RPers apparently spotted our eastern coastal waters

[vondrack]

Big news, folks!

Here is a PM I got from Arnelos this morning:

Legoland/RP: Land, ahoy!

Vondrack and Nimitz,

I haven't seen Nimitz online in several days and Togas wanted me to relay this more quickly, so I'm PMing both of you.

When handling the save this turn, a warrior of ours topped a mountaintop on our western shore and.... sighted coastal waters on the far side of the great Western sea.

We suspect that we may have sighted the continent of Legoland.

If so, it would be good to coordinate with you guys as to exactly what the geographical location of this sighting was and thus where it might be easiest for your boat to make a SAFE crossing from your continent to ours without the need to make a treacherous sea or ocean crossing.

If either Vondrack or Nimitz would meet me in chat at some point in the near future (likely Nimitz, he seems to open a chat window with me nearly every time I'm online ), we can talk about that along with recent developments in the The "War of Lux Invicta's Mass Suicide".

I think Nimitz told me that you guys are only a few turns away from your first galley, so it might be good to plan this in advance.

Look forward to chatting with you guys. The builders of Spain are feeling a little spooked by all of the burning cities to our north (though we're happy that we're the only ones not involved and are given extra time to prepare defenses while our expansion continues)... would be good to make contact with a civilization which shares our values of long-term stability and prosperity.

Let me know if any particular time is better for you guys and I'll see if Togas and I can both be there (most evenings EST work pretty well, but Togas is PST and typically only comes online later in the evening).

Thanks.

and this was my reponse:

Hello, Arnelos!

I suspect Nimitz must be having some sort of RL troubles. He has not shown up since Saturday, I think, which is very unusual for him. He reports to me every day, if there is no problem...

This is great news about the possibility of crossing the ocean to you! We haven't been able to spot anything across the sea, but then, we had (almost) no mountains on our eastern shore. The bad news is that our galley, which will really be ready in a couple of turns, will be sailing out from a coastal city just on the opposite side of our landmass. Considering the shape of our large island (oriented in the North-West direction), it will take us quite some time to circumnavigate it to the place you mention. Alas, we have no city able to build another galley on the western shore in the near future.

Anyway, I believe it would be best if you can give me the "latitude" of the place you spotted our coastal waters from (in minimap pixels? can't think of anything more convenient), so that we know where to send our first galley to and where to attempt crossing the ocean.

Thanks a lot for the good news, we feel quite worried about what's going on on your continent. It pretty much looks like the ties between our two empires will have to strengthen... to face the expanding power of the Neu Demogyptians...

Cheers,
Radek

[ZargonX]

Hmmm... I guess we'd better get one or two of our roaming units down to the SE if the ocean isn't that wide there. We don't want any of the other teams making any suprise landings. Of course, it is also possible that they may be seeing a smaller island between our two continents. More investigation is definately required.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by ZargonX
Hmmm... I guess we'd better get one or two of our roaming units down to the SE if the ocean isn't that wide there. We don't want any of the other teams making any suprise landings.

What would it help to bring one or two units there? If somebody makes a surprise landing, what are we going to do? Declare war? Probably not, and one or two units won't stop them landing if they decided to do so. We could keep one unit lurking around, as an observer, but definitely we can't afford to keep numerous troops in the area to prevent landings.

[ZargonX]

I didn't mean to use the troops in any sort of offensive way, but to have them posted as forward scouts. One unit alone can't cover that entire southern coast, nor can two, for that matter. But, with two warriors to spare, I think we should have all the eyes we can down there. Unless there is some more pressing military need that arises, as our explorations wrap up, they might as well be moved somewhere they can keep an eye on things.

[vondrack]

After chatting with Arnelos yesterday, RPers sent us a minimap with the place they believe they have spotted marked with a white cross.



The very same white cross projected onto our most up-to-date minimap:



As you can see, RPers really spotted our coastal waters.

[ZargonX]

Hmm... if they could see that from a mountain, that means it is a fairly close connection. That would imply that we could probably get across it with a galley, with low risk of sinkage. Perhaps this is our chance to make some actual contact with the RPers in game.

As an addition to that, we should also aim a settler down to that area immediately after Forkmouth in order to stake a claim on it.

[ZargonX]

With this new information in mind, I have a proposal for a production change in Panama. In 3 turns we will have mapmaking, and at that point I suggest we switch the city production to a galley, in order to have a sea-going vessal as quickly as possible. From Panama (if my count is correct) it will take at least 10 turns to arrive at the indicated portion of coastline. It is my opinion that this should be made a critical priority.

Vondrack, I know this will mess up the O2E calculations, but I think it can be easily worked in. I'll take a look at them tomorrow. Now, time for bed...

edit: duh... this is what we're doing already. Bad Zargon, stop trying to figure things out at 3:30 am!

