Greetings to all from the Mythral, Free friends in the south. We are extremely interested in taking to everyone, neutral, dark, it makes no difference!
Please contact at: dakinis@yahoo.com
Have a great one,
Ken
Salutations from the Free Lords of the West, the Iron League.
To the sword for those dastardly dark slaves. Likewise to any neutral who calls them friend. And a particularly nasty demise wished upon the lowly Ered Lomin who taint the forest to our north.
Honor and strength to our friends the true neutrals. May the light warm you and keep you. We welcome your company and counsel.
Loranth,
High Marshal of the Iron League
Deleted due to drop
The Forth Age of Middle Earth is the age of men. The Elves and the mighty Valor have departed the shores leaving us to our fate. Sauron and the ring are no more - so men have been left to lead and guide the land through the descendants of King Aragorn.
We in the North Kingdom seek all men of the neutral path to go forth and bring peace and justice to this land. Join us in a grand alliance of neutrals that can unite the land once again and bring an age of prosperity and glory to the world once again.
Our scribes can be contacted at Gavken@btinternet.com where my junior scribe Gavin would gladly receive all neutral emissaies. If the nations of the free and dark servants of the land also with to contact us then we will listen to their proposals also, but know that we favour the emissaries of the neutral path.
Lord Kinkladze (Senior Scribe at Court).
Greetings from the Silver Spires.
My neutral neighbors, I would be interested in having a pragmatic conversation or two, and may be reached at br_fisher@yahoo.com
Thane’s halls :
“Come chancellor and let’s proclaim to all that the halls of the Wisigoths will, from now on, welcome peaceful envoys from all nations.”
“No can do your highness”
“What!. Are our doors barred?, fetch the gatekeeper right now and flog him for forgetting his duty!”
“Oh, no terrible liege, the doors are open, warms fires are lits for envoys, we bought a batch of clean wenches. It’s just that…”
“What then?”
“There is a clerical error”
Ariaric the mighty, thane of the Wisigoths, terror of the slum village (east side) and ribalder supreme deflated.
" When last we declared our taxes, one cleric, by the name of Klinth, miswrote our proud nation’s name and wrote Wisgurth instead in the kindgoms registers. As far as the other nations are concernd, our named is thus changed".
“And when last did we paid taxes?”
“We an independant neutral nation, mighty one. We pay tax nor hommage to no one, it’s just an old custom really”
“Grab this miscreant and put him under the worst punishment our law allows”.
“Already done sir, he is locked in a cell”
“That’s it?. Locked in a cell, not quartered, mangled beyond recognition or fed his own privies?. Just locked?”
" He is locked in with Celine Dion. She is giving him her full repertoir over and over"
The thane winced. “Now, isn’t that against Geneva convention?. We don’t want others to think we entertain a nazgul in our halls. Weren’t they supposed to be all dead ?.”
“She is not a nazgul sir… I’ll check though. Anyway nothing can be done about our name now”
“So even if our Palantir is set at Wisigoth43@yahoo.co.uk our name is Wisgurth?”
“Indeed my liege, indeed”.
“Well, then at least if their spies come, they will not be able to read our maps”
Didier/Wisigoth errr Wisgurth
Reachable at dan.carey<at>charter.net
I am player 14, a DS, in this game. Anyone who wishes to reach the DS can email me for the rest of our team email addresses.
We would appreciate contact from the neutral nations in N. Mirkwood and Rhun fairly quickly, if you wish to discuss non-aggression or alliance.
dan
Hail Lords of Middle-earth.
The South Kingdom wishes to announce that the Court of Minas Tirith is open to receive embassies from all the kingdoms of the world. We look forward to receiving missives at: wayfarers@bellsouth.net .
Good gaming,
Erving Bolinski
Greetings,
The nation of the Capellanus, a true neutral nation, sends warm salutations to all. Feel free to send a private message as I will not put my contact info on a public forum again for fear of the flood of spam I got last time.
In the mean time, here’s to diplomacy!
