Lego FA thread 1

[Rhothaerill]

Email from Vondrack in response to my request for dyes again.

Hi, guys!

> You're up. Thanks for Replaceable Parts. And I must really be out of
> it. I had thought last turn that the dyes you guys were sending had
> been switched to a standing order but they disappeared this turn.
> Would it be possible for you to send them again? Thanks.

The ingame luxury trade mechanism is weird. If you watch the F4
trading screen, you can see them going down to "[1] dyes", then just
"dyes" on the following turn - and then simply disappear. I did my
best to send you the dyes prior to the previous gift deal expiring,
but you apparently had no chance to accept them.

I am 100% sure I sent Replaceable Parts AND DYES in one package
(terminated the current dye supplies in order to be able to add them
to the deal) - it seems you got only the tech, but not the dyes. Sigh.
The better I know it, the more often this game is driving me crazy.

Just btw... there is a partial workaround for the luxury "1t gap"
problem. Let's say the dyes expire after you end your 900AD turn and
we renew them immediately in 900AD (which is what happened). Now, when
you get your 910AD save (and accept the dyes from us), use the first
'build complete' pop-up to go into the city screen and use the arrows
to scroll through all your cities after the one that has just finished
something. For each city, take a worker off any tile and immediately
put it back there - it forces the game to recalculate the happiness,
actually putting the renewed luxury into effect (which would not be
the case if you did not use this trick). Prevents riots, prevents
losing WLTKDs... it's legal now (after the teams approved using the F1
tricks in general), though very weird. :|

And last but definitely not least - guys, would you be able to use
some extra workers or labourers? We are getting into troubles with our
research - we cannot compete with the GoW+GS tandem. We already miss
Sanitation (which ND+GoW+GS have), Scientific Method, Atomic Theory,
and Electronics (which GS has), and we are likely to start losing even
in the middle tech tree branch soon. If you were able to speed up your
research to some 200+ bpt, it would really help, since you would be
able to do the techs others have researched, but refused to trade to
us at a fair price.

E.g., Sanitation is now at about 1500 beakers, which could be like 7t.

We are not really having that much spare cash now, but we would be
easily able to send some extra workers to you - to be used to improve
your terrain, or (more importantly) to be joined to your cities to
boost your commerce.

Are your cities ready for extra population? Would it be okay to send
you a couple of new citizens? If yes, how many? Let us know.

Best regards,
Radek aka vondrack

[Rhothaerill]

My email response to Vondrack

Hi Radek,

That must have been my mix-up with the trading. I thought the way it worked was it just said dyes (1) and then the next turn it was gone (like SP games). When it just said dyes with no number I assumed you had just had it continue indefinitely. Oh well, live and learn. And yes, the only thing that appeared in the FAM box was the tech not the dyes. Maybe Civ4 PBEM/MP tech trading will be more intuitive...I hope.

Regarding the workers, I haven't talked with my team yet, but I think we'd be interested. I currently have a plan in the works to get all of our cities up their max. tile production. It will take a little while longer to get it finished up, though replaceable parts will help speed that up a bit. Now that we have electricity and railroads our cities will start growing again. Some of the cities won't grow too well though, so adding some workers to them would certainly help. I was intending to get all our tiles fixed up and then start adding the workers to the cities that need them, but if you need us to research faster then we can work on that. I'm trying to set up our growth cycle for several cities to grow to size 7 at the same time so we don't waste any of the luxury deals we've worked out with other teams. Depending on the amount of workers you send we could add them to Resurrection, Eternity and Panama Vox to get them closer to size 6 in preparation for growth beyond, as well as giving us the extra commerce points. So however many workers you think you can spare for joining to our cities, we can use them.

Regarding our research, we are about 8 turns more to communism (though that would speed up with more commerce points) and after that we can get sanitation for you if you need it. We can't really speed that number up with the slider without going into negative gpt numbers.

On the military front, our first ironclad will be hitting the waters soon, with a few more to follow. Now that we have replaceable parts we will no longer need saltpeter since we can build artillery instead of cannons. We're also slowly trying to build up some gold for upgrades of our units using the ND communism deal.

Our railroad network is finally up and running around all our cities (not just through them) so that in the event we are attacked you would be able to get around to our entire island with cav's etc. Which leads to one further thing...what would you say to one or the other of us establishing an embassy with the other? I've currently been holding around 70gold as our lowest point. It would cost us about 66 gold or so to establish the embassy to be able to request a right of passage agreement for you to use our rail network in the event that we are attacked. If we go ahead and establish the embassy now then I don't have to think about keeping gold for that particular reserve.

Thanks again,

Rhoth

[Rhothaerill]

Vondrack's response...

Hi, Jared!

> Maybe Civ4 PBEM/MP tech trading will be more intuitive...I hope.

Frankly, I do not hold my hopes too high. I believe that the whole
concept of Civ (SP) is not very suitable for MP... what I ultimately
find the biggest flaw is the absence of "alliance victories". There is
only one winner in every game - which makes it an extremely hostile
game. Even allies become foes sooner or later, inevitably... I have
come to hate this aspect of the game - but what would you expect from
a guy that only played Doom MP in cooperative mode...?

