RB Pitboss #2 [SPOILERS] - Speaker and Sullla

[Mr. Nice Guy]

What if we demand Thebes in exchange for peace? They will obviously decline, and think that we really want that city dead. In reality, that city is worthless and Greece would do well to not bother defending it. It's just a unit drain. We enhance their feeling by moving up a couple axes and spears and a catapult onto the forest and start bombing it down. They pile all their units into there. Then we hit Sparta with 10 HA and 2 General Axes, and maybe can sweep through and take out Athens as well?

:neenernee

I love reading this thread!

[M.Prince]

What if we demand Thebes in exchange for peace? They will obviously decline, and think that we really want that city dead. In reality, that city is worthless and Greece would do well to not bother defending it. It's just a unit drain. We enhance their feeling by moving up a couple axes and spears and a catapult onto the forest and start bombing it down. They pile all their units into there. Then we hit Sparta with 10 HA and 2 General Axes, and maybe can sweep through and take out Athens as well?

How would you respond if someone did this to you? Would you see through it? Is this an obvious ploy if you're familiar with MP games?

If it works, that would be very cool. :war2:

[Ashain]

I'm surprised you guys aren't leaning on Nakor diplomatically, he's gotta be the one in the most tenuous diplomatic position right now. His attacking army was annihilated, and now he has Dantski friendly with you one one border, and Whosit on the other who can only be waiting for the right moment to snap up some more land.

[Lurker]

What if we demand Thebes in exchange for peace? They will obviously decline, and think that we really want that city dead. In reality, that city is worthless and Greece would do well to not bother defending it. It's just a unit drain. We enhance their feeling by moving up a couple axes and spears and a catapult onto the forest and start bombing it down. They pile all their units into there. Then we hit Sparta with 10 HA and 2 General Axes, and maybe can sweep through and take out Athens as well?

What would you do if Greece (or a friend of his) realizes that the city is worthless and that you're about to kick his ass, and actually agrees to the peace, happy to have gotten off so easily?

[antisocialmunky]

Isn't this starting to go a little beyond the 'lurker' code again?

[Adlain]

Well it is his first post - I don't know if he/she even knows the rules or if that's even an acceptable excuse??

[Sullla]

Update for today: we're supposed to get our connection fixed at home by Verizon sometime this afternoon. I really hope so, as Speaker and I have barely been in contact for the past few days.

The idea of demanding Thebes for peace, and faking at it while really going for Sparta and Athens is a very attractive one. Just to show how this would work, take a look at the following picture:



We would put a stack of one-movers (axes, spears, cats, etc.) on the yellow tile, and start slowly bombing down the walls in Thebes. Jowy would have to respect that, and will rush his defenders into the city. But we don't care about Thebes - if we did take the city, we'd just raze it - so we'd have Speaker's 10 horse archers and 2 general axes hidden on the white tile, where they can't be seen by Jowy.

When we wanted to attack, we'd move along the red line (building a road in the process) onto the sheep tile. If we do this with like 1 minute left on the timer, there's no possibility of whipping in Sparta or moving defenders over from Thebes before the next turn starts, and by then it's already too late. (Jowy doesn't have Construction right now, so even 2-movers couldn't reach Sparta from Thebes.) We push through Sparta and finish on the forest tile NE of the city, from which point we can reach Athens on the following turn! And the decoy stack on the yellow tile could simply move into Sparta to garrison it as the mounted units race ahead to raze Athens.

Of course we don't have 10 horse archers right now (I think we have three), but the tactical plan is sound. Just to make sure that they reject the peace offer, why don't we demand Thebes *AND* Argos? Love to see Jowy's face when he reads that one!

Well, hopefully I'll be online tonight to discuss this in detail, Speaker.

[Adlain]

Wouldn't moving said units approx. 1 min before the end of the turn be slightly gamey. I could see you guys getting very upset if somone pulled it off on you.

[Sullla]

It's a total cheese move, no question. But their teams are running the clock down every turn in equal cheese fashion. Turnabout is fair play.

Hmm, we're getting urgent messages from Broker and plako. I think we need to respond to them ASAP. Here's their pair of messages sent since last night:

Dear Speaker and Sullla,

I'm getting requests from left and right. Main request is to close borders from you. I can't delay desicion making much longer and your input would be very welcome.

Without your input I'll probably try to stay neutral for now and start to prepare for war that almost certainly will start on turn 150 when our NAP with Whosit ends.

I'm open for suggestions that would enable us to avoid extinction and still be useful ally to you.

Best regards,
plako

And then just 2 hours ago:

Greetings Speaker and Sulla

I was talking to Plako and we felt I should send a note clarifying our position. English isn't his native language and sometimes messages can be misinterpreted.

Currently we have been approached by Whosit and Nakor I believe to join in their alliance against you. Mainly by closing borders with you and hampering your research ability. Also they have asked that we provide token troop support. We believe that this is just an act of desperation on their part and that our long term interest and survivability lie with nations other than those aligned with Whosit.

