RB Pitboss #2 [SPOILERS] - Speaker and Sullla

[Sullla]

Two emails in over the last 24 hours, both exchanged to our group of three teams. First one from Broker:

We are still trying to negotiate the NAP with Nakor. Our intent is to give them the impression it is long term but to have it end somewhere around 205 -210 or maybe shorten the cool down period at that point to a more manageble number. We also intend to add assurances that there is no interference with our conquest of Whosit and that no last second city gifting or razing occur which would invalidat all agreements. It has been demonstrated with Jowy that those type of actions seem to occur within that group.

On the rumor market it appears that Athelete is planing on betraying Slaze with his own army that he gifted Athlete. Not sure of any details but have heard similar information from several outside sources including Slaze. We are also unsure of what betrayal actually means but it is painting Athlete as very opportunistic.

If either of you have any suggestions on how to structure a Nap we would be interested in your input or if you have any plans you need us available for if you could give us a time frame. We obviously are looking for some time where we can consolidate our gains.

Broker

And then the second one in from plako:

Hi,

Athlete is probably attacking slaze next turn. It seems that this betrayal is too much for slaze and he is seriously thinking to quit the game . I somewhat understand this. Athelete's betrayal was really ugly e.g. Slaze even gave 15 units to Athlete that are now attacking him. slaze told that his border on athlete side is almost empty and he would had to do another grazy whipping round to survive that would leave him way behind others and still he would lose some half a dozen cities.

Should we do something to assist slaze? It might make sense to slow down Athlete's too fast progress and partially also convince slaze that he has a fair shot to pay back at athlete later in the game so he could find a reason to continue.


Best regards,
plako

That's... really dirty if true. I know we've had requests not to say things about other players in this game, but I feel compelled to call out Kathlete on this one. You don't accept a big gift of units from another team on various promises, then turn around and immediately attack said team with those units. Based on this game, I sure wouldn't trust anything athlete says or does in Civ4 multiplayer!

On slaze's part though - man, that is some dumb decisions. Why would he have gifted away a big part of his army?!? Why would he leave his border with Kathlete almost undefended?!? Why is he conquering more territory from Whosit, up to 16 cities, when he already had more cities than he could economically afford?!? Rather poorly played, I'd say.

Now we have to sort out this mess, oy. Kathlete attacking slaze is good, but not if slaze has been foolish enough to leave his borders undefended! First of all, let me send something just to Korea on their NAP situation:

Dear plako and Broker,

You asked for suggestions on structuring an NAP, and I think your current ideas sound pretty good. Get peace with Nakor for ~25 or so turns, and use that time to consolidate your new cities on the mainland. Just make sure to have Dantski on board too, and include something that prevents Whosit from gifting away cities in cheese fashion, as you already mentioned!

Sullla
The Killer Angels

Now something to the group:

Dear friends,

We had also heard that Kathlete was planning on attacking slaze at some point. We thought this was a good thing - we didn't except slaze to be so foolish as to leave his border cities undefended! We also don't understand why slaze is off conquering more territory from Whosit, when he didn't even have the economy to hold his own current cities...

If war does break out, as seems likely, it would probably be a good idea to send some assistance to slaze. I don't know what forms that would take though - any thoughts? We can make happy resources available for whipping, but I don't trust slaze enough to gift away units or gold.

Obviously it's in our interests to make sure slaze doesn't suicide his empire the way Jowy did.

Sullla
The Killer Angels

And I guess we might as well contact slaze too:

Dear slaze of IKZ,

We've heard through the rumor mill that you are likely to be attacked by Kathlete soon, in a ruthless backstab. We are sorry to hear that. It's not something we would do to our allies.

All of our surplus resources (happy, health, strategic, etc.) are at your disposal to help defend against this attack and combat whipping unhappiness. Kathlete still does not have any units better than maces, horse archers, and crossbows, so he will suffer very heavy losses attacking your Vassalage longbows. He is still a long way away from knights and janissaries. Hopefully you can make this invasion as costly as the previous one.

Good luck,
Sullla
The Killer Angels

I thought about mentioning that he could have avoided this situation just by staying friendly with us and not plotting with Kathlete, but that would have been in bad taste. Anyone else think slaze is reaping what he sowed, for cuddling up with someone who brutally invaded him once before?

[Speaker]

It's a good thing I'm not writing our diplo. I saw that email from plako and my initial thought was to respond to the group: "Let Slaze rot in hell."

I will be sorely disappointed if Slaze just rolls over, Jowy style, but I wouldn't be surprised. Why did he gift a huge portion of his army to Kathlete? I guess Kathlete promised to go attack us with it?

[Sullla]

I feel the same way about slaze (not personally, but in the context of this game). When you're trying to backstab, don't be surprised if the same happens to you!

I just want slaze to do what he did before and whip the crap out of his empire for double-promoted longbows. If that means acting friendly and sending over some resources, no problem. Talk is very cheap!

[Speaker]

I feel the same way about slaze (not personally, but in the context of this game). When you're trying to backstab, don't be surprised if the same happens to you!

