DIPLO: Legoland Comments

[Shiber]

Let's try it just to be sure. If the test is successful, we can start thinking about bringing this idea to Lego's attention and offering that they give us their current minimap so we can determine if this would be possible.
Btw, see the School of Code thread, I'm about to post a log there.

[alva]

In SP galleys sink at the beginning of the turn.

[Shiber]

If we're absolutely sure, then we could go ahead and tell Lego that we have a plan to contact them that would work if there are 7 or less untraversable tiles between our landmasses at the nearest point, and have a method of finding the accurate distance between two points on a minimap, and therefore require their current minimap to determine whether this plan would work, and promise that we'd carry out our plan ASAP if we discover that it is doable.
I'm getting a clear impression from the conversations that I've logged that Legoland is eager to meet another civ, and would like to make contact as soon as possible in order not to fall too much behind in tech.
Btw, Lego is already way behind - they're researching IW at the moment, according to Vondrack.

[Aeson]

I don't like the idea of giving out our mini-map (at least of our west coast). We still have a significant advantage on RP if we ever want to use it, namely the crossing (most likely lighthouse) that we know is there but no one else so far would know exists.

For the purposes of contact, us giving our east coast, and Lego giving their west coast, would work just as well. Our only secret information on the east coast is our Iron source, which won't show up on the mini-map anyways.

As an example of what we would trade:

[Aeson]

One other thing, the mini-map trade should be geography only. This brightens up the terrain displayed, and should make it easier to pinpoint exactly how much distance is inbetween. It also won't give out information about our cities.

[nbarclay]

So propose an exchange of minimaps with all but our east coast and their west coast blacked out?

[Shiber]

Good idea.
Do we need a poll on this, or can we just write up the proposal for this exchange and send it to Lego if the chief diplomat agrees?

[Aeson]

Another point for accuracy, we should trade the maps in a lossless format like .gif or .bmp (.jpg can be 100% too if done right). Compression could very well screw things up otherwise.

[DeepO]

I like the 'your West coast for our East coast' deal, certainly if would give us the possibility to trade with lego. I think our relation to them could become quite pleasant, and if we would be possible to meet each other in the middle of the ocean, we could keep other teams from doing the same for a while.

The price is obvious: one galley... if it survives it's a plus, but we need to assume it sinks.

Aeson: not all the maps we got where lossless, and I think the minimap I created was also not lossless. The reason is not that I didn't do it (notice the combined minimap jpg being at 0% loss), but I had to start from the first available screenshot, which was compressed more. We need a better screenshot of the minimap to make it truely lossless...

DeepO

[Aeson]

Yes, we'd need to make a new screenshot of the minimap in the terrain only mode. Our combined map will still have portions which aren't as good of quality.

We should specify in all future minimap trades that we want a clean non-compressed (or lossless compressed) map, and make sure the ones we trade are of the same nature.

[DeepO]

Do we still have access to previous saves, or would it be best to simply take a lossless geo screenshot of the minimap next turn so we have one ready to use?

DeepO

[nbarclay]

I should have all the saves since 2550 when I started as one of our players.

[zeit]

You certainly have my full support for this move- the BOB's civs won't take their time to contact Lego, not with the tension constantly rising. I bet Lego will agree for this, the profit could be huge, if we do make it. But i think Lego's landmass is a narrow north-south stretch much like ours, with a diverse climate, so don't get your hopes up too much.

[Shiber]

I'm not so sure... true, in most cases randomly-generated maps that are set on continents generate landmasses that are parallel, as if they were once connected and have set apart (in accordance with Plate Tectonics in the real world), but Lego did say that their landmass was mostly full of jungle (see their team newspaper which they published on the PTWDG forum), so perhaps it is stretched from east to west.

[Shiber]

Have we contacted Legoland regarding partial minimap trade yet?

A reminder: (originally posted in the GSC&C thread)

#civ3dem, times are GMT+2:00

[19:38] * Thud has joined #civ3dem
[19:38] Nimitz: hey
[19:38] Thud: hi
[19:39] Nimitz: so whats up
[19:39] Thud: I've heard of some big happenings in legoland?
(clipped some irrelevant chatter)
[19:40] Nimitz: we may meet GoW soon

This means that we have to hurry. I suggest that we notify Lego immediately that we want to trade the eastern shore of our minimap for the western shore of their minimap.