RB Pitboss #2 [SPOILERS] - Gandhi of Korea (Broker33 & plako)

[Swiss Pauli]

With your core spread over a couple of landmasses (and maybe more) then maybe try to use Philo to bulb the bottom of the tree (MC from GM, Machinery from GE, eventually Astro from 2 GSs, etc) whilst you actively tech essentials like Currency, Construction, etc. You'll need naval superiority to avoid being boated because you'll be nearly 100% coastal, and you might be able to turn this necessity to your advantage.

[plako]

Just a few comments

Try to avoid making enemies while you are still weak
Bide your time as the Rule of the PRraetorians will come to an end once you have Construction
Revenge, while sweet, is a bad counselor

I agree about revenge and I don't feel that vengeful. It just haven't felt yet right to start befriending with Whosit and I'm not sure when/if that day comes during this game. I prefer trying to befriend with others. If it seems obvious, that our only chance to survive is to have dialogue with Whosit I'll probably do it. We have NAP until turn 150 so I've still time to start warming up our relationship if nescessary. Nevertheless Whosit seems a nice person and I don't have problems in befriending with him on other games.

[plako]

With your core spread over a couple of landmasses (and maybe more) then maybe try to use Philo to bulb the bottom of the tree (MC from GM, Machinery from GE, eventually Astro from 2 GSs, etc) whilst you actively tech essentials like Currency, Construction, etc. You'll need naval superiority to avoid being boated because you'll be nearly 100% coastal, and you might be able to turn this necessity to your advantage.

Not a bad idea. However hard to accomplish in timely manner. We need CoL, Currency or Great Lighthouse to produce Great Merchant. However Great Engineers won't be easy to get after we've generated couple of other Great Persons.

Bulbing Astronomy is somewhat controversial. If we manage/want to get Colossus then Astronomy should be delayed. I hate the fact Colossus is obsoleted with Astronomy. Colossus is pretty nice wonder for Specialist Economy. We could use coastal tiles for our immedite commerce needs and use farms/mines as our tile improvements while teching towards Constitution.

[Broker33]

I've given some further thought about the situation. It seems clear Whosit and Kalin/Athlete are at least somewhat co-operating. Main target is probably dsplaisted, but we can't feel secured either. They also must have good relationship with Jowy and I'll guess we'll soon see, if also Dantski is with them. The communication with DMOC/Nakor in the past suggests that they might also be symphatetic to their efforts against Sullla/Speaker. This would leave just us, Sullla/Speaker and dsplaisted out.

So I see following options we could try to pursuit:
* Declare neutrality to all directions including Whosit and try to sign long NAPs with everyone willing.
* Co-operating with Sullla/Speaker - Almost certain death alternative, but feels best for my heart .
* Co-operation athlete/Kalin - Even if this is probably best alternative for survival I don't like the game that we would had to play e.g. being nice towards Whosit.

Any opinions on this are welcome and further alternatives are more than welcome. It seems this game is pretty much unsalvageable for us so I could consider trying also something unconventional.

Well signing NAPs with everybody dosent seem practicle. We can delcare neutrality but avoid specific agreements. being on the islands makes us not as attractive to invade due to having to build galleys. It is just harder when they have nice land targets to look at. Out of the three choices I like a hybred of 1 and 2. Cooperate with Sulla/Speaker or at least dont activly hinder them. Try to expand as quickly as possible to the islands even if that means cutting of Kalin/athelete on the island we tried to make a deal on. Kalin tries to get more than he should and if pushed usually backs off a position. If we were to settle I doubt he would mount an attack.

We cant win this game so it would be better to play what feels best Option 2 is that choice for me. Now we dont have to be suicidal in our cooperation since we arent going to be much help. But assuming thier skill gets them out of the war they would be one of the best long term allies in the game. Lets try to foster that.

[plako]

Broker, I agree on this. Even if keeping low profile might be better for us currently I've been somewhat active in diplomacy during the previous days. Here is some emails sent/received.

Communication with DMOC/Nakor. I'm on slippery road here since Nakor is playing with Kalin and Jowy in RBP3 game, but Hopefully no harm done yet:


Me:

I just noticed there is quite a while when I sent you previous message and decided to send you one. How are things going for you? Now that Jowy has attacked Speaker/Sullla that will probably hinder the progress of India and give better position for the rest of the world.

