RBP4 [SPOILERS] - Shaka of Zulu (sunrise089, regoarrarr, and friends)

[regoarrarr]

It has come to my attention that I never posted the original "bullying" email from plako

Hi Rego,

Knossos and Mycenae are connected to his core through Corinth.

I see that you settled the fork already. Good for you. Please don't settle any further without a discussion.

I consider the Knossos and Mycenae and areas nearby beloging to my area of influence. This means also that I don't want to see any cities razed or improvements pillaged. I don't know if this leaves you much incentive to join, but please let me know your intentions.

Plako

In retrospect, it doesn't really sound THAT bullying but that's my spin so

[regoarrarr]

Okay sent off the note to plako

Hi plako (and ASM),

Sorry it's taken me awhile to get back to you. Well, I guess a day or so isn't THAT long of a time, but I do try to turn things faster than that where possible.

It's just that ... wow... I don't (and didn't) know how to respond. I felt that you and us had a pretty good relationship in this game. Sure we weren't that close due to distances, but I felt like we had had some good back and forth behind the scenes work. When there were talks about "stop the leader" or "boycott plako", I told you about them (twice).

And now we get this letter. Perhaps it is just due to the "coldness" of corresponding by email, or maybe I just mis-interpreted things. Or maybe you or I or both of us were just having a bad day. But the tone that we got over here was not the friendly tone I thought we had previously - it was more of the #1 power trying to use his big military to kick around his neighbor (us).

Hopefully it's all a big misunderstanding, but to answer your first question first, yes, we did settle the cows city as we talked about a few days ago. Per our earlier agreement, we will not settle past there without discussion.

I recognize that you have a claim on the area between our lands and WK's core. We also feel that way - in fact we already have been sending settlers and units down that way for some time based on earlier understandings.

I guess the question now is what do we do now? Before yesterday, I would have felt pretty confident that between the two of us, we could have hopped on chat or sent some quick emails, figured out a reasonable border between us and gone from there. But now I'm not so sure.

I do want to share that there has been a 3rd round of emails talking about "the plako problem", and I want to also admit to you that I'm actually taking part in them this time. Whereas when this subject came up before we kind of blew it off, now I am not sure anymore. Who's to say that you will not take your 30 unit stack towards us once it's done with WK? We have no active NAP, so it's something we have to consider, right?

The bigger question is whether you think that Mycenae and Knossos will put you into "Spullla" territory, or not? I will share that the general tone of the emails going around presently is concern that if you have twice the land of everyone else, you WILL become unstoppable at some point. The worry is that (once your economy recovers), you'll have twice the production and tech edge and eventually come storming across somebody's border with infantry to our rifles, etc. There has once again been talk of canceling or non-renewing of NAPs and/or closing borders with you.

Now this should not be construed as a threat. Especially not one from just Zululand. After all, you can see the graphs, so you know that we are currently not really equipped to take you on militarily. Nor do we really want to fight you. I'm sure you would also prefer to be whipping markets and courthouses rather than more HAs and catapults, right? We just don't want to be bullied - if we can't return to our previous good relationship, then the general feeling is we might as well make a stand now vs. waiting until you've snowballed even FURTHER ahead.

So how do we fix this? How do we go back to our previously solid relationship? I'd have to check with sunrise, but I bet we would be willing to discuss creative ways to compensate you for your trouble. I'm really not trying to just steal all your gains - really I'm not. I understand you've done the lion's share of the work, and should receive the lion's share of the gains. You've already got the capital and most of his cities / land, right? If you feel you need more land, I'd say our city SW of Bob's Fork is on the table for a trade. Or maybe we buy some units from you - that lets us bulk up our military and gives you cash to catch up on techs / recover your economy.

The other thing to mention is that WK approached us awhile back about a settler he sailed away on a galley. His plan was to sail it up into our backline and keep it there for awhile just to cause you war weariness. So once again, we're showing good faith and bringing it up to you. Needless to say, assuming that you and we can come to an agreement, we would be willing to decline his offer.

Anyway hopefully we can catch up on chat - I should be around later on today

We shall see....

