RB Pitboss #2 [SPOILERS] - Speaker and Sullla

[Sullla]

A first stab at a message for Nakor:

Dear Nakor and DMOC of Holy Rome,

Mining the grassland tile, yeah we all know what that means! It may indeed be time to sharpen some knives...

For the record, we haven't settled aggressively towards Dantski at all. In fact, not a single one of our cities went south towards him - he pushed very aggressively north towards us! We don't blame him for that (there's only so much land, after all), but in recent turns Dantski has canceled Open Borders with our team, refused a request for a Non-Aggression Pact, and started running Espionage points against our team, after we both agreed not to. I'd say the writing is one the wall there, wouldn't you?

We'd be very, VERY interested in cooperation with you guys regarding how to deal with Dantski. Can you give us an ironclad promise not to pass on information to other teams if we lay some of our cards on the table? We're looking for a longterm ally, and I think there's excellent potential for our teams to join up together.

Sullla
The Killer Angels

What do you think about that? Gives away too much, doesn't go into enough detail? I'd like to get some more confirmation from them before laying out our plans in full detail. Obviously this would be a risk, but you have to trust someone in this game, and there's no real incentive for Nakor to screw us over. He's got Dantski right on his borders, and the looming spectre of Whosit on the other side. They need a powerful ally and security on at least one border even more than we do.

[Ruff_Hi]

Dantski has two spears on defense inside, so either he anticipated a possible horse archer attack, or someone has been advising him in the spoiler thread. Probably the former, since Dantski apparently never updates his thread!

On behalf of the lurkers of RBP2 I would like to lodge a formal protest over your baseless accusations. In the words of Bart Simpson ...

I didn't do it. Nobody saw me do it. You can't prove anything.

Ok, maybe that isn't an apt quote, but I still protest!

[Ashain]

A first stab at a message for Nakor:
What do you think about that? Gives away too much, doesn't go into enough detail? I'd like to get some more confirmation from them before laying out our plans in full detail. Obviously this would be a risk, but you have to trust someone in this game, and there's no real incentive for Nakor to screw us over. He's got Dantski right on his borders, and the looming spectre of Whosit on the other side. They need a powerful ally and security on at least one border even more than we do.

I'd say the first two paragraphs are right on target, definitely paints you guys in the right light as (correctly!) the non-aggressive side here. I think the 3rd paragraph is a little over the top, might want to go for a little more conservative approach and ask what their thoughts are before you lay it all out.

[Sullla]

Hmmm, how about we try changing the last paragraph to this:

We'd be very, VERY interested in cooperation with you guys regarding how to deal with Dantski. Would you like to pass some emails back and forth on this subject in more detail?

Ruff, you know I'm just messing around with you readers. I can see that Dantski hasn't posted in his thread in like 2 weeks, long before any of this disagreement even started up.

I think I've got everything covered for the current turn now, so you can end the turn if you log in tonight, Speaker. If you don't get the opportunity, I'll end it tonight.

[Ruff_Hi]

Ruff, you know I'm just messing around with you readers.

Yeah, I know.

[Sullla]

Apparently athlete/kalin declared war on us, which they are claiming was a misclick. All I can say is, "it BETTER be a mistake!" We have an active NAP with them, and relations have been very friendly thus far. I'd hate to see the Jowy/athlete RBPB3 relationship rearing its head in this game too!

Our quick response:

Dear Rebel Alliance,

If it's a genuine error, then no problems; we've already offered peace in-game. If not... well, I'll remind you that we have a Non-Aggression Pact in place at the moment, which you would be violating.

We're understandably a little jumpy over here, since you have a Woodsman II warrior moving around in our territory, and you've already attacked another team earlier.

Sullla
The Killer Angels

We offered peace in-game, which hopefully will be immediately accepted. So we're obviously keeping a close eye on this...

I also sent off the message to Nakor, with the change suggested by Ashain.

EDIT: OK, so we have already agreed to peace, and it looks like a true mistake. I went ahead and ended our turn... But I covered our workers on the border with an axeman at the same time, "just in case". Done until tomorrow.