[Tiberius]

Panama is building a galley. Well, not quite a galley, but a galey "place-holder". The galley was our goal from the beginning.

[ZargonX]

Yes, you know, as I was drifting off to sleep, it suddenly occurred to me that was the plan all along. I really need to stop trying to do these things at 3:30 in the morning

[Sharpe]

Oops Double Post.

Well this is interesting, see my additional comments below.

It looks as though we might not need Gr Lighthouse, but that remains to be confirmed.

If we can reach the RPs, we have the potential to reach ALL of the remaining civs - though not for a while.

We would be able to reach ND and GoW fairly quickly - though we may not want to necessarily. Both RP and us might want to keep our access to the Bob continent a secret perhaps if we can get enough tech out of the RPs.

GoW and ND might want to settle our way, while RP has denied that they are interested - though that might change seeing that we are closer than they thought...

Given the narrowness between the Bob continent and the GS/Vox area, we would be able to make it to them too. But we would have to sail along the southern RP shore to do so, and they might not like that or find it suspicious.

EDIT: When I looked at the map closer, I noticed that the ND capital is actually CLOSER to the "X" spot than RP. While I suspect that ND may have expanded more northwards due to the resulting war with Lux, I suspect that they will either find out/already know/will be able to reach us as well - this perhaps makes accelerating our REX in the south even more critical...

[Sharpe]

Regarding our movements on the east coast:

MercG moved onto the northern Forest

Conan moved onto at least the three southern hills and the mountain.

This means that we haven't moved onto the 3 hills north of the mountain (that MercG moved on) on the coast. We should definitely send MercG back there to investigate those hills just in case (though I think that was the plan already).

If this is true that RP is within 3 or 4 spaces from our coastline, it goes without saying we should consider a major alteration of the Operation Double Edge plan - especially in regards to the plans for a wonder in Panama.

We should also think about accelerating our REX plans and perhaps favoring moving south first. Build Forkmouth first, but then perhaps move east next instead of Sharpehaven depending on how the corruption situation looks (although we might want to temporarily overlook the corruption problem in favor of the strategic situation of the south).

Of course, the cynic in me considers the possibility that this could be a deception, but I consider that unlikely. RP has been reliable so far and very informative about the situation on the Bob continent - and has little to gain from any deception and a LOT to gain from our arrival on their shores - a possible ally, a peaceful like-minded culture and a new trading partner among others...

[lmtoops]

It does not change Oper. DE too much. We had already discussed not researching the GLh. I think the nearness of RP definitely means the Pyramids is the second wonder. The Pyramid will help excelerate the REXing process.

I also believe that RP is not playing games, but no the less we must consider the possibility and ask, "What if?". Remember Lux left their back door open based on an assumption. In any case, if they are being untruthful I don't think the slight change in plans will hurt us. Many had already favored building the Pyramid.

Now the moving to the South first will cause additional waste, corruption, and unhappiness. So let's not get carried away with this southward settlement move.

[Sharpe]

Yes, many of us are favouring the Pyramids - but I think we might need a 2nd galley much sooner than planned if we end up attempting to send our 1st one to the Bob continent. I am not saying that we should abandon both wonder plans necessarily and if we did we should continue the Jackson one.

I am not saying that we should necessarily get carried away with the southern expansion, but we should definitely grab the key spots as soon as we can.

IIRC, our next 2 settlers will be ready in about 10-15 turns - that also happens to be around the same time that we would reach the "X" spot with our first galley.

I think that we should definitely found Forkmouth with our next settler and investigate the corruption situation between the proposed SharpeHaven spot and the best initial southern sites which are probably:

-A site near the plains cow and river
-A site near the cow near the coast east of Farmerville (may be as weak on shields as Sharpehaven would be initially)

Farmerville for instance seems to losing 1 shield to corruption per 2 shields produced. It is possible that 2/3 of all shields might be lost for the more distant positions.

[Kloreep]

No offense to you, Vondrack; you've done a wonderful job with Double Edge. But I'm starting to wonder if we really should go for two wonders; GLh looks like a bad idea now, and GLib may not be necessary either, which would leave only the Pyramids. And with the possibility of foreign settlement...

The south may be corrupt for a while but it has very great promise. All the other teams have to deal with the threat of a civ on their own continent; but we have an opportunity to build, and, in the south, be the first to build the FP. That would be a huge advantage over the other teams, more than any wonder; and all we have to do is settle first and sit on the area for a while till the FP city finishes its work.

So... no decisions immediately, I think; we still need to figure out where we are tech-wise before we make final wonder decisions. Maybe we could ask RP what the newest technology over there is? Horseback Riding has been discovered by GoW, IIRC, but I don't remember much more than that.

[Tiberius]

LAND!

I think I've seen the RP's continent! From the position MercG is staying now, E-E-SE I am almost sure that there are coastal waters! We'll know for sure next turn.
I can't wait!