RBPitboss #2 Athlete4life10 & Kalin

[athlete4life10]

Rome's response:

Dear allies and friends,

I am glad to see this ball beginning to roll. This message is more of a "checking in" sort of thing, but I will add a few thoughts.

I have not been in consistent communication with any civilization aside from the two of you, so I cannot vouch for anyone else. I can try sounded out others if no one has already, but as I mentioned to Nakor and DMOC just a moment ago, it might arouse suspicion if we all recruit someone at the same time. The Romali, the Greeks, and the IKZ Interregnum are our only real possible allies. I am under the impression that Kalin and Athlete are speaking with the Greeks and IKZ, but I could be mistaken.

It looks like Kalin made some good points on coordination. Due to some plans of my own, I cannot be certain exactly when I'll be able to "join the party," but my stacks will probably consist soley of Praetorians as they are good all-around units and I do not think that I will have had a chance to invest heavily in mounted units by Turn 100.

I have no Pitboss experience myself. The real question, I think, is how all these moves will be handled. A split clock may not work, as the "team" model seemed unpopular. We may end up with that "unit clock" method. I am really not sure. We will want some Horse Archers, though. I half-expect to see Indian catapults in the near future.

Lastly, for now, I think that it's good to have a target turn. T100 works for now, but I imagine it may require slight revision once the reality of everyone's readiness is apparent. Of course, it should not be pushed back too far, since we may fail in our mission by taking too long.

To victory,

Whosit, Galactic Emperor

And my 2 cents added to the melting pot:

Hello Fellow Allies,

I just wanted to add my 2 cents as Kalin and I sometimes have trouble connecting due to RL. I'll second the motion put forward by Nakor? that the 2nd child is certainly easier as you know what to expect, though it is more work. I have an almost 3 year old and an 18 month old.

We are currently in the process of feeling out both Greece and the Inca for the Coalition of the Willing. Not much to tell there apart from we've been in contact with them. We expect Greece to be on board as they have a lot to gain but we are unsure of the Inca.

As far as the split/turn war rules I've been thinking about this. We will probably need to work it out with India but we may have to accept that they move during their half and everybody else moves during the 2nd half. Perhaphs they'd be willing to sacrifice some of their time to compensate for all the teams involved but I don't see us being able to get much more than that. Anyways those are my thoughts.

I'm thrilled to see this coming together and look forward to working closer with you all,

Athlete for A/K
Ottomans

[athlete4life10]

So some further developments. Kalin had a decent chat with Dantski and Mali is on board. During the chat Dantski was able to get a hold of Jowy and he appears on board as well. That makes 5 of us with the Inca still to respond.

Personally I almost wish we hadn't sent anything to the Inca as we know nothing of their relationship with India but if we didn't include them it would be even worse so their the last piece of the puzzle if you will.

[kalin]

I confirmed Athlete's espionage computation that they had a build on T74 with 14 hammers in it, which is most likely an archer. There is something strange though. They are size 4 and working 2 2F0H1G tiles... If they are building an archer they should have either whipped or at least work more hammers; for example they could work a 1F1H1G fur, a 1F1H grass hill, or a 0F2H plains hill, which would give them 2-3 more hammers. Working those 2F1G tiles makes little sense, unless they want the gold. Is it possible they are not paying attention? We should monitor their build...

I played the turn 75.

This is very interesting. Here are some numbers from EP:

Sabotage cost: 131
Investigate cost: 371
EP ratio: 74/68 (them/us)

Using T-Hawk's magic formula this makes the hammers 20.4 ... In their configuration they would only get 2H/turn, and last turn they had 14. They still seem to work the same tiles. I checked civstats and Nakor was the last to play, and I logged in before him. I don't remember any change in the Byz tiles worked, which would exclude them logging in changing the tiles to plains hills to get hammers, then changing back. Something here is strange, unless the formula is wrong... Athlete, what do you think? I have some suspicion, but would like to hear from you first.

I also noticed that after the 2-pop whip, Coruscant is at 17/24F one less than in the plan. It doesn't change anything, but it's something to be aware of.

Kalin

[athlete4life10]

An e-mail from HRE to the coalition:

Hello Willing!

