Turn 31

[Harovan]

To be edited by the leaders of the Scholia.

Status:
- We possess 32 gold and are running 1 deficit.
- Researching Alphabet at 100%.
- The Wheel/Bronze deal is still pending, because Vox hasn't "accepted" it yet, but I'm willing to think they just forgot this.

Urgent questions:
- How far shall we withdraw our scouts?

Military:
- Scouts (Grog, Slash) to be discussed
- Hack and Ouch shadow Tim and Willy.
- Crush returns to Hurricane

Economy:
- Hurricane finishes warrior, starts worker.

Diplomacy:
- Continue diplomacy with VC, may be we can hammer out either a limited non-aggression pact or a trade agreement. We should try to increase trust, at both sides.

[Dominae]

Has the Voxian Worker begun terraforming yet? If so, what is it doing?


Dominae

[alva]

I don't think it's possible to see with the warrior over it.
(I asked the question too IRC a turn ago)

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Dominae
Has the Voxian Worker begun terraforming yet? If so, what is it doing?

Don't know, it's hidden "under" Rodney.

[DeepO]

Re: retracting scouts: if Vox doesn't move their scouts closer to us, I would be inclined to move Grog 2, onto the mountain. Slash could then move towards the final mountain, to spot whales.

If they stay put, I would leave Grog for the time being, but I'd rather have them up the mountain anyway. a bit safer, if they would decide to build a chariot or horseman (doesn't matter with slowmovers, I think)

And I fully agree on the diplo comment: we need more trust, on both sides. If Nathan has any energy left, I would start on preparing some geo info for them, certainly mentioning our nice, but short river. And ask them if they have water while you're at it

DeepO

[Conqueror]

Originally posted by Dominae
Has the Voxian Worker begun terraforming yet? If so, what is it doing?

They might also be building an Outpost, to see longer - and to act as an early warning system, so they dont have to keep the warrior there to see incoming units.

[nbarclay]

If they build an outpost, they lose the worker. That would be absolutely insane at this point of the game. (Not that I'd mind if they do it. )

[alva]

Unless there is iron there(maybe even then), they are wasting valuable worker turns. 6turns for roading a hill under industrious?

[nbarclay]

Three turns for an industrious worker to road a hill, six for non-industrious. (Hills require double the time of grassland or plains to road or mine, but of course for industrious workers, three normal-worker-turns for a road ends up rounded to two.)

Edit: still, it seems wasteful unless there's iron there. using a laborer on a hill makes no real sense at this point in the game; growth is too important. So my bet is we'll find iron there when we get the knowledge to see it.

[alva]

Even if there is iron, I've would have waited a little while more, unless they're gonna (and are capable of) upgrade all there warriors, there is no good reason to road it.
Two cities is hardly enough to build a serious amount of immortals, is it.
(And there is always,although small, a change of it disapearing)
As you said, at this stage you want to concentrate as much as possible on growth.

[zeit]

Once again i say- Grog and Slash are by no means Scouts- even if they are on lands closer to Vox's capital. We will develop faster, so by definition our lands will be larger, if they scouted areas that will surely be ours, while we are stuck on a 3x3 tiles area without any ability to move forward, (they block us) nor backward (leaving a gap for them) and now they stopped and we pulled back one tile, i say its fair and honorable.

Remember- Vox havn't shown any good will before we practically begged for their attention, and this wasn't why the are showing it now- its in their interest to have us fall back, because they need those lands- My question is, why are we making this easy for them?- it's not that we threat the security of their core cities, as they where about to threat ours (by scouting till they reach our borders- which they are still able to do, while we are not).

I say no to further retreat- we have no immediate risk for war- so we don't need that lookout now, it will only signal them of our willingness to give up that land.

[alva]

I don't think we are trying to make it easy for, but at the moment they can be of good use to us.
It doesn't really matter if they settle another city this side of Neck.

The moment we can take them out with a short war, I'm sure we will be at least considering, don't forget that this game doesn't end with vox being beaten (well, it does for them ), there are others to conqueor/beat too.

Allthough, if they keep pushing the limit...

PS, if we would go to war with now or very soon, it could be us having to settle for an early retirement.
A couple of immortals with spearman making sure we can get to the horses, no iron close , and some bad luck with the RNG is all it takes ATM.
The longer we can stay in peace, the more the odds swing to our favour, as we will outgrow them(fast?), we will have more production,gold & better tech/units.

(another point is not to waste our GA in despotism, not the end of the world, but I prefer to have in Mon or Rep.)

[zeit]

I agree fully with what you said, alva, but by all means- us not retreating doesn't disturb the temporary peaceful coexistence, since it is based on common interest (tech deals, for now), and also mutual fear from war. This situation is possible because of these conditions, and despite obvious lack of mutual trust (which we try to build, but we both think a conflict will come some time in the future and prepare ourselves to crush the enemy, when the time comes). What i say is: retreating the warriors won't help mutual trust, and definitely not to the extent to which they would refuse those deals and forego peaceful relations, which for now they seem desirable, for them and us. In short: we won't get any good from retreating, and won't lose anything (for the while at least. And by the time circumstances change, i would reconsider) if we don't, so other factors must be taken note of- like our inevitable conflict over land, which seems like you already gave up on :"they are closer", "we better settle our south first" and the like...

[nbarclay]

I have a proposed message to Vox describing our lands in the Vox comments thread. If you don't like it as is, please speak up soon.

Edit: Message sent. Vox will very likely be getting the turn soon, and I want them to get our message by the time they do so they'll have an extra sign of good faith from us.

Edit: Jon Miller got the message at 17:51 Apolyton time. Turn thread still indicates Vox hasn't gotten the save yet, so maybe the message can do some good.

Nathan

[Theseus]

What are our plans for the Worker?