RBP3 [SPOILERS] - Friendly Kittens (Ragnar of Maya)

[Cull]

Micro Stuff: At this point, I think we need a serious strategic discussion. Big f'rinstance: Should we tech Hunting? There is a non-zero chance we'll see chariots (or war chariots) riding in on us from the north in 5 turns or less. On the other hand, the hydra heads north of us might not respond too rapidly to a threat against India. But they might. As of the now-current turn, we have 120 hammers worth of whipping power available - it'll be 150 next turn if we don't whip now - but only the capital has a granary. Exploit won't be able to send Hunting our way in less than 7 turns, and he may well be delayed. We can build units as sentries to send north and give us early warning, or we can ignore the danger and keep playing a farmer's gambit, or....

I can't build any kind of microplan without knowing what its purpose is. What's the overall plan?

I think that if we stop by for hunting, the rest of the alliance would be pretty mad that Math would be t80 or something. I think that we should leave it as his and just wait for Exploit. My own 2 cents

[Cull]

Eh, check out this email from India:

Hi Friendly Kittens,

I guess regoarrrarr is getting famous for his "drop-dead" emails, huh? He posted some interesting thoughts in our thread but we'll try to keep him muzzled, at least for now :-)

A few thoughts:

Mostly what these series of games have never seen is the war-quick peace-work together move. I guess they came a little close to the end of PBEM1 (I guess not a spoiler now that the game is over). Frankly, our team is of two minds on your email. Half of us believe that you are being sincere, and half of us think that you are blowing smoke at best, and being outright disingenuous about being "really really sorry" at worst. As always moves and actions play louder than emails and words.

So here's a thought - how about you let us borrow your chariot. We've got a few things in mind that he could do. Plus it lets us feel a little better that he's not going to continue to attack us, and that your attack was only executed at such great odds to cut off our copper. We'll borrow him for a few turns, and then march him back to your lands and re-gift him (or pay you with some sort of alternate compensation). If you're not willing to do that, how about peace, a NAP and a promise not to gift the chariot to anyone else? As we stated before, we have no desire to march across the desert and attack you.

As for your points about the 10 person alliance, of course it's not tenable. Let me repeat that - OF COURSE IT'S NOT TENABLE! I'm sure that in some ways it's breaking up already. But you're right that it's inevitable, and was decided when you and us and everyone voted for the game settings. I don't understand how this is much different than 3 civs deciding to work together in a 5 team game.

I think you're wrong to compare this to RPB1 though - the differences in that were twofold - not enough teams (so the remaining folks were able to form a counter alliance that teched even better) and the civs were so far away that joint military cooperation was impossible.

We know that 10 teams is a lot. But it really can't be any (much?) less. What would happen if say 5 teams started trading and "outed" themselves as an alliance? The other 12 teams would band together and take them out. But I don't expect it to last the whole game - that was why we also offered to include you as kind of an "alliance within an alliance"
So anyways, here we are. I guess at this point it's up to you guys. But what do you want out of us? I think that's the part of things that burns the most for the folks on our team. We feel like we bent over backwards to work with you but it wasn't good enough. So if you say you really REALLY REALLY didn't want to do this, and would have preferred working with us, what would you want from us? What could we have said? What CAN we say/do now? If the answer to that is "nothing" and "nothing", well I guess you know how we feel then.....

DJ Civ
India

Our alliance, "Hercules" is urging us to continue this war, but I REALLY don't see any great opportunities outside of razing India to the Stone Age, and if they even get spears....

Maniac, in email, agrees to keep on attacking, and I'm really hesitant to continue ( they MUST be whipping and chopping like MAD), BUT if we don't the rest of the alliance will gang up on us...

So, I think we should head south and check out the condition in their capital, and see if we have decent odds, if yes, attack, if no, pillage.

Ref, what do you think we should do?

[Cull]

Oh, and for India's latest email straight from Reg himself...

I think we gift the chariot, they will just turn around and attack Exploit. Perhaps they believe we don't realize this, or maybe they think there is 1 uber-alliance and 2 smaller ones, instead of 2 large ones? Probably the second.

"I'm sure that in someways its breaking up already."

Yeah, before your first major tech trade? I think its more of saying "oh, and by the way, our alliance members have now started to plan against each other while still working together" A bit cynical, but probably true.

The rest, to me, is just blubber, and nothing real, and really with that last little chunk. But I don't do diplo, so Ref? I don't know what else the email could contain.

