RBP2 Lurker Discussion Thread - No Players!

[Shoot the Moon]

2. Nobody is more guilty of this than Sullla anyway. Look at the way he viewed Byzantium earlier on, and the effort to try and get them supplied with a metal resource. Do you think he would have behaved as such if it were an unknown player being attacked for an overly zealous early settlement?

Wait, what? I don't follow your logic at all. If they had been guilty of looking at their reputation, Spulla wouldn't have tried to get them metal, not the other way around.

[Selrahc]

So.. what is the smart money on in this war? Will Spulla survive?

At the moment I'm convinced they can hold out against the 4vs1. If they break the attacking forces soon enough they will probably survive overall, but it would be hard to last with the Praetorian army there in addition to the other forces. Nakor, Kathlete and Whosit probably aren't going to be throwing many more reinforcements into the fight after the first wave though which helps a little.

[WilliamLP]

Wait, what? I don't follow your logic at all. If they had been guilty of looking at their reputation, Spulla wouldn't have tried to get them metal, not the other way around.

Yes you're right and I'm not sure what my logic was there anymore either I think all I can defend is that, reading their thread, India was very clearly influenced in many situations by prior reputation of the players. Perhaps it's different to seek out a dependable ally you know is a strong player, versus being more willing to dogpile them? But I think it's equally clear that the real reason for the CoW is anything but reputation, but a purely rational move to knock down a clear leader. (And they would be all but unstoppable if allowed to have a runaway lead even to Feudalism and Construction.)

At this point, I'm rooting for Kathlete even though I suspect they don't have the raw game skills to actually win. They made two really brilliant strategic decisions: having the guts to go all in at exactly the right time after Byzantium's early city placement, and being the orchestrators of the CoW. They have no real diplomatic tension or enemies either, other than one team who is dead and another who may be on the way there.

Edit:

Also, Sullla would be a lot more convincing in his preachy tone about honesty to the other players if many of India's diplomatic dealings didn't look like this (from their first contact mail):

Quote:
Greetings to our neighbors on Team Greece!

We would like to acknowledge receipt of your email, and welcome the friendly intentions expressed in your message. Our team also feels that we will both benefit from peaceful interactions - an early military buildup on both sides will only leave both of our civilizations behind the rest of the world!

While it's true that there is no technology trading in this game, there are many other ways that teams can work together to their mutual advantage. For starters, would you be interested in an informal information exchange? We could both agree to let one another know if we meet other teams with our scouting units, giving us both a better sense of what this world looks like. Over time, we would build up a shared system of mutual trust that could lead to closer economic and possibly military cooperation. But it seems best to start with something basic, like an exchange of some scouting info. Would that sound acceptable to your team?

We eagerly await your response, and look forward to a long period of cooperation. Just make sure not to kill our messenger like in that picture!

Speaker and Sullla
The Killer Angels

So the main idea of asking for an information exchange is twofold:

1) Accumulate trust. We'll be militarily weak in the early game and don't want to be attacked.
2) Information itself. Frankly, I think we can do a lot more with an exchange than they can!

This might sound horribly cynical, but I also think it's entirely possible that Jowy/Yaz won't be a strong team, and we could do some horrible backstab in the medieval/Renaissance period that no one seems coming and catapults us into a winning position. Obvious, a lot depends on how the world shapes up... It's a thought bouncing around in the back of my mind, though. No one would expect it.

There was absolutely never even a hint that he took lines like "We eagerly await your response, and look forward to a long period of cooperation." seriously in any way.

[darrelljs]

Imagine how different this game would be with tech brokering. A runaway tech leader could be tolerated, AND could offer legitimate incentives to potential allies. I very much doubt the CoW would have formed, at the very least the composition would have been different.

Darrell

[Maniac Marshall]

Imagine how different this game would be with tech brokering. A runaway tech leader could be tolerated, AND could offer legitimate incentives to potential allies. I very much doubt the CoW would have formed, at the very least the composition would have been different.

Darrell

[timmy827]

Imagine how different this game would be with tech brokering. A runaway tech leader could be tolerated, AND could offer legitimate incentives to potential allies. I very much doubt the CoW would have formed, at the very least the composition would have been different.

Darrell

I imagine that something like CoW would form, but it would be restricted to a trading ban with the leader + joint teching plans to catch up. Others have noted this, with NTT it's hard to slow down or catch up to leader w/o overt military action.

[Axiis]

I can't blame Sullla for reacting the way he did. A 4-1 is pretty unreasonable, especially when one of the members was outright lying about their intentions. I know India sent out a lot of messages with footnotes saying "we'll do no such thing", but it was nothing close to the magnitude of leading a soon-to-be enemy on with messages about an alliance.

India's diplomacy was pretty terrible, but hating on someone for getting pissed off at unreasonable circumstances is pretty dumb. Hell, I think his pure, focused anger will make his computer explode when Rome shows up. Still, a 4-1/5-1 is no fun at all, and it would really make me not want to play. Whether it's there fault or not, you have to recognize how frustrating that would be.

[novice]

I've said it before and I will say it again ... Spullla should not have been running binary science and they should have been sandbagging their GNP (running at a positive cash flow). The first wouldn't have drawn so much attention to the tech rate when they were at 100% and the second would have hidden some of their strength until currency. After currency, they cannot hide it, but they will have tons of cash that they could burn through at 100% tech ... heading to Guilds.

Well that would have been very impressive metagaming. But it would have sacrificed a lot, they would have gotten to Monarchy later. So it would be tempting to delay the sandbagging until after monarchy, but that would have been too late in this case.

Besides, even at 100% tax their GNP was clearly in the lead in the demographics.

[novice]

It would be interesting to see how this game developed with anonymous players. Although it shouldn't take players too long to figure out who's who based on leaked secrets, style of diplomacy and apparent skill.

An anonymous India, emulating PAL diplomacy, while sandbagging their GNP, THAT would have been scary.

Of course the civil war theme would have given it away.

[Erick the Red]

I appreciate Sulla's willingness to honestly express his reactions, even if they don't cast him in the most favorable light. It's part of what makes his reports so interesting in general, and the current drama is entertaining.

I was amused at their claim that they were not playing an aggressive game. They as much as said that they were about to get to a winning position, and it's not like offering some NAP's while they complete that build up is really that passive.

I'd be less sympathetic with his frustration if the dogpile wasn't mostly composed of people who are playing together as a team in another game. That is somewhat of a gray area in my opinion.