[regoarrarr]

Sent an email to WK. He had asked us to keep the galley / settler plan quiet which is why I have not mentioned it. At some point I'll paste in those conversations.

Hey WK,

First of all, since the original plan to hide you in the frozen northern tundra is kind of off the table due to time constraints, I did want to let you know that I did mention it in our thread. I also found out that apparently someone did something similar in one of the Fall from Heaven games (I didn't follow it so I don't know the details). I still think that it would have been a hilarious thing to do so it's too bad but it still should be nice for awhile to fit you in between us and Adlain. There is potentially 1 inland spot that might work - I'll have to check with Adlain and/or Moogle. For now, set sail back east :-) towards where my warrior is hanging out near a lake / peak choke.

I am trying to negotiate with plako so that he doesn't end up with the entirety of both of your lands, but obviously I'm not in a great bargaining position given the relative strengths of our military...

I will keep you posted.

We could be in a bit of hot water if plako and WK compare notes any time soon but hopefully that won't happen. If it does well then we'll make the best of it. General sunrise thinks we can hold our front if plako gets frisky though it may get dicey

[sunrise089]

And sheesh gimme a break I've only had it for 2 hours!

Want me to take a stab at trying to fix this problem?

[Krill]

regoarrarr fixed it already. He just sent the save.

[Kyan]

Haha. I enjoyed both this

Well, I think I am and can be a great ally / someone to work with. I do try and do what is best for my civ, but isn't that true of everyone?

I don't think that you can say that plako has been bargaining in good faith here. If you check back to our early correspondence (which I know is challenging because I talk too much), I specifically said that although many people might be trying to hold his early lead against him that I was just as likely to want to work WITH him (and I still believe that)

In fact, when Locke tried to start the plako boycott, I was not the one trying to drum that up and was in fact relieved when it sizzled out. AND, if you remember, I did tell plako about it.

And how are we repaid? By him trying to bully his way into lands that are at least as close to our lands if not closer. THAT is when I started trying to work the phones against him.

I mean, I totally understand what you are saying, and I will not deny that there is a bit of truth to it. But I don't think you can just dismiss it / me as someone not to work with.

I will work with you when it makes sense to do so, and if you refuse to work with me when it might otherwise be to your benefit to do so (in PBEM17 or wherever), that will be to your detriment. I mean darrelljs and Krill are on another team so if you think that they are going to be any different, well, then let me know how that goes :neenernee

and this

Heh, good sales pitch. Your comments are fair enough, I was talking mostly in jest. PBEM17 will be a blank canvas I'm sure. Speaking of which, guess who the turn is with...

You ever think you're out of your league in every possible way? Yeah...

However, to the game at hand. I'm going to enjoy to see how both this diplo attempt and your 'getting back into the game' attempt goes. Best of luck.

[spacemanmf]

Incidentally, I would be in favour of some form of limited diplomacy. For example, I have been happy with the way the in-game only chat has worked on PBEM 13.

I'm guessing rego might not be in favour of this given his penchant for a penning diplo novels but I just thought I would throw it out there.

And, as before, my preference is for no out of game contact.

I don't like this setting at all. It would probably be a clincher for me if im honest. Diplo is important. However, if you do all want to go that route, then mackoti implied above that he was interested so it wouldn't stop the game getting off the ground. I won't be offended if that's the case

[regoarrarr]

Incidentally, I would be in favour of some form of limited diplomacy. For example, I have been happy with the way the in-game only chat has worked on PBEM 13.

I'm guessing rego might not be in favour of this given his penchant for a penning diplo novels but I just thought I would throw it out there.

I forget what I might have said when we started the game but I'd be interested at some point in a limited diplomacy type game

[Krill]

That's the most beautiful piece of bullshit I've every read.

EDIT: That was meant in reply to post 797, but it also works for above...

[Kyan]

It's a compliment if anything. I enjoy diplo and Rego is one of the best at it. A game with Rego with diplomacy on sounds great to me. I play football (soccer ) also and i would *much* rather play against a team out of my league and lose 3-0 than play some scrubs and win 10-0.