[Cull]

First off Ref, that email to India was first-class awesomeness!

Second, in chat with Byz, with Bobchillingworth, they offered 4-5 chariots to the fight to India right away, NOT including the one already coming.

This is in exchange for us assisting them in taking out France after India is gone (!), or it has been crippled. I personally think this is a good idea.

If we do decide to do this, we still need to iron out a LOT of details.

[Cull]

Assuming we get second half, I will be able to play, but that would be in the morning at 8ish EST, with 4 hours or so left on the clock. If second half, and you could play before, that would be okay, but don't freak out if there is 4 hours left on the clock. First half, I could play as soon as they told us.

[RefSteel]

Cull, we're both online. If you want to chat, we're here.

[Cull]

Cull, we're both online. If you want to chat, we're here.

Sounds good, but eh one of us need to get out of invisible. I'll do it, and just say hi, and chat.

[Cull]

Yeah, chat just sort of kicked me out. I was there, and then I went elsewhere, came back and chat was gone. I am unable to make the move if it's in first half, so just follow the microplan, old or new, and move the chariot in India 1S, then on whatever tile would hurt india the most. I mentioned a potential trade of with byz above. How do you guys feel about it?

[Maniac Marshall]

This not being able to group chat is getting annoying. Are you using a computer? If so, we could just set up an irc chat rather easily.

[Maniac Marshall]

Annnnd, now you're gone again (sigh).

I talked to Ref earlier. I KNOW the worker plan and where we want to move all the units except the one chariot for sure, so I'm just going to do that. I told him earlier I'm getting sick and I needed to be in bed an hour ago... but, when has that stopped me so far (other than yesterday, but damnit, I don't get to see my son but 2-4 days a month, and he's more important than this game. He just is) so I'll probably leave it up to you guys where to move Bhurak Starkiller (the unit formerly known as Salthi). I favor following Exploit's Tuesday 65 plan at this point, as we need to meet Rome anyway. We probably should communicate this to Byz.

I expect we'd want to promote it to C1, rather than sentry. Under different circumstances, a sentry chariot would be nice...

RE: Bzy's offer. Geez these guys are a bloodthristy bunch. They want to build a crapload of chariots to go invade France? Have they even met France yet? If so, they JUST did. Sheer Luncay. That's fine for THEM, but, really, SOMEONE in this alliance needs to have an economy that doesn't suck, and they don't seem to get that. Particularly as chariots will be hopelessly out of date by the time they get there.

Now, obv, we don't want to tell Byz they're being overly ambitious... I'm not sure what we want to tell them other than "Lets kill India and we'll figure out who to kill next after that." I'ts positive, energetic, and, well, correct.

Also, if we're going to try to eliminate India (easier said than done, though I assume that IS our plan) we should get a barracks up, tech hunting, and go after then with a combination of Holkins and axes, letting Byz supply the chariots, since they aparently have no copper. Though, really, if India get alpha shortly, they'll probably also be getting IW soon. Wana take any bets against them having Iron? No, me either.

I hate to say it, but we've probably already lost this game. Not through any fault of our own, just through random chance of how the civs made contact. The best we can hope for now is, in no particular order:

1) Our cooperation being better than theirs and
2) A miracle

Now, time for my rant:

Yes, this game sucks.

Really, it's STILL better than NTT, though not by much. At lest you don't wind up with a situation where the entire game has to declare war on one or two civs who get out to a lead.

I think what this game has finally proved is that, unless you make a HIGHLY DETAILED set of rules to prevent large alliances, they will always form like this. There will always be 2 sides, likely with sub alliances within them, but still 2 sides. I HOPED that completely allowed tech trading might make this LESS of an issue than No Brokering. Maybe it would, but, I guess we'll never know.

One of the other players (not on this team) told me the other day that he wouldn't play again unless it was always war, and I tend to agree. Pitboss sounds super uberly awesome, but so did communisim, and we all saw how well THAT worked out.

I now think there's only one way to play multiplayer civ. Always war. MAYBE you could make a 4v4v4v4, or whatever that wasn't AW with tech trading off, but I doubt it. Nope. Sad, but so it goes.

Now, I've said my bit. Lets stop moping about the way this game has turned out. Yes, the rules we all voted on are about as bad as they can get. Tragically, awfully bad. But unless we want to quit and ask for a replacement, there is nothing we can do but slog on through the next few months.