AMAZON Diplomatic Messages

[Irgy]

From us to AMAZON:
Send Friday, 25th June, 21:26(GMT)

Greetings Amazons

A number of issues discussed here, so it's broken into sections.

Resources:
We feel it's time to share our resources information with you, in the hopes of working out a little more about the map. Our homeland contains gold and silk, and is surrounded by fish. We are guessing that each home island has three resources, but probably not the same three. We would expect that everyone has started with some food, a calendar resource and a commerce resource, although our strong lead in GDP suggests that not all teams have been blessed with as much gold as we appear to have. We are curious to know which resources you have available.

As you know already, we know about Bronze Working and Animal Husbandry, but have yet to learn Iron Working. We have found no copper or horses on our homeland, but there is a suspicious treeless hill in the centre which is likely to contain some sort of metal resource, potentially iron. We are curious as to whether or not you have found strategic resources on your home island.

We can confirm that the hill on our side symmetric with your horse hill does indeed contain horses, as we have just recently offloaded an exploring party there ourselves.

Technologies:
We have gifted you with Alphabet and Pottery. We expect to have Mathematics on T57, and Currency on T64. If we were to then pursue Code of Laws for the religion then we would like to have Priesthood in trade by T64, which should not be difficult.

We are expecting a great scientist to be born around the time that Code of Laws would be completed. Our intention was to have this scientist build an Academy of research in Sirius. However another possibility would be to use it to discover Philosophy, gaining a different religion, and allowing us to have a Pacifistic society in which a second great scientist may emerge relatively quickly. We haven't tested these plans thoroughly however.

There are other possibilities being considered however. One is pursuing Literature and using the marble on Andromeda (Jennilund) to build a Great Library. Also, a concentrated effort to get the religion from Code of Laws may have us researching it from just one pre-requisite rather than waiting for both, but how much of an advantage this would give is not clear. There is also a very vocal group clamouring for Iron Working to reveal the resource, so we will make a detour to gain that technology as soon as we are not in a greater hurry to research something else.

Settling the spike of land in between us:
I've had an initial look at how to settle this land, and it's all quite awkward really. The clams are a relevant factor in where to settle, and note that although the land is quite symmetric, the clams are asymmetricly placed. The following is the settling plan that I would follow if I was to settle this land with just one civilisation. I'm counting the rows as per your description, and the columns with the centre line (e.g. where the marble is) as column 0.
City 1: Row 7 column -1. A riverside coastal city which claims marble, 3 floodplains, clams, and lots of grass.
City 2: Row 9, column 2. Also coastal and riverside, and claims clams, banana, horses and a lot of grass.
City 3: Row 11, column -3. Coastal but not riverside, claims clams, horses and of course the ever-present grass.

Cities further south would need to be planned with more information about the lay of the land. There is also obviously plenty of room for a city in the desert, and/or a city claiming the whales to the north.

I'll freely admit that the cities on our side (1 and 3) are getting a better deal with this layout, but the symmetricly reflected version leaves the northern clams on our side unworkable. Another problem with this layout is that there is much more overlap between cities 1 and 2 than is ideal.

The fundamental conflict is the northmost city (city 1). Another option up there would be to settle two cities in row 7, as far apart as possible (i.e. columns +-2). However, this leaves the centre column in cultural conflict, as well as leaving the marble unworkable.

Yet another option would be to move city 1 2N into the desert. In this case I'd suggest leaving city 2 where it is, but moving city 3 up to take some of the grassland that city 1 misses. This may then put the central banana in conflict, but that's not so big a deal I would think.

Your thoughts are welcome as always.

Third/Fourth ETTT member(s)
We are unsure of who would make the best third ETTT member. On the whole, any third member is better than no third member though, and it may depend mostly on the diplomatic situation between the other teams.

From what you've said then, Quatronia seem to be the most willing to join, and they're likely to bring CDZ in with them if they do. A four team alliance is made of win. We agree with your assessment of the geographical superiority of this choice of four teams as well. Based on that, the consensus seems to be that bringing them on board is a most excellent idea.

Other minor points:
Voyager and Martha parting ways sounds wise indeed then. Our preference is to head towards the centre, but this could be negotiated.

We agree with the assessment that Mavericks are pursuing wonders, indeed their choice of leader and the presence of Obsolete on their team made us suspect as much from the beginning. They're certainly a team to keep an eye on the progress of to know which wonders they're competing for and which technologies they're likely to bulb with their great specialists.

Preventing barbarians from appearing on this island would be wise. It appears that it should be possible to monitor the land with a relatively small number of warriors. We should co-ordinate our efforts in this regard.

We would like to point out that the priority for both of us should be to settle the land on the other points of the star than the one between our teams, to claim the most land for our alliance as a whole. It may be wise to secure some horses first though, and it is good that these are available to both of us.

We are not too concerned with your choice to whip a settler, we are happy for you to pursue the most efficient path. We expect your strength to be in expansion and military while ours is in commerce, which is one of the reasons we wanted to secure a broader alliance before agreeing to complete technological equality.


Best wishes,
Irgy, on behalf of Team Sirius

 

[Lord Parkin]

From AMAZON to us:
Sent Wednesday, 30th June, 00:48 (GMT)

Greetings Team Sirius,

We are happy that we could agree on the terms of the Sirius-AMAZON Pact. It should serve to bring our two cultures closer together knowing that we have these common agreements in place.

