RB Pitboss #1 [SPOILERS] Willem of Persia

[shadyforce]

Well, this game has gone in a rubbish direction. Exploit just gives up and cedes all his land to everyone. Not sure I blame him tbh. But his death means that Rego is now prime candidate to win this game and the only one who can really stop him (in terms of access to his core) is me, although I'll probably never have the military or technological capability to do so.

I'd love to have a pop at Elkad but I lack the military numbers, he's been included in tech trading, being fed coal/oil and Broker/Lins will probably jump to his aid. I doubt I can convince people to just ditch him.

But apart from that, we seemed to be locked into a big lovefest. Rego, Broker and Daniel are the leaders and the next block consists of myself, Lins, Sunrise and Munro (the latter three benefited from the Exploit invasion and I will fall behind.) Elkad is too small to ever have a shot at winning this game and Dler's demise is also imminent.

This is rather frustrating, I actually can't now see a route to me winning this game. I don't think I'll get the required help to take out Elkad, I don't think an invasion of Rego will ever do anything, certainly not for me since Green Township is probably the best city on the map and will be guarder much more than any cities others will be attacking. Turning on Daniel would be pointless suicide.

It seems like the best I can do is just sit tight, hope the others start trying to mix things up and bring me along and hope that I'm not going to get double-teamed by Rego + Lins. But my money is on a Rego cultural victory in maybe 75 turns.

[Krill]

Well, this game has gone in a rubbish direction. Exploit just gives up and cedes all his land to everyone. Not sure I blame him tbh. But his death means that Rego is now prime candidate to win this game and the only one who can really stop him (in terms of access to his core) is me, although I'll probably never have the military or technological capability to do so.

I'd love to have a pop at Elkad but I lack the military numbers, he's been included in tech trading, being fed coal/oil and Broker/Lins will probably jump to his aid. I doubt I can convince people to just ditch him.

But apart from that, we seemed to be locked into a big lovefest. Rego, Broker and Daniel are the leaders and the next block consists of myself, Lins, Sunrise and Munro (the latter three benefited from the Exploit invasion and I will fall behind.) Elkad is too small to ever have a shot at winning this game and Dler's demise is also imminent.

This is rather frustrating, I actually can't now see a route to me winning this game. I don't think I'll get the required help to take out Elkad, I don't think an invasion of Rego will ever do anything, certainly not for me since Green Township is probably the best city on the map and will be guarder much more than any cities others will be attacking. Turning on Daniel would be pointless suicide.

It seems like the best I can do is just sit tight, hope the others start trying to mix things up and bring me along and hope that I'm not going to get double-teamed by Rego + Lins. But my money is on a Rego cultural victory in maybe 75 turns.

This was inevitable from the point you left the UTA...and why you needed to keep the Incans around to counterbalance regoarrarr. Hindsight, such a wonderful thing...

[shadyforce]

Even with hindsight, I'm unconvinced sticking with NUTA would have me in any better a situation. On the contrary, my decision to stick to the NUTA for so long and stay in military mode while others around me were building infrastructure was perhaps main thing that held me back in this game.

And leaving NUTA opened up the Carthage attack which was somewhat succesful. I gained territory which is more than I done against Rego. Sure it ground to a halt but I can't blame myself there. I could not have attacked any sooner - my army was moving in that direction even before pen was put to paper on the new alliance. And it was Carthage being given gunpowder in the nick of time that was to be his saving grace. But that was out of my hands.

I think the one point where the game went sour for me was when myself and Imhotep delayed attacked Rego. The attack was about 10 turns too late and poorly executed when it did happen. In hindsight (and armed with the experience I got fighting Carthage) charging for Green Township instead of dilly-dallying on defensive terrain on the turn we declared might have worked.

Other big decisions of mine in the game? Well there aren't that many. I made the decision not to attempt to sabotage the Exploit invasion. But again, even in hindsight, I'm unconvinced me doing so would have me in a better situation.

I'm just not as good at micromanaging my empire as most people in the game so outracing anyone economically was out of the question so any sort of win was always going to be a longshot for me.

[Krill]

You never got an easy start though, what with having to deal with ZPV early on. If anything, you had a hole to dig youself out of that wasn't your own making.

[shadyforce]

Rego gives 10 turns' notice. Indian invasion of Shady Expanse imminent. 10 turns to build a gigantic army.

[Krill]

Good luck.

Now do you see the point I was making?

[shadyforce]

A Rego invasion may not be inevitable. I'm told (and I suppose it's possible) that Rego gave notice in order to keep his options open in case myself and Daniel invade Elkad and he decides that it's not in his best interests.

Broker also claims to be undecided where he stands regarding us atttacking Elkad. Lins haven't replied to my message.

I've stepped up my drafting and I have a whole bunch of Artillery in production. I should have a round of Artillery and a round of Fighters complete by T215 as well as somewhere in the region of 20 extra drafted Infantry on top of the 20 Infantry and 15 Rifles I already have lying around and Daniel's army which I believe is the largest in the game.

Also this turn, Elkad seems to have declared on Daniel. Possibly because Daniel didn't trade artillery to him. No idea what he's done but he probably sent a bunch of Destroyers to harass Daniel's nearby coastal cities.

Decision time. We could combine our armies and send a swift invasion force to Elkad and hopefully do some damage before Rego is free to attack me. Or we could just hold him off but keep the bulk of our armies on the Indian border. Or we could sue for peace with Elkad and send our combined armies in an invasion of India.

[shadyforce]

T209:

Declared war on Elkad. Moved around 35 units into his land. Rego can attack me on T215 if he chooses to do so.

The Courthouse pops borders next turn giving me 60% cultural defense. I have around 10 assorted units in the city. Should be safe unless Lins interferes with a hidden stack of 10+ Fighters and Elkad sends in all his land units or something.

[shadyforce]

Quick update. I haven't logged in yet but I don't think my stack was attacked on flat ground because of how quickly Elkad played his turn. I'm going to log in later and advance onto the hill next to Carthage.

Rego is basically probing for some sort of permanent NAP between us and him in exchange for a promise to not interfere. There is no guarantee he will interfere even if we continue with the attack though. His stance has made me change my mind on what my preferred direction is.

Rego's opportunism should not go unpunished. At this stage, I would love to sign peace with Elkad and send every single unit I have against Green Township on T215. In fact I would even give up The Courthouse to Elkad and give him whatever guarantee of safety he wants in exchange for a large chunk of his standing army just to add to mine and Daniel's numbers. And Broker/Lins would surely leave us well alone if we were to do so.

The only problem is I have no idea how to contact Elkad. He apparently uses civstats but he didn't reply to the last message I sent him and I don't know of any other way to contact him.

[Rowain]

Perhaps ask Sullla (i thinkk he is the admin for this game) if he knows a way to contact Elkad or if he can give Elkad a message if he doesn't want to hand out such info directly.

Edit & PS you can also try a PM via his RB account.