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

[Jowy]

[SIZE="4"]Ottomans VS Byzantine[/SIZE]
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack,
we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive;
when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away;
when far away, we must make him believe we are near." - Sun Tzu

Oh yeah. You lurkers should already know all about this. Byzantine struck a NAP with us early in the game so that they can make an aggressive move against the civilization on the other side: Ottomans. At that point I hadn't met Ottomans so I signed the deal. The more I interacted with Byzantine the more I started to dislike them: Very bold strict deals even when they have nothing to bargain with. When I heard that they had already planted a city far to the other side while making huge concession about cities 3 tiles east of my capital, I pretty much fell to Ottomans' side on this. I don't trust Byzantine, but I can't help Ottomans much atm because of my NAP with Byzantine. I'm still trying to find ways to make this work.

Ottomans declared war on Byzantine by first blindsiding them, which is quite ironic. Ottomans moved their troops and told Byzantine that it was a misclick, but then next turn attacked and apparently destroyed Byzantine's second city. Now they are confident that they can pretty much defeat Byzantine, but I'm not so sure it will be that easy. But if it does work, that'll be a big advantage for both the Ottomans and me. Atm although I haven't known Ottomans for long, I trust them much more than Byzantine or India.'

Hi Jowy of the Greeks,

As you may have seen in game we have declared war on Byzantium. The reason
for this is that they settled their second city in a place where we planned
to settle our second city. It is so close to our capital that our 3rd ring
borders their 2nd ring.

We did have peaceful intentions going into this game. We feel however that
we were cornered by a strong team and a civilization with one of the best
unique units which left us with practically no choice.

I think we are in good position to do some damage, but it's not clear how
much at the moment. We would do our best to keep you updated. If you have
questions please let us know.

Kalin of the Ottomans

[COLOR="PaleGreen"]Hey Ottomans,

Sorry to hear about the war. I have to wish you good luck, if you fall then I'm afraid I could be the next one in the chopping block. Well, you know my situation. Btw I'm not sure how well you're informed of RPB1 events, but Regoarrar likes to bend the rules quite a bit. I recommend you to check out what he did there to prevent something like that happening to you. And obviously Kalin isn't allowed to check it out so Athlete will have to do that and try not to spoil Kalin Anyway hopefully it'll be a fair fight. Good luck.

~ Jowy[/COLOR]

Hi Jowy,

Thanks for your thoughts and information. Things started well, but we are
not out of the woods yet.

We agreed to general friendly relations between our nations. We wanted to
reinforce that. Should we be fortunate in our war and make Byzantium a
non-factor, or even eliminate them, we would be neighbors and we intend to
be good neighbors and treat you fairly. We would negotiate a fair land
partition until we can both agree on it. We would also like to discuss some
terms where we would help other should either of us be at war, but that's a
bit further down the line.

Given the above, we would suggest you concentrate your efforts in India's
direction, given that it's likely that Byzantium will be less of a threat.
We believe India to be the strongest team in the game and their start
reinforces this belief. We don't want them to be become too strong
particularly at the expense of our friends. We would like to know your
thoughts in this respect.

Let us know if there is any way we can help (even if just with information
at the moment).

We have our protocol, but I'll say it anyway: the above is in the strictest
confidence.

Best,
Kalin for Team A/K of the Ottomans

[COLOR="PaleGreen"]Hey Kalin, Athlete,

You're full of surprises I heard you have captured that city already, very well done. To be honest I, as well as apparently Byzantine, underestimated you. If you keep it up and do outplay Byzantine out of the picture, then we will be glad to have you as a neighbour and we have nothing against friendly relations. We also acknowledge that if you do beat Byzantine, you deserve a big chunk of their lands and we have no trouble letting you settle most of their land. Anyway we're still far from being neighbours, I agree that any in-depth agreements should come later :P

We have already made plans for our settling. We have negotiated a very generous deal, so no worries about India over here unless they decide to stab us in the back and go aggressive on us.

~ Jowy[/COLOR]

[Jowy]

Dear Jowy,

Congratulations on meeting with Dantski! I know that Cover and Duck has been
wandering in the wilderness for quite some time, and his persistence has
finally paid off.

We did see that athlete and sunrise have gone to war. It's a sad example of
how the inability of neighboring teams to work together in the early game
only leads to the downfall of both sides. athlete's cities are all tiny and
underdeveloped, because he's been whipping them to death, while sunrise just
lost his newly-founded second city. We're grateful that our teams have been
able to avoid this kind of "beggar-thy-neighbor" politics.

Cheers,
Sullla
The Killer Angels

[COLOR="PaleGreen"]Hey Sullla, Speaker,

I'm glad it wasn't the two of us in their place fighting a war that'll slow them down for many turns. I guess diplomacy pays off even if it seems a bit dull at times To my knowledge though, Byzantine had no intention to be peaceful with whoever they would meet over there. Looks like they underestimated their opponent though.

