RB Pitboss #2 [SPOILERS] - Pacal II of Greece! (Jowy & Yazilliclick)

[Jowy]

India -> Greece

Greetings to our neighbors on Team Greece!

We would like to acknowledge receipt of your email, and welcome the friendly
intentions expressed in your message. Our team also feels that we will both
benefit from peaceful interactions - an early military buildup on both sides
will only leave both of our civilizations behind the rest of the world!

While it's true that there is no technology trading in this game, there are
many other ways that teams can work together to their mutual advantage. For
starters, would you be interested in an informal information exchange? We
could both agree to let one another know if we meet other teams with our
scouting units, giving us both a better sense of what this world looks like.
Over time, we would build up a shared system of mutual trust that could lead
to closer economic and possibly military cooperation. But it seems best to
start with something basic, like an exchange of some scouting info. Would
that sound acceptable to your team?

We eagerly await your response, and look forward to a long period of
cooperation. Just make sure not to kill our messenger like in that picture!

Speaker and Sullla
The Killer Angels

"Killer Angels" huh? I would have preferred "Super Smile Fairy Angel Love Bunnies".

Greece -> India

Killer Angels <speaker.sullla.rbpitboss@gmail.com> wrote:
> For
> starters, would you be interested in an informal information exchange? We
> could both agree to let one another know if we meet other teams with our
> scouting units, giving us both a better sense of what this world looks like.
> Over time, we would build up a shared system of mutual trust that could lead
> to closer economic and possibly military cooperation. But it seems best to
> start with something basic, like an exchange of some scouting info. Would
> that sound acceptable to your team?

We are eager to know more of this world. Scouting exchange is an interesting idea. I'm afraid we can't take any screenshots before paper, or define our lands in too much details since that's not really acting in good faith towards the rules However I'm positive we can exchange some facts about the lands.

You are our first contact.
We have scouted to north - northeast of our position.
Our scout "Cigarettes" is on his way to west. I'd suggest you move somewhere in east / south (atleast by the looks of it you're on your way from west). There is nobody else to find in the north.

Please do deliver on your part of an information trade I know we didn't exactly settle on what to reveal, but we trust you will reply with as valuable information as you received.

They're going to see how many contacts we have from EP next turn anyway. Scouting kinda reveals our capitols location, but I'd rather have them scout somewhere else and just trust us than scout up here themselves, and I definately want that warrior as far away as possible. I personally wouldn't really need a map exchange or contact count, but let's do it to build trust with them.

[Jowy]

4/4 EP with India. Sullla and Speaker haven't met anyone else. They're very low in score, makes me believe they might be going for bronze working first. They start with mysticism and mining. Maybe they didn't have a good enough start to race for a religion. India was taken for the UU, not for the starting techs anyway.

[Jowy]

India -> Greece

Greetings again to the Greek people!

Our warrior Chamberlain waved goodbye to Cigarettes and sent our best wishes
before venturing further into the wilderness this turn. One piece of
information that we can pass on is that we have seen some lions prowling
around in the brush, so you may want to be careful with your scout. (You may
have known this already, but we've come across two different animals thus
far.)

We greatly appreciate the information that you shared with us, and are happy
to reciprocate in turn. We have not met any civilizations either so far. If
you pledge to let us know of anyone you meet, we'll be happy to do the same
with any teams that cross our path. How does that sound for starters?

Since we started with a warrior and not a scout, we probably don't have as
much map information as you, but we can tell you what we know thus far. We
have also generally scouted to the north and northeast of our start. (One
quick question: you said "We have scouted to north - northeast of our
position." Did you mean north *WEST* here? Otherwise, it sounds as though
our capitals are on top of one another!) Our best guess right now is that we
will find the other teams to the south, as we haven't done much scouting
there either. The land we've passed through looks very fertile, lots of
grassland tiles and rivers. Should make for some fine cities for both of us
someday!

As part of the trust-building process, we'd be willing to give your scout
directions to our capital in return for directions for our warrior. We
understand if you'd rather not reveal that information just yet, but we
wanted to make the effort as a show of good spirit.

We await your next reply with great interest,
Speaker and Sullla
The Killer Angels

Pure misunderstanding on the scouting part.. I was talking about north and north-east of our scout's location, not of our starting location. I'm going to say yes on the new contacts agreement. We can see from EP when they make more contacts, but might as well get to know who the contacts are.

I'm not quite sure why they would ask for directions to our capital. I was pretty sure that they would have figured it out from the scouting directions I gave. Maybe the misunderstanding threw them off the track here. I don't really need information on where their capital is, I was planning to scout that way regardless. It's only turn 8, so we could find their borders as soon as turn 12, but they won't find ours until much later. Maybe we should politely turn down the offer.

Any thoughts Yaz? You've been awfully quiet for a while.

[Yazilliclick]

hehe You've been handling things nicely and I've been travelling for past couple days as you may have seen in some updates on the RBP1 game (which I think did well just to play my turns considering ) Don't worry though I'm home now, well not now, now I'm at work.

Anyways yeah I say we accept letting each other know if we find someone else, though EP may tell us if they do, with this agreement we may find out what direction they're in and other details. Plus it will help keep relations up hopefully.

On the let them know where to go to find our capital I don't know best approach. I don't think we should let them know now, perhaps set a specific turn to share that information (perhaps like 4-5 turns after our warrior is done so we're not giving them the exact time it's done) or we could just not respond to that part. They know we started with scout so may be defenseless so I'm sure they could understand our reasoning. That said it would be good to know how close we are because we may need to work out some settlings agreements quickly depending.