Brian of the Capellanus
Greetings everyone. I’m Vengers nation 20 a nuetral in Rhun trying to get my feet wet in this scenerio. I’m looking forward to talking to everyone. My email address is Hlachero@yahoo.com. Hope everyone is as excited as i am to play in this Game.
All:
Nice to meet you I am playing on the FP as player 9. My address is bguertin@ce.ufl.edu
Nice to meet you all.
warning to all nuetrals the DS team are attacking nuetrals even when offering non aggression pacts. It join them or die as I have found out and my reply is simple you must take me out becuase i will never join your team.
Vengers
To our esteemed brother of the Vengers
Well, I can safely say that the FP are people of honor and would be happy to have you join us in our efforts to thwart evil. Please consider this an invitation to join our noble effort.
Barry, CEO of Robiand
“chamberlain!, Chamberlain!!”
“Yes of terrible one, how can I be of service?”
“New reports are in, it shows that our name is once more that of our ancestors. Fetch the rod of lordship, we can now entertain guests properly, using the name belonging to our forefathers”
“No can do, my liege”
Ariaric turned a nasty shade of pink “You seem to use that sentence far too often to my liking. What is it now?”
Theoric cleared his throat
“Well, you see it’s all about a miscarriage of justice. You see, Klinth wasn’t the clerk responsible for the miswriting. And given the punishment… people talk you know, we would have been branded servants in a moment. Times are troubled, some powers are already under assault for what they are, we cannot take any risk.”
“Well, hopefully those will be able to change side, or that kind of broad statement will turn against them and their allies. Anyway, what happened this time?”
“As we were taking in the real culprit, one Robb, and carrying out the shivering mass who once was Klinth, Celine escaped”
“WHAT?”
“You see my liege, it’s hard to order guard to do anything when they have earplugs. The guards were under orders to lead Klinth out, our doctors prepared out a room with Britney Spear playing on, to slowly restore his sanity and shove the miscreant in. But, even if deaf, some fears the mere sight of Celine, they still think she is a nazgul. And, seeing a way out, she escaped”
“So she’s not?. Where is she now?”
“Apparently, she was released on a technicality during the trials, despite Adunaphel’s very graphic testimony; or so reports says. We cornered her, but she took refuge in your bedroom sire. As we’re under strict orders not to enter it and see your doll collec…military exhibits, this problem is yours to… If I may say, that’s a unseeming shade of green you’ve just turned to.”
Later that day, in front to Thane’s Ariaric bedroom
“So tell me guard, what happened?”
“During a lull, Thane Ariaric came in made a dive, grabbed our kingdom symbol, and had barely enough time to throw it back at us while we held the door before the… before she…”
“Grab yourself, you’re an elite guard. What did she do?”
“She was ready to sing “Titanic” again … But then she seemed to noticed our lord, her expression changed into something cthulic”
“Snap it out, this is middle earth, not lovercraft’s mythos”
“… she said somlething like “My little caribou d’amour” and started swaying toward the thane. We couldn’t bear it anymore, so we closed the door. All we heard after was a wimpering, followed by a man screaming insanely, followed by nightmarish shlurping noises”.
“hmm, Celine might be Cthulu mythos after all. Do we have a lord in jails right now?”
“Could you be more specific please?”
“Grab the first one you come upon, give him a bath and throw him on the throne, we’ll dub him Ariaric the second later on… Oh an seal this room forever, doing something gothic like. I’ll call some tour operators, nothing attract tourist more than gorish legends”.
“If I may Chamberlain Theoric, why don’t you hold the throne yourself?”
Theroic made a gesture toward the door “And end up like this one, or the one before whom we married off to Miss Piggy. The list goes on and on, I would be out of my mind to want this job”
“What of Robb now?”
