RB Pitboss #1 SPOILER - Hatshepsut / India

[regoarrarr]

Reply from Alex

I still haven't seen the game - and I won't until sunrise's computer is fixed - but I do have a few thoughts which I can share with you.

Firstly I am low on both score and cities, and unremarkable for tech. My greatest asset is my military (and it turns out you're right, I did get a fair chunk of Twinkletoes' army). So I will be going to war soon. The good news for our burgeoning friendship is that I have yet to decide who with. Persia has unfinished business with Elkad; Mali is poorly defended. Intriguingly, while shady agreed that fighting was the only option, he left the 'victim' up to me:

"The Shady Expanse is running out of civs it is fond of."

"you have the opportunity switch sides as you see fit (there are no actual agreements tying you down), but if you like big messy modern military campaigns, the next 10+ turns will be a lot of fun."

The other player I have been in touch with is Twinkletoes. He definitely hopes I will attack you. He seems to think I will be supported but I suspect the only reason Elkad or the Lins would send a stack your way would be to backstab me. In 24 pages of private thread I heard nothing good about Persia's relations with Carthage.

In short I agree that a war with you could well end badly for both of us. I am definitely open to creative solutions from someone - like yourself - who has actually seen a world map rather than sporadic screenshots. I don't think a ten-turn peace treaty is the answer, though. That is not long enough to do anything with our armies - they would still be sat staring at each other, and Broker and TT would still be free of threats (which is all they want from our spat). I feel it must be either grand alliance, or glorious war.

Finally, thank you for offering to include me in a diplomatic victory. However for me this would be counter-productive. I joined this game to play it, not to end it right away.

PS - I should add that for all the talk of potential alliance, there is still a big chance that I will end up attacking you. It really depends on what happens when I talk to the other players, and when I see the layout of my forces. Just making sure I don't mislead you here, this is speculative talk about possibly allying, not a promise.

[regoarrarr]

Wrote back to alex of persia

First of all, a few introductory things before we get to the meat of the message

1) I understand that we're still in the exploratory stages of things - I took no commitment from your email
2) You definitely got me curious if I was still on the list of "civs [shady] is fond of!" :-P I'm fond of him anyways...
3) No prob on the diplo victory - I thought it would be kind of odd to take that after you just got here :-)

So a few thoughts and hopefully, as I write them down, afterwards, they will lend themselves into a few suggestions / ways we can cooperate

a) How do nukes play into a military war? Do you have much experience with them? I hardly ever have played into the modern era, and I don't know that I've ever played with nukes. But it seems likely that the Manhattan Project will be built within a few turns and I would expect just about everyone to have access to nukes before too long. I could see ways that they could be used either offensively or defensively.

b) The only (main?) reason I have such a large army is because I'm worried about you. So what if I gifted all my army to you? Or we could just use them on the same target?. Like I said in my earlier email, we have similar size armies. I could tell TT had gifted you your army because your power graph jumped up last turn by quite a bit. So with equal armies, the advantage to the defender is HUGE. So you need to bring overwhelming force. That would be something like the two of us vs. say Elkad (or TT).

c) I rate the odds of anyone sending an army to attack either one of us as <1%. First off, nobody besides the two of us even really HAS an army. Secondly, we really only border sunrise and Mali (and Elkad). I don't think sunrise will be attacking anybody (his military is paper-thin) and he also has an agreement with Broker and the Lins that would prevent them from attacking us through his lands I believe.

d) So if you are low on both score and cities, what are your aims for this game? Do you think you can beat Broker (or others) to a victory condition? Or are you more just aiming to do something fun / cool? I have to say that although I still harbor some faint hopes of winning, at this point I am wanting to do something fun and also have somewhat of an impact in this game and who DOES win. So while we could team up and attack Elkad, that has more of the feel of 2 big boys just picking on a little guy. I know that Elkad had mentioned a while back contemplating going out in a blaze with some sort of naval boating attack on Broker. I'd have to check the map to be sure how feasible / useful that would be, but the 3 of us could team up and do something like that.

