RBP2 Lurker Discussion Thread - No Players!

[MJW (ya that one)]

He only played in the last one. I can write a summary (that Krill would not like) but the only thing that (for this) matters is the ending.

After losing their turnplayers SANTCA has to leave the game. They gave all their cities to team KAZ to keep the game interesting to stop their nemesis CAVS (slaze) from winning. SATARUN was a weak team who would not deserve such a boost. MS was too far away (this would lead to weird gameplay).

Slaze was very annoyed that he would have to suddenly declare war on the uber-KAZ in order to keep the game going. He said SANTCA had made a farce of the game and he would no longer be playing. CAVS resigned because of lack of a turnplayer leaving the game to KAZ.

[Krill]

How many of these democracy games have been played? Are there writeups anywhere like the one Sullla did for the Apolyton democracy game?

They aren't 10 a penny, but I know of more than a dozen that have taken place, post-2001 (release of Civ 3).

And no, none of them have a history written for them (fwiw, Sulllas' is good if biased; it obviously is focussed on one team). The 2 that are worth reading the most IMO are the PTWDG and C3CDG over on Poly, they have some absolutely fascinating gameplay and diplomacy exchanges in them. The only problem is that hte private fora for those games are still locked (for the latter rightly so, as it turned out one team was cheating; it had a double login that was a member of another team).

[Krill]

He only played in the last one. I can write a summary (that Krill would not like) but the only thing that (for this) matters is the ending.

After losing their turnplayers SANTCA has to leave the game. They gave all their cities to team KAZ to keep the game interesting to stop their nemesis CAVS (slaze) from winning. SATARUN was a weak team who would not deserve such a boost. MS was too far away (this would lead to weird gameplay).

Slaze was very annoyed that he would have to suddenly declare war on the uber-KAZ in order to keep the game going. He said SANTCA had made a farce of the game and he would no longer be playing. CAVS resigned because of lack of a turnplayer leaving the game to KAZ.

Correct in essentials; Saturn didn't get the cities because they couldn't defend them (the situation would be the same, but Saturn would be killed out right). Cav didn't get them because that would basically make the game boring. MS I hated more than the rest because they wouldn't even respond to emails or chat requests, they were basically a puppet state from turn 1 that completely broke the game for the rest (which is why Cav had it so easy in that game). Kaz got them because then at least Saturn would be in a bargaining position to work with Kaz against Cav, and ask for economic help. Gifting the cities to Kaz was in the best interests of Saturn, which is why we did that.

And as to the accusation of a farce, it wouldn't have been any different game play wise as if SANCTA agreed to cede all of the important land to kaz in exchange for a war against Cav immediately, the only difference was that this got rid of a team that had no active members (it was what would have happened if I'd been willing and able to play on after the cheating accusations).

However, now we are getting off topic.

[sunrise089]

I disagree on many levels.

I think in general, once the game approaches the industrial age, being spoiled becomes less of a deal. The world map is circulating, and tactical and strategical situations are more or less well known through diplo. In fact, I'm pretty sure all the RBP1 players have a better understanding of the game situation than any of the lurkers.

I totally agree with this. I may be surprised, but I think any one of us could swap with anyone else in RBP1 and pretty much just keep playing without instructions. As long as we didn't try to deliberately backstab and rather RP'd the player we were taking over there aren't a whole lot of decisions to be made.

One thing I like about RBP1 (RBP3 is too early to tell on this) over RBP2 is the level of openness in communication between the teams. I try to chat via IM with every player in the game who is active online, and I know regoarrarr and shady chatted often even when their armies were staring each other down for 100+ turns. Also, (and I may be mistaking A -> B for B -> A) I think it may not be a coincidence that the players who chat the most have stuck with the game the longest.

[Shoot the Moon]

I totally agree with this. I may be surprised, but I think any one of us could swap with anyone else in RBP1 and pretty much just keep playing without instructions. As long as we didn't try to deliberately backstab and rather RP'd the player we were taking over there aren't a whole lot of decisions to be made.

One thing I like about RBP1 (RBP3 is too early to tell on this) over RBP2 is the level of openness in communication between the teams. I try to chat via IM with every player in the game who is active online, and I know regoarrarr and shady chatted often even when their armies were staring each other down for 100+ turns. Also, (and I may be mistaking A -> B for B -> A) I think it may not be a coincidence that the players who chat the most have stuck with the game the longest.

In regards to chatting, I think it is also fair to point out that it seems (at least from their spoiler threads) that Athlete and Slaze almost never chatted, perhaps only briefly during the peace talks. I don't think it excuses the backstab, but in my opinion, Slaze's anger would be more justifiable if it had been from an ally that he was in close contact with, rather than a former rival he had made one agreement with and hadn't really coordinated with beyond that.

[m4gill4]

sooooo(o?) gets my vote (not that I have one). Finding an unspoilt player will take forever. Plus sooooo(ooo?) seems to have some good experience around here so at this point I think a competent player with a good RB ethic is about the best that can be done.

[Serdoa]

Regarding a spoiled lurker taking over I would agree that this should not be an issue. One flank (Whosit) is basically dead and Korea is sort of an ally or at least positive towards Inca. So this flank is secure anyway for now. On the other side is athlete who already told slaze that he will attack and this should not change due to another player (basically no defense means there is not much reason not to attack). The question would maybe come down to if it would be fair if the new player would start diplomacy to maybe gift athlete some cities for peace. But that is something slaze could have done as well. And with all the "shortsighted" diplomacy (and the mostly not existent diplomacy by slaze) thus far, I guess even if a spoiled lurker would take over Inca AND start diplomacy the results might not differ much from those we have seen all game long.

[Rowain]

I don't damn Athlete for his attack. IMO giving away your forces without a garanty that they can't be used against you is an absolute dumb move and deserves to be punished. But what I absolutly can't understand is what Athlete hopes to win from such a move.
In my eyes this is absolute bad play. All he can get against an hard trying defender is 2-3 cities than his advance will come to a hold. Aquiring an enraged sworn enemy on one side while marking oneself as untrustworthy and having the 500 lb gorilla on the other side to just gain a few cities is., lets say , not wise. All in all the amount of 'strange' decisions happening in this game is baffeling high.

[Jowy]

We'll see if it works out for him. Essentially the problem is that he can't expand even when he has the resources to do so, and if he didn't do anything, then India would just keep increasing their lead and sooner or later become unbeatable. It's a bold move, but it's too early to say if it was the right or the wrong move. Slaze, however, has no-one but himself to blame.

As for a spoiled lurker replacing Slaze, Krill, you might want to consider banning diplomacy for Incas for a fixed number of turns.

[Cort]

sooooo(ooo?) seems to have some good experience around here so at this point I think a competent player with a good RB ethic is about the best that can be done.

I agree with this. My take on Sooooo from PBEM 1 and previous games he has been involved in, is that he is excellent on micro and would do a good job on building up the Incan empire.

One other thing to note is that he and Athlete had a seemingly good working relationship in PBEM 1 and he didn't go overboard in his criticism of Athlete when it emerged that Athlete had NAP's with both MH and Dreylin.

I wonder if he could leverage (guilt) Athlete into working with him rather than attacking him.