The ETTA

We are glad that you have agreed that we should bring Quatronia into the ETTA. We are glad that you also like the 4-way symmetrical alliance of the Top and Bottom teams. We have asked Quatronia for more information about CDZ and whether they have favorable relations with Merlot. We think we should consider offering membership in the ETTA to CDZ, if they will agree to our terms and do not have strong ties already developed with the Mavericks or Merlot. We hope to hear more from Quatronia soon, and will relay to you whatever they are able to tell us. We should keep all options open until we can secure a fourth alliance member.

Research Plan

We think your ideas about tech path are good. We will have Priesthood for you long before you start researching Currency on T64 so you will get the full prerequisite bonus. We recently got Meditation from Quatronia, so we will have a full set of prerequisite bonuses when we tech Priesthood. We have gifted Meditation to you in-game.

We are in support of you obtaining the Great Library. We agree not to build it if you decide to pursue it. The AMAZON has decided to build a very Great Wall to protect our people and would be grateful if you would tell us that you will not be trying to build it.

Exploration

We think that it would be a good idea if we coordinate our scouting and spawnbusting efforts on Andromeda. We have two explorers on Andromeda. A warrior is located on top of the Plains hill Marble tile, while we have a scout 4S1E of our Grass hill Horse tile. May we inquire about the locations of your exploratory forces on Andromeda?

We are willing to have Martha continue south, allowing Voyager to explore the canal leading towards the center of the map. We suggest we keep each other completely informed about the finding of our expeditions.

[U}Resources[/U]

We are happy to share with you the resources that the great mapmaker has created for us as soon as it becomes possible. In the meantime we happily share the knowledge of what our the mapmaker has given us with you. We have an abundance of Sheep along with some deposits of Silver. We also have some Deer and Fur on our island. Interestingly, we too have a bare plains hill forest directly in the center of our island. We think your hypothesis that it may contain an iron resource is a good one. Quatronia tells us that CDZ is teching or would be willing to tech Iron Working. This is another benefit to having them join the ETTA.

Settlement

We would like to propose that the row of Grasslands below the Floodplains be a no-settlement line, where neither side will settle on or above this line until we have a fully-established Settlement plan. Until that time both teams may Settle anywhere on the coast south of that. We think that we should also agree not to settle on the southern part of Andromeda/Jennilund (where the Jungles begin) until we have explored that area and have agreed upon a full Settlement plan. Since we will be working closely together we should aim to position our cities so that they are the best overall use of the land. We are drafting our suggestions currently. Any Settlement plan will have the Marble available for you to use to build the Great Library.

Espionage Points

We want to remind you that you will put your EP against someone else now that you have contact with other civs. We have diverted our EP away from you and have not returned it. We would appreciate you doing the same for us.

Glad to work with you as always. We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely yours,

nabaxo, AMAZON Special Diplomatic Envoy
SilentConfusion, AMAZON diplomat

 

[Irgy]

From us to AMAZON:
Sent Friday 2nd July 03:40(GMT)

Greetings again to our friends in The AMAZON

Not all that much news here, mostly just keeping in touch.

Wonders
We have no intention to build any sort of Great Wall ourselves, and we wish you the best of luck in your endeavours to do so. Our plans for a Great Library are currently nothing but pure speculation. We'll keep you informed of where that progresses, but in the meantime you're still welcome to consider building it yourself if you change your minds.

Jennilund
We understand your thinking with the settlement line, and we're happy with that for now. We plan to settle only in a location to claim the horse before concentrating on settling the star spoke to the SW.

We have one warrior "Vesta" on Jennilund, currently on the southern of the two bananas (the one in the jungle). We have another warrior "Pallas" currently exploring the spoke on the other side. Pallas has in fact discovered something interesting - deposits of Copper in the hills. Our plan is now to settle our next city (which we will call "Arcturus") near this copper. As such, we plan to move the warrior Vesta on to the other landmass, to help secure this location from the savages we have seen in the area.

It appears that the resources are placed very similarly on the different spokes of the star. There are pigs in a similar location to the bananas, and copper in a similar location to the horses. Keep that in mind when you explore the other spoke between yourselves and Merlot.

We apologise that in the short term we will not be making much of a contribution to the protection of Jennilund as a result, however this gets back to my point about the different styles of our contributions to this alliance. Currently our people are specialised as Scientists, in the hope that a Great Scientist will be born who can set up a great Academy of science. The fruits of this research will be shared with your people, but it means that our production is slow and we can't afford to build more warriors to keep control of Jennilund. On the other hand, your greater production focus leaves you free to build more warriors (or big walls to protect yourselves from barbarians).

Merlot
Voyager has observed Merlot offload a single warrior onto the spike of land between them and yourselves.

Since then Voyager has bid farewell to Martha and journeyed towards the centre of the continent. We wish Martha all the best. We also have a galley heading towards the centre from near our homeland, but it is about to turn around to be back in time to transport our settler.

We switched our EPs to Merlot on the first turn we made contact with them. A couple of team members have confirmed that this is the case.

We have finally heard back from Merlot, but have exchanged nothing of significance yet. They did tell us that they have gems, corn and wine. So it appears everyone has a food resource (or two in your case to make up for the lower quality of each), an strong commerce resource (gold, silver gems) and a weaker commerce/happiness resource (fur, silk, wine).


We hope all is still well for you. We look forward paricularly to hearing what Quatronia have to say about the ETTT. Have they now officially signed up to it?

All the best
Irgy on behalf of Team Sirius

 

[Irgy]

From us to AMAZON:
Sent Friday 2nd July 22:29(GMT)

Hello again

Just a quick note to give you some news. Our galley, just before it had to turn around, has discovered that the channels into the centre are dead-ends, and do *not* connect to each other. So, the star is technically one landmass, and contact is only via the outside path.