So not sure that was that helpful, at least for me. Maybe you got some good nuggets out of it :-)

But I don't really see attacking Mali as an option. It seems a bit errr "off?" to attack them with the very units he just gave you. So that leaves me, Elkad or someone else (Broker / Lins probably)

1) Me - nahhhhhhhhhh. It will just be a stalemate. I really do think I have plenty of force to defend, and while I'm probably not going to make any inroads into your lands (nor do I particularly want to), all it's going to do is make SURE I don't win and make us both waste a ton of time going nowhere

2) Elkad - if you want to, I'll support you. I offered shadyforce a game long NAP but he didn't want it. I'd be willing to work with you or gift much of my army (with enough assurances that it wouldn't come back my way). Like you said, Persia has a history with Carthage going back to the age of Numidian Cavalry, which were used to try and take Persia out of the game early on (unsuccessfully, obviously)

3) Someone else - I think that would be my preference, if we could find a way to do it logistically. Just has more of a "cool factor", if that makes sense. While I don't know if we could do much against Broker or Dreylin, at least we wouldn't just be letting them win, which is essentially what everyone seems to be doing right now.......

I am trying to put on the diplomatic full court press (pardon the basketball metaphor - I got March Madness on the brain!). With a fresh face in Persia, the relationships you form early on can have quite a factor. I mean he still could attack me certainly. And if he does, well then he does and I guess I'll start looking at what to do then.

Note also that he declined the diplo victory. So I will be offering that to Elkad in a few turns, depending on what happens with all this army (meaning that if Alex and I start attacking Elkad, that might not go over so well). So I'll hold off on that, since we don't need to worry about that for another 7-8 turns at least.

[regoarrarr]

Another email off to Alex - I had some good thoughts on this last night

So I was thinking about this situation last night as I was heading to bed. I had a bit of trouble getting to sleep as I was a little wired after watching the March Madness basketball games.

The more I think about it, the more I think that it has to be some sort of attack on Broker. Everything else is just pointless. Yes, you could attack me (and I could attack you), or either / both of us could attack Elkad. But that's not really going to amount to anything, in game perspective.

I think that if either of us really want to make an impact on the game, it has to be on Broker (and/or Dreylin). They're the ones that are going to win the game. And while such an attack probably doesn't increase our OWN chances of winning, it at least would be better than effectively just hitting "end turn" 30 or 40 times till Broker wins.

And I also had some thoughts on how we could do it too. Amphibiously, we don't really share any waterways with any of the "good" cities. So we figure out a way to boat a canal city, then use as many workers as it takes to build a fort / canal into the "inner" sea. That way we threaten a) the cities that really matter and b) the cities that are likely his cultural / production ones. Maybe we can at least slow it down.

I was looking through my old pics and found one that might help in thinking about things, though obviously the game itself will be much more useful



Colors are the rough country outlines, though there have been a few changes. Your SW-most 2 cities are now Carthaginian and the grey (ex-Byzantium) is mostly all Broker.

So in looking like that it seems like maybe near Uruk? Or near Pawn on the other side of things.

Anyway those were my thoughts

[regoarrarr]

Well it appears that I'll be slogging through modern war for a time being at least

Obviously tricky to explain my thoughts completely without potentially giving away 'state secrets' which you could use in an upcoming war.

As I see it, the 'world aims' for war against you - assuming there really is a consensus - is
1) you're seen as a bit too silver-tongued and some people don't trust you
2) you're seen as a potential threat to victory
3) personal gain, of course.

Now (1) is not an issue for me. (2) doesn't really make sense either - I see this game ending by space or culture, and you're not particularly ahead in either, though you're certainly a player thanks to land area. (3) has got to be a compelling motive to some, though - the Lins could gain a lot from the war, while Broker, Munro & TT will be happy to see a major rival cut up.

For me, on the other hand, it's about making the most of what could be my only opportunity to make territorial gains. I have one of the world's lowest production ratings, but one of the world's biggest armies, which means I have to attack somebody now (as I've previously outlined). Either I attack the allies which my civ has made, or I attack my heavily fortified next-door neighbour (you).

But my allies dealt with Shady in good faith. I am extremely reluctant to just tear up those deals, even though I'm not the one who made them. I am not by inclination someone who betrays their partners. And that leaves you.

I was going to write stuff about tactical arrangements and who we'd go after, etc. Obviously if you send me proposals I will read them. However that's what it boils down to: I have inherited a civ from shadyforce and the diplomatic arrangements of that civ are as much a part of the game as my cities and troops. So until this alliance breaks under its own weight, I am a part of it.

Hopefully that happens before our armies wipe themselves out and the winners inherit a nuclear wasteland. It might even happen before we declare war. But if not, then good luck and I hope we both survive, and that I have a chance to negotiate with you myself, with all the options on the table. With more than half the world's troops between us, we could make quite bang.