“The day has been bloody enough, just leave him in the Britney room to be released him once the coronation starts. That’sll make us look good with the press”
On behalf of the DS, I have been tasked with posting our reply to accusations that our current team breaks deals and acts dishonorably. We must beg to differ with the Vengers and argue that although we have acted in our own interests we have not requested a treaty only to attack with no reason. Our reply -
When the DS were given our regions by MEPBM, we were informed that this game had 8 FP, 8 DS, and 9 neutrals, five of which could not declare FP or DS. Therefore, we knew that we would be guaranteed to have 13 enemies, and that only 4 neutrals were independent and “recruitable.” Things got quite interesting with respect to neutrals after we got our set-up information. The NK decided to post that he was on the team of 5 neutrals, and four neutrals posted information and contacted the DS team relatively quickly, declaring that they were all independent neutrals.
One of our team members had made a post on the forum within a couple of days of receiving our turns asking to contact neighboring neutrals. We were in contact with four of them shortly thereafter. About 3 or 4 more days went by, and the Vengers in Rhun decided to contact us. One of us had sent him an E-mail explaining that we already had 4 neutrals credibly claim independence, and that he would be the 5th (which was not possible). We said that if he was one of the team of 5 that we would at least consider an overall nonaggression pact with their team if it included all areas of Middle Earth. The Vengers did NOT reply to this E-mail.
The person who sent the first E-mail was out of town last weekend, so another team member contacted him. Only after an exchange of a couple more E-mails did the Vengers claim to be one of the 4 independent neutrals. This was quite interesting, as he was the 5th neutral to do so (which meant that 1 of the 5 was not telling the truth), and which made us question his motives, and why he’d waited so long to contact us. He claimed that computer problems caused the delay, but we thought it was more likely that his slowness to respond was a result of him communicating with teammates to discuss how to proceed.
The region of Rhun is completely surrounded by DS nations, and we strongly did not want an enemy to build and grow in our midst, only to attack us at an inopportune moment. Therefore, we told him that we strongly wanted him to declare DS very early, if he was truly independent.
What he proposed was a nonaggression pact between his nation and the DS team, while still claiming to be one of the 4 independent neutrals. He said that he would consider declaring DS sometime after turn 6. The slowness of his communications definitely led us to believe that he was indeed on the team of 5, and that his negotiations were stall tactics to give him time to build up. Had he contacted us speaking for his team (or had the NK or anyone else from the team done so), we would have considered a nonaggression pact with the entire team (our team had mixed opinions about that), but to just propose it between his nation and our team is completely one-sided. We have vulnerable team members, as well, so at the very least, we would have expected them to be included in any agreement with the neutral team, as well.
Our position on Rhun had been that we wanted an early ally of that nation, or we would likely attack that nation immediately. We made him that offer, but he did not accept it. Had he declared that he was on the team of 5, we would at least have considered a nonaggression pact with the entire team, but him being the 5th person to declare that he is an independent neutral made things very awkward. We have yet to hear anything directly from the neutral team of 5.
To compound all of this, we had made our plans for the attack even before he contacted us. He only offered to perhaps declare DS around turn 6 or so within about 36 hours of when the turn was going to be run, and we had already sent our orders in. After some debate among our teammates, we decided that his offer was not worthy of our changing and resubmitting our orders. Timely negotiations could have led to an entirely different outcome.
If the Vengers are an independent neutral, of course declaring DS would stop all attacks on him. If he does so, we apologize for having to use such gunboat diplomacy in this situation, but given the vagueness and slowness of the Vengers’ negotiations, we feel that this is warranted. The other neutrals that we’ve talked to were much more communicative and much less evasive than he was. In short, their claims were more credible.
If I were FP, I wouldn’t recommend negotiating with the Vengers, because he likely cannot declare FP (or DS), he’s likely on the team of 5, and you would likely be “getting in bed with an enemy.”
As a result of what has transpired, our team will likely end up doing battle with the team of 5 neutrals early (unless the Vengers truly are neutral and someone else has played us). We’re hoping that the FP do, as well, because eliminating one allegiance would make things that much easier for the other two.