Our inclination is to turn Voyager back around at this stage rather than sending it into a dead-end, as it's not likely to reveal anything of significance on the way.

Best regards,
Irgy, on behalf of Team Sirius

 

[Trystero]

From AMAZON to us:
Received Sunday, 4 July, 06:20 (GMT)

Greetings to our Sirian Allies,

We want to thank you very much for you last message. We are happy that we are sharing so much with each other. It not only allows us to face situations more prepared but also brings us closer together.

Andromeda/Jennilund

We noticed that you called the landmass between us Jennilund in your last communication. We thank you for this gesture. We would like to propose that in the future we call the landmass, Andromeda/Jennilund, Anjennida, combining the names to symbolize the joining of our two civilizations in the bonds of friendship. We appreciate the information about your troop placements. We have encountered two barbarian warriors on the landmass. The first is way in the north and will attack our Warrior next turn who will be defending from a hill. Above the Marble we have found 2 plains hills and then an Oasis tile. Hopefully our warrior will defeat this barbarian. The other barbarian is close to Vesta. This barbarian warrior is 2S1E of that jungled banana tile. Our scout managed to slip away out of its reach but be on guard. We also found 2 Ivory resources buried in the southern jungle (3S, and 3S1E of jungle banana). There are also more clam resources in the canals. Other than the Ivory and the barb we have found only jungle tiles to the south, although there looks to be a couple of desert tiles south of the jungle.

We believe that it will take 3 or 4 units to completely spawnbust Andromeda. Are you planning on settling the horse or copper site first? If you're settling the horse site soon or will have troops back on Jennilund let us know and we'll keep you updated on the barb situation.

Merlot

Thanks for the information. We did get a message from them telling us of their resources. We wonder if the Great Mapmaker has a sense of humor giving House Merlot wine resources.

Merlot has told us flat out that they do not already have an alliance with CDZ. They could be lying, but they seemed sincere.

Quatronia and CDZ

Quatronia has officially accepted the ETTT. And have provided us with Meditation, which you now have also. We have given them our technologies. They are currently talking to CDZ, trying to get them to join. Quatronia has said that CDZ has offered them Masonry and Iron Working for Alphabet. We have made it clear that they will not get Alphabet unless they join, and in that case they will share their techs with us completely. It does mean that they have Iron Working. We are waiting for Quatronia to get back to us about them. Quatronia has a slow diplomatic process. We'll keep pressing them to hear about it. If we cannot get CDZ we'll have to accept either Merlot or the Mavs. Any fourth member is better than no fourth member. Quatronia has proposed possibly sinking Work Boats to keep the Mavericks isolated from the other two, so they can't form a counter Alliance before we can get a fourth member.

We have just met CDZ. They have a Galley named "Furiey" that just met our Work Boat, Martha. Voyager may be able to meet it on coming back out of the channel.

The Mavericks

We just recently met the Mavericks (this turn) and we just got a message back from them. They asked for Writing and Sailing for Priesthood. We have rejected the trade in-game, and politely informed them that we must discuss all trade proposals within our team before agreeing to them in-game. We did learn that they are researching Sailing but don't have it yet. You may be able to use this information to your advantage. They are also in OR and Slavery. They don't have Meditation, Sailing, Writing, Hunting, or AH.

We'll keep the information flowing and we look forward to your next message.

Sincerely yours,
nabaxo, Special Diplomatic Envoy
SilentConfusion, AMAZON diplomat

 

[Irgy]

From us to AMAZON:
Sent Thursday, 8th July 21:31(GMT)

Warmest greetings again to all of the people of the AMAZON

Anjennida

Our plan is to settle the copper site first. By the way, we are calling this other spoke of the star to our southwest "Bode". After that, it is still being hotly debated whether we will settle the horses next, or yet more sites on Bode first. I'll keep you informed if that debate resolves itself.

Vesta can see the barbarian across the lake, it's of no threat to us as
Vesta will leave Anjennida next turn. In hindsight we should have mentioned this barbarian's location to you ourselves, my personal apologies for not thinking of it. We wish you the best of luck against both of these native Anjennidans.

Other Teams

We have now made contact with every team except Mavericks. Despite being our neighbours in this layout, it feels like we're going to first meet them only when the borders of each of our settlements on Bode expand to meet each other. It's interesting to hear that they do not yet even have sailing, and they don't appear to have sent any workboats out either. At that rate, our plans to generally prioritise settling Bode may lead to us owning most of that continent.

It is good news to hear that both Quatronia has entered the ETTT. They have informed us that CDZ has entered the ETTT as well, are you able to confirm that? We have met CDZ but have yet to hear from them.

It is good to have finally meet the rest of our technological allies as well. It may be worth having a four-way conversation about tech paths sometime in the near future, now that (as far as I'm aware) all four members of the ETTT have finally made contact with each other.


Not much other news at this stage. You will have already seen that we have discovered Mathematics, and have shared the knowledge. We are now developing a system of Currency.

Best regards as always,
Irgy, on behalf of Team Sirius

 

[Irgy]

From AMAZON to us:
Received Tuesday 20th July, 20:31(GMT)

Dear Sirian Allies,

We just wanted to give you an update. We are 4 turns from finishing
Monarchy. We also have Iron Working which you have not yet requested. If you
have not yet hooked up the Copper that you found you could alternately build
Axes and Swords with the Iron that is located on your island as we have
found that your speculation was correct about the unforested hill in the
center of our islands being Iron. Whoever on your team suggested that, was
very observant. If you hook it up you could have Axemen to deal with
barbarian natives.

