RBP2 Lurker Discussion Thread - No Players!

[Shoot the Moon]

Woah, NAP break by Whosit. I suspect we see more IT thread drama here soon...

[antisocialmunky]

Holy Crows, this is really starting to heat up!

[Cyneheard]

Honestly, despite my comment ("pray that you do not alter it further", slightly altering a quote from Vader to Lando in Empire Strikes Back) in Whosits' thread, I don't think breaking the NAP was such a good idea. The tactical advantages are large, but Whosit's not going to be trusted by anybody the rest of the game. Foruntately for him, DMOC/Nakor as his nearest neighbor aren't playing the strongest game, and IKZ are a ways away with a slowish start, but Whosit WILL get dogpiled eventually, probably some time between Knights and Rifles.

[Shoot the Moon]

Honestly, despite my comment ("pray that you do not alter it further", slightly altering a quote from Vader to Lando in Empire Strikes Back) in Whosits' thread, I don't think breaking the NAP was such a good idea. The tactical advantages are large, but Whosit's not going to be trusted by anybody the rest of the game. Foruntately for him, DMOC/Nakor as his nearest neighbor aren't playing the strongest game, and IKZ are a ways away with a slowish start, but Whosit WILL get dogpiled eventually, probably some time between Knights and Rifles.

I agree it wasn't the strongest move, especially considering the NAP expires in only 7 turns, and he wasn't exactly preparing for an attack before that turn. He is aggressive Rome (with a neighbor without copper!--although he can't know that definitively), so the advantage gained by breaking an NAP without praets being online just doesn't seem that great. If he had waited 7 turns, he could still probably win a war with them, without the diplo hit.

[Pox]

Wow, didn't see that coming.

I agree that it's going to make diplomacy for him in the future a bit hairy - I certainly wouldn't be trusting him.

Is it worth it to get the (almost) guaranteed kill on Korea? I dunno... considering he doesn't know about the Iron and is worried Korea might hook up the copper quickly, maybe.

[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.

[ad hoc]

Not knowing the ins and outs of the pitboss game mechanics, apart from rome or korea telling the other players, is there anyway the other players can know this is a NAP break rather than just a DOW.

If there isn't and if i was whosit i'd be blaming everything on Korea.

[Pox]

Not knowing the ins and outs of the pitboss game mechanics, apart from rome or korea telling the other players, is there anyway the other players can know this is a NAP break rather than just a DOW.

If there isn't and if i was whosit i'd be blaming everything on Korea.

Well, the NAP isn't formalised in-game in any way - it's purely an agreement between the teams. The fact that Whosit is the aggressor (known to everyone due to the war declaration event message) will probably cause the other teams to believe Broker/plako.

[Maniac Marshall]

Not knowing the ins and outs of the pitboss game mechanics, apart from rome or korea telling the other players, is there anyway the other players can know this is a NAP break rather than just a DOW.

If there isn't and if i was whosit i'd be blaming everything on Korea.

You raise an interesting point. There is no way for them to know... Actually, I'm now wondering if Rome ever told anyone they had a NAP with Korea and mentioned the terms or end date. I honestly don't know if they did or not, and it's more research than I want to do at present... If he didn't ever mention it to anyone, then he COULD try to lie and say he didn't have a NAP, and say that Korea is just being spiteful, trying to poison everyone against him. Korea could, of course, forward the emails from Rome showing that they DID (unless this violates some rule or other, like the before paper one? Again, more research.) Rome could, of course, claim they were forgeries... Odds of him being believed are very small, but, yes, he could try... Failing at this sort of thing might make people trust him even less, though...

[RefSteel]

(Slowly trying to catch up....)

Some great analysis, Swiss! Thanks for the game overview! (I know, I know, old news, but still...) I observe that I was (using out-of-date and otherwise inaccurate information and thus totally) wrong about many, many things - for instance, HRE's second city is obviously not by "Mali's" copper, but by "their own." It's just that their copper is relatively far from their capital, and they took advantage of their NAP to aggressively settle the far side of the copper ... sort of like a wiser (especially due to their existing NAP but also because it allows them to actually, you know, use the copper before they're smashed) and more conservative version of what Byzantium did.

I'm really disappointed in Rome's NAP breaking move. First of all ... really? Was that strictly necessary? Second of all, after honorably holding to his NAP at the first game-permitted opportunity to break it, just after joining the game, with a guaranteed Worker steal before him (at a time in the game when a free worker would have catapulted him toward victory) and an essentially guaranteed opportunity to eliminate Korea from the game entirely, he now violates the NAP, with workers no longer at such a premium, having already warned Korea that the NAP would be ending, 8 turns from its natural expiration ... when his mobile army consists of a single spear?! Meanwhile, knowing horses are Korea's only strategic resource, when he has ironworking due in 3, he switches both his cities to Axes! It ... just ... it's unfathomable to me. My best guess is just that the uncertainty and slow turns have been getting to him, and he felt he had to do something, no matter how dishonorable and crazy. (Oh, and checking Civstats and their threads, yeah, he double-moved to start the war, though perhaps unintentionally, and within the letter of this game's utterly preposterous rules.)

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.

I suspect that's right. I don't really think Mali and Greece will be able to do much damage to India - they'll just tank their own economies, and end up losing the war even 2v1 ... but in so doing, they might slow down the juggernaut enough to give someone else a chance to win. That's if they team up against India though, and at the moment ... I just don't see it.