This coupled with his Archer NOT declaring (fortifying beside the border) and his goblin continuing to have our scout pinned left me thoroughly puzzled. This all makes no sense to me.
Am I so arrogant that I automatically assumed Ellimist's intentions would be aggresive in nature because I view myself as his biggest threat? I guess so. Either Ellimist thinks along totally different lines than I do and i'm a right prat or he's the biggest bullshitter i've met yet on RB. The first option is far more likely. I've read other players get accused of this in lurker threads before but I'm so blinkered to what other players are doing because I assume I know best and therefore think they are all doing what I would be doing. Fucks sake.
Well, first thing I think we should do is never let anything get personal, whatever happens. It's just a game, after all. This can actually make us see the situation in a better light.
Maybe you are right about getting arrogant. But I wouldn't trust Ellimist. Not because of Ellimist the person, rather Ellimist the player. He blatantly lied to me in FfH PBEM IX with the same type of excuse. "I can't get anything by attacking you, I don't do NAPs, though". Let me be clear, he lied. He didn't not talk about something or used excuses.
And he saw me as his biggest threat in that game, since I was playing the vampires. In the end, I lost the game due to a very, very, very lucky combat roll by him (a 2 strenght wolf reduced my bloodpet with combat 2 shock, fortified on a hill city to an exact chance of being beaten by his beastman at 30% odds, rather enabling the other bloodpets to defend), after he rushed me.
And if he's not going after you, why fortify the archer? Why fortify the goblin? Why gun for your borders? Wouldn't it make sense to keep exploring? It seems he wants to wait for reinforcements to arrive and invade + pillage with 3/4 archers.
I wouldn't change the gameplan in any way. Keep going for the "ways to beat archers" techs. If he doesn't find you a treat now, he will when you get in aristocracy due in few turns.
Well, I'll sound very Machiavellian here, so everyone keep in mind its just a game. If you want, try to sound that you now realize you were arrogant and that you started this game on bad terms. That you overreacted about the clan spell but now you see its fair game. That you were frustrated with the BTS PBEM where all players send their warriors against you. Whatever it takes to fake being nice.
I doubt it'll make him change his plans, but you aren't going to change yours either, so, whatever. Just need to avoid any type of after game drama despite of what happens. We are all nice people after all (I got pretty mad after being rushed in PBEM IX, but it wouldn't stand because Ellimist is a nice guy).
I agree. As I said in chat, once we get Aristocracy, we can power to Horsemen then forget about him mostly. I'm not taking it as a personal insult, I just felt stupid for being unable to think outside the box.
I expect you'll be very irritated with me, but I must inform you that nearly everything I've told you is a lie. I've been planning to choke or kill you from the beginning of the game onward, as this is the only way that Charadon has any chance of winning.
I disagree with your belief that a three person game must come down to 2 vs 1. The Doviello civ doesn't have much to look forward to after the early game, and this leaves them little reason to cooperate with anybody early on. My troops are outside Santa Monica this turn and I declared war. I believe that the odds will be in my favor when they arrive at your city.
Unfortunately, I couldn't think of a way to do this that did not involve a lot of dishonesty, and I regret that you were the recipient of this deceit. You've been quite friendly to me and I've pretended to be friendly while plotting your demise. I hope you won't take it personally, but I'll understand if you do.
I consider you to be an excellent player. If you made any mistakes this game, it was to trust an untrustworthy player. I expect that, in a contest where I did not attack you, you would have been the eventual winner.
Ellimist
Ellimist is a clever guy, he knows what he's doing. So, I wouldn't doubt he's playing our perceived weakness.
Here's how I reacted that game, which I think is the proper way to go about it.
Ichabod to Ellimist:
Quote:Hey Ellimist,
Don't worry. It's just a game.
I think deceiving your opponent is as much part of the game as, say, worker micro. It's one of the players weapons against their opponents and is not a easy one to use. So, kudos to you. I thought about this possibility, but when I saw Mist very low power rating, I thought you really were attacking him.
But I have to inform you that I've been deceiving you too. In fact, I already reached Feudalism and my first vampire will be completed next turn... Yeah, not going to happen... :P
I hope you still have fuel to take out Mist after me, because I think you deserve to be the winner of the game. Not that I already gave up, though. I'll see what I can do after I take a look at the save.
Once we get HBR, we should probably focus on flanking first (if we are still chocked by archers), and using those to help our more promoted soldiers to do the archer killing.
Once we get a bit of breathing room (could even happen before HBR), lets build a few horsemen to focus on Barbs + the Combat line (Combat V and then drills) ....
while the rest go movement (mob 1 + 2) to strike past Ellimist's scouts directly into his core, hopefully doing some successful raiding.
Also, why does he keep brining up cooperation? To me, it would seem like a NAP at this point says "Hey, lets kill the other people first" and not having a NAP means "hey, lets kill each other first" ... not much more than that as far as I can tell
Obviously the former does allow for some degree of cooperation, but I don't think that would be the primary intent of a NAP at this point, from either side.
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Well, I can see a strategy of "Not using NAPs at all" is perfectly valid, and doesn't mean war is a guarantee, but under the circumstances his version of "Cooperation" seems to be (a guaranteed 2nd place), as opposed to a promise for a final battle between the two powers of this game.
Tasunke Wrote:Also, why does he keep brining up cooperation? To me, it would seem like a NAP at this point says "Hey, lets kill the other people first" and not having a NAP means "hey, lets kill each other first" ... not much more than that as far as I can tell
Obviously the former does allow for some degree of cooperation, but I don't think that would be the primary intent of a NAP at this point, from either side.
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Well, I can see a strategy of "Not using NAPs at all" is perfectly valid, and doesn't mean war is a guarantee, but under the circumstances his version of "Cooperation" seems to be (a guaranteed 2nd place), as opposed to a promise for a final battle between the two powers of this game.
This was exactly what I thought too. I'm trying to step back and see from the perspective of someone whose primary goal is 'doing something fun' rather than doing whatever increases his chance of winning the most.
Even if Ellimist is a lying little sod, this has been a good lesson that I shouldn't assume everyone's priorities are the same as mine.
Tasunke Wrote:Once we get HBR, we should probably focus on flanking first (if we are still chocked by archers), and using those to help our more promoted soldiers to do the archer killing.
Once we get a bit of breathing room (could even happen before HBR), lets build a few horsemen to focus on Barbs + the Combat line (Combat V and then drills) ....
while the rest go movement (mob 1 + 2) to strike past Ellimist's scouts directly into his core, hopefully doing some successful raiding.
Sounds good to me. Can't wait for Code of Laws, let's see how he reacts then
Kyan Wrote:I'm trying to step back and see from the perspective of someone whose primary goal is 'doing something fun' rather than doing whatever increases his chance of winning the most.
Well, take me for instance. I'd say that, while winning is important, I highly respect and value the "Narrative" of a game, and certainly the enjoyment of said game or any game
And even I don't see much enjoyment in the #2 power to vassalize to the #1 power ... and as far as mutual cooperation, how could ye have any mutual enemies at this point in the game?
I think the only possible [Cooperation] play (from my perspective) would be a Soviet/Nazi 'agree to disagree' and not kill each other.
Or basically split-kill Poland (rest of the map) and kill each other later.
Since it doesn't look like we will be cooperating with them however, I think I would agree with Ichabod to "Send platitudes for now, and change nothing in your strategy"
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