Another reason it may be good to have an Axeman is that we have spotted a
Merlot Holkan headed West towards that side of the map. There is also a
Merlot Galley headed our way. Without Metal Casting (which CDZ says they are
researching for the Alliance) we will need multiple Galleys to stop this
Galley. The Mavericks and Merlot have Work Boats heading towards each other
in the South, but Quatronia has agreed to sink them to delay their meeting.
If we can get Metal Casting before Merlot's boat gets past us both we can
sink it with a Trireme. We have asked CDZ for an ETA on Metal Casting. If it
comes sooner then we can build a Trireme to counter their Galley, otherwise
it may be up to you to stop them. Closing Borders will not prevent them
from moving past us, as they can still sail around our coastal borders.

Our scout has confirmed that there is Copper on the peninsula between us and
Merlot. So everyone has Copper on one side and Horse on the other. In the
spot where the Elephants are on Anjennida there is incense on Marthaton. Did
you find incense on Bode? Have you encountered many barbarian forces over
there?

That's all the news that has come up, but we'll continue to keep you updated
on the actions of Merlot and anything interesting we hear from the southern
allies.

Finally, we noticed that you completed Currency and requested it in-game.
Please advise us what knowledge the Sirains will be pursuing next, so that
we can consult our Goddesses on what tech we should pursue.

Sincerely yours,

nabaxo, Special Diplomatic Envoy of The AMAZON, on behalf of
SilentConfusion, AMAZON diplomat

 

[Irgy]

From us to AMAZON:
Sent Wednesday, 21st July, 08:09(GMT)

Warmest greetings again.

Firstly, we congratulate you on your recent success in building a large wall around your island, and marvel at its power to keep barbarians away from your settlements.

We have had our own first military victory, as the proud warrior Vespa defeated some native savages on Bode.

Sinking Exploring Boats

We agree that preventing Merlot and Mavericks from meeting is wise. We have still yet to meet Mavericks. From what we have heard, Mavericks took Metal Casting from the Orcale. We may struggle to prevent them from sending a trireme past us if they attempt to do so, which could be problematic particularly if Merlot's galley gets past your borders.

We are not sure how much Mavericks know about their situation. It's not ideal however to declare war against them so early on if we can avoid it, especially while we are unprepared and they have the advantage of Metal Casting.

We will have to keep each other closely informed on what progresses here.

If they're clever enough they'll both sail a galley down their own channels and offload a unit in the centre of the map (we can all try and prevent this but it's not easy). But, even if they do figure this out, the longer we can keep them out of contact with each other the better.

Technology

We now have Currency, and will then start on Code of Laws. If we are successful in getting Confucianism from it we will endeavour to spread it to you. We are undecided on what to go for after that. I intend to start a four-way email conversation on the issue.

Settling

Have you had any further thoughts on the settling plan for Anjennida? We have seen most of the way to the bottom of that area, and assuming it's symmetric we have all the information we need to decide what to do. I am assuming you have explored most of the south yourselves by now, but we're happy to fill you in with what we've seen. We haven't spotted any resources in the southern jungle other than the ivory you have described and the clams which seem to be evenly spread around everywhere.

There is incense on Bode in what we can only assume is a similar location to on Marathon. I am going to hazard a guess that stone is in a similar place on Bode and Marathon to the marble on Anjeniida. We have encountered a fair few barbarian warriors, but have yet to lose a battle against one. The hills, jungle and rivers all contribute to easy defense.

Best regards,
Irgy, on behalf of Team Sirius

 

[Irgy]

From us to AMAZON, CDZ and Quatronia:
Sent Wednesday, 21st July, 08:16(GMT)

Greetings fellow ETTT members.

Now that we have all finally met each other, it seems sensible to co-ordinate our technology plans into the future.

Our current understanding is:
Sirius: Code of Laws
Amazon: Monarchy
Quatronia: Calendar?
CDZ: Metal Casting

There are many benefits to getting Astronomy on this map, so it is our suggestion to tech towards it as quickly as possible. This means there should always be one team should be researching one of:
Metal Casting->Machinery->Optics->Astronomy. Another team can get the cheaper techs of Compass and Calendar in parallel (both fairly beneficial techs on their own). It also seems wise to pursue Civil Service soon for the bonus Beaurocracy can provide to all of our research rates.

In principle it shouldn't matter which team researches which techs, if we're all sharing them. Although it may be wise for the teams with faster research rates to look after the Astronomy beeline and the key economy techs such as Civil Service which will speed up everyone's research.

What other technologies do people think are important?


One final issue; Our understanding is that it is best to transfer techs as gifts rather than damnds or trades, to avoid making it clear who is trading based on who is logged in when the teams' scores increase. It should therefore be the researching team's responsibility to push out the techs as they discover them. Now that all members have made contact this should not be a problem in the future.

The likelihood of disguising what's going on is low, but for the moment in particular we have not even made contact with Mavericks, so it is unlikely they know all of what's going on. It is better to keep them in the dark for as long as possible.

With all that in mind, we would greatly appreciate it if the next team to log on could offer us Iron Working in game. It seems to have been lost in the shuffle with all the techs swapping back and forth.

