Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[Azoth]

I hope that’s a pretty positive chat from a long-term standpoint. Nicolae is gonna play his own position down, but it sounds like he is even worse off then we are – marshes . Maybe the elves and demons rampage across the world together after all? .

What other nuggets can we pick out…. Sounds like he got Orthus and the Axe, which is especially unpleasant with blitz-suicide-zombie-splash-damage (Is that the name of a metal band? ). Looks like he has a NAP with <redacted>. There’s no mention of expiry date, but he’s thinking it’s already been breached anyway. He wants the barb city, and he can actually cut the jungle to make it productive. I think we can still get something reasonable to the north, and use our creative bonus to take all the tiles we need, but that’s going to cause tensions.

If he is genuinely interested in getting back in the game as the Sheaim, then we should encourage him that attacking us isn’t the way to do it.

I can't be bothered to read the entire chat log, but if it means we won't be facing a zombie horde on T100, I'm all for it. Sadly, I think the opportunity to claim the Axe is one more reason in favour of a war against the Sheaim. If diplomacy makes it possible, we can postpone the war until we have Priests and Rangers. But I see no future for a elf-demon alliance: Turkey must stab Russia eventually, because the Juggernaut can take her only so far. We cannot allow that.

[Mardoc]

MBTM - I don't have access to dropbox pictures here at work, or I would check this myself, but my first thought to explaining your quandary is simple - if you made a single transcription or arithmetic error that allows the pop increase to be 65k instead of 55k, that would have Grigori going from size 5 to 6 (for a 60k increase), which is what I would peg them for anyway with only two cities - much more likely for the second city to grow than for the first one to do so. So...check your math, check your transcriptions, check you didn't subtract the clown increase twice - one mistype in one spot would explain this.

A second possibility, depending on the details, is that someone (presumably Hippus?) gained a tech and *lost* a pop point. There are several events that could do that. Or, well, in their case, a classical tech instead of an ancient one. The trick is that I don't see where they could lose a pop point that would be worth 5K, but it could explain the score, anyway.

My position on Nicolae is still pretty much unchanged - we don't want him attacking us. Us attacking him is a whole different ballgame . Of course, morals don't come into it, but I would much prefer he's not prepared for whatever conflict occurs. Come to think of it...this is unfortunate, but PZ's are probably the best counter to Balseraph summon-spam there is - hit a stack, any stack, with enough PZ's, and it dies to the last man/angel/bone/gibbering monster. His description of the Kyan situation sounds like he's on the fence, honestly. No 'he broke the NAP if I can only prove that it was him', much more 'well, the lurker's think...' and 'but can I justify it?' The trouble is, we're too obviously biased in the right answer to be able to talk him into it, I think. What we really need is something from a third party - if we could trick Kyan into describing lair-popping protection as an integral part of an NAP, or even get the opinion of RG.

Well...actually, on further thought, there is another reasonable counter - assassins and/or immune creatures. Stygians, for example, would automatically target Mages stacked with Spectres, because of ignoring the death portion of the Spectre strength. And if you can kill the adept/mage behind the summons, cleaning up the summons should be relatively straightforward.

Finally, I got this in my e-mail just now:

Hi chaps,

Just wanted to say hello from The Clowns. We have finally met in-game. You'll notice, when you get the turn, that i have a lizardman at your borders. I have no ill intentions with him so am happy to offer a very short term NAP (~5 turns?) should you want the peace of mind.

Firstly, on a personal level, i would rather deal with the Gorilla in the room now than have diplomacy in this game just be a repeat of PBEM12. I'll start by being honest. Your thread was ridiculous in my opinion. I appreciate that the mapmaker decided to make an insane map in my favour, but that wasn't anything i did personally. You got kinda personal and your repeated jibes and insults grew thin fast. What's worse is that i think that this stemmed from more than just frustration. You appeared to believe i was 'leading you up the garden path' so to speak in diplomacy in that game. I was totally genuine in my conversations with you there. On multiple occasions, i thought we had fairly pleasant chats and i came away thinking that it was a shame we couldn't work together. This is evidenced in my thread there i believe. After reading your thread, you pretty much called me a tool and a conniving bastard after every one of them.

Right, venting over. I truly would like to start afresh. If you would be amenable to that, great. If you don't want to conduct any form of diplomacy with me, i'd rather you told me straight that you weren't interested. That way i can at least not waste my time and feel like a dick after the game is done.

Yours sincerely,

Kyan
Clown King

I suppose the place to start is - Gaspar, is your problem with Kyan that he actually breaks deals, or that he holds very closely to the letter rather than the spirit of them? We can deal with the latter, so long as we all vet the agreements for loopholes before signing. For example, in PBEM 17:

it seemed to me that Kyan broke the spirit but not the letter of his agreement with nospace, while Shoot the Moon broke both, as did Darrell. And part of the ill-feeling from them rubbed off on him.

