Team Info and Contacts - Imperio

[darrelljs]

I'll re-iterate what I wrote before, but with less confidence. If we can change the mindset from Templars + Imperio + RB to Imperio + RB we can maybe work something out, but honestly it doesn't look very promising.

Darrell

"Cape Town is a non-starter. It is our military pump and a most critical city. You feel it is "naturally" part of your territory. We disagree, but its a waste of time to argue the point. We leveraged our Creative trait to our benefit in the opening, surely you can't fault us for that.

In the interest of moving forward, we are willing to grant you some extra consideration from the Templars' existing lands. They've frankly forfeit any right to hold them with their poor play. We propose an immediate undeclared cease fire (as the current war gives good cover for negotiations) to begin the process of dividing the Templars' lands between us.

We feel our position is naturally stronger and frankly the only reason we are offering you such a bargain is that it would be a shame to see PAL run away with the game. Given that stopping PAL is our only objective, as part of this continental power sharing arrangement we require a trade embargo on PAL and any teams supporting PAL. In addition, to catch up with their tech lead we will need to coordinate research paths and enter into a tech sharing arrangement. This arrangement shall be in effect at least until such time as we have jointly re-taken the tech lead."

[mostly-harmless]

I am not sure its worth expending the effort to come up with an answer.
PAL has more population than those two clowns combined. They are uncontested in their race to Liberalism. PAL has still good land to expand into. And their caravels are already looking for the new world.
One would think Imp would see this a sign that PAL is close to winning that game. But, no.

Ignore them. We have to solve this with military action, I fear.

mh

[sooooo]

It's pointless negotiating. TBH I think they are correct to band together and attack us. If Imperio band with us then we will be unstoppable. Their reasons they are giving us are not true - or at least they have convinced themselves of a lie. They are attacking us because we are too strong and that's all there is to it. The fact is that they left it far too late. They should have done it when they had elephants and catapults and we were still messing around with the great library. They missed their chance to win the game and now will suffer.

[sunrise089]

I tried to keep the language simple:

Imperio,

Thank you for sending us an email. We appreciate talking with you even while we are at war. It is fine to send us emails in Spanish.

1) We did not settle aggressively. Cape Town is closer to our capital than it is to yours. Templars agreed to Pink Dot and even another city spot (that we did not settle) closer to their land.

2) Our land is much worse than yours. The only way to remain competitive was to found more cities. You can tell because our tech is no better than yours even though we have more cities.

3) It is not fair to punish us because we built settlers early. We chose to build cities when other civs went for wonders and religions. We are not attacking you because we lack a holy city or an early wonder.

4) There is still lots of good land to be settled by you and Templars. For example, to the east of the current Templar cities. Plus there is the other continent out there that PAL will now have a monopoly on.

5) PAL IS winning the game. They have more population than Imperio and Templars together, more cities than RB, and they are discovering techs very quickly. They are going to get Liberalism, then get Military Tradition for free, kill their entire continent, and still get Galleons to the new world before we can. They already have caravels heading to the new continent.

6) You are not winning your war. Even if your plan was good it did not work. It is time for a new plan. Let's make the new plan "work together against PAL."

7) If you don't like that plan than lets both attack Templars and split their land. They have played badly and have been dishonest.

@Ruff - Offering to give them all of Templar lands except one city is crazy talk. Once we get Nationalism and Gunpowder we can defend Cape Town with just its own production plus one more city drafting Oromos. Every other city can go on "smash Templars" duty and we can take their cities ourselves. Plus we don't need iron that badly.

[T-hawk]

sooooo is right (sunrise ninja'd me.) Imperio is actually playing correctly to attempt to win the game themselves. Who can they attack? They cannot attack PAL now both because of overseas logistics and because we'd stab them in the flank. They can't attack Templars because we will join in and remain stronger than Imperio and eventually beat them. They can't attack Rabbits because PAL would easily clean up Imperio's overextension. Banana is right out.

