Innovia offered us a cease fire and has begun evacuating their troops from our lands. I'm not sure what their motives are for this, but it's great for us anyway. Hopefully they are gone for good and won't be back in a few turns. They were winning the war, so they must have another motive for peace. Perhaps they are afraid of invasion from another power or some such thing.

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Anyway, this gives us the oppurtunity to rebuild. I already have settlers being built to rebuild B&O and but a new city on the land bridge between us and innovia. We should also probably settle any other spots we can find.

Here is the suggested city spot for the landbridge.

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We probably have a small chance to get back in this. We are pretty far behind technologically but somehow we have the second-highest GNP. Epsilon is probably out of our reach (they're running away with the game) but we may be able to catch up to other civs.

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Well that was completly unexpected,

I agree with the siting of the city on the land bridge

Also we need to increase our miltary, just in case this happens again.

We could seek to have a tech partnership with epsilon, we research some techs they research others and then we swap.

Not Epsilon again. They're already too far ahead. Maybe we could set something up with another team? Innovia is the farthest behind, so they might be good to try.

Not Epsilon again. They're already too far ahead. Maybe we could set something up with another team? Innovia is the farthest behind, so they might be good to try.

Sorry for suggesting Epsilon, they seemed the best choice, piffle and ahola are at war , (now that i have looked at the save, yes they are way to ahead)

I like the idea of teaming up with our previous emeny though, should i pop a note though asking about it?

Innovia have offered a OB, to return a captured worker, should we ask them to keep the OB when the ten turns are up?

Yes, I think Innovia could be good friends. Maybe we can work together to catch up to the others.

First of all - I haven't read any other teams' secret forum so I do not have any inside information. That gives me the possibility to say something uninformed (thus allowed).

If Innovia was winning the war and they would know it, what is there to gain for them with a cease-fire or a peace-treaty ? -Not much, if you ask me.- Is there a possibility that a cease-fire-offer is a diplomatic trick to gain information on how you are doing in the war and to be used sooner than you'd want ? In Civ4, a cease-fire means nothing and can be broken the same turn without consequences to the deal-breaker.
In other words: how reliable and serious should you take this offer? Building non-military stuff might still be risky.

Again: I haven't checked Innovia's forum lately, so my remark is without Innovia-knowlegde.

I realize that, but...

1. They have moved their forces away.

2. If they went back on their word, they would never be trusted by anyone again. I also think that if they did this, we could get Epsilon to declare war on them.

3. What would they have to gain? They were about to take a city and/or pillage us back to the stone age. Now they are just giving us time to rebuild our defenses and reimprove our land.

I think they have realised that if they contiue the war that epsilon would run away with the game, i would suspect a war between Innovia and epsilon is coming soon

I have now read Innovia's forum and that means I'll be silent on this topic again.

Innovia sent this message

Dear Loco,

While it is possible to arrange deals purely through email exchange, we could manage much more if we communicated closer - through chat.

Do you have someone one your team who can handle such a chat? It would me much appreciated. Don't worry about time zones as we should be able to arrange something no matter where the person in question is located.

Best regards,
Innovia

If you want i could arrange a time with them, what should we offer them. and what we won't offer if they ask.

Mostly any trading deal would be good, just make sure the beakers are roughly even. I don't think we want a resource trade right now. I'll say more after I play the save.

No clear trades available. See what they are researching and how we can make a deal for it. We have gunpowder and we will have printing press in a turn. They have optics. However, Epsilon offered us Optics for 200 gold. I think we should take them up on that. We have the cash.

Ok i will send a message to epsilon accepting the trade for optics

I have had the chat with innovia, and we agreed to draw up a tech plan for each team so that we can both advance faster and take (although who would deliver win is yet to be decided) a space victory, they offered us a couple of galleys which i said we would consider it, each one would cost 25 gold, galleys being worth 50 hammers. We also talked about possible using various methods to slow down epsilon, using spies and other methods, although it may be extreme and very risky.

There was a very firm no when i ask them whether they planned to invade epsilon. Apart from that there isn't much to report, i will draw up a plan so that each team researches the equal number of beakers tonight, (starting from the industrial age)

Sent 200 gold to Epsilon for Optics. We will have researched Printing Press next turn. What we research next will be based on Joe Harker's plan.

Our empire is expanding after the war. Here is a screenshot of New B&O and our next city (settler should be there in a turn or two). Possible city sites in the SE are also being looked into. Other ideas for city sites?

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Lastly, an interesting e-mail from Innovia.
Dear Aloha and Loco,

With every turn that passes, it becomes more evident that Epsilon is running away with the game. We all agree on this and all of us have expressed the will to act and to prevent an Epsilonian victory.

If we are to succeed, however, the will to act is not enough and neither is the loose coorperation we have at the moment. While some of us may have stronger coorperations on a two-team basis, we really need to be more organised in terms of a three-way alliance.