We met Rome at the same exact spot as Mali. You might stumble upon their scout if you have an unit near. Just missing two more contacts atm. I don't feel like going through all our posts, who are you still missing?

~ Jowy[/COLOR]

[Jowy]

Jowy,

First, let me apologize for my spelling error, Jowy. This shouldn't happen
again. =]

Second, I agree that alliances might have to wait since we don't know the
entire geography of the map and technology situation just yet.

Right now, we have quite a bit of the map explored. We have water to the
south of us, but also have islands so that is a boon. We think that the map
is some kind of snaky low sea level archipelago map. What do you think?

Since we're so far away from each other, it doesn't make sense for us to
spend EP on each other. Right now we do not have plans to spend EP on you
since we have many close neighbors.

The last thing I want to request is that if we are corresponding in email,
can everything in our conversations be strictly between us, unless one of us
wishes to tell someone else. What do you think?

Sincerely,

DMOC of the DMOC/Nakor team for the HRE

[COLOR="PaleGreen"]Hello HRE,

The map is shaped like a donut. Everyone has two fronts on the opposite sides of their lands. Also everyone has some kind of islands outside of the donut, but I haven't scouted those yet. Can you confirm the lands there match this hypothesis?

Yes indeed everything should be only between us. Well, most of it anyway. I think we can both figure out what to not share and what doesn't matter.

~ Jowy[/COLOR]

[Jowy]

Greetings Greasy Greeks of the North!

The Romalinese welcome you to the more southern lands and hope to find you well.

We hope we can be friends this game and would like to offer a fair exchange of information. As you have no doubt surmised, Sullla + Speaker (who I and my lurkers are referring to as Spulla) are to my north and Nakor (and DMOC although he's not to active it seems) are to my south.

Currently Spulla seem very focused on settling in your direction and have also negotiated to try and secure their southern border so they can continue settling north, while they have dealt fairly with me, I wouldn't like to see them pushing your Civ around too much and becoming a powerhouse later.

Looking forward to your reply.

-Dantski

[COLOR="PaleGreen"]Greetings dear emperor of Mali!

Thanks for the warm welcome! We have spent quite a long time trying to get hold of you. Malinese lands seem to have a legion of greek-eating scout-munching lions roaming the wilderness. Anyway nice to meet ya. You probably know already, but we're located north of India.

Friends sounds like the best approach, unless we want to war and let "Spulla" capture both of our weakened empires I've met India early on and HRE recently. That is quite troubling as this dear Spulla was saying the same thing to us: except that they'll focus settling towards you, not me! We are supposedly in friendly terms with them, but it is troubling to hear that they might be playing both of us. Be very careful with these spullans.

I'm glad to hear you don't want them to become a powerhouse either. Neither do I. We should work together not to let them become one. I'm not talking about war or anything, but together we would have enough leverage to keep them in hold.
I know I'm risking alot by sharing all this info even though we just met, but looks like you know the Indian players well, so you know what's at stake here. Let's keep this all between us btw

~ Jowy
PS. Our gmail account was banned earlier so we switched to this one (pacalgreece@wippies.com). It's been unbanned later on, that's how I happened to check out your diplo message, but we've started to use this one. Well, pretty much *I* have started to use this one, Yaz has been away for a while and will be for quite a long time.[/COLOR]

Now this is REALLY interesting. Looks like my intuition was right in Sullla's case.. I just wrote that post on whom I trust before reading this e-mail from Dantski. So both my neighbours have been dishonest with me? And I thought I was being overly-paranoid at the beginning!

[Jowy]

From the Supreme Galactic Empire to Jowy and Yazilliclick of the Mighty Greeks,

Well met, fellow travelers. Bib Fortuna has discovered your Scout, Cover and Duck, and I wish to extend the hand of peace to you both. I take it that you come from the west. I hope to discover more in that direction; perhaps you could suggest the safest route? As for Cover and Duck, I would advise you to act cautiously if you head east because Bib has narrowly avoided a Bear. I would head south for a few leagues before turning east if I were you.

Will you accept the friendship of the Empire?

Best regards,

Whosit, Galactic Emperor

[COLOR="PaleGreen"]Greetings, Emperor!

Imagine my shock when I found out that the famous Bib Fortuna is actually working for the imperials! It is quite appropriate though, I suppose. We are glad to finally meet the mighty Empire. We are actually coming from north, so can't really recommend a safe route. Maybe you should have hired Solo, he can do the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs, some tiny jungle couldn't stop him! Seriously though, HRE is just south of you, Mali is to the west and India and Greece are to the north.

We accept to friendly relations. What's there really to fight about. Thanks for the route tip, unfortunately I moved before checking this old gmail account (our new one is pacalgreece@wippies.com, had to change due to getting banned from gmail). Any idea where Korea and Incans are?

~ Jowy
Advisor of Pacal II of the Greeks,
Not A Rebel Scum.[/COLOR]

[Jowy]

The amount of e-mails is getting overwhelming. I have to re-ask if you still want the e-mails posted? I could write small reviews of what's happening instead.