That leaves RB as the only target. Imperio's only way to win is to attack us with Templar help and get fortunate with either combat results or tactical blunders on our part. They are doing so. They can deal with PAL only later.

The Cape Town proposal shows that they really do understand the situation. If we gave them Cape Town to turn on Templars, then Imperio would be level with or ahead of us in a post-Templars landscape. (Or Imperio reneges on the alliance, using the concession as leverage to defeat us outright.)

So... did Imperio really play incorrectly with the self-sandbagging opening? Did we really play well in demogame terms by playing well in Civ terms?

[mostly-harmless]

There is a remote chance of Christianity spreading naturally to Banana, which will open the way to Imp and Tem voting Tem as a Diplo Victor through the AP. Remote chance, but it is there. If Imp and Tem are down to a couple of disillusioned players, they might just do it.

mh

[mostly-harmless]

I agree, there is little else Imperio can do NOW, as they are committed to this conflict since ages. However, there are easily three more city spots in their north, plus the silver penisula on the other continent. The same for Templars, which have at least two more pretty good city spots (south and east of Jerusalem).

Anyway, coming back to IMperio not playing it "right". That's why there is not much chance of convincing to work with us.

mh

[sunrise089]

@T-Hawk - YES, we played well in demogame terms. Looks at how Banana treats PAL who is going to declare on them in 20 turns. We cannot help that our rivals are terrible players.

What if we had not settled past "Burgundy?" Do you think we would be in position to win the game? Remember, PAL would still smash their rivals. Would a trading bloc led by the strategists at Imperio really put us in a position to win?

@Sooooo and T_Hawk - Imperio did have another option rather than declaring on us. Sign a long-term non-aggression pact (we would have agreed for a favorable split of Templar land and a trade embargo) and race for the new world. With PAL delaying Liberalism to try to get a military tech Imperio could have won the race to Astro.

Or if they didn't like that idea....attack PAL. T-Hawk says we would have stabbed them in the flank, but I think he is wrong. I think with a tech agreement and NAP in place we would have even sent troops with Imperio.

@M_H, re: AP victory - If that happens I think we should just consider it a game bug and then keep playing, reloading from a save.

[dsplaisted]

I am working on a message in Spanish to send to Imperio (based on ruff_hi's suggestions and Sunrise's draft). I should be able to finish it up by this evening.

[ruff_hi]

what is our goal with talking to Imperio? Any or all of the following:

1. delay them until we are draft ready
2. get them to turn on Templar
3. get them to turn on PAL
4. chewing up forum space
5. giving us something to laugh at

Everyone is thinking about this game from their point of view and saying that they are playing the correct way. However, there is another way for them to win this game ...

1) team with TRB and wipe out Templar
2) claim most of ex-Templar's land
3) team with TRB and wipe out / disable PAL
4) claim most of ex-PALs land
5) wipe out / disable TRB

That is probably their best option because teaming with Templar is a waste of time.

[ruff_hi]

I am working on a message in Spanish to send to Imperio (based on ruff_hi's suggestions and Sunrise's draft). I should be able to finish it up by this evening.

this is premature - we haven't even agreed on an english version yet - don't want you wasting time on a spanish translation.

[Kodii]

I like sunrise's draft e-mail. Even if we continue to fail to convince Imperio, we are keeping the communication lines open, giving them something to think about, and potentially stalling their attack.

[mostly-harmless]

Send a one-liner:
"What compensation are you offering for Cape Town and Pink Dot?"

mh

[T-hawk]

I hereby choose D.

Ruff, your #5 doesn't work: RB remains ahead of Imperio every step of the way because RB is stronger now. Unless somehow Imperio gets a much larger share of land from Templars and PAL than we do. And if we perceive that's going to happen, then we would not want to share in the alliance to strengthen what would then be the game leader.

