Sullla Wrote:Nice overview. Looks like things are going well at the moment. Any thoughts on how the diplomatic alliance structure is shaping up, given all the player changes recently?
Thanks Sullla. I do feel like things are going well for me right now. I think that the most important thing for me needs to be to put up enough military to deter any attacks, and then I should be able to use my landgrab to lead me towards victory. I'm not sure how anyone is possibly going to win this game. Domination and Conquest seem like they would take forever and people would give up before that. Culture and space seem very easy to stop, so it seems like the most likely option would be diplomatic, either AP or UN. Conveniently, I'm just about to build the Apostolic Palace :-D
I'm actually kind of surprised that I am not higher (than 4th) in the land count. Obviously Yaz is ahead of me, and probably dsplaisted with his 10 cities. I don't know if I just have too much coastal tiles or what. Still, from what I've been able to see (and I'll be able to confirm better in 2 turns once Broker gets Paper), I have more unclaimed land in my north than anyone else has around. Being able to tap into that and the resulting economies of scale is going to put me in a great place (hopefully!)
So, now to answer more of your question on the diplomatic front. I will run person by person and give my thoughts
Lins, Sunrise, Broker - I think all 3 of these guys are solidly in my court. Haven't talked much to the Lins lately - I should probably write them just to make sure they aren't up to anything too crazy.
Imhotep - Everything I have heard from and about him suggests that he is not really that interested in this game, and I think that it is fairly likely that he's just going to go through the motions. I'm a lot less worried about him attacking me, both from the fact that I have a pretty strong military now (and only going to get stronger as I tech towards Gunpowder / Rifling) and also from the fact that I have a decent sentry net in the no man's land between us.
Elkad - I think he is pretty solid in our camp as well. I was really glad that he decided to (at least for now) stick with us in the UTA. I do have a bit of worry that shadyforce might convince him to attack me.
Munro - Still open - haven't heard from him.
Yazilliclick - Still trying to figure out what he might be wanting to do. One thing that I think we have going in our favor is that it's probably likely that he's not as good a player as Krill, and that's not really an insult - it's just that Krill is very solid. But the other thing that we have going for us is that I think Krill was a founding force in the creation of the NUTA, and so now without him, unless Yaz or anyone else steps up to "lead" the NUTA, it's going to founder as people start doing their own things. If we can keep our group solid, we can outclass them.
dsplaisted - Haven't gotten a chance to interact with him much.
m-h - I think both of them are not really interested in this game much more.
shadyforce - It is too bad that geographically speaking, the only lands that really make sense to capture are shady's. I actually would prefer to work with him because as I mentioned in my email to him earlier, he does write frequently and his messages are coherent and good. I think that he is likely to just continue the war with Elkad which is good for me I think. But I'm not ruling out that he might be trying to get Elkad to swap sides.
Really, I think it's only natural that the longer we go in this game, the more people are just going to just go through the motions. And people that are just going through the motions can be frustrating if you're trying to rely on them, but they're useful in that you can be more aggressive towards them with less consequences. We saw a perfect example of this with Broker settling the city on Kodii's doorstep - Kodii even said in his allegory that it was mostly not wanting to deal with it in real-life time terms.
So, if I can exploit that and build up the #1 economy / teching / population / etc, I think that I stand a pretty good chance at being elected diplomatic victor once we reach the point where enough people decide they don't feel like playing anymore.
Thoughts / questions on that?
