Airstrip One Palace Court - No Players!

[Yazilliclick]

Thanks Didn't say I'd be done any time soon lol

[Whosit]

So, I've been thinking about something. Exploit's been pretty pissed that Broker and Co. broke up with him, but he keeps talking about how he hates static alliances, loves free for alls, and believes in fluid alliances (and just posted an e-mail in which he says that he would shift alliances as soon as it would benefit him). Is he being hypocritical, or am I just being too harsh on him?

I'm also interested to see how this capitulation deal turns out down the road, since Munro is going to have a hard time breaking out of that if he wants to.

[Yazilliclick]

He doesn't like static alliances but he also doesn't like being backstabbed. Pretty normal. Believe most people weren't happy with the static alliances earlier without any warring going on, but nobody really wants to see their allies abandon them.

[Krill]

Some quick thoughts, and I'm not yet sold on the advantages of attacking:

*I think the shady push and the new anti-imhotep push are different,
with the imhotep push being a different offer to try to get more
interest. Not sure though, since the Imho push wasnt pitched to me.

*My NAP ends on T191, so that's the earliest I could move in.

*My army would be ~30+ units at that time

*I don't think we should split our stacks, because that lets Exploit
cannon and destroy them one at a time. It might cost him two border
cities, but that's cheap to kill a stack

*I have no territorial ambitions in the (prospective) war.

If regoarrarr, sunrise and Lins move their entire stacks in at the same place, they also need to keep their stacks in one place that can cover their entire front in case Exploit tries a suicide raid on the Lins front city of Hun or regoarrarrs front city. That place is sunrises front city, and that also limits their attacking options.

They can't aim to attack north of PP, so they have to all attack at either LL or KK (EE means too far to walk).

That is also the place Exploit will be keeping all of his defensive forces, which is probably about 100 rifles, 20 assorted other units, 15 Cav, 10 cats and however many cannons he now builds, ideally 30ish so he can heal up and then go straight on the offensive. Everything Exploit has should be on cannons and Cav right now, with an MFG of over 200 without any real push. Probably over 300 by now.

If they move in on LL Exploit will annihilate that entire stack with the only losses being his cannons and won't lose a single city...if he is smart and has tried to build 30ish cav he might even flank away the cannons before the rifles attack.

I think they have severely underestimated the strength of the Incan economy...it's forseeable that Exploit starts attacking on 2 or 3 fronts by t197 IMO, provided that his west is secure. But that is a big IF.

[Sullla]

What this game has shown recently is the patent absurdity of the "vassal" concept introduced in the expansions. Exploit, clearly the #1 or #2 power in the game, keeps trying to vassalize himself to one of the weaker teams, so that he can manipulate the in-game vassal mechanics to stave off a declaration of war. The whole thing is completely ridiculous and farcical, as if the Soviet Union became a vassal of Monaco to avoid a NATO embargo. Completely stupid. I don't blame Exploit for using the tools available, but take note in organizing RBPB3 that you probably want to turn this option off!

Also, what's with the lack of pictures in this game? We get like one picture per week from all the spoiler threads combined... Hard to tell what's going on!

[Krill]

(I was going to make that comment once the vassals option appeared, actually).

And I agree on the pictures...perhaps we should ask for a save every few turns and hte passwords, so someone can at elast post the pictures here?

[Yazilliclick]

I sent a message off to sunrise asking for a copy of a save. Think all we need is the admin password to access all the civs in it right?

[Krill]

No admin password in the game, so need each civs password to login to that civ.

[Whosit]

I've always like the Vassal concept in theory, but in practice, I have to agree that silly things happen, even in SP games (like an AI accepting the vassalage of another AI I'm about to wipe out, thus starting a new war for me). Exploit's idea to vassalize himself to a weaker opponent is interesting, indeed, but I agree that it wouldn't make much sense in a real world scenario. On the other hand, the real world isn't a zero-sum game (so far as I know!), so it might not apply as well.

Personally, I'm looking forward to a blood bath one way or another, even if Exploit ends up on top. At least that'll settle things!

[Yazilliclick]

Ah right, that was one of those lesson learned things from the start wasn't it?