I just want slaze to do what he did before and whip the crap out of his empire for double-promoted longbows. If that means acting friendly and sending over some resources, no problem. Talk is very cheap!

Perhaps we should talk with Holy Rome about offering Slaze a hand as well?

[Sullla]

Dantski and plako are talking about sending some units over to assist slaze if they can secure an NAP with Nakor, and we could probably send some token force to look good for relations. (While of course building up our real strength for a strike in force against Kathlete.) But naturally we get this message in the email thread:

I quit

Real mature, dude. Thanks a lot, Kathlete and slaze. Now we get to search for a FOURTH replacement player for the Incan team.

It's worth pointing out just how badly the various Incan players have bungled their position. Inca had the fortune to eliminate their neighbor (Mortius) by walking into an empty capital ten turns into the game. Their neighbor to the north, Ottomans/Kathlete, spent the first 120 turns of the game rushing in the opposite direction to attack Byzantium and India, providing no competition for land or military hostitility. Inca's neighbor to the south, Rome/Whosit, spent the first 100 turns of the game rushing in the opposite direction to attack Korea, even moving their capital south before settling.

Inca had the first 150 turns of the game all to themselves; no competition for land, no military pressure, a perfect builder's game scenario while every other team fought its way through at least one major war. They should have been far and away the dominant team in the game. Instead, the various leaders squandered that position and left themselves militarily vulnerable, forcing slaze to do his emergency whipping to save himself and destroy his economy in the process.

OK, bad enough. Then slaze, having survived that nasty attack, doesn't pause to consolidate and recover his economy (you know, like we suggested he should be doing?) but instead gifts half his army to Kathlete - the team that just attacked him!!! - and sends the other half off to fight Whosit, capturing more cities that he can't afford to keep economically. He spurns our offers, tries to play off two opposing sides at once diplomatically, and then has it blow up in his face. Finally, slaze threatens to quit the game when things look bad.

Wow. No offense intended, but that is some terrible play from start to finish. And again, why do people sign up for these games if they don't intend to finish them out? We had some absolutely horrible situations earlier, when I honestly hated this game and didn't even want to touch it - but we still played things out.

Finally, slaze's situation isn't *THAT* bad, at least militarily. Kathlete is going to be attacking with maces and horse archers and catapults against longbows. While he'll definitely be able to take cities, keep in mind that slaze has 16 whole cities (as many as we do!), so he can afford to lose some. slaze can whip and train up enough longbows to ensure his survival and keep most of his core intact. Recall that slaze did this whole dramatic performance thing earlier, where he said that he was on the verge of total destruction. Well, that attack didn't even manage to capture a single city and got totally butchered in the fighting. Exaggerate much?

I am not amused by all this, sigh. We finally had the game moving along nicely!

[Dr. Nomadic]

This is PAL-like sportsmanship here. Even slaze just suiciding his empire would be better IMO.

[Morgan]

Whilst i'd never advocate quitting, slaze has come in late to the game as a sub, under attack, then has been magnificantly backstabed.

Maybe a little credit is due (but only a small piece)

[Speaker]

Whilst i'd never advocate quitting, slaze has come in late to the game as a sub, under attack, then has been magnificantly backstabed.

Maybe a little credit is due (but only a small piece)

He was most definitely not under attack when he joined the game. We were facing the 5v1 dogpile at the time, and he refused to help us at all. Then much later, he was attacked. Then he backstabbed us. Then he gifted away half his army to the person who had just attacked him. Then he quit. GG.

[Sullla]

Yep, I have our first email to slaze going out on February 13. That was... Turn 109. So we have gone through 70 full turns since then, and slaze wasn't attacked the first time until Turn 150, so he had 40 turns before the initial aggression from Kathlete/Whosit. He was given tons of time to do whatever he wanted before he had to face any kind of military threat from other teams. This is how slaze chose to play the situation:

February 19

Look, this is how I see it: my neighbors are AK and Whosit. AK border is pretty well filled out and decided. In fact we have and inheirited NAP, not to be cancelled within 25 turns of declaring. Whosit border is wide open (dead mortius) and so this still puts me in expansion phase. RIGHT NOW, EXPANSION IS KEY SO I WANT TO DO AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE TO AROUSE MY NEIGHBORS. i've been told not to open borders with you directly by AK. But of course, deep down i want to stab them both. We are interested in cooperating with you (if you can last - and expect you will) but for the short term we can do nothing of the sort. Give us time and we may be willing to shift alliances more publicly (OB, etc).

He built no army, raced out to 13 cities, and then got called on it by other teams. Are we supposed to feel sorry for someone who wouldn't even sign Open Borders with us earlier? And then tried to backstab us and lied to our face?

As far Kathlete backstabbing him, yeah, it's brutal. But entirely deserved for playing both sides of the fence. Double agents have a short life and are hated by all. Go ask Imperio.

Also, if you gift away half your army to the person who just attacked you, you deserve to die.

[m4gill4]

Also, if you gift away half your army to the person who just attacked you, you deserve to die.

QFT

even more of a move when juxtaposed against his earlier skillful defense!