RBPB4 [SPOILERS] - De Gaulle of the Egyptians

[nabaxo]

They each start with a promotion (2 XP)

The joys of having the CHA-trait. :D

[Lord Parkin]

So you already have Democracy?

Darrell

Indeed. Statue of Liberty is underway. Soon we'll have 2 free specialists per city, assuming we don't have reason to switch out of Mercantalism.

The joys of having the CHA-trait. :D

Actually 2 XP is the threshold for a first promotion regardless of the CHA trait. However, we'll only need an additional 2 (rather than 3) XP from battles to get a second promotion on those units.

Also worth noting is that our ships can get 2 promotions running Theo + Vassalage. A possibility for the future anyway.

[WilliamLP]

What effect did going from FM to Mercantilism have on beaker rate?

[Lord Parkin]

What effect did going from FM to Mercantilism have on beaker rate?

Almost none; slightly more beakers if anything (due to Representation). The key change is the new ability to convert ~125 beakers per turn into ~75 hammers per turn whenever we want (via Scientists -> Engineers).

[novice]

Almost none; slightly more beakers if anything (due to Representation). The key change is the new ability to convert ~125 beakers per turn into ~75 hammers per turn whenever we want (via Scientists -> Engineers).

So you should have adopted Mercantilism earlier? Or is that given the currently closed borders?

[Lord Parkin]

So you should have adopted Mercantilism earlier? Or is that given the currently closed borders?

It was touch and go before. It's a little better now.

All the closed borders caused a surprisingly little amount of economic damage, actually. I still think overall those folks probably did more damage to themselves than they did to us by closing borders. Sweet irony.

[Gazzahk]

LP, any thought's on Adlain's challenges?

[Lord Parkin]

LP, any thought's on Adlain's challenges?

Well, he's more than a bit screwed, obviously. He wouldn't have survived a 1 vs 1 in his current state, let alone a 2 vs 1 and possibly 3 vs 1. Hopefully my resource gifts can let him do at least a little more damage before he goes. I've also advised him to make maximum use of his Protective trait, and to let me know if he wants any other help. Not much more I can do really. He's clearly going to be eliminated, but he can make life very difficult for Locke and Moogle along the way if he puts some effort in.

[Lord Parkin]

Sent messages to all five of the folks who closed borders. Most of them were fairly matter-of-fact. The one to Plako was the most condemning, and I think deservedly so. I feel it's high time he got a wake up call about his double standards and the mockery he's made of the "alliance" he agreed to. Seriously, that "alliance" has been nothing but a joke for a long time now due to his actions (or lack thereof).

Hi Plako and ASM,

I'm quite astounded by how completely and utterly you've managed to betray almost every semblance of your word to us. To say that you've been making a mockery of our arrangement and have turned it into a one-sided farce for a long while would be an understatement. (For starters, you might recall that open borders and non-aggression were two of the founding tenants of our supposed cooperation.) Now you have gone and broken your word with an overtly hostile trade embargo which you clearly planned and executed while supposedly in an alliance with us. Non-aggressive... yeah right.

Everyone already knows it, but I'll point out your glaring hypocrisy anyway. You will recall that an identical incident was brewing many turns ago, when the situation was reversed and YOU were the clear leader in the game. Many people were concerned about your lead, and as a result there were a series of mass emails to try to arrange an embargo against you. Sound familiar? As your ally, I knew right away that I would not and could not join in such a cause. But I didn't just leave it at that, I went further - I went on a mission and actively contacted people privately to try to talk them out of closing borders with you. I believe that I played a key part in encouraging several undecided folks - particularly Adlain, Luddite and Rego - to back out of the proposal, which eventually helped to cause the embargo efforts to implode and resulted in it ceasing to happen.

Roll forward to recent times, when a practically identical situation occurs - the only difference being that this time the #1 and #2 positions have been switched between us. Would you prove to be as loyal an ally as we were in the same situation? Not even close. You apparently not only made no effort whatsoever to talk anyone else out of this proposal to close borders with us - but you decided that you would actually join in the effort yourself. Wow, talk about a heartless backstab. (I'm assuming of course that you were approached, rather than that you were the ringleader of this effort. Because if you were, that would of course make your actions all the more despicable.)

I could also bring up other hypocrisy, such as that for a very long time you have not passed on a single piece of valuable information to us about rivals - even though clearly there has been plenty that would have been worth passing on, especially in recent times. Meanwhile, I've continually updated you with relevant and important information about goings-on in the world. Heck, multiple times I've forwarded entire emails with critical information from rival civs your way. You've never sent a single equivalent message in return, and that speaks volumes in itself. The amount of one-way giving and one-way taking in our relationship has been a complete joke, to be honest. Time and time again you've proved that the standard you've expected (and have received) from an alliance with us is not the same standard that you are willing to reciprocate. Far from it, in fact. Ever since you were no longer the #1 partner in this relationship, you've treated us appallingly. You clearly have a horrendously skewed double standard towards us, and I'm extremely unimpressed.

The ironic twist to all of this is that you're actually worse off by closing borders than you would have been keeping them open. Why? The economic "damage" you did to me amounted to only a few beakers per turn of research - not even qualifying as a scratch, really. Meanwhile, you did at least as much damage to your own economy, and possibly a bit more - especially since you've just adopted Free Market (unlike any of your cronies). To make matters worse, it's the relative change in beakers per turn that really counts - which unfortunately for you, hurts you even more. It's simple logic really - if someone is generating twice as much research as you, closing borders needs to cause at least twice as much damage to them as to you to be worthwhile. If it's three times as much research, you need to do three times as much damage for closing borders to be worth it. And so on. Given that you haven't even broken even in terms of raw beaker losses in this transaction, let alone taking into account the relative beaker losses - you've actually pushed my relative research rate ahead of yours by closing borders with me. Even taking into account all of your other buddies that closed borders. Go figure. :P

Of course, the biggest winners out of all this are of course the folks who didn't close borders. But ironically enough, even though we both lose relative to those folks, you still end up hurting more from this than I do. What you've effectively done by closing borders is to give me a leg up on you, while giving the folks who didn't close borders a bigger leg up. You're the one standing at the bottom of the pile getting trodden on by everyone else. Uh... well done?

If you've realised the mistake and want to discuss the option of re-opening borders, I'm open to chat. Although I will probably have some reservations at this point, for obvious reasons.

- Lord Parkin

I don't expect this will change anything, but then I suspect nothing would change anything for him at this point. He's clearly hell-bent on warring with us as soon as he possibly can, probably with several other folks he valued above his supposed ally. I have no more time for him and his betrayals. But it feels good to finally put to paper some of the bullshit I've been putting up with from him.

[Lord Parkin]

Demo's at 1220 AD. I'm definitely liking all the Engineer specialists - it's helping our MFG considerably, which is great news. And our GNP barely even has a scratch.