Best regards,
Irgy, on behalf of team Sirius

 

[Trystero]

From AMAZON to us:
Received: Sunday, 25th July, 02:07 (GMT) [via PM to Trystero]

Dear Sirian Allies,


Our Diplomat is unusually busy, so I am dropping Sirius a line to give some quick updates:


1. The AMAZON voted to tech Theology next. We would like a religion, and we will need Theocracy to fight Merlot.


2. We have Monarchy available for our friends


3. Merlot declared war and murdered our defenseless scout, Dora The Explorer, in a cowardly sneak attack. Dora was casually hiking and enjoying the breathtaking views on the hills of Western Marthaton, when a Merlot warrior crept from out of the brush a bludgeoned her to death with a tree branch. The AMAZON people are calling for vengeance


4. A Kleptocracy galley called Furiey is in our waters, en-route to you


5. The Mavericks have a great engineer coming next turn. They want to use it to bulb Machinery, but only if they can trade it to someone. If they cant, they have indicated that they will use it for a wonder instead.


Please feel free to share your thoughts on all of this.


Sommerswerd, Captain of the Zenobians

 

[Trystero]

From us to AMAZON:
Sent: Sunday, 25th July, 03:49 (GMT) [via PM from Trystero]

Captain Sommerswerd,

It would seem our diplomatic envoy is similarly indisposed. I am having trouble reaching most of the team, so I will update you somewhat unofficially. Also note that our turnplayer ended this turn sooner than I would have wished, since we are trying to coordinate our actions. I apologize.

1. The AMAZON voted to tech Theology next. We would like a religion, and we will need Theocracy to fight Merlot.


2. We have Monarchy available for our friends

We understand the tech choice, and thank you for offer of Monarchy. We are hoping to complete Code of Laws on turn 69, and will of course share it with you. Hopefully, this can serve as a back up religion if your pursuit of Theology fails.

3. Merlot declared war and murdered our defenseless scout, Dora The Explorer, in a cowardly sneak attack. Dora was casually hiking and enjoying the breathtaking views on the hills of Western Marthaton, when a Merlot warrior crept from out of the brush a bludgeoned her to death with a tree branch. The AMAZON people are calling for vengeance

We noted this development, and would have offered aid sooner, but as I said, we have had trouble convening our council. Also, we are just now hooking up metal to construct a fighting force, so our military is somewhat underdeveloped.

4. A Kleptocracy galley called Furiey is in our waters, en-route to you


5. The Mavericks have a great engineer coming next turn. They want to use it to bulb Machinery, but only if they can trade it to someone. If they cant, they have indicated that they will use it for a wonder instead.

We have just established contact with Mavericks this turn. They offered to trade us Metal Casting and Machinery in 2 turns. They arrived in a work boat near Arcturus on Bode, and claim to have a trireme close behind. We have discussed preventing Merlot and Mavericks from contacting with Quatronia to prevent them from forming a competing trade alliance.

Unfortunately, if we sink their WB, there is little we could do to stop their trireme, and our cultural border will not pop in time to prevent them from passing. We would like time to build up our forces on Bode, so we would prefer to let them head toward you peacefully, since we could not prevent this in any case. Do you know if any Merlot vessels have passed you heading toward our waters? We would appreciate your feedback on these matters.

We have not responded to their trade offer yet, and I have been stalling them while we devise a plan.

Best regards,

Trystero, Sirian diplomat

 

[AlphaShard]

This was in my PM box, seems it was sent to Trystero and Irgy as well.

Hello Sirian friends,

Our brave warrior, Aristomache, has reported seeing a ferocious pack of savages forming a war camp on the north-western coast of Anjennida, just south of the river, as best as we can estimate.

She did not dare to get close enough to investigate further, so we do not know the name of the savages' new camp, the exact location of it, or the strength of their war party, but the 'culture' (if their inane ranting can even be called culture) of their native war drums reaches well within earshot of our city, Myrine.

From past experience, we know that these savages cannot be reasoned with, and they attack without mercy or warning. Aristomache has already defeated these native warriors in the past, but we have reason to believe that they may be developing better weapons.

For that reason, we will put one of warriors on horseback and send them to investigate further. On a horse, she should be well protected from whatever attacks the natives can muster.

If the native camp is poorly defended we will capture it. If it is well defended, we will observe until we can muster a stronger force, then we will capture it. These savages must not be allowed to establish a foothold on Anjennida.

We wanted to reach out to our friends before we move against the natives to hear your thoughts on what should be done with the city. Please bear in mind that we will be sending our rider out next turn.

Also, just be on the safe side, I am including the last message to you just in case Trystero is temporarily away.

Trystero,
Sorry for the long delay in communications. We have not seen any Merlot boats, and Quatronia reports that a Merlot Galley that was near their scout workboat has since turned around. We also have not seen the Maverick workboat you spoke of. Is the boat still in your waters?

Also, you mentioned that Mavericks threatened you with a Trireme. Have you actually laid eyes on this Trireme? We have found that the Mavericks have a propensity for what can kindly be described as hyperbole, and occasional misrepresentation. We would like to be adequately prepared to turn back whatever boats they send with the least costly means possible.

Finally, what technology are the wise Sirians pursuing at the moment?

Sommerwerd, Zenobian Captain

 

[Irgy]

From us to AMAZON:
Sent Tuesday, 10th August, 21:21(GMT)

Greetings, people of the Amazon

Research

We are currently researching Civil Service, which will be of great help to everyone in the ETTT by providing the opportunity to become a Beaurocracy. It will be complete in about 7 turns from now, T81. We have no specific plans for what to research after that.