I heard that Dantski is in as well? Is this true? That would be great!
How are talks with Greece proceeding? Jowy just got back, right? I think he'll jump in as well.

Let's hope we can start planning soon! We do need to start thinking about building that stack between our other plans, but that shouldn't be a problem.

Hope to hear more news soon!

Nakor of HRE

And Kalin's sent a response:

Dear Friends of the CoW

I am very happy the CoW is coming together. If nothing comes out of it, at least we'll hopefully have fun and we'll become better friends in the process. I am however quite confident that our action will be successful.

I have some pretty good news. I chatted with Dantski and he's pretty much on board. He said he will send an email to all of us soon. I am also quite confident that Jowy of Greece will join (a discrete hint from Dantski), which I think completes the coalition. I don't expect Inca to participate. To be honest, I don't even expect them to respond, as Kodii is looking for a replacement in RBP1, and out of their 3-people team (now 2 with Zeviz retiring) only him has been playing the turns recently. I suspect he has little time for diplomacy.

Here's a quote from the chat with Dantski:

Dantski: you can tell them i have 2 roads to india
so we can attack multiple cities

The good news is that Dantski seems to have pretty good info on India's lands and he's scouting them right now. He'll hopefully give us all the details when he emails us.

Since several people expressed interest in hearing about our plans with Byzantium, here's what we can say. We believe with high confidence that we will eliminate Byzantium by turn 85, and possibly a couple of turns earlier, depending a bit on what they do. We trust you will not pass this along

One thing for you to know. We have a NAP with India until turn 80. It was a 20-turn NAP. We have the option to either renew it and it will most likely need to be for another 20 turns, otherwise it will look suspicious, or to pretend to forget about it. I think we may renew it so that we won't arise suspicions, but it will depend on the details of the plan. We should try to iron all the details by then (T80). Let us know your opinion.

I strongly suggest that in the CoW, we should all be equals and everybody's opinion would count the same.

Now, how to proceed? Both DMOC and me are new to pitboss, so we'd like to hear how the pro's think things should go.

I (Kalin) am also quite new to MP and don't consider myself a pro. While I participated in RBP1, Dreylin my teammate has run 90% of the show there. Judging from our discussions, I believe we are all at a very similar level of skill in the game. We should all express opinions and work out some plan.

I suggest we all start by computing how many troops you can build and by what turn. After that, let's compute by what turn we will be able to reach India's territory. This information should greatly help in putting together a common plan. For example, in our case I believe we'll have a minimum of 4 HAs and 4 chariots that will reach Greece's territory by turn 90. Note that we'll only bring mounted units as we are quite far and otherwise it will take us too long otherwise. We will need to coordinate with Jowy.

I think that's it for now

Best,
Kalin for Team A/K of the Ottomans

P.S.: Since this email was started we received confirmation that Jowy of Greece is on board, just as we expected. The CoW now officially consists of (in alphabetical order ) HRE, Greece, Mali, the Ottomans, and Rome. From now on all emails should go to all members. Jowy/Dantski I added you to this email...

[athlete4life10]

So Kalin and I chatted briefly and according to the tiles Byzantium are currently working and the rate at which "hammers" are being accumulated they have to be constructing either a settler or a worker. Our bet is on a settler given they already have 2 workers.

Since the turn has rolled over and they were at 20 hammers before they should be at 26 now (havne't checked yet). If they want to maximize it for a double whip into a unit (archer or spear or something if they can secure copper from India) it will be in the early 80's right around when we should be able to hit them so this information might be quite beneficial. We'll have to monitor it closely none the less.

[kalin]

So Kalin and I chatted briefly and according to the tiles Byzantium are currently working and the rate at which "hammers" are being accumulated they have to be constructing either a settler or a worker. Our bet is on a settler given they already have 2 workers.

Since the turn has rolled over and they were at 20 hammers before they should be at 26 now (havne't checked yet). If they want to maximize it for a double whip into a unit (archer or spear or something if they can secure copper from India) it will be in the early 80's right around when we should be able to hit them so this information might be quite beneficial. We'll have to monitor it closely none the less.