This is the reason that Innovia is suggesting setting up a secret alliance forum where we can organise ourselves and discuss much more effectively. If you both agree to this, I can have the forum set up very soon. We must act quickly!

Theoden of Innovia

I am sorry i haven't had time and i am away for the weekend, will try to do the plan on monday.


On the letter, i think we should wait until aloha answers because they will be key to the plan, (innovia might be planning a UN victory if they want three teams involed, it came up in the chat.)

Also there is a site with two gold mines to the west which would be a good commerce city

I started on constitiution as a fallback (14 turns). No one else has it yet so we may be able to get a trade there. On the trade deal, we should probably research Constitution, Democracy, and maybe something else and give it to them for some bottom-of-the-tree techs.

I was thinking of starting the plan from the industrial age, allow some time for bargining.

Probably should have mentioned this earlier, but I will be gone from the 22nd (Friday) until the 1st. Therefore we need another turnplayer. Joe, I think you would be the best one to do this. You will also need to handle anything else that comes up. If you have any doubts or questions say so, but we really need you to play a few turns here. We can't delay the game for over a week just because I am on vacation. It will take less than 20 mins of your time per day, and you won't even have to play everyday. Just do whatever you think is right. You can make the descisions.

Ok will do, i have being doing a few email games recently anyway so i can play over that week, could you give me any plans you have over what you want doing with workers.

I played the save sent from last night. After your holidays jeejeep, shall we both play the save, whoever gets to it first, i am happy to help. I just thought you have been playing the save for so long that you knew what to do.

That would be fine. I usually have a tough time playing the save in time anyway. Something about the time difference. Memphus always sends it at about dinnertime where I am. If I don't check the forums after dinner, I end up having to play the next day and barely getting it sent on time. Anyway, I guess we can be co-turnplayers.

About the workers, there is not really much for them to do. I was having them improve the recently built cities. Maybe have one build a road to wherever we want our next city? I think you should build at least one more before I come back.

There is an axeman scouting out the southeast.

Hi again, here is a small summary of whats been happening

Foreign Affairs
I signed a deal with Innovia for a tech sharing plan that goes up to Rockerty and Combustion

We had a report from Innovia warning of a possible invasion fleet sited in a Epsilon city, Sunrise Citadel, as a precaution move some our excess miltary units to the west.

We gave Aloha printing press on the condition that they make up the beakers later on. (We hopefully getting from them engineering and divine right)

Apart from that, not alot has happened.

jeejeep, are you back yet?

I'm here now. Could I have details on the tech plan?

Here you go!
Loco
Researches and trades but not nessarcy in this order
Gunpowder
Constitution
Economics
Chemistry (engineering as well since we might be getting this in a trade)
Scienfic Method
Physics
Electrcity
Railroad
Rockerty

Innovia
Miltary Tradition
Education
Replacable Parts
Rifling
Corpoation
Steam Power
Steel
Artillery
Assembly Line
Combustion.

The beaker difference is 800 in favour of us!

So, I got to playing the save. Looks a little better than before, though still not much hope for us. This turn Innovia gave us Education. Do they expect us to give them Constitution when we finish it?

Also, A few changes I made. Most important, I think that we should use Mycenian as a GP farm. It has too much food to waste. To do that I started the National Epic there and assigned specialists. I assigned specialists in a couple of other cities as well so that they would not grow above the happiness limit. Lastly, I think we should grow New B&O quickly up to the happy cap. To this end I had the city work the tiles giving the momst food. Sorry if these changes messed up your plans for what to do with these cities.

Plans for the future: The tech plan looks good. I still think we can establish a few more cities, maybe in the southeast. We also really need to find some way to gain happyness. We can't win if we can't grow our cities over size 11 or 12.

Yes when we research constitution they expect us to give it to them!

Don't worry about changing the cities, i never really gave them much thought so they probably needed a good look at.

Mycenian is also a good choice for a GP farm, i forget, but what civics do we have running at the moment?

Just confirming that we are both playing the turns now, right?

Yes sorry, i forgot to play it after i picked it up

We have a Great Scientist in Short Line, what do we do with him. (he can research some of Scientific Method)

Probably that. We could try an academy, but lightbulbing seems better at this point.

Ok , if i get the turn i will light bulb SM

Aloha offered Engineering and Divine right for our Constitution. I accepted. I put research on chemistry, not sure if it should have been that or SM. Switched Pennslyvania to a settler, I think we should get another city or two in the east.

Ok, by the way, innovia asked aloha to join our tech alliance, i said yes to the idea and we drew a new tech plan, i will post it tomorrow, sorry i forgot to post in here, sought of came out of the blue.

That will be why aloha asked for the tech exchange

So, what's happening now?

Basically:

Us, Innovia and Aloha are in a tech deal, i will try and rummage though my papers to find the deal we agreed on!

An innovia cavral spotted an epsilon galleon going into the city of Dune, so i have moved some of the army up to the NW of our empire.

We are researching chemistry in 6? turns or so.

Apart from that nothing much! :)