There was a discussion about the 5 player neutral team in the FA discussion group some 4-8 weeks ago. Obviously they want to win as neutral team. Hopefully the other players in the game can objectively understand how this changes the dynamics of game. Were I in the game, I would be trying to broker a deal between the DS and FP until the neutrals have chosen a side or the neutral team has been neutered. Having the FP and DS hammer at each other for 12 turns while the majority allegiance (neutrals) are allowed 12 turns to build is probably not best plan, IMO. It appears that most of the neutral team would rather hide under the guise of being a true neutral than speak out as the NK did.
I am a true neutral and I will not stray from the path. However I will say that the DS negotiation tactic of join us or die will not go down well with all neutrals - whether they be true neutral or able to turn. All the independent neutrals will make their own minds up about this, but claiming that just because they couldn’t read diplomatic signals that they pre-emtively attacked is laughable.
I saw the missive from the Rhun player later and he claimed to be a true neutral. There was no lie in that statement and he reasonably offered a non aggression pact.
Be warned - the DS diplomacy is with the sword.
Gavin - North Kingdom
We the North Kingdom hope that the FP see that eliminating one allegiance is the way forward. The allegiance that hacks into the FP Yahoo group and steals information. The allegiance who pre-emptively attacks a neutral nation on turn one. Now I wonder which allegiance might be the first to go. Making too many enemies in one go is not going to help the DS cause.
Gavin
Paranoia causes a DS team already hit by scandal, to act in a hostile way against a neutral player because he fails to check email…
I now offer my nation to Free People’s cause.
We now work for you…
To be honest I find all this quite strange. The Rhun player stated reasonably clearly, several times, that he was independent and didn’t want to change allegiance until later in the game (until after turn 6).
We had been given reason to believe then (and more reason now - by the NK) that Rhun was part of the neutral team and that he would have to come after us at some point. The NK suggests that Rhun never lied to us and was clear about his position as a “true neutral”, but I have emails from the Rhun player that pretty clearly show the reverse.
We tried to speak more often with the Rhun player, because we were worried about getting this wrong, but he was relatively unresponsive (and, when he did respond, his emails were non-commital). I find it a little distressing that a player would try to convince us that he was in a position to join us, when actually he was working against us from the beginning of the game. That smacks of being a “mole” to me.
I’m surprised that the independent (i.e. changeable) neutrals aren’t offended by this. When a member of the (unchangeable) neutral team starts pretending that they can negotiate to join the FPs or DS, then it seems to throw all of their positions into question.
We would never knowingly offend the independent neutrals - indeed, we very much would like to work with them and persuade them that we are a team worth playing with. Yes, we might be a little aggressive with our enemies (particularly Mike and I!) but we think that you ought to find this appealing in potential partners! 
On the other hand we see the neutral team as long-term enemies. It’s not because we don’t like them, it’s because this is a war game and they can only win by defeating us.
If we had formed a short-term alliance with them (or, indeed, with the FPs) to eliminate one of the three teams from the game then I would (personally) feel that this was a little harsh on the unfortunate target. That’s not to say that I think it would be wrong to do this, but it’s just not my style.
I am also surprised that the NK would bring up the FPs hacked website. The DS player who found and viewed the FPs’ website has left the DS team. I was actually pretty annoyed with the FPs for making that sort of game-damaging error, and told both Clint and them (as soon as I managed to get one of their email addresses) so. On the other hand I was more annoyed by our guy (now gone) for what he did - not cheating, but not sportsmanlike.
There are four independent neutrals, who are being told by both the FPs and the Neutral team (including Rhun, who clearly has an agenda in rubbishing an opposing team) that we are “untrustworthy”. We see the Neutral team themselves as untrustworthy in this matter (talk about a conflict of interest!), and the FPs as opportunistic [or scared? :-p ].
Fundamentally, if the independent nations want to join the FPs then they should. If the neutral team and the FPs want to join forces to force us out of the game then they should - it’s their call. I just don’t really like all the name-calling.
Ian K.
Koxvelder
Iron Hills