riflemen/infantry and eventually upgrading our cats to artillery. By the time GoW has marines, we're going to want fortresses on the mountain tiles (and probably the hills) stocked with infantry and artillery, along with our coastal cities stocked with similar defenses. I suppose GS can probably contribute the bulk of the counter-attack force, though we probably can contribute some if we have them available.

The thing I most need from you guys are building priorities... beyond the factories, what do you need us to build most. This is especially important for force composition and role. That's the main reason why I want to talk long-term plans with you guys, so I know what to be building to match the role that RP team could fulfill within such plans.

Anyhow, it would be good if we could schedule a chat. Let me know when members of your team would be available for that.

Thanks.

- Arnelos

[DeepO]

Arnelos,

it's no use, I can't get in. Can we meet on any other irc server? It's only apolyton.net which I have problems with...

DeepO

[DeepO]

I'm currently in irc.atomicchat.net , channel #RP-GS

DeepO

Arnelos,

it's no use, I can't get in. Can we meet on any other irc server? It's only apolyton.net which I have problems with...

DeepO

Name a server.

[DeepO]

Arnelos,

I'm off to bed (3h30 am here). I'll try to check into the server in the morning, otherwise it's going to be tomorrow evening for me (afternoon for you). I'll leave a PM when I'm available, I fear that's one of the only ways we can arrange something. My schedule is relatively full for next week, and given the time difference it's not going to be easy to set a meeting time, so let's try it a bit flexible. If that won't work, we can always try something else.

DeepO

I'm currently in irc.atomicchat.net , channel #RP-GS

DeepO

[DeepO]

Arnelos, If you got time: I'm in the following channel again

DeepO

DeepO wrote on 02-05-2004 01:20:
I'm currently in irc.atomicchat.net , channel #RP-GS

DeepO

[DeepO]

maybe later today... the problem is of course that we live in different time zones. I can't stay up until the morning to catch you

DeepO

Arnelos, If you got time: I'm in the following channel again

DeepO

DeepO wrote on 02-05-2004 01:20:
I'm currently in irc.atomicchat.net , channel #RP-GS

DeepO

Shoot. We keep missing each other in there.