RB Pitboss #2 [SPOILERS] - Speaker and Sullla

[Beamup]

Truly impressive job there. Coming out of a 5v1 dogpile hurt, but not crippled, isn't something more than a very few could accomplish. Major kudos!

[Adlain]

(Off-topic, nice to see Pompey get a big win today. Been a rough year for them!)

Thx, i just hope the next guy (if you beleive our CEO that there will infact be a next guy) has more in his pocket than fluff and string!!

back on topic, Damn you guys have got of lightly, sure you have been stunted during this war, but if you clear up the remaining units in good order - your in far better shape than you could have posably hoped for after seeing first nakor and then whosit turning up in the war!!

[Ashain]

Wow, major kudos guys on fending the other guys off until their alliance fell apart!

One thing that caught my eye in the text of the chat with dantski though:

Dante2585 (10:41:28 AM): so i know one or two things
Dante2585 (10:41:46 AM): incidentally
Dante2585 (10:41:54 AM): would you like me to loan you any units?

First, I would think that anything that would tie dantski a little closer to you guys would have to be a good thing, i.e. you having control of some units he might want returned at some point. Course its a balance between whether or not you want to look a little weak...

Also on the same general topic, what do you guys think about the 10 turns no info request? Regardless of anything else, unless this is some major ploy on the alliance part, he's going to have royally pissed off all the other teams, so what does he really stand to gain from this?

And finally, I almost wonder if it wouldn't have been a good idea to leave Nakors stack alone for the turn. Imagine how quickly he would have fallen all over himself trying to sue for peace once he realized dantski's units were gone and he would have to track them all the way back through dantski's territory, under the constant threat of attack since nakor is the only other person that dantski could realistically attack now.

Nothing here is a complaint, all just musings! Great work guys and great info all around, keep it up!

[Rowain]

In the Demographics, against all odds we have preserved a narrow lead on Food, and that's going to grow significantly in the next few turns as our cities start growing like weeds. The tradeoff is that our Production has been decimated, as every city works max food/commerce, but we can live with that. GNP is a surprising third, and that while running 0% research. I checked to see what the number would look like at break-even research (40% right now), and our GNP would go up to like 90 at that rate, so we're almost even with the leader still. As we regrow onto many many grassland river cottages (and hell, we're not even working our gold or fur resources right now!) we'll reclaim that research lead in no time. Just you wait and see.

You see thats the reson why I (and a lot of others) were convinced that the dogpile was the only chance for all non-India players to play a role in this game.
From a lurker POV this is a mixed blessing. On one hand we can expect a lot of informative, educational posts on the them 'How to manage an empire' from you OTOH the remainig 200-250 turns will be very boring 'watch Sullla/Speaker stomp everyone into the ground (first ecomnomical and than military wise)'.
But great job on the defense

[Sullla]

Wrapping up the diplomacy for the turn:

Dear Dantski,

Just so you have it in writing, we agreed this turn on peace and a Non-Aggression Pact to last until Turn 130. We've also offered to provide military assistance in the form of horse archers and catapults should you need them, and floated the idea of possibly exchanging some Fast Workers for cheap Imperialistic settlers down the road.

Thank you very much for agreeing to peace with our team. We really want this to be the start of a long and productive friendship, so email or chat with us whenever anything crosses your mind. I think you'll find that we make much better allies than teams that can't even declare war without bungling things horribly. :)

Sullla
The Killer Angels

Broker/plako:

Dear Broker and plako,

Hi guys! You were probably worried about us, and not without good reason given the events of the past few turns. I am happy to tell you that we have turned the tables on this gangbang alliance that developed. During this current turn, we saw:

* Whosit horribly bungle his declaration of war, and leave his Praetorian naval invasion far out of position.
* Dantski cut a deal with our team and signed peace. Now he'll be on our side for the forseeable future.
* The removal of Dantski's units allowed us to crush the forces of Kathlete, Jowy, and Nakor. We lost 1 unit (at 90% odds!), they lost EIGHT.