How are your borders doing. Earlier you said there were some disputes with Dantski. What is your current relationship with him? I'm just trying to figure out the level of friendliness I should take towards him. I'm very willing to take your opinion into account.

I'm also concerned about Whosit. I've met Jowy and Athlete/Kalin in the south using boats and neither of them seem that intrested in helping us out and especially I've felt that Atlete/Kalin have quite good relationship with Whosit. We haven't yet met dsplaiseted that is a pity since I think we might have a common enemy. I hope I'm not too blunt, but how do you feel towards dsplaisted and would you feel comfortable being a mediator for a messages between us and dsplaisted and not reveal them to Whosit or his allies?

Nakor:

Good to hear from you!
How is life on the islands? Lot of interesting stuff to find there?
We're thinking of building a galley and get a settler on the island south of us.
Can we ask where you are expanding?

The Ottomans and Dantski joined the attack on India. Let's hope they can inflict some damage, so we lesser gods can catch up a bit.
We're currently not that worried about Dantski, obviously, since he joined the war against India.
We have our borders cut out right now and might steal some tiles from him later on with good builds.
We don't believe that he's a good negotiator/communicator, but that's not really an issue right now.

I'm concerned about Whosit as well, therefore we're trying to keep friendly with him. So far it seems to work, though his demands are becoming a bit more difficult. We hope he will expand east, since there's enough free space there.
We currently don't have contact with Inca. We met but we haven't sent messages. But with all the changes in players, we'll wait untill things are settled there. They are north of The Empire, so you might be able to slip a galley into that region.

Me:

Islands are alright/good and if you've filled the void in the continent it is good idea to start expanding there.

We're really not expanding much. Our cities except the capital are not that mature yet, but naturally I'm generating a settlers whenever I can. We've settled couple of cities on one island and consider couple of more on another in the east, but I think after that we've no room for additional cities except couple of fillers.

I'm quite concerned about the current status of things. We shouldn't rush to conclusions, but it seems to me there has been formed a group of 4 including Jowy-Athlete/Kalin-Dantski-Whosit that has left us out. It might be that they aren't directly allied, but at least they are co-operating and fighting a common war will certainly bring some of them closer together.

I think we should start considering how to react to this. My 1st idea is that we should start to do closer co-operation. One possibility is that we start to beeline towards Construction and start pumping out Hwacha's while you could focus on getting some other military tech meanwhile and concentrate on producing them. I'm open for suggestions concerning this.

Furthermore prolonged war would is probably on our best intrest, but I suspect there aren't much we could to do assist the weaker side that should be Speaker/Sullla. What do you think?

It might also be good idea for you to start dicussion with dsplaisted since he is the neighbour of Whosit on the other side. Maybe you could find a way to do co-operation.

Communication with Athlete/Kalin. I'm not sure it is good idea to be so open about my concerns concerning their relationship with Whosit:

I'm sorry to hear you're not intrested and hope that you can settle the Island before Whosit does.

It seems your relationship with Whosit is a bit too warm for my liking. My people are strongly against dealing with Whosit, but as it seems that our alternatives are very limited I as the leader might had to start warming up relationship towards him.

Since this is the case I feel also somewhat uneasy that we haven't formalized our relationship with pacts. Would you be intrested in signing a non agression pact or some other deals

Their answer that message has been received:

Sorry for the delay in answering, but both Athlete and I are very very
busy. I wanted however to send you this quick note to say that we got
your message and will respond as soon as we can

Discussion with Speaker/Sullla:
Me:

Thank you for keeping us informed and good luck with your warring efforts.

I'm trying to figure out what is the state of the world currently diplomatically and where to place us in the future. So far I've been neutral towards against most nations, but I suspect maintaing neutrality is becoming harder in the near future. We also haven't yet met dsplaisted that is a pity since I think we might have a common enemy.

I hope I'm not too blunt and I understand if you don't want to answer, but could you share your opinion concerning the co-operative/allied parties in this game?

