Volcanoes and Demons and Shiii (Saruman's Sheaim)

[Saruman the Foolish]

Wowee, not even a day has passed and its
TURN 21

Nothing new other than our first diplomatic communications which leaves me very very hopeful for a collaborative union with the Clan given Kragroth hasn't simply gotten confused. Here's his message:

Greetings mighty leader of the Shieam. The disciples of Agares wish you well and hope for a peaceful cooperation as the world heads to an inevitable burn in the future.

And WOW. Talk about friendly. Now I know that most first communications are pure fluff and always friendly, but the fact remains that Kragroth's military power is already streets ahead of our own (see chart above) and the gap will no doubt grow in the future. He could of easily pressured us into at least some map info.

MORE IMPORTANTLY (and more nerdly), "the disciples of Agares wish you well". I really hope that Kragroth got his lore down pat cause for those who don't know, his orcish civilization has the patron God/ fallen angel Bhall (of fire and whatnot who created the orcs). NOT Agares. Agares is the fallen angel of hope/despair AKA god of the Infernal demon civilization. And us to a lesser degree. So did Kragroth simply forget about this? Or is he angling to research the infernal pact and become the demons that are brought in? Which wouldn't make much sense since as I understand it, the Infernals are a new neutral player. Perhaps he means he will become a follower of the evil Ashen Veil religion? Maybe? I don't really know.
I may ask tentatively in my reply, but all I can conclude from the message is that Kragroth is being more than polite when he doesn't have to be.

Kay so I just merrily sent off some correspondence:

The honorable Sheaim send salutations to the legendary leader of the Clan who's martial prowess is known to all.

We look forward to seeing your mighty orcish legions spreading fire and ash across the land. We readily agree that peaceful cooperation would be mutually beneficial that our enemies may burn all the faster.

While it is no secret that we have a vested interest in all things related to the great demon Agares and the Infernal (And destroying the world), we are curious that you revere Agares as well. Do you wish to worship the Veil as we do? Are you in favor of releasing demons into this world? (something even we think twice about) Or perhaps you simply recognize the inevitable burning of the world can work to your advantage in the future?

Either way, we look forward to working together in the future. Surely if our strength were joined, none could oppose us!

Regards,

Saruman of the Sheaim

Notice the first thing I describe ourselves as is HONORABLE, always a must when it comes to successful diplomatic relations. Hopefully Kragroth's reply will clear up my confusion on his being a "disciple of Agares". This was my intention here, as well as coming off as friendly and cognizant of Kragroths military superiority, while continually mentioning that together our armed forces would be better. In our next batch of correspondence I hope to get any relevant map info from Kragroth as well as player locations. Depending on his answer I may reveal that I know the location of Northstar.

[Saruman the Foolish]

K. So I found time for a post and wanted to mention all the drama going on right now since it's really come to a head this week, and I was curious what any lurkers might think. If you've followed the game thread (don't if you can avoid it, it's super dramatic) you'd of noticed that while everyone has a serious delay every few weeks, Northstar has one almost every turn. He's very busy. But so are we all, we move things around so that we get a chance to take our turn every day. I think he doesn't take that as seriously as the rest of us (well it is only a game). So anyway, recently Kragroth suggested a teammate for North who could take some of his turns. And North didn't really want to give up control as he had just got find with some other games. So Kragroth hacked his password and gave it to Norths new (forced) teammate. That's the crux of the issue now cause north is furious and wants us to re-do the 2 turns his teammate old lion took. The other players, most notably Kragroth and Elimist want to just kick Northstar out. North has after much protest agreed not to replay the turns if we penalize ourselves a few resources that he feels old lion wasted.

Now I'm okay with doing that but I don't think the other players will be. Before Northstar offered his compromise (which he said he wouldn't send the save out until he got our agreement for, effectively holding the game hostage) there was an email chain among the rest of us and the consensus was we didn't want to kick north but we would if he refused to play on and insisted on re playing the 2 turns played by old lion. I really should mention that those turns were the fastest ones we've played; more proof that north is holding the game back.

So the situation now is that both Kragroth and Elimist firmly want to kick north and I haven't heard from Tasunke, but he will probably agree. And I don't know if I can agree with that. It's true that north has been really bad about his play time but it's also true that krags HACKED his password and gave it to an outside party who hadn't even really dedlurked north yet to play. And I think that was wrong. I wasn't around when Kragroth made that decision, but if I was I would of been against it. On the flip side, the reason I wasn't around was cause north had slowed the game down to the point where I stopped checking the forum except like 1x a week.

So that's the problem. When I look over this post at the facts of the situation, I gotta stand with north cause that was some damn unfair treatment. Unfortunately, facts aside, I'm fed up with the dude. He's been grating on everybody for a while now. So I don't know what to do. For the sake of the game, old lion is clearly a more reliable player and will speed things up like 300% if north was kicked. North has now also purposefully not sent the current save for a while which I find despicable. He will no doubt create more drama in the future. However, morally, we've been super unfair to him- he didn't cause all of the delays, just allot of them, and his password was hacked. I'd be furious myself if that was me. Should I stick up for the guy (obnoxious as he is) since he's right? Or should I put the rest of us and this game first?

