[SPOILERS] Athlete and Lewwyn are SHAKA OF THE VIKINGS

[Lewwyn]

Last turn I told Nakor the bad news.

Hey Nakor,

Recent world events have made it favorable to end our NAP. The NAP has been in effect for 11-12 turns so far and with the 5 turn notice carry it past the 15 turn minimum. Currently, the turn you just sent is 176, so let us consider our NAP over in 5 turns. Thus ending at the end of turn 180. If any hostilities were desired, they could begin on turn 181.

Sincerely,
Lewwyn

He replied:

Hey Lewwyn,

That suits nicely with the end of my NAP with Seven. Both will end T180 now.
I hope you have a plan for after my demise....

Cheers,
Nakor

Obviously he wants to create a divide between Seven and I. He does bring up a good point though. I've been working with Seven mostly under the assumption that we'd just end the game after Nakor was dead. Neither of us really want to attack each other, and we have a NAP until turn 250. That's ages away.

I think in this war I'm going to make as much of an attempt to help Seven as I can but, he's going to be doing the lion's work. Gunpowder came in at end of turn, but Nakor is researching rifling as we speak. I'm betting he gets rifling before we attack. Thus, I will be mostly useless with my zerks, cats and pikes. I should be able to defend alright, but I'm not very confident about taking cities.

So, maybe I can simply declare, make a small move and continue with teching. If Nakor slows Seven down enough (would have to be a lot) maybe I catch up? Maybe I get ahead? I'm not real confident of that. Seven has been ahead and pretty much in control of this game from before I took over for Athlete. The snowball is already started.

I was thinking we could call the game as a shared victory as an alliance but my competitive spirit kind of itches at that. Seven and I discussed it and when he put forth that idea as an agreement I said I'm okay with it and I'll be happy to accept it in the end, but it feels, a bit like a cop out. Too much of a grey area. As a result we never signed any agreement explicitly stating a shared victory, my hedging, and went with a 250 turn NAP.

I was reading PBEM 10 lurker thread, and this very discussion was taking place. I have to agree that shared victory is something of non-starter. Usually you find allies to help you win. No one starts on a team. Eventually someone has to win. Now if Seven and I are the only two left after Nakor dies, and we have that NAP. DO we simply play out the game? Race to a spaceship for the sake of picking a victor, or do we simply call the game, victor undecided but Seven and I the last civs standing.

In the end we can basically say whatever we want since we're the ones playing. Lurkers can decide for themselves as well that Seven is leagues ahead of me and if this were extrapolated past Nakor's death I'd fall distinctly behind.

Lurkers? Opinions on game theory competition and which would be the more "moral" path? I am a bit interested. If you were me would you agree to shared victory or play it out and force Seven to beat you? Or even just call the game and accept 2nd place?

[Gaspar]

I think there's no such thing as shared victory. I do think, however, there's such a thing as honor. It depends on the game really. Seven's been a huge help to the Vikings, the Vikings have been a nice bonus for Seven. If you call the game, you can call it whatever you like, but Seven wins. I think if you fight together with someone all game, the honorable and right thing to do is to play it out and either agree bilaterally to fight it out at some indeterminate date or to just go ahead and see who launches first. Now, if having said that, you wanted to concede because you feel Seven's clearly going to win, that's okay too.

To some extent, this has all be just playing the game out for a long time anyway. Been fun to read, though.

[luddite]

I think there's no such thing as shared victory. I do think, however, there's such a thing as honor. It depends on the game really. Seven's been a huge help to the Vikings, the Vikings have been a nice bonus for Seven. If you call the game, you can call it whatever you like, but Seven wins. I think if you fight together with someone all game, the honorable and right thing to do is to play it out and either agree bilaterally to fight it out at some indeterminate date or to just go ahead and see who launches first. Now, if having said that, you wanted to concede because you feel Seven's clearly going to win, that's okay too.

To some extent, this has all be just playing the game out for a long time anyway. Been fun to read, though.