Based on your description Jowy and Athlete/Kalin are working together and I think Athlete/Kalin have decent relationship with Whosit and probably not so good with dsplaisted. I don't know how DMOC/Nakor and Dantski feel towards your enemies or you. Do you suspect Dantski will be joining the attack against you?

They:

Thanks for your last message! To give you an update on the war, we were invaded this turn by Jowy, athlete/kalin, and Dantski with 36 total units. Nevertheless, we think we'll be OK as long as we avoid really bad dice luck. We still have a few tricks up our sleeve.

Diplomacy is definitely turning into a major issue in this game; our failure in that regard has obviously come back to burn us. We know for sure that Jowy, athlete/kalin, and Dantski are working together. Not much doubt about that! We also think that Whosit is supporting them, if not directly then at least in spirit.

It would therefore be prudent for the rest of us to try and coordinate a little more closely too! We've had pretty good relations with Nakor so far; if you two could maybe talk to him and try to get him to support us, that would be a big help. It would seem to me (as an outsider, at least) that your team and Nakor have a clear interest in cooperating to defend against Whosit. Have you been able to work together in that area?

We do have contact with dsplaisted, but he's said very little to us. We're going to try and remedy that as well, since he would be an obvious ally if it came to war with Whosit. It's a shame you don't have contact...

There's one other thing your team could do for us: can you let us know if there are any "unusual" resources on the outer islands? Things that didn't appear on the main continent, like stone or marble or ivory, etc. We wanted to explore the islands near us, but this war thing kind of took priority...

My answer:

I hope you can manage. There is little we can do to help. I sent a message to Nakor/DMOC. I hope we can profound our co-operation with them against Whosit, but so far no deals has been made.

We can see 2 islands totally and so far only rare resource seems to be Stone. There is also marble in the main land. However islands are overall quite attractive. Enough food some happiness resources and also metals.

[plako]

Current status of things. We'll get Great Scientist next turn that I'll use for academy. Meanwhile I've been collecting gold. I'll whip the settler next turn and probably start another settler or alternatively Lighthouse in our copper city.

After checking the eventlog I'm surprised that there was only 1 Great Scientist born so far.

Athlete/Kalin have won circumnavigation race.

[plako]

I founded the academy and started Monarchy that should arrive in ~6-7 turns. I also whipped settler, but I'm not sure, if it is wise to settle new island. Maybe settling filler stone city on our island would be wiser, since I'm a bit uncertain how much we can trust Athlete/Kalin and DMOC/Nakor. It seems the latter group haven't been exactly truthful concerning their relationship with Whosit. Here are couple of emails between India and us.

India's message:

Hi guys. I'll give you an update for this turn, starting with the bad news... which isn't particularly good. We spotted a Nakor/DMOC stack of six units moving up to our borders this turn. Combined with their timing (taking the first half of the turn timer) and dubious membership on the same RBPB3 team with athlete, kalin and Jowy... well, the writing's kind of on the wall. Nakor has been lying to our team, and we expect him to declare war as well next turn. Apparently 3 vs 1 wasn't enough, we expect to be facing 4 vs 1 odds shortly! We have had to abandon one of our cities, which will be captured or razed next turn.

Your team is the only one who has actually responded honestly to us. What a pair we are, eh? LOL

Now for the good news. Shiloh is our newest and most immature city, so losing it is not a major loss. Nakor's military is little more than a joke, and still several turns away from reaching our core cities, so that's not as bad as it seems. Speaker had to gamble with our units, but thankfully we won a pair of 50/50 battles this turn, which helped a lot. So we are not finished yet, and it's possible that the tide of the war may be turning! Let's hope so.

We are still committed to helping you out if by some miracle we can get out of our current situation. Congratulations on your Great Scientist!

My response:

That is quite a dogpile. I don't understand how Nakor benefits from joining. Maybe there are further deals like decimating us. They have on several occasions hinted us being threatened by Whosit, but if they've meaningful stack of troops to send towards you that can't be true.

I'll probably contact Whosit next to see, if we could find a common path.

Since it seems there are 4 nations at least somewhat allied together, I decided to send a message to Whosit. If Whosit isn't part of that group he should be intrested in doing co-operation.

The remnants of the war are gradually faiding away from the minds of the Korean people and stories from relatives behind the border have been encouraging. It seems that Korean minority has been treated with honour.