[newbie]

Personally, I am finding all these emails fascinating. I find it one of the most interesting things, not just your thread. Readers who aren't interested can easily skip over them due to the graphical layout. If you are finding it a chore to copy-paste them immediately as you receive them & respond to them, then you could always do a 'data-dump' at convenient intervals. I am also finding all of your analysis and comments on the diplomatic situation very interesting (can't comment on the accuracy of course, but it is interesting to see what is your take on it all). You can always leave out the boring emails (not that you have posted many - it was only early on when no-one had much else to do other than early scouting and reports of bear attacks), where there isn't much to comment on.

[Jowy]

Personally, I am finding all these emails fascinating. I find it one of the most interesting things, not just your thread. Readers who aren't interested can easily skip over them due to the graphical layout. If you are finding it a chore to copy-paste them immediately as you receive them & respond to them, then you could always do a 'data-dump' at convenient intervals. I am also finding all of your analysis and comments on the diplomatic situation very interesting (can't comment on the accuracy of course, but it is interesting to see what is your take on it all). You can always leave out the boring emails (not that you have posted many - it was only early on when no-one had much else to do other than early scouting and reports of bear attacks), where there isn't much to comment on.

That's good to know then. It'll be interesting for myself too to read those analyses after the game. For someone who watches Survivor, participating in a Pitboss game is absolutely second-best after Survivor

Good ot hear from you prompty!
I am very interested in hearing where Spulla have settled their first 2
cities, I can't see either of them at present so I'm assuming they were both
sent your way.
Currently I have 3 cities total, 2 of which will form a natural border with
Spulla, they are unlikely to get more than 2 cities out in my direction now
so I'm in a reasonable position here.
Also we have an EP agreement where we have each others graphs and agree not
to spend further + a NAP with them until 1000BC. Currently they seem eager
to renew our NAP.
Don't worry about info with me, I will not be sharing anything you tell me
without your permission. I would ask that you don't share too much with
Nakor either as I wouldn't like the HRE and Indians to get too pally.
-Dantski
p.s. Plako is east (I'm assuming) of Nakor, I don't have a scout up near you
so I don't need to meet your other neighbour quite yet, although feel free
to direct them my way!

[COLOR="PaleGreen"]They settled their second one just east of their capital to claim copper (which they claimed to be a non-aggressive spot, yeah right ). Haven't seen their third city. I have three cities myself, although my borders are still bit far away from India. If I had to guess they indeed decided to go aggressive towards me. Your skirmishers probably made the difference. We have a NAP with them until turn 75 and to be honest we haven't had much in-depth conversations for a while, and nothing about renewing the NAP.

Try not to sign a long NAP with them. Having your hands tied while they rush us would be bad for both of us. We can give them a fight alone, but they're a very experienced team. If we fall, then the next would probably be you.. On the other side of me I have Byzantine, played by Sunrise, Regoarrar and Darreljjs, definately one of the strongest teams in the game. I don't think I can forward anyone from Byzantine towards you yet though, they are quite busy with a war against Ottomans.

~ Jowy[/COLOR]

I'm going to get so fucked if Dantski is actually siding with India But to be honest atm all the puzzle pieces seem to fit the picture that India indeed aren't as friendly as they say. Getting Dantski on my side would definately improve my odds. It's a big gamble but we'll see how it plays. I feel like I'm in a good position because I'm in friendly terms with both Ottomans and Mali, the civs who are on the other front of my neighbours. Then again, I've only known them for a while. But I don't think it would be a wise move from their point of view to let either India or Byzantine to become a powerhouse so I think they'll both be loyal to me.

[Jowy]

More about that.

Yes they definately pushed your way first because of my skirmishers.

T75 is 1000BC same as me, currently they have made a tentative offer of a 20
turn NAP extension which I have not responded to as yet.

The reason I'm keen on war against them is because sonner is far better than
later. Your UU is at its best now and the best they could do is build axes
(remember phalanxes get 100% vs chariot) to counter you. I would certainly
commit to attacking them to although their closest city is their capital
which would likely prove difficult to take with 40% defences. I could get
some nice pillaging done and at least it would split their units up.
You can probably ignore the Byzantines for now and focus on your western
front, rego/sunrise won't be eager to antagonize you anytime soon.

-Dantski

[COLOR="PaleGreen"]I'll have to think about this. Problem is that they'll might see it coming thanks to impressive C&D on statistics. We could atleast send stacks to slow them down if nothing else. I just got iron hooked up so I'll be making units regardless. First unit to beat Phalanxes is Horse Archer. They have horses right next to their capital. Phalanx only gets +100% when defending against chariots, not when attacking.

We still have time. 17 turns to be exact. Alot can happen. Let's get ready though asap.

~ Jowy[/COLOR]

I fear that we won't be able to do any permanent damage with this proposed attack, but we would lose the surprise-factor. Also I still don't 100% trust Dantski. And I'm not sure what kind of troops he could actually send. I'll be thinking about this and discussing it more in-depth if everything goes as planned.

[Jowy]