RB Pitboss #1 SPOILER - Hatshepsut / India

[regoarrarr]

Okay some dip came in overnight

First - response from Elkad

I've been onboard since the beginning. Actually for some reason I'd thought you weren't in on the deal, so I didn't ask for RR. Just realized my mistake.

My reply

Okay good to know. I will offer RR next time I am in-game, or accept if you have already re-offered.

However, you have probably heard of the phrase TANSTAAFL (there ain't no such thing as a free lunch).

I know that your civ is smaller than most, and you may not have a ton of troops to provide. I also know that you probably have a desire to focus some on rebuilding / infrastructure. Of course, so do I and everyone else (I can't speak for everyone else but I'm not much of a bloodthirsty warmonger).

I know that you have to have at least a few troops available to send - when and where can you send them?

I am willing to front Railroad, and I assume that you will be able to get techs from Broker, but if you want the techs from dsplaisted, you're probably going to have to prove that you are on board with concrete troops

[regoarrarr]

Here's the email thread replying to my email mentioning that Exploit had vassalized to DLer

Broker:

Well that seems to seal it. I will declare in 4 turns I believe. Munro will not support dler or exploit.

Broker again, adding Munro

Ok played my turn. I moved my stack in view to draw attention and will declare in 2 turns. Munro is feeding me any troops he has near the border to speed this up.

Dler is moving Catapharacts towards Dsp they should come back towards me when I enter his borders. I dont think he expected me to have an army ready for attack

Dsp worst he can do is hit you with about 12 catapharacts in about 3-4 turns if he continues on but I doubt he will. I am guessing he will have to send everything at me to have a hope of stoping my attack.

Munro:

Yep, good luck everyone. As Broker says, I've sent him some troops already and won't be helping Dler or Exploit. I do have a cavalry headed up through Exploit's lands though and will let you know what he finds, if you don't have spies there already.

Nothing of interest so far - just a couple of catapults and muskets moving towards the front, slowly of course (no railroads).

I'll also let you know of course if I see any of Exploit of Dler's troops moving through my territory, though I don't expect any. I'll keep you posted though.

dsp:

Keep in mind that once Dler declares war on Broker you won't be able to gift him troops anymore...

shady

Going to be very busy all day and will have only a small window to play my turn later in the day.

Exploit sent a message indicating that Dler would be heading towards Daniel. So that threat should possibly be takens eriously. What's your defences like? I can send some units (the ones that were heading to Border Town) as emergency cover along your railroad route if necessary and if you think they'll get there in time.

Let me know what, if anything, you need from me.

Broker:

The threat to Daniel is minimal right now. He has a small stack of Catapharacts a few tiles ne of Cream of Tartar about 7 units and another 3 heading from my border a turn or two behind.

I just moved a 50+ unit stack into view and will declare war in 2 turns unless he declares earlier. I think those troops will turn around to help him defend against "The Southern Armies"

I have full visibility on him and will let you all know where he moves this turn. I also started drafting reinforcements in case he manages to bog me down but by my calculations there will be 1 maybe 2 big battles then he will be spent and Mop up operations will begin.

[regoarrarr]

And the big news that just came in a few minutes ago from Exploit, copied to Munro and DLer

With my recent vassalage to Dler, I think the alliance structure and strategic situation has changed enough that it is probably of mutual benefit for both of us to work together. I am certain that at least one of your allies should have visibility on my research by now so you know that I will have Assembly Line completed in 3 turns (1 turn before Broker). Given the global alliance against me and the 2 wars that I am currently engaged in, you can also be certain that I have little desire to open a second front to attack Sunrise/Lins/Broker or yourself. More importantly it is obviously of no interest for Dler to start a war with your alliance.

Therefore the only way there will be a war is if your side starts it. Given my current defenses, population and the infantry that I will be able to draft in 3 turns, I think we can both agree that any joint invasion against me is going to be extremely difficult and costly to say the least. I propose that it is in your best interests to maintain the peace with our alliance so that you can either build upon your tech advantage or to join our war against Shady which will give you plenty of cities to conquer.