[Reagan]

The "accidental war" prompts me to ask this question:

Absent explicit rules to the contrary, is there anything unethical about having false wars between/among teams to create some misdirection in the thoughts of the non-warring teams? I can see pros and cons to being a part of such a false war, but I'm mainly asking whether it's something that would be frowned upon as improper.

[Sullla]

I don't think there are any rules about phony wars, Reagan. I've considered the possibility of a phony war to get a unit to 10 XP myself, should we see an opportunity!

New turn (T93), you know the drill by now:



- Jowy attacked Kassite last turn with his two chariots; one of them won, and the other one lost!!! Chariot vs. warrior loss, but if you consider the 25% warrior-in-city bonus along with the fortification bonus, Jowy only had about 70% odds. Completely reasonable that he'd win one and lose one there. (Both of these chariots came out of Corinth, which lacks a barracks.)

As far as Chamberlain goes, he's currently on the same tile as the surviving chariot. I can keep him in this area, or alternately move him north to get a glimpse into Corinth (doing a step-in, step-out move). Any preference on this, Speaker?

- Very quiet for our cities this turn, with none of them growing and us sitting at 0% research currently. However, we have 3 cities growing next turn, including Gettysburg going up to size 9! Very nice.

- Horseback Riding due in 4 more turns, 1 more of 0% then 2 at 100%, then finally 1 more at 50% science.



- Hampton finishes its walls next turn, which will make it an extremely tough nut to crack in the pre-catapult era. My plan is to then whip the granary (which you can see has 31/60 shields in the box) and overflow into a lighthouse, which will be (mostly) completed with an upcoming forest chop. From there, we can run max food or max shields and decide on whether we need military or can get started on exploring the outer islands.

- On a similar note, I plan to have Shiloh grab a grassland hill mine at size 2 (rather than a cottage) so that we can whip out a galley at the first opportunity; we can have one at the start of Turn 100 that way. That inner island is hiding something, I can just feel it! If there's ivory inside, and we can grab it right around the time we start researching Construction... well, you can see where that would be going!

And that's really it as far as in-game actions. No crazy war declarations this turn! Dantski did build three different military units last turn, in his three primary cities, and I'll run the numbers on that sometime tonight to determine the exact composition. We know that the unit in Djenne was a spear, for example, because we saw it with our chariot. (I'm guessing axe + chariot for the other two.)

Now, let's cover diplomacy for the turn in a succeeding post. Some very important stuff to go through!

[Sullla]

I'll knock out the quick and easy stuff first. Responding to athlete and kalin:

Dear Rebel Alliance,

No harm, no foul! Just be careful about those accidental war declarations when your warrior is within range of our axes. :)

Sullla
The Killer Angels

We also need Open Borders from Broker and plako to keep moving east, so...

Dear Broker and plako,

As you may have seen, our exploring warrior Jubal Early has reached the outskirts of your capital. We would like to request passage through your territory via Open Borders. Hopefully in the future, we'll both be able to derive some free trade route income from OB as well.

We'll propose the arrangement in-game the next time we log in; I hope you'll agree to our request!

Sullla
The Killer Angels

Now the real stuff. Here's the message we got from Nakor a few hours ago:

Dear Sullla,

Thanks for the information regarding city placement.
I think the reason that Dantski settled north is that we did the same...

Interesting, but possibly problematic to hear that Dantski has closed his borders and is refusing an NAP.
Guess we both know what that means...
Are you ready for a war? We do hope so.

As you must have noticed, we are building a little army in Krondor. Just in case something of this might happen.
Though we expected an attack against us a lot more then one against you.
We're willing to aid you if it comes to a war, but we must tell you beforehand that we do have a NAP with Dantski.
Once we cancel it, we have agreed on a 10 turn period in which we won't declare, so that makes it 10 turns at the least before we can come to your aid.
And his skirmishers are pretty strong, so taking the war towards him could be problematic.
Unless you guys have Construction already...

Well, I'm very interested to hear your opinions regarding this situation.