Alex

Not unexpected, as I was mentioning to sunrise this morning - the fact that I have not heard from either him or TT in the past few days did not bode well.

Apparently TT gifted shady his army with the caveat that it be used to attack me. So... I got that going for me, which is (not so) nice.

[regoarrarr]

Email to Elkad, offering him the AP vote thing. I expect him to not be interested

Hey Elkad,

So apparently there is a world consensus of war against me. I got the news from our new friend Alex of Persia. Though I have to say I wasn't TOO terribly surprised, since nobody is really "returning my phone calls", so to speak.

I don't know how much you have been involved in the discussions or not - they don't really include me, ya know? And since you actually DO return my phone calls, maybe you haven't gotten the word that I'm a global pariah? :-P

So awhile ago in one of our talks, you had thrown out the idea of some sort of attack on Broker, just to do something "different". I tried to find it in the diplo history but coudln't find it. So either it was in a chat, or I'm totally making things up.

That was the final proposal I suggested to Alex, after tossing around several alternatives. That you, me, and him (and sunrise or anyone else that wanted to) attack Broker. My reasoning was that none of us are going to win now, Broker is the clear favorite to win (I peg his culture win in < 40 turns), and at least that would be doing SOMETHING.

Him declaring war on me, while perhaps fun and/or cathartic, is not going to change the actual outcome of this game by one iota. Pulling off an attack on Broker (and my thought was something along the lines of an attack a Dreylin city, use tons of workers to auto-fort, and then sail the main stack into Broker's inner sea where his actual GOOD cities are - couldn't see the map to confirm if/how this could be done as the game was down but that was the main thought). But he decided he wasn't interested.

So here's another "different" idea that you might be interested in.

You, me and Sunrise have enough votes to elect a religious victor (at least last time I checked). So we agree on some percentages for victory, roll a random number, and then all vote for one of us. Now, I will say that I also offered this to shadyforce before he left, because he had more votes, but he declined.

There's some logistics to be worked out depending on who wins the vote, and I believe the next resolution will come up in 8-9 turns, but if you're interested it can be done.

I understand if you're not interested for any reason, including if you feel it's kind of cheesy. I'm just looking for something to do that don't end in a) a nuclear wasteland and b) everyone continuing to sabotage, attack and nuke me.... If you're still interested in something that will rock the world, I don't know how it can get much more rockin' than this

[regoarrarr]

In talking with sunrise I came up with the following order of civs I want to win this game

1) me, 2) sunrise 3) munro, 4) elkad, LARGE GAP, 5) broker, 6) lin, 7) alex / tt

Thought that would be interesting to go in the thread

[regoarrarr]

Email to Munro

Hey Munro,

So apparently there is a world consensus of war against me. I got the news from our new friend Alex of Persia. Though I have to say I wasn't TOO terribly surprised, since nobody is really "returning my phone calls", so to speak.

I don't know how much you have been involved in the discussions or not - they don't really include me, ya know? And since you actually DO return my phone calls (at least occasionally!), maybe you haven't gotten the word that I'm a global pariah? :-P

So I meant what I said in our last conversation about wanting to help you win if I could not win myself. The worst thing from my opinion (even worse than just losing) is not having any impact on the game. If I can't win, I want to punish those who I believe are the "cause" of my downfall.

I came up with a top 3 folks for winning the game and it was me, sunrise and then you. Since I think the odds of myself or sunrise winning the game are low (and slipping), that's where you come in.

I understand what you were saying last time about not being able to trust me. It's my personal opinion that I am getting somewhat of a bad rap about my "mystical" and "magical" diplomatic ways (I think my favorite quote of the whole game was from shadyforce awhile back and said something like "If I had your ability to convince everyone to do exactly what I wanted, I would do X, Y and Z..." :-)

But surely somewhere along the spectrum between "handshake agreement to cooperate" and "I gift you all my cities" we have to be able to come up with some sort of agreement that would work, right? Seems like all you need is to make sure you get all the space techs and your production base should do all right. Potentially also need someone to make sure Broker doesn't win by then, which I might be able to help with if someone (Persia) wasn't massing troops on my borders and planning on invading me.

So what are your thoughts?

As sunrise pointed out, "it's pretty sad munro gets high placement by just never doing anything"

[regoarrarr]

Reply from Elkad

Religion vote will have to be really quick..

