RBP2 Lurker Discussion Thread - No Players!

[SleepingMoogle]

He's doing an accurate assessment for the other civ's though.. and he may revise his guesses for Rome's progress once he factors in a civ revolting to Slavery.

But, yeah it will be rather amusing when India makes contact with Rome and sees all kinds of techs that weren't anticipated.

[shadyforce]

I really don't understand why LiPing/Whosit are considering any NAP with Korea. What possible benefit can it provide? Do they really fear Korea attacking them at some point in the near future? Way to undermine the advantage that their aggresive rome selection gave them.

[Krill]

Yeah, you take agg rome, you have to kill someone. And tbh Korea should have gotten killed and lost hte worker, NAP or no with LiPing. Whosit could easily have played the "I didn;t understand card"

[novice]

I really don't understand why LiPing/Whosit are considering any NAP with Korea. What possible benefit can it provide? Do they really fear Korea attacking them at some point in the near future? Way to undermine the advantage that their aggresive rome selection gave them.

The NAP is already signed, isn't it? But it definitely shouldn't be prolonged past turn 65.

Btw, I just discovered that you're all discussing this situation in this thread, whereas I'm discussing it with Whosit in his thread... Let me know if that is out of line!

[SleepingMoogle]

The NAP is an out of game agreement; technically, nothing ingame is preventing either side of attacking the other right now. Whether or not it's the right thing to do is a different discussion altogether.

At the moment it looks like both civs would breathe a lot easier with the other gone, but neither wants to make the opening move (yet). They might actually make it to the end of the NAP without going at each other's throats, but even if they reach it I expect conflict within a few turns of that.

[m4gill4]

From his thread, it seems whosit has decided upon a course of conflict with korea, but he's doing a pretty bad job of hiding his intentions. He's tried to play the peaceful diplomacy game but the Koreans aren't buying it.

The sad part is that the only team that whosit can attack is A: Protective, B: totally expecting it. It doesn't bode well for either team unless they can work out their differences. Rome has plenty of room to expand in the east, but if he peacefully expands then his civ choice will have gone to waste.

If they fight it out, I expect a stalemate to set in pretty quickly. With modern C+D being employed by all parties, there's no way anybody is going to have the element of surprise. They will probably just weaken each other until other civs swoop in and gobble them up.

[Krill]

Doesn't really matter. Get the gold hooked up and aggressive preats will just steamroll Korea even if they start building nothing but archers now, or manage to get metal hooked up in time (I don;t think they will).

[m4gill4]

Doesn't really matter. Get the gold hooked up and aggressive preats will just steamroll Korea even if they start building nothing but archers now, or manage to get metal hooked up in time (I don;t think they will).

I think that's a possible outcome, but I'm not convinced it's a sure thing. I agree that Rome surely has the advantage, but I also think Korea has the ability to draw out the conflict and prevent a "steamroll". For one thing, Korea gets cheap walls and strong archers while Prats are expensive, and Rome will lack siege weapons for some time due to the Iron Working beeline.

It's also likely that Korea will beeline construction for their UU the hwacha. This means that the window of praetorian dominance isn't all that long. If Korea can only hold out until hwachas, then they can effectively neutralize Rome's offensive advantage.

I'm at work now so I can't make a test game, but I'm wondering what the odds are for an aggressive prat versus a protective archer behind a wall? Prat get's 8.8 from +10 strength, Archer is a bit more math-intensive. Starts at 3, plus fortify bonus, plus city garrison promotion, plus cultural bonus, and also some kind of bonus due to the drill promotion.

Seems like the prat has a good advantage, but then again, they are much more expensive than an archer, so it's possible to build 2 archers for every prat, and then a few more during the time that the invading prats are healing from their victories. But then in that situation, Korea is replacing losses while Rome is taking hardly any, so the long term advantage goes to Rome.

The more I think about this the more I think you're right that Korea is in big trouble.

[Krill]

With a barracks in the city the preat was built from for cover? 8.8 v 3*(1+0.25+.5+.25+.4-.25)=6.3 and drill 1

It's not even close...add in a barracks, and the archer gets upped to about 7.x, so most preats win and then promote to CR1 and the archers have no chance.

Rome only needs to research IW IIRC. Construction is about twice as many beakers away, and h'wacha need to be built on mass, knock down the preats to half health and then something other than archers kill them. Archers still won't have good odds on them on attack. And even then hamer wise it would probably be a win for Rome. Korea is in deep **** if Whosit just goes balls out. And if Korea just turtles, then all Whosit has to do is choke, which costs a lot less and expand to pen Korea in. Of course, that means Korea may be able to become a naval power and spread to the islands and work out a peace deal from there. But on the mainland Korea is toast.

[Cyneheard]

The sad part is that the only team that whosit can attack is A: Protective, B: totally expecting it.

Their leader is Gandhi, not Wang Kon. So they're Spiritual/Philosophical. They're not going to have time to get any leverage out of Philosophical before war hits (a fast Academy would be, what, T80? And I don't think they can afford the hammer investment in turning two citizens into scientists that early). Spiritual will save them just the 1t with the switch to slavery. (In this situation, Wang Kon would be a lot stronger. At a minimum, they'd get 1 extra commerce a turn from the furs, and Protective archers, but Protective is almost always a terrible trait. Certainly Athlete agrees, having played Spi/Pro Saladin in the PBEM game).
For the lurkers who missed the set-up of the game, they're playing unrestricted leaders (there was a snake pick: Athlete's team got 1st choice of either civ or leader, and then the 20th choice, Broker's team got 2nd choice and 19th, etc. etc.). Sullla's thread has a nice rundown in the first page about leader choices, some of the other threads do as well.