RBP2 Lurker Discussion Thread - No Players!

[erikg88]

For someone who doesn't give a damn about micro, this has still been absolutely fascinating game thanks to the diplomacy and the psychology it's revealed. I mean, just with the lurkers you have the adulation/hatred of Sullla, the squabbling over lurker etiquette,. Then you have Sulla's rather brittle temperament, his astoundingly disingenuous diplo (doesn't he know !'s are a mark of insincerity?), and persecution complex. And how about Speaker? Seems to be the perfect teammate -- a beta personality with some obvious tactical skill, demonstrating some real sangfroid even from the bottom of a dogpile.

As others have said, Sulla's single-player mentality is what got him in this position. Strangely enough for a history-minded fellow, he seems to underestimate the kinds of things which motivate people in a situation like this. He cries foul at the metagaming, talks about "honorable" play, which of course he would, considering the hitherto above-board play saw his team in the catbird seat.

Dramatically speaking, this will be a really exciting game if Speaker can rally the troops and keep India in the game... then we'll have a serious revenge plot to track.

I'm rooting for kathlete, who deserves a ton of credit for playing a tight game and also keeping in mind the very thing Sulla wants no part of: realpolitik. Major points for orchestrating the coalition.

Hopefully Sulla will take his lumps and get past his betrayal -- it'd be a shame if he doesn't participate in further games of this nature. And should Sulla come across this post after it's said and done: think about us lurkers. You might have hated the game at some points, but we've been loving every minute.

[Rowain]

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.

You forget that the CoW started to form in Mid-dezember (for example http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthrea...62&page=44 )at a time as Pitboss3 was not even on the horizon.

So it is a bit the other way round. First the CoW then the teaming up for PB3.

[meatbalz]

i wasn't offended by sulla's rant at all. why not tell people exactly how you feel? all of us swear from time to time, right?

i would pay good money for a webcam link to his face when the roman galleys come out of the fog

the CoW is in it for all the right reasons (even DMOC/Nakor, although i found their diplo distasteful), now let's see if they can execute. it's amazing how 1 turn can make such a massive difference.

[BobRoberts]

I can understand a bit of the frustration. A RBP3 teamup does tie the team members closer together in this game. Reduces the chance one of them might drop out of the CoW, for example?

Although we can clearly see their RB3 teamup came about because of good relations in this game.



On another note, notice there seems to be a fair bit of 'lurk kicking' teams when they're down. It's happening in Spullas thread and it happened in the Byz one earlier.

I think it should stop. It's neither pleasant nor constructive. IMO people are playing a hectic game and being nice enough to write it up... and we benefit from all their hard work. Shouldn't have crow pie rammed down their throat while things are going badly.

Figure this thread is the place to be mean about teams? They can read it all in the cold light of hidsight later....

[Rowain]

On another note, notice there seems to be a fair bit of 'lurk kicking' teams when they're down. It's happening in Spullas thread and it happened in the Byz one earlier.

Strange I have not noted any 'lurk kicking' in their threads. What did happen in Sulla/Speakers thread is that some tried to show him that beeing the best in several demographics by a wide margin does paint a big target on ones back. All the rest were praise for the skill they have shown in managing their empire and in handling the current military situation.

[M.Prince]

I think some of you put too much emphasis on "winning" the game, using that motivation to explain this and that. Especially here at RB I expect to find more thinking not of this end-gaining kind. Personally, if I were playing, this is what I'd be playing for - ensuring the survival and prosperity of my own civilization, keeping honest relations and playing a solid game. Becoming an important presence. If you posit an absolute win as the only worthwhile goal, that just guarantees dirty play. Alas, as much as I'd like to back this up with action, my actual Civ skills are highly lacking.

So I agree with Sullla regarding Nakor's course of action. Even if they are successful in preventing India from staying #1, where does that leave Nakor? Will his course of action result in a better world for the HRE? Probably if he teamed up with Sullla, he would have more of a chance to grow and flourish as a civ.

[Rowain]

So I agree with Sullla regarding Nakor's course of action. Even if they are successful in preventing India from staying #1, where does that leave Nakor? Will his course of action result in a better world for the HRE? Probably if he teamed up with Sullla, he would have more of a chance to grow and flourish as a civ.

I strongly disagree. Had the HRE not agreed to the CoW they would
a) have to worry about 8 Praets knocking at their gates which would simply mean the loss of 2 or more cities.
b) they won't get the nice chunk towards korea that they now get
c) would be fixed in 2nd (or worse depending on Inca & Ottmans) position as there would not be any chance to close the gap to the Indians.

Note: All what happens now are aftereffects of the aggressive 2nd Byzantine-city. As without it no Byz-Ottoman war. which means a) no Ottoman HA's and b) no trying to get Metall to Byz from Sulla/Speaker which did tick off Ottomans, drew attention to them and made Jowy extremly nervous.

[Ilios]

Wow this is becoming ridiculous. Now Speaker has asked Kylerean not to post in his thread anymore...

[meatbalz]

Wow this is becoming ridiculous. Now Speaker has asked Kylerean not to post in his thread anymore...

i can sympathise with their frustrations - they've poured hundreds of hours into the game, educating the community as they go along, and are now seeing the risk of that hard work going up in smoke because of an "unfair" dogpile.

others have already explained why the dogpile is anything but unfair + is actually very good strategy, timing (just before cats) + evaluation of the situation by the CoW. which makes speaker+sulla wrong to play the victims, when it's actually strong play from their opponents.

i'd just point out the immediate reaction in the darrell/sunrise/rego thread after A/K's attack was of sheer anger. that cooled over time as they reassessed the situation and realised A/K were "forced" into attacking by d/s/r's power play. i think something similar will happen to speaker+sulla in time.

[antisocialmunky]

Kylerian's post was somewhat over the line IMO. While it pretty much succinctly put down our thoughts. I don't think it needed to be posted right now, and it was rather blunt at that.

Anyway, lets just move on.

@Novice: Sacrifice their massive advantage so they have a slightly less massive advantage + no getting dogpiled is pretty worth it IMO.

In Starcraft there are two types of aggressive play: You can do military aggression with all in timing rushes in the early/mid game or you can do something economically aggressive and crazy like 12 Nexus/14Command Center/3 Hatch before pool which are the economic equivalent of all or nothing gambles that rely on your opponent not figuring it out until its too late. If military aggression works, you win or horribly cripple your opponent. If economic aggression wins, your economy kicks in and you massively out produce your opponent. If the military aggression fails then you lose the game or are horribly behind. If your economic aggression fails, then you lose the game because those builds require that you spend the early early game with no units where 6 zergling could pretty much win the game. The point is that both are equally aggressive types of openings, not just the military all-in.

That is basically what Spullla did and they got over confident when no one called them for it and don't recognize that they were playing greedily and aggressively.

Anyway, let them alone. They'll figure it out after the game.