> Regarding the workers, I haven't talked with my team yet, but I
> think we'd be interested. [...snip...] So however many workers
> you think you can spare for joining to our cities, we can use them.
>

OK, I will present the plan to my team and once approved, send workers
at will.

> Regarding our research, we are about 8 turns more to communism
> (though that would speed up with more commerce points) and after
> that we can get sanitation for you if you need it. We can't really
> speed that number up with the slider without going into negative gpt
> numbers.

Understood. Getting communism fast is not a priority - Sanitation
would be (much) more important. But at least for a couple more turns,
we'd prefer you not losing money on research, as we are not generating
any extra gold to fund your deficit. We do have some cash reserve, but
that should remain just that - a reserve.

> Our railroad network is finally up and running around all our cities
> (not just through them) so that in the event we are attacked you
> would be able to get around to our entire island with cav's etc.
> Which leads to one further thing...what would you say to one or the
> other of us establishing an embassy with the other? I've currently
> been holding around 70gold as our lowest point. It would cost us
> about 66 gold or so to establish the embassy to be able to request a
> right of passage agreement for you to use our rail network in the
> event that we are attacked. If we go ahead and establish the embassy
> now then I don't have to think about keeping gold for that
> particular reserve.

Good news about the roads/railroads in place. And a very good point
about the embassy. I will bring that up in the forum.

Best regards,
Radek

[Rhothaerill]

And my response...

Hi Radek,

I completely understand what you mean about alliance victories. Over at MZO there was an Age of Discovery PBEM going on with Arnelos, ZargonX, conmcb25 and UberKrux. I was watching on the sidelines for a while since three of them are in my American Imperialist team. UberKrux was quite a ways in the lead so the others formed an alliance to take him down. Arnelos was the only one that profited from it though as he was the only one in position to win after the alliance finished off UberKrux.

Hopefully the added workers will speed communism up a turn or two. Then we can start researching sanitation a little sooner. That one shouldn't take too long though, once we can get to it.

Either one of us can do the embassy if it's okay with your team. I'll leave it up to you whether or not you want to establish it or have us do so.

Thanks,

Jared (Rhoth)

[Beta]

Had a chat with vondrack on Sunday. The notes made it into my workstuff - and are now at work. Will post tomorrow.

[Beta]

These were the highlights from my chat with vondrack of Lego:

They need our help to win. That is clear to them now.

In particular - they need research help. After communism, they are thinking we should be researching sanitation, scientific method, atomic theory, electronics and the like. The so called deade-end techs.

They do not have excess cash to fund our research. But they can provide population in the way of workers. They are set to start sending them

The will establish an embassy with us.

Militarily - continue stressing defenders, including arty and a naval.

Please send world map next turn.

And we discussed luxes - but I can't recall what we talked about. I think it was the mechanics for ensuring we get their luxuries.

All this jives pretty well with your conversations with him as well, Rhoth.

[Rhothaerill]

PM from Vondrack

Hi, Jared!
(ccing to Beta)

Thanks to some extra cash we've recently made, we are now able to fund your deficit budget - whatever it is, I believe.

Guys, if you can, fire up your research to as much as possible (even 100% if you have the necessary cash reserve) and just tell us how much you need to cover your deficit. I will make sure to send the gold immediately.

This has already been unanimously agreed to by the Lego team.

Take care,
Radek aka vondrack
on behalf of Legoland

[Rhothaerill]

And my response

Hi Vondrack,

We can set our research to 100% next turn. It will shave two turns off our research of communism so that we only will have two turns to finish it. Our deficit at 100% is currently 83 gold.

Thanks,

Rhoth (Jared)

[Rhothaerill]

From Vondrack

That's great news! I will start sending 100g every turn then. We should be able to maintain this funding at least until the discovery of Sanitation.

Take care,
Radek aka vondrack

[Rhothaerill]

To Lego with the save.

You're up. Thanks for the workers. We set our research to 90% not 100% as
there is no way we can bump it to 1 turn, so I scaled it back enough to
still get communism in 2 turns. Our deficit was 69 gold for this turn.

Also, we have our first ironclad out and about with a few more to follow. I
want to keep our (currently meager) naval strength a secret though so they
will be holed up in towns for a while.

[Rhothaerill]

To lego with the save.

You're up. Thanks for the workers. That is about all we'll need at the moment. In about 5 turns we'll finally be ready to explode beyond size 6 in several cities, but thanks to your assistance almost all our cities are at size 6 at the moment.

By the way, we have currently suspended our navy at one ironclad. Now that we know we have oil we are going to wait to build destroyers when we have that technology. In the meantime our artillery/infantry build up is slowly progressing.

[Rhothaerill]

Email from Vondrack in response to the text I included with the email.

Hey, Jared!