The Diplomacy (board game) community has struggled with this issue for many years now, and never really resolved it. What counts as a win? Some people think that a game can only have one winner, and second place is just the first loser. Others think that it's perfectly ok to have a coalition of winners, with everyone sharing equally. And there's the middle position that shared victory is OK, but the players in a strong position deserve more credit that the ones in a weaker position.

Since RB games don't have any sort of prize or ladder, it really doesn't matter. You can call yourself a winning team with Seven if you want, or fight it out with him until the bitter end. It only matters if you want to do some sort of tournament, with results averaged across many games, and that's not the case here. But I guess it would be a good idea for future games to make it clear in advance that it's either winner-take-all, or an alliance game. If two people form an alliance right at the start, it's hard for anyone else to stop them when they're playing individually.

[Lewwyn]

Well! Turns when fast. Just sent off turn 180. I expect war will break out soon.

I have not been building alot of units lol, still letting infrastructure builds go. I need to tech to grenadiers to fight Nakors rifles (he'll have them soon).

I have chemistry done in 2 turns. Pretty fast actually, only a 4 turns for that tech. As you can tell from that tech path i've decided to go out with bang. Basically I will attempt to take as many cities from Nakor as I can without losing any myself, while Seven takes everything else. Once Nakor's dead well. We'll probably call it a game. I have my GNP up to 750 at -250 gold though! Sevens still at 1k+ though and I just don't see myself breaking that. Seven will be bogged in war for a while but even then he'll be that much stronger with Nakor's land after that he'll be able to outtech me even more. It's nearly a foregone conclusion. Once we've had our fun with Nakor I'm calling it.

Thus the chem, Military science and possible steel tech path. Lets do as much damage as possible folks! I've made a pretty nice economic recovery if I do say so myself, but you can only catch up so fast.

It's hammer time

[Lewwyn]

Here's Nakor's Cities. My army is north of Antioch. I want to have Jord's culture expand and then I can move onto that forest NW of Antioch.



I don't want to declare war right away, maybe give a few turns to lull Nakor into a sense of safety. Really I don't want to attack till I have grenadiers. If I move in and he has rifles drafted he'll annihilate my army. No 2 ways about it. Grenadiers, gold, upgrades mayhap. I won't feel bad about upgrading zerkers to grenadiers because I won't be getting rifles

[Lewwyn]

Man turns are flying in this game. 2-3 per day.

The quick version? Seven is pwning Nakor. He's taken 3 cities and this turn he killed most of Nakor's phracts as well.

I did have some glory a couple turns ago:



Who dat #1~! Yeah I reached top score thanks to Nakor and Seven whipping and my own substantial improvement in growth and tech (Chem done)

But since then its been all Seven:



Notice though in that picture I've FINALLY gotten that first ring of tiles back from Nakor. That will allow me to move directly next to Antioch with my stack once I do declare. I'm still waiting for grenadiers. 3 turns.

Oh and at the end of my last turn I popped gems from a mine! Where? On a plains hill on TRD's island! Imagine if he had popped those gems earlier he wouldn't have needed to declare war in the first place! Well, at least ostensibly so. I took a picture but the SS came out fuzzy.

Oh and guess what. I have another turn to go play right now.

[luddite]

Who dat #1~! Yeah I reached top score thanks to Nakor and Seven whipping and my own substantial improvement in growth and tech (Chem done)

But since then its been all Seven:

Gotta get the game to end at just the right turn to get the time victory!

[Lewwyn]

Next turn was similar. End of next turn MilSci will finish. So maybe 4 turns and I'll attack Nakor. 1 to finish, 1 for gold, 1 for upgrades and then attack. It's a pain but I need those grenadiers to have a chance vs the Rifles. Besides it not like waiting hurts Seven's war effort...

[Lewwyn]

Gotta get the game to end at just the right turn to get the time victory!

Game over guys, lets just call it here.

[The Reverend Doctor]

Oh and at the end of my last turn I popped gems from a mine! Where? On a plains hill on TRD's island! Imagine if he had popped those gems earlier he wouldn't have needed to declare war in the first place!

Where's the 'shaking my fist at the heavens' smiley when I need it!?