The fact that they say they've explored NE and are fairly certain people are to the south makes me wonder if they're on the western coast, otherwise why wouldn't they think people could be to the W or SW?

Also since they're only scouting with a warrior and it's only turn 8 that means they really aren't very far from us capital wise and since they told us their scouting direction we can roughly estimate where they are.

[Jowy]

Alright I've sent a message back to them. I also opened a discussion about possibility of a future border agreement. I think you're right about their location, it makes sense if they're on the western coast. If they are, then I'm pretty sure our big island won't be connected to our landmass from the west. We'll see soon I guess.

Greece -> India

Good evening to you Killer Angels.

> If
> you pledge to let us know of anyone you meet, we'll be happy to do the same
> with any teams that cross our path. How does that sound for starters?

We'll agree on that. However I want to add that while we will try our best to respect this agreement, things might change in the game. So I'd like to propose this is more of a friendly favour than a formal agreement

> Since we started with a warrior and not a scout, we probably don't have as
> much map information as you, but we can tell you what we know thus far. We
> have also generally scouted to the north and northeast of our start. (One
> quick question: you said "We have scouted to north - northeast of our
> position." Did you mean north *WEST* here? Otherwise, it sounds as though
> our capitals are on top of one another!) Our best guess right now is that we
> will find the other teams to the south, as we haven't done much scouting
> there either.

I see we have a small misunderstanding here. I meant that we have scouted north-northeast of our scout's location, not our starting location. My bad for the confusing wording. English isn't my first language so expect to get some more shady sentences in the future.. though I'm trying my best.

> The land we've passed through looks very fertile, lots of
> grassland tiles and rivers. Should make for some fine cities for both of us
> someday!

That sounds very much the same as our immediate lands. That brings me to another issue that we'll have to solve at some point. For now I'd only like to ask do you think we may negotiate for a border agreement in the future? I think it'd be beneficial for both sides if there won't be an "Operation Pink Dot" between our civilizations. While we do want good relations with your civilization, I think we both know that ignoring an aggressive move like that won't lead anywhere, but neither will reacting to that move. So I think it's better that there is no move made in the first place. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. I'm sure things will become clearer as we discover more of the map.


> As part of the trust-building process, we'd be willing to give your scout
> directions to our capital in return for directions for our warrior. We
> understand if you'd rather not reveal that information just yet, but we
> wanted to make the effort as a show of good spirit.

We thank you for your show of good spirit, but we have decided to not accept this deal, atleast for now. We may consider this later on if necessary.


Thank you for your reply on the information deal. I hope ours was enough to justify your interest.
~ Jowy

[Jowy]

[Yazilliclick]

Good response back. You're right that island doesn't look at all like it's going to connect back to the west, at least not anywhere close. Lot of ocean over that way and there seems to be ocean up to our NE as well. Maybe we're at the narrowest point if it really is an island/continent divide?

Sure is a lot of fertile grassland though, be great for cottages

[Jowy]

India -> Greece

Greetings once more, O leaders of the Greek people!

We are happy to hear your agreement on the subject of sharing contact
information, at least in the early periods of the game. As a friendly favor,
we appreciate the gesture and will let you know if we find anyone. So far no
luck, but it does seem like a big map.

Thank you for clarifying the message about our encounter with your scout.
Your English is excellent, I couldn't tell that I was conversing with a
non-native speaker. What country are you from, if you don't mind my asking?

You also raise the issue of some kind of a border agreement and mention
"Pink Dot" from the Apolyton game. Has my reputation spread that far? :D Let
me give you a little more background on the situation in that game, since
Pink Dot was my own (Sullla's) idea. Those who have looked back on the
Apolyton game have seen the Pink Dot founding as a master stroke that
ultimately won Realms Beyond the game, and there's some certain truth to
that. However, the fact is that Pink Dot was a move made not out of
strength, but out of weakness. We had literally no strong city locations
anywhere close to our capital in that game, and the only way to avoid
becoming a weak, marginal team was to settle into the teeth of our neighbor.
Beelining a settler straight towards a civ that had all the early strategic
resources, and quechuas, when we had none was - to be honest - an insane
decision. Any competent team would have destroyed Pink in the early game and
crippled Realms Beyond. The move worked *ONLY* because we were playing the
Templars, a team with no clue what they were doing and poor overall
leadership. I pushed for Pink Dot because I had a correct read on their
team's personality, and our scouting had revealed that they were running a
religion-heavy opening which would make offensive warfare impractical.

The point is that Pink Dot was a desperation move, and never should be
thought of or attempted as "normal" play. It's not something Speaker and I
have any desire to repeat in this game, with fertile land all over the
place. Hopefully you and Yaz can rest assured that we have no intention of
settling on your doorstep! As far as border agreements go, it sounds like a
decent idea to the two of us. Naturally, we need to do a little more
scouting of the landscape before we can start drawing lines on the map.

We understand if you don't want to give us directions to your capital, since
we do have a warrior as opposed to your starting scout. I hope that you
don't take our offer the wrong way; it was meant as a token of openness, not
aggression.

Please stay in touch and let us know how things are going on a regular
basis. Until we speak next,
Speaker and Sullla
The Killer Angel

They seem to really hate the odds for Pink Dot -kind of stunt to work. Just what I wanted to hear

[Yazilliclick]

Well at least they're crafting their messages so far like they don't want to burn and destroy us

[Jowy]

Scouting southwest revealed another island barely disconnected from our landmass. I guess India's start is just to south of our scout and that "island" is theirs. (Or it might be a connection to another continent as suggested, which is why every start should have one or else it's unbalanced). I sent a small confirmation e-mail to Sullla and Speaker.