I didn't want to bias Athlete but in the end I ended up doing it My hypothesis was that Byzantium were building a settler/worker. The good news is that my hypothesis is confirmed: I checked again at the beginning of turn 76 and based on the EP screen number I get some 26 hammers (25.93 to be precise ) in the Byzantine build. The bad news is that I don't understand what's going on. It makes almost no sense to me. We have 5 chariots so they will need quite a heavy archer escort for the settler, but then why not build the archers first. I am concerned that something is not right here. They may be expecting metal from India soon... Not much to do about it, but we should monitor the EP screen each turn.

I am going to suggest to Jowy to declare war on Byzantium to try to deceive India about his troops build up. I will also suggest monitoring India's metals and close borders with India if they give metal to Byzantium. I am almost sure that an India-Byzantium trade route goes through Greece's territory.

Question for the lurkers: Is there any way to figure out if Byzantium gets metal?

Thanks,
Kalin

[kalin]

I revised the plan for Kashyyyk. The only change is that we won't have a HA on turn 80, but on turn 81. Given that's the 7th that we may not even build, that's ok.

Lesson learned: when a city with granary grows the food you get is half of the *previous* food bar. For example, when you grow from size 2 to 3, assuming no food overflow, you get 12 food in the food bar (half of the 24 needed at size 2 to grow), rather than 13 which is what I assumed before.

Kalin

CS: City Size FB: Food Bar, P: Production, B: Build

Kashyyyk

T74 CS: 2 F: 20/24 +4F P: 13 B: HA 0/50
T75 CS: 3 F: 12/26 +3F P: 10 + 20 (chop) = 30 B: HA 13/50 (work mine!)
T76 CS: 3 F: 15/26 +4F P: 8 B: HA 43/50
whip on T76 from size 3 to 2
F: 15/24 +4F P: 7 B: HA 73/50
worker moves to forest
T77: CS: 2 F: 19/24 +4F P: 7 + 30 (overflow) = 37 B: HA 0/50
HA ready

(corrected)
T78: CS: 2 F 23/24 +1F P: 8 B: HA 37/50
whip on T78 from size 2 to 1
CS: 1 F 23/22 +4F P: 4 B: HA 67/50
T79: CS: 2 F 16/24 +4F P: 7 + 21 (overflow) + 20 (chop) = 48 B: HA(?) 0/50
HA ready
T80: CS: 2 F 20/24 +4F P: 7 B: HA(?) 48/50
T81: CS: 3 F: 12/26 +3F P: 10 + 5 (overflow) B: ? 0/?
HA ready

[kalin]

Updated plan for Coruscant.

IMPORTANT NOTE: We should work the furs in Coruscant on T76!

Coruscant
T74: CS: 3 F: 24/26 +6F P: 4 B: HA 0/50
T75: CS: 4 F: 18/28 +4F P: 7 B: HA 4/50
whip on T75 2pop from size 4 to 2
CS: 2 F: 17/24 +7F P: 1 B: HA 64/50

T76: CS: 3 F: 12/26 +6F P: 3 + 15 (overflow) + 20 (chop) = 38 B: HA 0/50 (work furs)
HA ready -- 79 river/80 non-river
T77: CS: 3 F: 18/26 +6F P: 3 B: HA: 38/50
whip on T77 1pop from size 3 to 2
CS: 2 F: 18/24 +7F P: 1 B: HA: 68/50
T78: CS: 3 F: 13/26 +6F P: (3 + 18 (overflow)) * 2 = 42 B: Library(?) 0/90
HA ready -- 81 river/82 non-river

[athlete4life10]

Kalin,

Not sure if you noticed or not but India's power has spiked significantly. Probably in response to Mali's power whom I believe is #2 and I'm sure Greece is up there. Some of the spike is surely tech but I doubt that explains all of it.

Athlete

[athlete4life10]

Kalin,

Also had a brief chat in game with Sullla. Nothing much was said though we should expect an e-mail from them in the near future regarding renewing our NAP. If we are going to trade/lend units to Jowy we need to be very careful with this.

Basically I commented how we want byz gone if nothing else than to say we accomplished that though it looks like it will take a while. He basically told me we need cats. We both complimented each other on our starts while downplaying our own and that was it in a nutshell.

Athlete