> You're up. I made a few WF moves as we're about to grow past size 7 in a
> few cities and lo and behold it shot our sanitation projection up to 1 turn.
> We'll be able to send it to you next turn. :-D

That's AWESOME news! Helps me do a coupla things "optimally". I am
amazed by how fast you are now able to research. I am going to start a
discussion in our forum immediately about what research project we'd
prefer most for you now - there are two available, at the same beaker
cost (Espionage and Scientific Method, both at 2160 beakers).

Can you briefly tell me what your beaker-per-turn output now is? Just
to have an idea of how long it's going to take you to research a tech.

BTW... shall we start sending workers again? We would be able to send
at least one, sometimes two per turn (we've got two cities designated
as permanent worker pumps).

And last, but not least... will you, from time to time, send your
world map, please? It's not that there would be so much new stuff in
terms of uncovered shroud (over the sea), but due to a glitch in Civ3,
the ingame map updates tile improvements everywhere - even where you
should not be able to see it (same principle as with sending WMs back
and forth to reveal barbarian camps outside one's visibility range in
the early stages of a game). So, with a map from you, we can see how
Bobians and GS develop their lands.

Take care & thanks for the great news. I am starting to think that
with your great help, we might win this game "in a builder way" even
against the de facto coalition of Bobians and GS...

BTW, we shall finish Combustion in 2t (1030AD) - as someone has just
discovered the tech this turn (the research cost went down) and it
thus makes no sense to sit on it, we will send it to you right away
(you will get it in 1040AD), so you will be able to renew your navy
building efforts.

Best regards,
Radek aka vondrack

[Rhothaerill]

And my response

Hi Radek,

At the moment we were thinking espionage since it's not a tech anyone else is likely to go after, but if you need us to do scientific method we can do that instead. Do you want the next tech quickly? If not then I was thinking of possibly ramping back research a bit to build up enough gold to upgrade all of our straggling pikemen and the last few catapults to current technology.

I'm not at home right now so I don't have our current numbers for research. I'll try to send them later today.

Pretty soon we'll have completed improving the island and our own workers will be joining back into our cities as well (after electricity I was finally able to set up a 2-turn worker pump of our own). If you want to start sending workers again that would be great. It will still take a little while to build up to our max city size though so extra workers are great.

We can send you the map every turn if you want. Or every few turns. I'll make a note of it in my turn orders.

That's great news about combustion. We want a nice navy and once we knew we had oil there was no reason to continue with ironclad production.

Thanks,

Jared (Rhoth)

[Rhothaerill]

Response from Vondrack

Hi Jared,

> At the moment we were thinking espionage since it's not a tech
> anyone else is likely to go after, but if you need us to do
> scientific method we can do that instead. Do you want the next tech
> quickly? If not then I was thinking of possibly ramping back
> research a bit to build up enough gold to upgrade all of our
> straggling pikemen and the last few catapults to current technology.

After thinking this over, you are probably right. Espionage is a fine
thing (spies are, actually) and it does not really matter how long it
will take you to do it, as it is a dead-end tech... we better do the
Scientific Method ourselves as it will keep all our options open.

As for the research pace... we would actually prefer if you keep it at
100%. We really need those techs from you - it's easier for us to give
you more gold than to "research faster ourselves" to balance your own
slower research (the 4t research cap interferes). Thanks to Sanitation
and a number of hospitals coming online very soon, allowing most of
our workers to join cities, we should be able to generate some extra
gold to pay for your upgrades.

How much gold do you need to upgrade (all of) your military?

> I'm not at home right now so I don't have our current numbers for
> research. I'll try to send them later today.

OK, thanks.

> Pretty soon we'll have completed improving the island and our own
> workers will be joining back into our cities as well (after
> electricity I was finally able to set up a 2-turn worker pump of our
> own). If you want to start sending workers again that would be
> great. It will still take a little while to build up to our max
> city size though so extra workers are great.

We already have plans for this coming turn, but starting from the next
one (1030AD), I will do my best to send you at least one worker every
turn.

> We can send you the map every turn if you want. Or every few
> turns. I'll make a note of it in my turn orders.

Every few turns would be great. Not that we would rely on that info,
but I like to check from time to time...

> That's great news about combustion. We want a nice navy and once
> we knew we had oil there was no reason to continue with ironclad
> production.

Agreed. We still plan to build a couple of picket ironclads, replacing
all those caravels and galleons, but generally, we have been waiting
for Combustion to start building our navy up.

Unless we tell you otherwise before you get to play 1020AD, go ahead
and pick Espionage as your next research goal, please, preferrably at
100%.

Take care,
Radek aka vondrack

[Rhothaerill]

And my response

Hi Radek,

Okay, we'll go for espionage at 100%.

As to the amount of gold it would take to upgrade all of our forces I don't have the numbers with me, but it's basically 120 gold per upgrade for each one of them. We have about 18-20 units to upgrade so it's in the neighborhood of 2400 gold for all of them. I'm currently trying to peddle communism to the last two teams that don't have it (GoW and RP) for some gold or techs so we'll see how that goes.

Thanks,

Jared (Rhoth)