I hope we can start a dialogue again and discuss about mutually beneficial future. I'm open for your suggestions. Maybe we could start with opening our borders?

I've followed from the distance the forming of the super alliance that is taking India down. 3v1 seems to mean that India will eventually fall. When that happens the brothers in arms will certainly be at minimum friendly towards each other. Would you be intrested in discussing with me about this?

[plako]

People really seem to fear Sullla/Speakere to start such a dogpile. I doubt that even he can survive from 4v1 assuming he is right about Nakor joining and no one being friendly towards them. Since this is the case I'm trying to find out what is going on and which one of our neighbours would be most potential ally if any. Part of this is that I decided to make an effort to open discussion with Whosit. I'm mainly trying to feel out how tightly he is connected to dogpilers and if it would make sense to try to get frindly relationship with him.

[plako]

And here is the further discussion with Whosit. I think this won't lead to anything at this point. I don't know what to try diplomatically next. Maybe take a break. There aren't good options for us availabe especially now that even dsplaited is leaving.

Whosit's relationship to dogpilers seems quite good. He mentions that India is building walls. Either this has been told to him or he has a scout in the area. If it is told to him, he must have quite open dialogue with some of the warring nations.

Whosit

It is good to hear from you. We are glad that you approve of the treatment of our Korean brethren. They are quickly adapting to life in the Empire.

The Empire appreciates your offer of Open Borders. We are willing to consider the offer, but we would like to make this an Open Borders without Right-of-Passage agreement. The trade between our nations would be positive, but we do not want units passing through our borders. Of course, Korean citizens from Nar Shaddaa and Ryloth are free to visit their relatives in Korea, and vice-versa. If any fair trade opportunities arise, we will also be willing to discuss that.

As for the alliance against the Killer Angels (India), what is it that you wish to discuss? Our understanding is that the alliance has formed out of fear that Killer Angels would run away with the game at this early stage. Perhaps your spies have uncovered the K.A. demographics? Their economy is incredibly powerful, so this fear is understandable, we think.

Me:

I hope we can get a deal that is mutually beneficial. You would get overseas trade routes to our cities current and future cities whereas we wouldn't gain much, if borders wouldn't be open for our scouts. Could you reconsider and let our scouts go through.

Concerning the situation with India. I was merely intrested how you view the situation after they've been slowed down/destroyed. It seems to me that there has formed a group of 4 nations that are more or less working together and connected via common war effort and being in the same RBP3 team. I'm slightly surprised, if this development doesn't worry you at all. After all you should be quite high in the "threat list" that was used to target India.

Whosit:

We will have to defer on the decision to Open Borders for a little while longer as we am still considering it. Unfortunately, we think that it will still be several turns before the trade routes with your cities become profitable because of the lingering war penalty. However, we are not ruling out Open Borders when that time comes.

We are not supremely worried about what is going on with India. It will not be a short war--India is building walls in most of their cities, and I don't think that anyone has construction--and all sides will be exhausted when it ends. By the time that they recover, the age of Praetorians will probably be at an end, and our Unique Unit is the only reason we would be considered a threat. However, whether or not the group will remain cohesive after the war has yet to be seen. Unless they do, in fact, target us, the alliance probably won't last without a universal target. Personally, we think everyone would rather expand for the foreseeable future rather than war--it is probably India's abnormally powerful economy that made them a target, and the others will probably tolerate the next "leader" so long as they are not too far ahead of the pack.

[Broker33]

I doubt Whosit will ever be interested in peace with us. We can keep sending feelers but in this game I dont think it will ever materialize into anything.

We should keep "opening dialoge" but expand to the islands our best bet is Sulla at this point. If there is a large alliance against him and he survives he will be a good ally with us as he trust us.

Kailin if he is frendly with Whosit will likely stay that way for the game unless backstabed. He is very loyal and unfortunatly for us he has thrown in with our enemy.

I am concerned with the academy in the capital it is exposed and Whosit will eventually try to take it. I would think to him our remaing cities are a blight to him. I believe he only took peace because he was worried we would drag out the war. Not sure if we should have but we should always be prepared for him to try to finish the job.