Settling
We are following a policy of settling fairly aggressively on Bode. We have one city named "Arcturus" up and running, and plans for another soon (which we will call "Vega") to claim a good location near stone (the stone, as expected, is in a similar location to the marble on Anjennida).

We have also noticed the barbarian city which has spawned on Anjennida. We are somewhat concerned by the wording of Sommerswerd's message, with the intention to "capture" this city. We were planning to capture the city ourselves, although not in the next few turns and we were intending to discuss it with yourselves first. The location of the city is:
* On the western coast,
* In the stretch of land (temporarily) agreed to as a no-settle zone (until we can agree on a settling plan),
* Within a BFC-range of the marble.
All three of these are reasons why you have agreed not to settle this area, and we fail to see why capturing a barbarian city there instead negates these. While the second is only a temporary measure, and the third was based on plans for a Great Library which are currently on hold, the first at least surely gives us a greater claim to this city.

Maybe this is a good trigger for us to finally get around to sorting out the settling plan for Anjennida? Between the two of us we should have revealed all the land there by now. We would be happy to come up with our own suggestion as a starting point, but we would need to know exactly where you have settled on Anjennida already.

Of course if by "capture" he simply meant destroy, we would still request you to stay your hand, as it would be better to allow them to build a larger settlement and keep it for ourselves than to just destroy it. Our understanding was that you had built a Great Wall to protect yourselves from barbarians, we had assumed it was built on the mainland rather than just around your home island?


Mavericks
Mavericks appear to have settled a city themselves on Bode. This based on their name for the city, "copper city", and based on the assumption that the spokes of the star alternate between copper and horses. This could of course be some strange sort of bluff on their part. We have not yet seen the borders of the city itself, but we have similarly also not yet revealed the exact location of the other copper. Based on the number of cities they have, they seem to have yet to settle on the landmass between Mavericks and Quatronia, which we are currently referring to as "Comet". You have probably noticed that Mavericks have completed the pyramids. This was partly thanks to encouragement from ourselves for them to do so, and partly a result of having failed to find any takers for Machinery.

There is a Maverick workboat on the way around. We have let it past for now, as we think it wise to avoid showing our alliegances, which Mavericks appear to be still somewhat oblivious to. We are assuming for the moment that you will prevent it from reaching Merlot. Let us know if this is a problem. The alleged trireme has yet to make an appearance.


Religion
We have founded a new religion known as Confucianism. We understand you are pursuing your own religious Theology, but if you desire us to spread our beliefs to your shores we will be able to in the future. Our people have recently switched to a system of Hereditary Rule and Slavery. We expect to adopt an Organised Religion at the same time as becoming a Beaurocracy, and after that it will be easier to use missionaries to spread these new ideas.


Is there any news from the war with Merlot? Please let us know if you require any assistance.

We hope all is well on your shores.

Best regards,
Irgy, on behalf of Team Sirius

 

[Trystero]

From us to ETTA:
Sent, Friday, 20th August, 19:15 (GMT)

Fellow ETTA members,

Tech update: This seems like a good time to coordinate our activities. We anticipate completing Civil Service next turn. We have not decided what technology it would be best to pursue next. Given some of the military entanglements, we were considering Feudalism, but Paper is also an option once Theology is complete.

Mavericks situation: We were contacted by Mavericks ~10 turns ago, when their work boat entered our territory. At the time, they stated it would soon be followed by a trireme. Since we had no vessel that could contend with a trireme and our borders had not expanded enough to prevent the work boat’s passage, we let it pass. However, we have since seen no sign of this other vessel. It’s possible it turned around when we let their work boat through, or that they were bluffing about its presence. Regardless, their work boat took a detour into the channel leading to the mainland’s center. It re-emerged a few turns ago, and is just now leaving our territory. We will alert you if we see a Mavericks trireme, but it looks like Amazon could halt the work boats progress by refusing to open borders.

Resources: We are currently exploring and settling the mainland arm between ourselves and Mavericks. This arm has a plains tip with stone, pigs, copper, and incense resources. Mavericks may have settled a city here as well, as they claim to have settled near copper, but we haven't seen their cultural borders. We'd expect to be able to see them but we haven't fully explored the continent yet. The arm between Amazon and us appears to have a desert tip with marble, bananas, horses, and ivory resources.

Trystero, on behalf of Team Sirius

 

[Irgy]

From Sommersword (Amazon) to Irgy, cav scout (Quatronia), Robi D (CDZ):
Received via PM, Friday August 20th, 20:42(GMT)

Just a quick update to our friends... The AMAZON are currently polling next tech and it looks like Construction is going to win, possibly unanimously. We will have Theology very soon.

Sommerswerd, Zenobian Captain

 

[Trystero]

From AMAZON to us:
Received: Sunday, August 22nd, 12:43 (GMT)

Hello to our Sirian friends,

We apologize for taking so long to respond to your last message, our Diplomat was on a long Deer hunting expedition and has decided to extend the trip to engage in some fur-trapping as well.

Research

As you know, we are almost finished with Theology, and will most likely be starting Construction next. Catapults to use against Merlot's Royal Army will be useful indeed.

Settling

Our scouts have confirmed that Merlot has multiple dangerous units patroling Marthaton, and since they have already killed one of our units, we need to establish a military presence on Marthaton prior to settling there. Consequently, we have postponed our plans to settle on Marthaton, in favor of settling Anjennida, while we build up our military defenses there. We have already settled a city called Myrine near the Horses, and we will soon settle another city south of Myrine near the Elephants.