I suspect that you already have an agreement with Broker to obtain Assembly Line probably for Combustion but as part of a peace agreement, I would be willing to trade Assembly Line to Sunrise and yourself in exchange for Railroad to Dler and myself. The advantage of my trade is that it helps maintain your monopoly on Combustion a while longer and lets you trade it for some other Broker tech in the future.

With Dler's alliance fighting DSP and Shady, and if you could convince Broker not to trade AL to Shady or DSP then a joint conquest should not be overly costly. Given your diplomatic skills, you could probably convince Elkad to join the fight for Railroad just to totally overwhelm Shady. I am willing to let you have the lion's share of Shady's cities in return for your assistance, although any city division would also have to be agreed to by Munro since he could lay claim to those cities as well.

As a free bonus offer, if we come to an agreement then I will also change the name of my civ to something less confrontational.

Please let us know if you are interested.

Intriguing but I think I'm going to have to pass. I'll share it with folks on my side in a bit

[regoarrarr]

Email from DLer

I appologize for being unable to be frequent on the forums. The first couple of weeks had not been going as planned first starting with a firewall being added at work which made it so I'm currently unable to play from there which were my initial intentions. Then I had a password issue with my email, which currently is fixed and will allow me to be more vocal on the forums. As for the mis communications on my part I to was paranoid when I saw tech being given to Broker and was not getting any tech in return. I had a gut feeling that I was about to get squished between dsp and broker. That feeling forced me into talks with exploit to allow me to survive thus leaving us in our current situation. I do wish you well and look forward to future talks.

[regoarrarr]

T191 Exploit stack:

The slot 2W 1N of LL - 4 cavs, 6 rifles (including Stonewall), 1 cannon, 4 muskets, 12 elephants, 11 cats
In Pirates Pad: 3 rifles (2CG, 1 normal)
In Lin Lost: 3 rifles and 3 muskets
In Killing Knife: 9 rifles and 2 muskets (1 of each CG)

So it appears that he moved 5 rifles from PP and the GG from KK to the staging tile (that can sort of cover all 3 cities)

[regoarrarr]

Reply to DLer

Well, as I said in my earlier emails, I was not going to give you tech when you made no efforts to contact me or help vs. Exploit. Both Broker and myself have been trying to get ahold of you several times over the past few weeks.

I understand that sometimes there are technical limitations, but even a simple in-game message would have gone a long way towards convincing us that you really had any intentions of attacking Exploit.

Apparently you have decided that your security lies best with Exploit. Personally I think that was just about the worst choice you could have made with regards to your long-term future, but time will tell!

Good luck and keep in touch - things often have a way of changing quickly!

I think he's underestimating the beatdown he's about to get

[regoarrarr]

Email to shady, dsp, lins, sunrise, broker and munro

Got an email from Exploit today (copied Munro and DLer). He is scheduled to have Assembly Line in 3t (1 turn before Broker), according to him.

In it, he says he doesn't want to fight me and says that he will give me the majority of shady's cities if I trade him Railroad for Assembly Line and convince Broker to not give Assembly Line to shady and dsp.

I don't plan on answering him today, and he will hear my answer when sunrise, the Lins and I declare war on him this evening. I may reply back tomorrow declining simply but I wanted to let you guys know because it would be my assumption that after hearing me decline that he will send out feelers to some of you ("Hey shady / dsp, I'll give you all rego's cities if you attack him", etc. etc)

Just as we've seen from him before, his promises don't mean much. First it's posting in the public thread that if he feels threatened by our alliance he'll "give regoarrarr all his cities" then he flops and takes all of Imho's cities then he flips and vassalizes to DLer. I think that I am not alone in feeling that any promises he makes he will keep as long as he feels it's a) no longer advantageous for him and b) he can get away with it.

I know at various points during this game we've all felt different opinions or strength of opinions on the need to attack Exploit or for how long. At some point maybe it makes sense to ease up on him. Or maybe it makes sense to take him (and DLer if necessary) all the way to zero - time will tell.

The other day, Sunrise and I were kicking around the merits of a proposal where we divide up the most 15 or so extreme cities of Exploit's for peace, if he wanted it (we're talking ex-Zulu and the lands north of Lins / sunrise). In the end, we felt it was probably best to smack him around a bit first and then see where that gets us.

