RBP2 Lurker Discussion Thread - No Players!

[Krill]

Really, Athlete is getting hung up on taking out Slaze, for Spullla to lose now requires Athlete to absorb Slaze as fast as possible, reposition for against Spullla, and be prepared to lose cities, falling back, and breaking down Spullas' advantage to stop them being able to attack.

And even then, Spullla will galleon drop into the back lines, breaking Athletes back.

[Twinkletoes89]

The thing is, Athlete if he defeats Inca through conquest, he is going to end up with a LOT of cities which are whipped to the bare bones and chronically under-developed. They will cripple their economy for some time absorbing them.

That will likely mean that Spulla will either gain an even larger military tech advantage and then crush them at will (likely), or Athlete will get so hung up on military techs to deny that advantage, that Spulla will probably be economically a huge way in front, possibly unassailably.

Just when Athlete could have done with 20 turns of peace to build up his homeland cities, he goes off on another military campaign. If Slaze hadn't gifted the army then what would Athlete have done?

The one disappointment for Spulla is that now would be a pretty sweet time to hit at Athlete with their knights and take a few more cities. That *could* possibly keep slaze in the game and possibly have him in their debt for a long time. Alas, the NAP prevents such things

[scooter]

Alas, the NAP prevents such things

You know, I've never before condoned breaking NAP's, but in this case I would be totally okay with Spullla breaking it. Athlete has totally earned it. Am I the only one who feels that way?

[Krill]

You know, I've never before condoned breaking NAP's, but in this case I would be totally okay with Spullla breaking it. Athlete has totally earned it. Am I the only one who feels that way?

Glass houses...

[Adlain]

Glass houses...

You know, I can not tell whether or not you are agreeing with the previous poster or whether you are saying you should not break a nap under these circumstances.

Personaly I say you should not nap stab athlete, but I would plan to attack him at the very earlyest oppertunity.

[novice]

You know, I've never before condoned breaking NAP's, but in this case I would be totally okay with Spullla breaking it. Athlete has totally earned it. Am I the only one who feels that way?

The point of the Ottoman-India NAP was to secure a flank (for both sides). India can't break it just because Ottomans are taking advantage of their secure flank..

[Krill]

You know, I can not tell whether or not you are agreeing with the previous poster or whether you are saying you should not break a nap under these circumstances.

Personaly I say you should not nap stab athlete, but I would plan to attack him at the very earlyest oppertunity.

Ultimately, it's up to each player to decide what they would do in these circumstances. But there isn't always a right or wrong choice - if you think it is OK to break an NAP because someone else breaks an NAP, then others are going to judge you on that, take names, and get ready to prod buttock when they play against you in the future.

There is a reason I'm being non-committal.

[Twinkletoes89]

Two wrongs don't make a right unfortunately.

Yes a lot of us would love to see Athlete get his ass handed to him for being so low, but he will get it in time anyway.

In PB1 where I gifted all of my army (effectively) to shady to fight Rego, I didn't make anything concrete as I trusted shady to do what was right and had no faith in my military skills along with reducing syncronicity problems. Shady quit the game pretty much the turn after that.

If Alex (shady's replacement) had chosen to attack me with it after he switched sides, I told him that I would have no complaints, as it was my error in relying on trust alone and not thinking to make it concrete in terms of a NAP, as we were allies. Luckily, Alex was respectful and although he used his army on my allies, he did not use any on me as he thought it would be wrong. Also had he gifted back the units to me, he would have broken his promise to his allies to not aid any of their 'enemies', thus we worked it out properly and as fairly as possible.

Now in this game the circumstances are different, as PB1 was a 'world war' not a 2 civ conflict that this will be. Athlete can only attack Slaze with his army (unless he fights noone) as he has a NAP with India and the Toroidal maintenance on this map means that using Slaze's lands to attack Whosit or Korea would make dreadful tactical, political and economic sense.

Athlete has backed himself into a corner and then decided to take the 'most dishonourable' response, though it is technically the most expedient aggressive response.

Athlete could have held back the backstab until he built his own army and kept slaze's gift as garrison troops, but that would not have made things much better really as its still a backstab and using units gifted to him under false pretences.

Slaze made a HUGE error of judgement but has also been betrayed by a 'supposed' ally. I feel great sympathy for slaze as he has been very impressive in resurrecting the Incan fortunes, but in the end he is still slightly to blame for giving Athlete the dagger to stab him with.

Athlete's responses have been very cold and unsympathetic and I am very disappointed in him and his actions will likely 'taint' him in the eyes of very many people in this community for a long long time. Although it was the best move if he wanted to take more land, he was still very wrong to do it, and especially as their 'alliance' was still very fresh in the memory. Slaze staked a lot on switching from an allegiance with India and Athlete should have respected that a lot more

[Kyan]

Athlete has backed himself into a corner and then decided to take the 'most dishonourable' response, though it is technically the most expedient aggressive response.

Whilst this is true, it's not the first time. Athlete broke a NAP in PBEM1 because of being backed into a corner.

[novice]

Athlete's reasoning (first two emphasises are mine):

Obviously I want to justify my actions and I'm having a tough time doing so. Basically all I can say is well it's a strategy game. It's not like I'm hurting and/or injuring Slaze. It's one computer entity killing another. I know full well we have emotional attachments to our civ's and I'd be devestated if this happened to me. I can't say I'd react any better or worse than Slaze. But I'm sure he'll get over it, as I would. Most people aren't going to get too hung up on a game. I would never do something like this to somebody in RL and I'm comfortable with that so any criticisms I receive publicly or privately about the game, I'm OK with. I think that's all I have to say.

The question he has to ask himself though is how much out of game devastation is he going to create to get an in-game advantage, when it is, by his own admission, just a game.

Anyway, I see people are venting in Athlete's thread; That is quite likely to influence him to change his mind in some way and could directly influence the course of the game.