What if we had not settled past "Burgundy?" Do you think we would be in position to win the game? Remember, PAL would still smash their rivals. Would a trading bloc led by the strategists at Imperio really put us in a position to win?

Counterintuitively, I think we would be in position to win at least our continent. If we stop at Burgundy, then Imperio would be ahead now, and Templars would be allying with us against Imperio rather than the other way around. Sullla keeps complaining that these teams are acting irrationally, but I think each of them is doing the best they can to actually win. Unfortunately for us, that is to attack us.

In a three-player abstract war game, unless the first place player is strong enough to win outright, the second place player wins. For either #2 or #3 to ally with #1 is to eventually commit self-doom and lose to #1. #3's only chance is to ally with #2 against #1 and hope for some good breaks or a timely opportunity to stab. #2's best chance is to ally with #3 against #1 and talk down or hold off any stabs.

But the root cause of PAL winning has nothing to do with any of that anyway. PAL is winning simply because Banana's original team disappeared. With their neighbor absent and then NAPped out of necessity to attract a replacement player, PAL could wholeheartedly attack Rabbits without fear of flanking or alliance. (PAL did soundly defeat Rabbits in Civ gameplay terms, supported in large part by PAL's location as early contact and tech broker.) If Team Banana is healthy and playing all along, then PAL falls victim to the same curse-of-the-leader that we currently are.

...

Oh, is this a diplomacy thread? Afraid I don't have anything to add. Imperio attacking us is perfectly rational, and they err if they let us talk them out of it. Don't let me stop you guys from trying, though.

[ruff_hi]

I hereby choose D.

very funny.

Ruff, your #5 doesn't work

I know - we rock!

Draft for Imperio ...

Imperio,

Thank you for your email. We appreciate talking with you even while we are at war. It is fine to send us emails in Spanish.

Templar have not responded to any of our recent contacts. Because of this, and also the reason that they have played incredibly poorly, Team RB will not be talking to Templars in the future. That said, Templar have previously told us that they are accept our settlement of Pink Dot. They even said that they accepted us settling between Pink Dot and Cape Town. For them to now say they are 'unhappy' is dishonest.

It is true, we do have more cities than Templar ... even The Rabbits, who have been on the wrong end of a whipping by PAL, have the same number of cities. Do not seek to punish us for Templar's poor play. Even now, there are at least 2 great city sites that Templar is making no attempt to improve. If they had not built any settlers and only had their capital, would you be giving them your cities to balance things out?

We understand that you were not happy with our settlement of Cape Town, but we have always considered that land ours and, we believe, that the map-maker considered it ours too. You have your source of strategic resources and we have ours. Further, given your incredible wealth (3 gold resources, early happy resources and lots of flood plains), we had to settle cities to keep pace with you.

Be assured, PAL is currently winning this game. By the way, PAL already have caravels heading to the new continent. Look at this population census ...

Population census:
PAL 72 (12,11,9,9,8,7,6,5,2,2,1) - 11 cities
RB 55 (10,8,7,7,6,5,5,4,2,1) - 10 cities
Imp 41 (10,8,6,6,6,5) - 6 cities
Ban 40 (11,11,7,7,3,1) - 7 cities
Tem 30 (9,8,6,4,3) - 5 cities
Rab 12 (6,3,1,1,1) - 5 cities

PAL have more population than Imperio and Templars together, more cities than RB, and they are discovering techs very quickly. They are going to get Liberalism. They are going to Military Tradition for free. They are going to kill their entire continent. They are going to get Galleons to the new world.

PAL are going to WIN unless we do something now.

Your reaction to the current situation is understandable ... team with Templar, take down Team RB and then deal with PAL. However, you have made at least one fundamental mistake ... taking down Team RB will not be easy. It will take both you and Templar many, many turns to achieve this stated objective. Frankly (and obviously) we don't think that you can do it.

There is another option for you. Team with Team RB, take down Templar and then take down PAL. Based on what we have both observed of Templar's play, that first step should be very easy.

Team RB