Can we deal with Kyan at arm's length, cautiously, looking out for a possible dagger in his hand? [SIZE="1"](and bearing in mind that we'd stab him too given the right opportunity)[/SIZE]. Or do we tell him off now, and declare war now?

[Gaspar]

No time, but I will say that was certainly unexpected... do you think perhaps this thread already has enough of said references to upset him?

I'd like some general opinions from the lurkers on how to handle this before replying. Also... let us not forget, we have strong reason to believe he's already been poisoning Nicolae against us, so he's not walking in here all sweetness and light.

Anyway, have to run, will think on it, will enjoy opinions on the subject.

[Mardoc]

No time, but I will say that was certainly unexpected... do you think perhaps this thread already has enough of said references to upset him?

Well, possibly, but if there's a noticable break here I think he'd be mollified.

I'd like some general opinions from the lurkers on how to handle this before replying. Also... let us not forget, we have strong reason to believe he's already been poisoning Nicolae against us, so he's not walking in here all sweetness and light.

Anyway, have to run, will think on it, will enjoy opinions on the subject.

Hey, we've been attempting to poison Nicolae against him, too .

I think this is my general opinion of Kyan - he regards diplo as a game in its own right, and tries to keep each game as a total reset. Basically the Diplomacy attitude - just because he was forced to stab you to win doesn't mean he dislikes you. If we made a solid effort to reset, he'd go along.

That doesn't mean he'd be an ally or anything - again, like Diplomacy - but we could be pleasant to him, try to extract info and temporary advantages/cooperative deals, and he would probably treat us the same way. He'd definitely stick to the letter and not the spirit, and ultimately want to have us crushed - but to be fair, we want him crushed in the end too.

Fact is, he's winning, and we'll probably have to attack him, if not dogpile him before the end. He probably expects that, but won't necessarily take it personally. As long as we don't make it personal.

So my thinking - well, it'd be more fun to be pleasant to him than to hold a vendetta. Just keep in mind not to give him an opening he can exploit, and be careful how we phrase anything we sign. Treat our relations with the Clowns like a Diplomacy game, but keep it in game.

I'll have to read some of his reports to confirm or deny this impression, but in general that's what I think.

In this particular instance - well, I think the Pyre exploration was telling. We don't know precisely what deal he made with Nicolae. I think if he'd specifically included 'no lair exploration' he wouldn't have, but it probably wasn't specifically included (or else Nicolae would be sure that his NAP was broken instead of debating with himself). Exploring foreign lairs is definitely to his benefit in every way except diplomatically, so he did it.

We shouldn't sign 'a 5 turn NAP'. It might very well be worth signing a more detailed deal, though, or else remaining at peace without any deals, to remind ourselves to keep workers covered, etc.

And in other news - this confirms that he got a lizard/dwarf event, and that he probably got some animals out of it. Knowing his personality...I wouldn't be terribly surprised if we discover unusually well directed animals in the area, unless we specifically negotiate no animal attacks - but I would be surprised if he declares war in a provable fashion. But if we get our Hunters ready in time, then that's not a huge concern in any event.

Edit: Also, don't expect him to hold to anything he hasn't actually said directly he'll do. It's not a contract if we just ask him for something and he replies with anything other than 'signed', 'agreed', etc. If we say 'don't explore any lairs' and he replies 'I don't want to make enemies' - that's translatable to 'I won't promise anything'

[Man Behind the Mask]

Mardoc makes a lot of good points, as always. Coincidentally, I’m actually having something of a philosophical exchange with Kyan in the Pitboss4 lurker thread at the moment.

My paranoid initial thought was the obvious “He would say that, wouldn’t he!” He’s ahead of the game and wants any friends he can get.

I agree that your best bet is to be cordial and honest, but stress that your opinion is going to be swayed by his actions not his words. Congratulate him on his good start and say that we’ve been following his demos with envy (true!). Ask about the Pyre and see what he says (we have no proof, of course). Take the opportunity to grab whatever short-term security you can get, given we know he can be opportunistic.

It might be worth waiting until you’ve seen the save, including his graphs, civics, trade screen etc before responding to see where he really stands.

[Sciz]

Well, if you want a random lurker opinion, I'd say that I'd give him a chance. I didn't follow PBEM12 very closely, but I don't see why you would bring grudges into following games. I mean everyone and their mother backstabbed me in the Diplomacy game, but that doesn't mean I hate everyone in that game now, it was just a part of the game, and i don't have any grudges. If I play with them again (you were one of them ) i'll just deal with them like normal. Obviously I'd be more wary of anything he says, etc, and what deals you make, but I wouldn't be openly hostile or refuse diplomacy because of what happened in a previous game.