Our scouts have discovered that barbarian city in NW Anjennida is called Carib, and is defended by 3 ferocious native Warriors. We have also uncovered that the city is growing rapidly (pop 2) and that the Carib natives there are very agressive. getting this information cost our scout her life which was very suprising to us, considering that she was on horseback. We can only guess that she must have been surrounded and overwhelmed by the many foes in the city, perhaps even ambushed by their native patrols. As is said on our island, dead women tell no tales...

When we expressed an intention to capture the city, we also requested your input on what you would like us to do with the city once we captured it. As has been demonstrated, the Caribs are hostile and dangerous. Our people are demanding vengeance for the death of our scout and more importantly, the elimmination of the Carib threat before it becomes out of control. However, we respect your claim to the city, and will attempt to contain them until you are able to subdue the Carib natives. Hopefully you will be able to assimilate these savages into your Sirian Empire without too much difficulty.

With respect to the Great Wall, we have constructed this Wonder on our home island rather than on the Mainland. Construction was started long before we discovered that the landmasses connected at the center, and at the time Captain Sommerswerd had become convinced that all the landmasses were similarly sized islands. When we uncovered that this was a miscalculation, we voted on whether to move the project to the Mainland, but this plan was voted down, and construction was completed as originally planned. Consequently, we do not derive any benefit from the Great Wall on Anjennida, and thus are at risk from the Caribs.

One topic we would like to mention however, is your comment that "We have also noticed the barbarian city which has spawned on Anjennida." We are curious as to when you noticed the barbarian camp. The spawning of barbarian cities is certainly a subject which we consider important and we encourage you to not hesitate to inform us of any barbarian cities you might encounter in the future.

We have developed a suggestion for the settlement of Anjennida that will address many of the concerns we have been discussing over our long and fruitful friendship. We tried to come up with a plan that would protect the Sirian claim to the Marble, protect the Sirian claim to the subjugation of the Caribs, while dividing the land in an equitable way that would maximize tile usage and minimize cultural competition.

What we are suggesting, is dividing Anjennida along North-South lines, rather than East-West lines, with Sirius receiving the North and The AMAZON receiving the South. Towards this end, we favor a new, permanent, 'No-Settle' line, located at the Banana located roughly south of the center of Anjennida. For reference, this Banana is located on the same latitude as the Horse on the Sirius side. Sirius cities would have to be located North of this lne, but not on it, AMAZON cities would have to be South of the line and not on it.

This approach would give Sirius Marble, Whale, Banana and Clams as well as all the Flood Plains. The AMAZON would get Horse, Elephant, Banana and Clams. The Southern part or Anjennida is obviously wider, therefore in our approach, we designate more rows to Sirius, to make up for the difference in land tiles. This approach obviously still gives Sirius more water tiles, but with your legendary water management abilities (UB - Dike), and commercial skills (FIN), we are confident that you can make better use of these water tiles than the landlubbing Zenobians. An additional consideration is that our proposal means that the onerous task of chopping away the jungle will be The AMAZONs' responsibility. Another obvious issue is the distribution of Elephants and Horses. Of course, we would provide our Sirian allies with Horses and Ivory to suit their needs, so there would be no risk of your people having to go about on foot. If the Sirians have already settled a city on Anjennida that is on or below the proposed line, we will happily capture Carib for you, right away, and then we can simply exchange these two cities. Hopefully these accomodations will allow us to reach an beneficial agreement on the sharing of Anjennida.

Mavericks and Merlot

We are pleased that you have been able to maintain a peaceful relationship with the Mavericks, undoubtedly this will make it easier to pursue the settlement of Bode. Unfortunately, we do not benefit from a similar peaceful arrangement with Merlot, necessitating our settlement of Anjennida instead of Marthaton. We will do our best to assume the responsibility of preventing Merlot from contacting Mavericks, in order to support you continued peaceful expansion on Bode. Currently, we have an Axe wielding scout headed South to block the approach by land.

The Mavericks have two cities named "Iron" and "Copper." Since the Mavericks appear to have discovered Iron Working, we assume that these names are accurate, and intended as a warning to potential enemies that they have these resources. Our scouts have confirmed that Merlot has a similar "Copper City" on Marthaton, and they are in the process of mining and roading the Copper. Have you spotted any Maverick Spears or Axes yet? The Copper seems to be located in a simliar position as the Horses, on opposite ends of the island, 7 tiles from the desert at the bottom (innermost part) of the island with a range of hills in between. There are also Cows present at 4 tiles up and 8 tiles up. We have not located the stone on Marthaton yet.

Religion
Congrats on founding Confucianism. We still desire very much to have you spread Confuscianism to us, regardless of whether we are able to sucessfully found Christianity. Buddhism has already spread to our lands, most likely because of the legends our people have heard about Stonehenge, since we did not notice any missionaries.

We look forward to hearing from our friends,

nabaxo, Special AMAZON Envoy to Sirius

 

[Trystero]

From us to the ETTA:
Sent: Monday, 23rd August, 04:41 (GMT)

Fellow ETTA members,

Based on feedback from other teams, we will pursue Paper next to enable map trading. This is not necessarily a high priority for us, but other members seem to have the immediate tech needs covered. Our current understanding of the research plans are:

Sirius: Paper
Amazon: Theology > Construction
Quatronia: HBR (partial) > Optics
CDZ: Machinery > Feudalism

We are always open to discussions of alternatives.