Brokers team finishes Rocketry and Manhattan in the next couple turns. I know already he's planning to nuke whatever city you are building Internet in (he's stacking overflow hammers in his IW city or something to get an ICBM out quick).

if they just spam nukes at our biggest cities, they can chop our population down enough before the vote finishes.

I'm not objecting to the idea, I just don't think it will work.

However, I think broker is the biggest diplo problem in the game. He's been behind the whole "chop down the big guy" approach to diplo the whole way. So at this point I'm inclined to just spoil his game, with no concern for who wins, as long as it isn't him.

Obviously I have to keep my mouth shut if I want nukes. Incidentally, I don't remember when you finish eco, but don't gift it around yet (even to sunrise). If you lose internet, you don't want Broker to get it. Nuking uranium when the other player can't clean up the fallout is mighty effective.

[regoarrarr]

Replied back to Elkad

Yes, Broker is very low on my list of people I'd like to see win this game, and dropping fast. At this point, I'm also onboard with the "anybody but Broker" victory.

As for Ecology, I believe that the last time I checked, Dreylin was on Ecology and was going to finish next turn or the turn after. I *believe* (I'm not in game) that we are on T230 and he finished it T231 and I finish it T232. T232 is also the turn Broker can attack me, and I would assume based on what you're saying that they'll have Rocketry and Manhattan probably that same turn, and nuke me T233.

So I suppose my building the Internet is a pipe dream, as it's currently scheduled to be done T234 (I think?)

Have you played much with nukes? I don't think I've ever launched a single nuke in any game of Civ 4 that I've played, so I really am clueless as to their effects. Will I lose invested hammers? Or just (some?) buildings and pop? I assume that my surrounding tiles will get fallout, but with enough workers (and Ecology) I should be able to clean those up, right? Can nukes "miss"? I see that the SDI increases interception chances, and then I could build a bomb shelter but that doesn't seem like it does a whole lot. Any helpful tips?

As for the AP victory, I guess we'll stow that away for now - the vote comes up every 10 turns I believe, so I think it's T238 or so that it would be eligible. The one thing that we do have going for us is that everyone else (except Persia) pretty much just has 1 or 2 cities with Hinduism. So as our populations drop, so does the overall population and thus the required number to win. But you might be right - I'm not sure what the threshold is - so I guess we'll keep it on the back burner.

So what kind of ideas do you have for someone else besides Broker winning? I was thinking Munro was probably our best bet, but I basically offered my services to him and he said that he didn't really trust me. So not sure what I can do about that.

Persia has told me that he and I are going to be enemies for at least now. I guess he feels that shadyforce made some deals with other civs and he feels that he needs to honor them, which makes sense to me, at least for pre-existing deals. Obviously I'm not exactly privy to what kind of deals he has on the table but I can see where he's coming from there. So I'm expecting his conventional army to come storming across the border at some point. I guess it remains to be seen if he'll wait for nuclear support or not.

[regoarrarr]

And it's heeeeeeating up. Email from Elkad

According to Alex-Persia, TT is the one researching Rocketry.

According to Broker (direct from him).
Manhattan and Rocketry both finish at the turn flip.

Munro is in a GA and carried a lot of overflow into his IW city on the turn Computers came in. He's the one building internet.

Broker thinks he still needs to slow you down on internet, and intends to nuke the place he "thinks" you are building it. I don't know if he has actual knowledge of where you are building it (EPs), or he's just guessing.

Check your email, I'm going all in here. Logs of conversations I've had with Broker this month. Trimmed out some unrelated stuff (GP swap, etc)

Talking to Alex-Persia. I've about got him convinced to swap sides I think. If we can get to TT to withhold Rocketry from Broker, we'd be in good shape. (I've got an idea on that too, sending a message to TT next) You, Shady, Sunrise and I hold significantly more conventional troops than anyone else, and I have naval access to all Brokers fringe cities, and more naval power (including marines) than the rest of the players combined.

The logs he sent me from chats with Broker are nothing too exciting. Basically they're going to nuke me, then ban nukes with the UN. It was a bit ambiguous whether they'll nuke me T232 (when my deal with Broker expires) or T235 (when my deals with Lins and Munro expire). Or both, I guess.

But man the 1-sided nuking is really steaming me right now. I should probably calm down before I start sending any "drop dead" emails.....