Presidential Diary: Chat I, Term III

UnOrthOdOx · July 7, 2003, 11:57

I rose early, anxious to get started in my new responsibilities. A step outside held the sweet smell of the morning air, a smell only available long before the sun rises from over the mountain tops. Yes. It was a good day to begin a new administration.

Firing up the computer, I waited patiently at the loading screen. In but a few minutes, I would be starting down the road to destiny, wherever it may lead. A quick click on the AOL icon and I heard the familiar dialing of the modem as I was about to be tapped into the new world in which I was now President. “Welcome!” “You’ve got mail” were heard and I knew things were going to be fine. But what was this?

“AOL will now download an update, sorry for the inconvenience….blah blah, new features, blah blah, 10 mins.”

Oh hell, I thought, I despise being late, but 5 mins is not that much, I suppose. I head into the kitchen for the much needed coffee this early in the morning. 4 AM. I smiled. Who else would arrange such ungodly hours of a chat. I sat on the porch and enjoyed the smells of the coffee and the sounds of the cicada’s chirping in the nearby trees. From in the house, I hear “File’s done!”

Great, finally time to start. On the screen appears the words, “your computer needs to be restarted for the changes to take effect” Fine, whatever. Get going already damn it!

Restart, log on, I hear the dialing again…

Dong! Error, AOL cannot connect, file blah blah blah corrupted. WTF?

Three tries convince me it is not a fluke.

What am I to do? There IS NO other form of connection on this comp!

I run to the basement where the old PII 400 sits and try to load up the game to see if we can limp by on the old comp. It laughs in my face and completely locks up in the blue screen of death. Unable to even remove the disk for some time, I am now becoming extremely pissed. I even have left my laptop at work this weekend.

Frantic my mind races. I see above my old computer the familiar medicine wheel. I must center my thoughts. A few moments later I recalled a possible solution. Searching through the desk I discover it. AOL 5.0 trial version, came with the computer. Yes, it is years old, I have no idea if AOL will even support it. Back upstairs to the P4 1800 and load it up in a flash.

Dialing…”Welcome!” “You’ve got mail!” Downloading updates…

I click cancel this time. Not risking that again. Poly seems to work…hooking up IRC…connected!

I look down at the clock. Damn, it’s already 5:10…A search of IRC yields that no one has left yet, so I decided to hold what we can in terms of a chat.

Panag is starting a revolution.

I probably would be too under such circumstances.

Ah well, I ignore it and it goes away.

Things are going fine…turn two MrWIA: Mapwhore
Me: What? No one has gold!
MrWIA: Mapwhore for 1 gold each
Me: I hate you!
I do it anyway. Damn, 20+ gold… this has potential, but is annoying as all hell.

I have a flashback from the last time I really played the game. Ended up that 3 teams signed an alliance against us. My computer is cursed, I know it.

Sure enough here comes Persia: We want 88 gold and a map.

Damn it! I just spent the better part of an hour slogging through getting 20 odd gold for the map in the first place! I check with MrWIA….give Persia the finger, and things work out fine. Yellow bellied cowards!

Time is running short, I need to get my kids to church soon, so I call it quits and make MrWIA go whoring this time. Let him waste his time.

Well, a rocky start, to be sure. We’ll see you things go from here.

GodKing · July 7, 2003, 12:50

Ouch. That got to hurt. Repeat after me - I hate AOL - I hate AOL - I hate AOL..... eventually, you will annoy yourself adn do something about it.

Map whoring is a pain - but they are right. It is equal to having another 10-20 gpt. One trick, trade our TM for their TM and any gold - that gets all the new roads that the AI has made on our WM - then sell the WM for gold only. You have to go through the list twice, and some civs will not bite for our TM, but you do what you can.

Oh ya - congrats Mr. ACS News Editor.

BigFurryMonster · July 7, 2003, 13:06

Hold on... what is this "AOL" thing? An ISP, right? Or a Messenger program ..?

Poor Uno...

UnOrthOdOx · July 7, 2003, 13:47

ISP

Panag · July 7, 2003, 13:52

hi ,

fabulous piece Uno

but you forgot to say that we knew you had a special job whilst youyourself did not , .......

have a great day

UnOrthOdOx · July 7, 2003, 13:54

Nah, that has nothing to do with the president position

MrWhereItsAt · July 8, 2003, 07:21

I have since found that it seems we can only whore every second turn, as the civs don;t like buying the same map twice in a row. Interesting...

UnOrthOdOx · July 8, 2003, 10:05

I think it is whether or not we have improved even ONE tile.

If even one tile changes from turn to turn, I bet they would buy the updated map. Seems logical, anyway...

We DID trade 2 turns in a row, but I know a road finished in between those turns. The next turn, nothing new finished, they didn't buy it....

Call it my working theory for now.

GodKing · July 8, 2003, 10:36

It doesn't have to be even one of our own tiles that is improved. Just as long as it is a tile that is improved that the purchaser doesn't know about yet. Road & iirc count 2 times as much as irrigation or mining. RR count about 1/4th as much as roads. Black tiles count as 8 roads. Each black tile is worth 1 gold. So, do the math.

1 gold = 1 black tile = 8 roads = 16 irigation or mines = 32 railroads.

This was from a long time ago (civ 1.16 or 1.17 iirc) and may have been changed since then. All you need is a fraction of one and you can get one. If you want more than one gold however, you need to meet the full requirement.

If you go through the list 2 times - one trading our TM (and only the TM) for WM + Gold (if any) or at least the TM and then go through again and trade WM (with all the other civs improvements) for Gold (and WM) you can maximize the mapwhoring.

And yes - it is a major pain, but is worth it $ wise at this early stage.

UnOrthOdOx · July 8, 2003, 10:49

Glad to know I wasn't completely off, then.