[HidingKneel]

My take (as a lurker) is the same as yours.

Pretty much everyone is fed up with Northstar and it's causing them to behave in ways that people shouldn't in these games (hacking his password against his will falls into that category). On the other hand, it's probably impossible to have a drama-free game with Northstar involved. If your goal is to salvage something fun out of the game, booting him is probably the way to go.

Also: it seems a shame that the first game you've played on RB should disintegrate like this. Just want to put out there that this level of drama is not the norm! So I hope it doesn't sour you on the idea of joining another game later.

[Bobchillingworth]

If you do not kick North, the game will die.

[Saruman the Foolish]

Thanks for the input guys it helps. And no, it hasn't soured me to the idea of joining another game. It HAS however impressed me on the fact that timeliness is key for multiple players and the worst thing to do is to overreach yourself with multiple games. I still really don't want to agree to kick anyone and will hope for a compromise but Bob, you might be right. My hope is that with Old Lion's help we can get a halfway decent pace going even without kicking him. I know settling things halfway is a recipe for trouble, I guess I can't help empathizing with North especially after being hacked. I think I'll mail him directly and ask that he make a decision to either withdraw from the game, or let Old Lion take any turns he might miss and live with it.

[Bobchillingworth]

Like, normally hacking someone's password would only be done if they had disappeared off the face of the earth for weeks. Otherwise Kragroth would be way out of line... except North has made it clear that he cannot and/or will not play his turns within a reasonable timeframe. Undoubtedly people would be more inclined to accept his excuses if he hadn't equated his word with dirt by repeatedly lying about other players cheating, how the mod works, why he can't play, etc. As it is, he has alienated the entire community, an unprecedented feat, and nobody has any reason to trust him when he says he'll improve.


I know that Ellimist at this point would rather quit than continue to suffer North's bullshit. Kragroth too, probably. So that's what I mean when I say it's North or the game. Even if you sympathize with the guy, and I admit I feel nothing but contempt for him, keeping him around is the same as leaving the game now. If it helps, consider booting him a way of being cruel to be kind; assuming he isn't lying about them as well, he really ought to be focusing on his three jobs rather than wasting time screaming people online.

[Saruman the Foolish]

True, except Ellimist did say that while he wanted North gone, he would continue the game as is. I will see how North responds to my latest ultimatum of sorts and what Tasunkes thoughts are.

he really ought to be focusing on his three jobs rather than wasting time screaming people online.

I gotta laugh at that one - it's amazing how much time he finds to do that. But it means I also have to point out that if we boot him and he feels completely and unjustifiably wronged without any impartiality on our part he may very well fuck with the game or post spoilers in our threads. Well I doubt he'd stoop so low, but if he hadn't been playing the game and I was only reading his posts I would swear he was trolling the lot of us.

[Bobchillingworth]

Yeah, I saw what Ellimist posted. I chat with him a bit, and I've had to already convince him once to not abandon the game (having invested a bit of time editing the map, I have some interest in watching it continue ). I'm sure he's willing to stick with it for a bit, but I wouldn't count on him staying on board if this continues (and if North's around it almost certainly will).


If North goes on a spoiler rampage or something similarly destructive, I will permaban him. Don't worry about that. I don't think he would though.

[Saruman the Foolish]

TURN 25

So bad news is our scout has been devoured by lions. Good news is our borders have expanded! As of next turn we will have 4 warriors.



I took this screen before I moved around labor, so we are now going to grow in 3 turns. We have reached our happy cap already but in 2 turns we will have wine! So 3 turns from now we will have 6 population, 5 warriors, and promptly switch to agrarianism for more food from our 2 farms. I see this as a perfect time to start on a new settler.

Here are some statistics for comparison.

I'd say that we're not doing badly at all considering all our hut pops were maps. I was (rightfully) worried about Kragroth having almost double my military power, but we have more soldiers than everybody else, and with 2 more warriors on the way I'm not overly concerned about an early blitz from Kragroth when he sees my second city. We are last place in food produced, but I think that is non indicative considering I just increased that by moving labor off the hill with no food, and we are about to have 2 wineries and agrarianism. I think we are on track.

[Saruman the Foolish]

TURN 30

Kay, so we finished research on Calendar, made the revolution to agrarianism, and our 2 farms are boosted. Got my 2nd winery finished last turn, and I've just started on a settler. 10 turns for that...hopefully Kragroth doesn't keep beefing his military cause if his numbers continue to go up I may have to switch production. We are currently researching exploration (roads!) and my warriors are doing their best as scouts. One has made quite a discovery to the south;


An Isthmus! totally surprising, I keep forgetting the map has been tinkered with (thanks, Bob) and so there can be some pretty cool surprises.