[NobleHelium]

Backstabbing is part of Diplomacy. In fact it is the essence of Diplomacy. This is not a game where you are expected to win by backstabbing people.

Read "The Evolution of Cooperation" by Robert Axelrod. If you do not punish people for reneging on their deals, then they have no reason to uphold further ones. Granted, I don't know what happened in 12, and I don't know what deal Kyan broke in 17 since I am dedlurking Darrell there (who also broke a deal), but those are my general comments. It is very reasonable to expect people to act similarly to ways they did in the past.

[Sciz]

Read my post again.

I'm saying he should be wary of deals with Kyan, but he shouldn't be openly hostile or refuse diplo. At least I wouldn't be.

[Gaspar]

I appreciate all the input on what has become a hot button topic. In fairness to Kyan, I don't blame him for being pissed off at me - I kind of develop these grudges (during the game only of course) and its probably not a lot of fun to read that after the fact. Its mostly for venting my own frustration, but that's a real person over there, and Kyan really hasn't done anything to deserve quite the level of venom I've leveled at him over the course of time.

That said, there is truth to my issues with him, which is that he's an opportunist to the nth degree, and he's a silver tongued diplomat who tends to say whatever he thinks you want to hear while getting what he wants. Good for him, but it doesn't mean I want to fall for it. Anyway, its not especially relevant. A look at his graphs shows you just how far he's running away with this.

After the load of score increases last turn, there were none this turn. Here's where we met Kyan's Lizard:



Other than that, just a mash enter turn. We completed a riverside non-forested cottage which I'm now working instead of the unimproved Cow tile at the Remnants site. AH will come in on T64. Settler T68. Hunting Lodge T69.

Here's a look at the demos, plus graphs now that we have the Clowns as well:

[Gaspar]

Proposed reply to Kyan. Would appreciate thoughts.

Hey Kyan,

No worries about the lizard. If you decide to take a shot so be it, but I'll assume cooler heads will prevail. Let me split this into two sections, the past and the present. First, the past.

I've had a think about our relationship, and I think I should probably start out by apologizing for my attitude in my PBEM12 thread. I think most of my frustration was at Ruff, but you made a convenient pantomime villain, and I played up to that over and over again. Particularly considering as you say, it wasn't your fault Ruff made the perfect India map. Let's be frank, given the spread of player skill, you'd have won that game anyway. I really don't harbor any ill will to you over PBEM12, though I certainly understand if you do. Truthfully, I haven't read any of the threads yet still, I really don't have any interest, so I can't speak to what you may or may not have said in your thread about me, but I have no reason not to believe you.

Honestly, you're just a frustrating player to play against. In my mind, you're right there with Krill as the best players at RB. There are others as good or better as you two at civ skill, but nobody combines Civ skill with diplo skill like you two do. When you're a middling player trying to get better, having that guy as an opponent challenges you and makes you better I think, which is why I was happy to join this game even after you had, but its also incredibly frustrating, when you feel like you are playing your best and its just not good enough. So, while its incredibly unfair to you personally, I think that has a lot to do with my boiling frustrations. Also, if you've lurked anything else I've done you'll know that I can lose my temper with the best of them, period. Sadly, this is a character trait from real life that carries over to my internet persona - I'm sure there's a fair few employees who'd love to see you romp all over me with puppets.

I guess if we're trying to be totally honest, there's really only two legitimate bones I have to pick with you. Firstly, the incident in WW2 where you accused me of cheating. We sort of buried the hatchet on that already, but I'd be lying if I said I still didn't remember it when your name came up. And then honestly, I think for a player of your abilities, you take the easy way out too much. Whether you broke the letter of any agreements in PBEM17, you certainly violated the spirit of your agreement with novice, and you also clearly skirted around the contact rules in the game. Are these federal crimes? No, certainly not. But just like my temper, you carry them on your reputation at a site like this.

So, to the present. As far as this game is concerned, I'm willing to work with you. Unfortunately, it looks to me like you're running away again, with your combination of skill and good luck. I highly doubt that the gameplan involves much beyond getting some mages up and stomping all over the world with puppet summons, and I have no doubt my civ would be a particularly enjoyable target for you, given our past. Reading between the lines with the other players I've met, I get the impression you've already had quite the upper hand in diplomacy with them as well. So I'm not entirely sure what my little elvish civ can contribute to the impending Balseraph roflstomping of Erebus. But I'm certainly willing to talk about it.

Regards,
Gaspar, Highest of the Ljosalfar High Council