Kind regards,
Nakor of HRE

Obviously it's not great that they have an NAP in place, but we suspected something along those lines. Looks like they have a cancellation clause though (?) Let's try to find out some more in that regard. I think it's worthwhile taking a minor risk and revealing some more of our plans here:

Dear Nakor and DMOC of Holy Rome,

Our team's position hasn't changed from the start of the game; we asked our neighbors for peace so that everyone could grow and develop quickly. (Early fighting = bad, just look at how even a victorious war slowed down athlete and kalin!) However, it only takes one side to start a war, and Dantski is giving every sign that he wants a fight. I do think it's pretty funny that both of us are convinced that Dantski is going to attack our team! ;)

How would you feel about something along these lines: if Dantski attacks either one of us, the other team comes to their defense and helps out in the war. We're pretty confident we can defend ourselves against anything that Dantski can throw at us, so we don't mind if you have to wait and give 10 turns warning before joining the fight. The key thing is that Dantski would have to defend on both sides of his territory, making offensive action difficult no matter who he goes after.

As part of this deal, we'd want a long-term peace agreement between our teams. How about something like a 50-turn NAP? We could go longer or shorter, whatever you prefer.

Assuming a victory over Dantski, we would split his territory with you guys right down the middle; maybe something like us taking his northern two cities (Djenne/Kumbi) and you taking his southern two (Timbuktu/Gao). That would give your team something like 8-10 total cities, a firm ally to the north, and the ability to concentrate on the threat posed by Whosit to the east. No matter what Dantski might write and tell you, he won't offer you a better deal than that! :)

We're looking forward to hearing your thoughts and counter-ideas. Best wishes,

Sullla
The Killer Angels

Again, I can tone this down some... but I really think we have to get at least one ally in this game if we're going to avoid a major dogpile. I have no faith in Dantski, Jowy looks unlikely, and it's pretty clear that Jowy is in bed with athlete/kalin due to their RBPB3 relationship. Everyone else is too weak or too far away to do anything to help us, so it looks like Nakor is our best choice by default. And yeah, I know he's on the same RBPB3 team too! But ya gotta trust someone, right?

We would love to get a lengthy peace deal with Jowy in place, so that we could turn and deal with Dantski before marching north in the medieval (knights!) period. Here's my last shot and trying that:

Dear Jowy,

Well it's been a couple days since we last exchanged messages, and we wanted to check in with your team again. I couldn't help but notice the rapid power buildup that's taken place on both sides of our shared border, including the whippings from both our teams. Even a cursory glance at the Power chart on the demographics shows how we've been racing one another to add more units. It's all very unfortunate how both teams - Speaker and myself certainly included! - haven't been able to trust the other to adhere to peace recently.

I think that the key thing both of our teams want is security. Without security, there's no guarantee for us that you won't send your phalanxes against Hampton Roads, and no guarantee for you that we won't try to climb the hill atop Thebes. In a nutshell, these short-term NAPs haven't been working out for either of us. As soon as we have one in place, both of us start building up our forces for the impending arrival of the next deadline!

A better solution, in my opinion anyway, would be for our teams to agree to a peace treaty of much greater length, something in the area of 30, 40, or 50 turns. Just think of what we could both achieve if we didn't have to keep wasting builds on archers, spears, and chariots! Our team could settle the jungle spot we've talked about in the south, and maybe take that barb location. You've got room for a good half-dozen cities over in the east, and could grow to become one of the game's largest civs without needing to lift a finger in anger. That's a great deal for BOTH of us, win-win my friend! :)

We've said all along that we were looking for a strong friendship with your team, and I'd like to think that our actions and diplomacy have backed that up. The only one who benefits from us fighting would be Whosit, the true runaway civ (have you seen that Roman power graph?!) I hope you'll get back to us, and we can both put away the war torches permanently.

Sullla
The Killer Angels

Now, do I expect this to work? No, I think that Dantski and Jowy have some kind of deal to take us down, quite possibly with athlete joining them. Still, what's the harm in trying, eh? Jowy *SHOULD* be jumping for joy that we've offered him tons of peace deals, given the massive amount of land he should be settling. Even if he attacks 2 vs. 1, there's a very real chance that he's going to lose, and then he's totally screwed for the rest of the game, with zero chance of winning. Yes, I can see the logic for pre-emptive war (defeat us before we become too powerful), but I still say it's crazy to fight a war against a powerful neighbor to gain cities rather than simply claiming empty territory for free!

Obviously I haven't sent any of these. Speaker?

[Sullla]

Speaker has no complaints, so messages sent! Now we play... the waiting game...