We did however request the cities Whosit took as a starting point of the negotiation Compelte with his expected response of Hell No.

We have 3 options facing us and would like to hear your input as to the viability of each.

1) Join the alliance against you and hope that they don't turn on us in the future which they most probably will. This would be simply to ensure short term survival in hopes of gaining an ally later in the game.
2) Play both sides against the middle. Basically act like we are helping them (possibly close borders with you) but with no intention of actually joining them and possibly gaining some benefits from them while not hampering your civ too greatly. Then in the future joining forces with you at a later date publicly.
3) Telling them to "get bent" and just assist you as well as we can now. This could of course accelerate their aggression towards us and lead to our untimely demise.

Now I generally don't lay my cards on the table like this but this is a unique situation. We have been hamstrung and need to recover. We also understand our ability to win this game ended when the Praets entered our borders. We would however like to ensure that those who were aggressors to us also fail to win the game. We feel our best long term prospects for an enjoyable game lie with a close relationship with your civilization. However we have some geographic challenges to contend with and would need support and assistance to survive long enough to help you.

Please respond as we are getting pressure from the people allied against you to join them.

Broker

I'd like to consult with Speaker, but these guys really need an answer ASAP. I think we're in general agreement that we want to help these two out, so I'm going to go ahead and respond.

Dear Broker and plako,

Let me first apologize for not responding right away to your message from Sunday. We have been having some terrible connection issues on our end; I've been lacking Internet access in my home since Saturday, and Speaker has been traveling on the road for most of the past 48 hours. We've been able to play the turns, but just barely; you probably saw Speaker's post yesterday about requesting a Pause. It's been a crazy few days. That's no excuse for not getting back to you sooner, but you have our apologies for the delay.

Thank you for being so open with our team about your position, and the various options in front of you. We were lied to - repeatedly - by both Jowy and Nakor, so the candid relationship we've had with your team is greatly appreciated. Having some common enemies helps grease the wheels of friendship too!

Now, as for the three options you laid out in your last message:

#1 sounds like a poor option to me too. You would be the fifth wheel in this alliance, and I expect your life expectancy after Turn 150 could be measured in days. If our team and Dantski were both gone, your team would be the obvious next target. Not a good deal!

#2 is an intriguing option, essentially playing a "spy" role within the enemy alliance. The problem here is that double-agents also tend to have a very short life expectancy, and I think it would be tough to keep your position a secret over the long haul. Still, this isn't a "bad" option, I just think it's not as good of an option as...

#3 coming into the open on our side. That might sound suicidal, but hear me out first. The key factor is that you've got that long-running NAP with Whosit. He can't touch you until Turn 150, right? If you don't have to worry about Whosit, then... well, where's the danger, exactly? Jowy will be tied up with us for the indefinite future. Nakor is almost certainly going to be attacked by Dantski soon, and with his weak army, he'll be fighting for his life. The only real source of danger I can see would be from Kathlete attacking by sea across the world wrap. I'm not sure how much of a threat that is; your team would probably know better than ours.

I think maybe the best option is to play a neutral "Switzerland" role for the next 10 or so turns, stating by email that your team is not joining any alliances and wants to remain out of this fracas. Meanwhile, you could build up some forces and prepare to attack Nakor; if he's off fighting Dantski in the north, you'd have excellent odds to capture a city or two - especially if you could invade from the sea. (Nakor's capital was defended by 1 warrior last we saw! A very tempting target.) And remember, Whosit can't touch you until Turn 150, which is ages and ages away!

But I don't want to put words in your mouth; I'm mostly thinking out loud here. I don't want to sound too self-serving here either. My gut feeling is that your best chance to regain some strength is to take some cities from Nakor while working with Dantski. Then you'll have good odds of being able to defeat Whosit when your NAP runs out. Those Praetorians won't be nearly so scary on T150 as they were on T75! Obviously that's a bit of a gamble, but I think it would be better than joining the other alliance as a fifth wheel and waiting for them to betray you. My two cents.

Good luck and best wishes,
Sullla
The Killer Angels

I hope I presented our position well there... Basically, we want them on our side, and soon enough to matter. That whole "spy/mole" thing was an intriguing idea, but if they weren't going to come out into the open until Turn 175, well, that would have been too late to make any real difference.

[Sullla]

I'm surprised you guys aren't leaning on Nakor diplomatically, he's gotta be the one in the most tenuous diplomatic position right now. His attacking army was annihilated, and now he has Dantski friendly with you one one border, and Whosit on the other who can only be waiting for the right moment to snap up some more land.

Also, just to answer this question: why would we want Nakor as an ally? He lied to us, attacked us, and has very weak military power. The minute we signed peace with Dantski he was doomed. Nakor's territory is forfeit to Dantski now, and good riddance. He had his chance to ally with us, and threw it back in our face.

And from a pure metagaming perspective, Dantski has terrible economic traits and cannot possibly win the game even if he takes out Nakor completely. That's why he makes a great ally for us.