I remain committed to an equitable division and world order. I have zero desire to be the "next" Exploit. I don't really need any cities off of him and I'm happy for others to take the land spoils.

[regoarrarr]

Sunrise emailed to Dreylin and I talking about his noob mistake of movign to the wrong tile. I dont' have a pic but I might be able to take one later on this morning. He posted a bunch of things about ways to save his units, but most of them regarded Dreylin being able to move his units within 11 hours of the previous move, since he moved before Exploit moved the majority of his stack.

He asked what was in Killing Knife before Exploit moved his units late last night - I replied

LoLz n00b

Here is what I has posted at 12:55 pm (so several hours beforehand)

The slot 2W 1N of LL - 4 cavs, 6 rifles (including Stonewall), 1 cannon, 4 muskets, 12 elephants, 11 cats
In Pirates Pad: 3 rifles (2CG, 1 normal)
In Lin Lost: 3 rifles and 3 muskets
In Killing Knife: 9 rifles and 2 muskets (1 of each CG)

After Dreylin moved in, from our chat log, Exploit made the following moves
7 eles into KK
all the cats into KK
cannon into KK
cavs into KK
3 muskets from LL to KK
musket from evil eye to KK
8 rifles 4 muskets and 2 cavs (1 with flanking 2, of course) from PP to the staging tile

[regoarrarr]

Also sent to Dreylin and sunrise

Also, I think that you want to make sure that you're not over thinking things. Remember what I told you last night - that just because all these moves are super obvious to you, since you've been playing games like this for years, they're not super obvious to the rest of us "mere mortals"

I'd have not posted that noob post in the public player thread, alerting Exploit to the fact that your units are on the "wrong" tile. It certainly would have made ME think that something else was up (feint to LL, etc)

We'll see how things go I guess

[regoarrarr]

Email to shady, dsp, broker, munro, sunrise, lins - recapping the timeline of last night

Hi guys,

Well... battle is joined! Well, not quite joined yet, but the League of Lin, sunrise and myself moved a big stack into Exploit's lands, with the idea of taking the Exploit city of Killing Knife next turn. Some of us even moved our units to the correct tile!! (whistle....)

To expound on the posts in the public player thread, here is a timeline of what happened last night

Around 930 EST with about 50 minutes on the timer, Dreylin moved into the staging tile and declared war. Sunrise also moved his Machine Guns to cover and declared war.
Some point later, Exploit logged in and moved to reinforce Killing Knife and a few other tiles
With around 11 minutes left I declared war and moved units in the other theaters (naval units near his island city, and railroaded and moved my mini stack towards Defiance in ex-Zulu lands.
Somewhere shortly after that, Exploit messaged me in-game and "reminded me" that per Rule B of the double move after declaring war, civs could not move any military units for 9 hours afterwards" This kind of freaked me out as I was already stressing that I'd be able to get all the moves done right. Honestly I think that was probably his point. After a bit of consideration between Sunrise and I, we realized that Rule B had been removed (per vote). I told Exploit this in-game, but he either intentionally or unintentionally misunderstood me I think. I moved in my stack and Exploit paused the game with 1 minute on the timer. Sunrise explained in-game about rule B, and resumed the game.
Then sunrise moved in (to the wrong tile!).
Also in all the confusion, he forgot to gift me gold for this turn, so Combustion still in 6 turns :-(

So that's what I know. Honestly I don't know what to think - it's certainly possible that Exploit is being sincere and really thought that was the rule. He is a replacement player and might not know about that. He referenced post 2 of the planning thread as containing the rules, though that post does clearly say that Part B was removed by vote. With anyone else I might give him the benefit of the doubt. However, if that was his understanding, why did he not complain about Dreylin and Sunrise having done the exact same thing last night? Or I assume dsp and shady declaring war and moving in when they did a few turns ago. So, I also have to consider the fact that he knew very well the rules and was trying to confuse and delay things as the timer ticked down.

In any case, I think it will all be worked out, and if we can manage to save Sunrise's stack we should be in good shape