Quatronia alerted us to a Holken at the eastern end of the arm between us and Mavericks. Our settlement on this arm has been under constant barb attack, so we have not been able to fully scout this arm. We are even uncertain of the location of the Mavericks city. The only unit we have nearby is a wounded archer, which is far enough away that it is doubtful it could prevent the Merlot unit from contacting Mavericks, and is likely to be ineffective. If the Holken takes an indirect route (i.e. it heads north) we could intercept it with an axeman.

Sincerely,

Trystero, Team Sirius

 

[Trystero]

From AMAZON to ETTA:
Received: Thursday, 26th August, 17:52 (GMT)

To all of our Friends in the Mighty ETTT Alliance:

We Zenobians hope that our allies are prospering, and we wish to share some important news.



First, our spies have confirmed, that Merlot has indeed made contact with Mavericks. We are not sure when this unfortunate event occurred, but we discovered it at the beginning of this very Year of Our Lady 800.



With this unhappy, albeit inevitable turn of events, a new M&M alliance is no-doubt soon to form. Although we were enjoying the advantage that our enlightened ETTT had been providing, we also relish the opportunity to feast upon the sweet candy-coated hides of our enemies, like so many delightful chocolate confections.

Towards this end, we would like to respond specifically to our friends in the Continuum regarding the recent hostilities with Merlot. While we would prefer that all of our friends remain united in open opposition to the evil Merlot, we can certainly appreciate the logistical difficulties with a restricted turn timer. Therefore, if you wish to press the King of Merlot for peace with his Kingdom, we would bear no grudge against you for that. As is said in our land, “I ain’t mad at cha.” Although, we are curious whether Merlot has actually offered peace, because we were suspecting that this war with Merlot would be a permanent state of affairs, having serious doubts tat the proud Merlot King would ever seek peace with the ETTT.



Additionally, our scout Marian has located Merlot’s copper source, on Marthaton, which they are currently attempting to mine, as well as the city nearby, called “The circus.” At this very moment, we have Pyrgomache, armed with large, broadly bladed weapons en-route to this city. Finally, since the evil, drunken Merlot warriors were the aggressors, we anticipate that their people will become weary with the war, while the Zenobians remain resolute in their righteous quest to avenge the murder of our beloved scout Dora the Explorer… May she rest in peace. Consequently, we will not be seeking any cease fire, or peace treaty with Merlot at this time.



We can confirm that the peninsulas are quite similar, if not identical. On the peninsula with plains at the tip we have discovered copper, incense and cow. On the desert peninsula, between us and the Sirius, we have found ivory, horse, bananas and marble. We have not located any stone yet.

We still have not seen any Maverick or Merlot boats near our waters, but with recent developments, they may prefer to just turn around rather than risk being sunk.

Last, we can confirm that we are pursuing Construction, however, we are in the midst of political and religious upheaval as we have thrown out the Barbarous, Pagan government and replaced them with a strong Bureaucratic government that will keep our Religion Organized. As Christianity was recently discovered in our lands, we have also declared Christianity to be our official State Religion. However, we still believe in a degree of religious freedom, and welcome your Missionaries to our lands. We hope that you will welcome ours as well. News of the Continuum’s mysterious Stonehenge has already resulted in some of our people adopting the Buddhist faith, and we hope this trend of religious diversity continues in the lands of The AMAZON.


Be Well,

Sommerswerd, Zenobian Captain

 

[Irgy]

From us to AMAZON:
Sent Monday 30th August, 20:15 (GMT)

Greetings again to our Amazonian friends

Carib

We agree that barbarian cities are worth letting each other know about as soon as possible, were simply slower in getting our message out. We respect that you did indeed ask our opinion before capturing it, I apologise if our response was a little defensive but we wanted to be clear on the matter.

It is good to hear it is filled with only warriors. With the technology for macemen we may then even be able to take this city with a single unit.


Anjennida

While we are certainly willing to consider suggestions such as the one you have made for the settling line, we are not happy with the proposed distribution of land. We place very little value in the desert tip in particular, and while we agree that we can do more with working the seas we hardly consider desert and coastline to be a fair trade for the jungled grasslands in the south. By my count this deal would leave twice as much of the grassland in your territory as ours, and while we agree there are things to compensate for that it still seems like a poor deal. Also, the horses cannot be shared as resources until the discovery of Astronomy, leaving us with limited military options in the meantime.

Another (less important but worth pointing out to help the next iteration) weakness of the above division is that for all that it shortens the cultural border on Anjennida, it also creates a new cultural border across the very narrow channel between Anjennida and Bode. We have an excellent city location planned on the coast Bode which would include at least one tile of Anjennida in its BFC, so if that area of Anjennida is part of your land then a new cultural conflict is created across the channel

However, the idea of dividing the land in a way other than vertically is appealing. We would consider options with a different dividing line than the one proposed.

Personally however I still think the best way to tackle this problem is to create a sensible dot-map, and assign cities from that in a fair way. We would happily make a proposal using such a method ourselves but we still don't know the exact locations of your existing cities, which we would obviously need to account for. The discovery of Paper for drawing maps soon may make this process somewhat easier, but it may be worthwhile resolving it before then.


Religion

We will endeavor to spread Confucianism to your cities as soon as is practical. We also congratulate you on founding Christianity.

Best regards,
Irgy, on behalf of Team Sirius.

 

[AlphaShard]

To US from Amazon:
From Sommersword in my pm box

Thanks for your reply,

Participation has been low lately on our team so we are just trying to give more people a chance to weigh in before responding. In other news... one of our mounted Hippolytes spotted native Axes in the jungles of Southern Anjennida. Be careful with your units in that area.