RBP2 Lurker Discussion Thread - No Players!

[Maniac Marshall]

It seems unlikely that anyone will EVER trust Whosit again. Nevertheless, what the future holds for Whosit diplomatically can't be guaranteed for certain, if only because his relations with everyone else do not take place in a vacuum, but rather, especially so in a game this size, form part of a large, interconnected web. (OR, as Yoda would say: Difficult to tell. Always in motion the future is ) It's possible, though by no means likely, that one or more teams may eventually decide that forming an alliance with him against someone else that they hate/fear more is worth the risk...

It seems far more likely that paranoia about him being untrustworthy will eventually lead to his downfall, however. Backstabeth unto him, before he backstabeth unto us will most likely become an allying point against him eventually.

For what paranoia can do, see already what Jowy and Dantski's mutual fear and distrust of Speaker/Sulla is doing to draw them down a path that might eventually lead to a full blown alliance against India. Keep in mind that this is mostly based on nothing more than fear of how good of a team they are, and on a largely imagined hostile intent.

On the other hand, the paranoia against Whoisit would be based on a KNOWN untrustworthiness...

Sadly for Whosit's sake, he probably could have waited the seven turns and STILL won the war, though it might indeed have been harder.

Even sadder, though, is that with all that land that should have been Mortius' laying open for him to settle, especially with IKZ starting so slowly AND planning on settling the other way first, his strongest move was probably to just sign a NAP with Korea and settle the open land.

It would have amounted to "throwing away" some or all of his window of opportunity to use his aggressive Praets, which was the obvious strategy with this civ/leader combo going in, and doing that wouldn't have been easy. Changing your game plan is rarely easy, but, sometimes, making the hard choices and making major adjustments to your plan is the right thing to do.

Having chosen to tread the dark path, the Emperor now better hope that he can eliminate Korea in a timely fashion. If he can, it MIGHT pan out for him, but, otherwise... Time will tell, but even if this gambit pays off in the short run, I'd be surprised if this move pays off for him in the long run with so many other teams still out there, all probably dispossessed not to trust him going forward.

On the other hand, it should make for some interesting reading for us lurkers...

One interesting thing to make note of if the Jowy/Dantski thing does materialize into a 2 on 1 vs India anytime soon is that it will leave DMOC/Nakor and IKZ as the only 2 surviving teams who wouldn't have their hands tied by a war. Also, the HRE stands to benefit from one of their neighbors being crippled/eliminated as well if that does indeed happen to Korea. It's still very early, and a LOT can happen, but, IMO, the HRE bears watching as a dark horse candidate to win this game if world politics continue down their current path.