Our territory is virtually clear of units, and we are no longer in danger of being eliminated. Pretty nice reversal! With Nakor's army horribly dead and Whosit's Praetorians a million miles away from home, you shouldn't feel under any obligation to cave into their arrogant demands. In fact, if Dantski goes to war with Nakor, you might even have the chance to join in and take some spoils for yourself. We'll be busy killing Whosit's Praetorians (there are a full 8 of them near our borders), so you won't need to worry about them for a while.

It looks like you've done a nice job of rebounding and researching up to Monarchy tech. Great work! We hope that we can give you some measure of revenge by killing the Praetorians that attacked you earlier. Stay in touch and keep us informed on how you're doing. :)

Sullla
The Killer Angels

Last, a new message to slaze:

Dear slaze and dsplaisted of IKZ,

Hi there! First greetings and all that. I apologize for not sending something sooner, but we've been awful busy with various war-related stuff.

You'll probably hear about this turn's doings from various sources, and to make a long story short, Whosit bungled a planned attack on our team, Dantski signed peace with us, and we were able to kill off a bunch of Jowy, Kathlete, and Nakor units with a kill ratio 8:1 in our favor. Their grand alliance has to be hurting pretty badly right now!

Anyway, we just wanted to open up the lines of communication for the moment. Kathlete seems to hate us for some reason, and you share a border with their team, so perhaps we may be able to collaborate together in the future. If Kathlete wants to keep sending units off to attack us, well, you can probably find some advantage from that... :) We'd like to request Open Borders from your team for trade route purposes, so please let us know if that would be acceptable to your team.

Cheers!
Sullla
The Killer Angels

We're out of Tokugawa mode! Except with the four teams still at war with us, they can go rot for all I care.

[Speaker]

Here's a quick and dirty update of the hammer count from the war:


We are ahead nearly 2:1 in the hammer ratio, though of course their losses are spread out amongst four different players (so far).

Note that 4 of our 5 Horse Archer losses came at 77.7%, 73%, 65% and 65%, and the two Axe losses came at 90% and 68%.

We got lucky once and won a 12% when I goofed and left an Axe exposed to a Chariot, and we won two 50/50s.

Only the RNG saved their coalition from a complete and utter slaughter.

[Cyneheard]

Was the RNG really that bad to you?

You won 1 12% odds battle, and lost 1 90% battle. Net luckiness: even.
You won 2 50-50s (out of 2?): slightly ahead, or neutral.
You lost 5 mid-range fights. But you killed 31 units total, so if 15-20 of your fights were in that 62-80% range, that's about right, to have 5 losses out of that. They did come in a streak, and cost you HAs instead of axes. Simply out of those 5 fights, your expected losses were about 1.5.

And, of course, that's ignoring the other <20% odds battles you lost and the >80% odds battles that you won.

A 2:1 hammer ratio with mediocre RNG rolls is still pretty good!

[T-hawk]

OTOH the remainig 200-250 turns will be very boring 'watch Sullla/Speaker stomp everyone into the ground (first ecomnomical and than military wise)'.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. These aren't the AIs where as soon as you beat off one stack, they're no threat. Another coalition could develop in the future, perhaps with better tactical coordination.

[regoarrarr]

From this (totally biased) lurker, nice work! I'm stoked for you guys and rooting you on!

[timmy827]

Don't forget to give a special gold star to the Slavery civic. Coupled with Hereditary Rule, it is just too insanely powerful, especially when you are still able to work cottages and food, so you keep teching, and produce units without needing to work mines!

I would also give +1 to the map - your land is quite fertile, most of your cities have two food bonuses + a lot of grasslands which makes the "cottages + food" Speaker describes very viable. Lots of rivers for getting the Financial boost on cottages right away are also great for you guys.

Any chance you'll give diplo a shot with Whosit, see if you can convince him to run away and thus save your catapults for later?