RBP2 Lurker Discussion Thread - No Players!

[Morgan]

One of the problems of Sullla's diplomacy is carefully edited messages. They just don't sound honest.

Thats a good point, his letters do give the impression that they are from an all seeing deity, rather than a potenial friend and ally. I would guess that it's because he is college tutor / lecturer, it must be difficult to write in a friendly and open way when you spend all day corresponding in a Master / Student fashion. I suppose it's also difficult to pitch a message at a certain level when your ahead and at the top of the scoreboard. I have had the same issues after a hard days work, you spend all day writing in a business like tone addressing serious issues, then you have to build a consensus in a diplomatic message - it's a different ball game and without having another diplomat to check the message and provide some input it's very easy to have a unseen faux pax. Can get even worse if the person you are writing to is not a native english speaker.

[sooooo]

I think one thing that needs to be addressed is:

Why the hell are the other teams so far behind Spullla in the stats?

Spullla are being dogpiled because they are way out ahead in score, cities, GNP. Their power is respectable too. But all they've done is just built workers, settlers, cottages. Nothing groundbreaking. No crazy engineer into GLib strategy, no oracle slingshots or anything. Have the other civs just forgotten to build cottages? OK Spullla are Elizabeth of India (!!), but the other civs in this game have just been plain lazy IMO, neglecting to develop their capitals and found themselves in a big economic hole. One they've had to climb out of by dogpiling the only civ that's actually played the opening properly!

[Kyan]

I think one thing that needs to be addressed is:

Why the hell are the other teams so far behind Spullla in the stats?

Spullla are being dogpiled because they are way out ahead in score, cities, GNP. Their power is respectable too. But all they've done is just built workers, settlers, cottages. Nothing groundbreaking. No crazy engineer into GLib strategy, no oracle slingshots or anything. Have the other civs just forgotten to build cottages? OK Spullla are Elizabeth of India (!!), but the other civs in this game have just been plain lazy IMO, neglecting to develop their capitals and found themselves in a big economic hole. One they've had to climb out of by dogpiling the only civ that's actually played the opening properly!

I think this is one of the key reasons for sullla and speaker's frustration. You're quite right, i was thinking exactly this earlier when planning for my own game. How did everyone else manage to lag so far behind? Even now with all the pillaging going on, they STILL dominate the stats...

[Krill]

Dantski and Jowy: Mismanagement, incompetence, call it what you will, they didn't play the opening right at all.

NaMOC: They actually seem OK, they do have worse land than Spullla, containing a lot fewer rivers. Just a lack of workers and chopping.

Ploker: Agg Rome happened. 'Nuff said.

Whosit: Already won one war, but completely screwed up the buildup for the war. Never built cottages and neglected pottery for granaries (as SHAKA), so lacked population for slaving (as Speaker commented on slaving away cottages).

Mortius: No comment required.

Incans: Seem OK IMO, could do with more cottages but they have expanded fine, played the Incan way.

AK: one down...and cottaging as we speak. Yes, they didn't play the perfect openning, but since turn 50 they've been pulling in the slack and their stats are improving.

DRS: What they'd give for a single cottage

[Morgan]

I'd say spulla are ahead because of;

Fin trait, +1 commerce on 2 com tiles - big bonus if you have lots of rivers
Fast workers = huge, huge advantage hammer wise - chopping alone is +25%
They seem to be the only team with a spreadsheet and proper planning of worker turns. the micro displayed by spulla should be an example to us all.

[Jabah]

They started with 2 very fast workers, had a relatively extreme farmer gambit (also had 0 or very few barbarians around to mess around), had nice neighbours (that is until turn 70 ), build efficient and close cities, start cottaging asap, stay focus and didn't mess up ... (and I forget the fast Academy and financial trait)

KAthlete+Whosit had to win a war (more or less efficiently).

Inca should be fine except they might have a bit overextended (both in economical way and in pissing Rome way )

[antisocialmunky]

I don't really feel too bad for Spullla though I think Speaker has been following Sullla's line of thought too much. Sullla's doing most of the microplans, all the diplo, proposing most of everything.

Oh hindsight, its going to kick them in the balls when they realize how they have acted. -_-'

BTW-this wins their thread and perfectly summarizes their diplo up until now:

Originally Posted by Nakor
Dear Sullla,

How tempting did your offer sound. But then we read this:

Instead, you could sign peace with us and use your army of axes to tear through Nakor!!! His army is beyond pathetic, and half of it is ridiculously out of position up in our territory. Remember that we never made any kind of aggressive move against you earlier. Nakor stuck that silly city of Crydee right next Gao and has been trying to win the culture war there. Again, why not hit his pathetic military and double the size of your empire that way? We'd happily work together with you as your ally in that endeavor. <== Our email to Dantski

So for now, we must kindly decline your offer, though we understand what you are trying to do.
Fo the record, we think that your team is one of the best in the game and we are sure we are not up to your standard.
Therefore, if we want a chance, we need to join the attack against you.
As you yourself have so eloquently put it, our army is beyond pathetic, so we need friends around us.

Good luck in the upcoming battle!

Kind regards,
Nakor of HRE

Should have listened to me back on page 30...

FOR SPULLA: YOUR EARLY ACADEMY AND YOUR INSINCERE DIPLOMACY CAUSED IT, NOTHING ELSE.

[BobRoberts]

On the diplo front, I feel Sulllas reputation worked against him. He's written a lot of material about Civ and he's known for analysing every little detail - think people are looking for that in his diplo mails? And it is there...

From an all seeing eye perspective, the goading of other teams against each other has gone very badly as the teams have spoken to one another about it from quite early on, which won't help!

Personally, I feel Kathlete have played very well. Organised CoW with them commiting only leftover units. Knobbled the strongest player and are now tearing ahead with little risk of war against themselves. It's impressive.

[Shoot the Moon]

FOR SPULLA: YOUR EARLY ACADEMY AND YOUR INSINCERE DIPLOMACY CAUSED IT, NOTHING ELSE.

That's overstating it quite a bit. It was a combination of a lot of things, including the no tech trading nature of the game, generally cramped map (easy for Kathlete and Whosit to send troops), their clear lead in GNP, land, and production, Kathelete's masterful diplo work to get such a big alliance, the fact that Kathlete had units left over from the Byzantine war, and then yes, their early academy.

[antisocialmunky]

The immediate cause was everyone noticing that giant GNP spike and then Kathlete using that to organize the CoW. Jowy and Dantski ended up distrusting Sullla after they started to talk to each other which IIRC before or during the Byzantine War. They were going to attack anyway. Those two things were the biggest and the most direct causes of the war IMO.

Though I agree that it wasn't the only one. The border shenanigans between Dantski + Nakor/Dmoc that left him squeezed was a major thing and the whole Byzantine situation didn't help but I would lost both of those as contributing factors instead of immediate reasons.