I will be giving the Free People a chance to explain their actions. Other then that, nothing to say at this moment.
- Ben
Rhun ‘About to be buried’ Easterlings
What do the other Neutrals make of this development? If you dont fall into line for the Freep Money Making Machine, you get stomped? I hope the rest of you have some backbone and will join us in stopping this outrageous behaviour? Or do you like to be bullied into sumbmission? The Dark Servants would never resort to this tactic. It is shameful! Good to see that the other Freep nations havent been sitting on their hands whilst the Gondors getting pummelled in Fire Alley. oh, and look, another SG navy arrives just in time to be slaughtered, hoorah!
The Voice of Adunaphel.
I think you are witnessing the meaning of the phrase “GUNBOAT DIPLOMACY”!
The Voice of Adunaphel
Ben’s plan failed but it looks as though my demand for the destruction of Rhun has come to fruition.
They may look like Dwarves and Northmen but they are actually cleverly disguised Dunnish warriors ready to take bloody vengeance upon our horse loving nemesis.
All I wanted to see was the teams compete for my loyalty, instead I get jumped by the Dwarves and Northmen after the Free People said they wouldn’t attack me first. I’m still waiting for an explanation of what went wrong.
- Ben
Rhun Easterlings
Maybe nothing went wrong and all is going according to plan.
Originally posted by 88 Noldo
Maybe nothing went wrong and all is going according to plan.
Ed, are you in this game?
And whose plan? Certainly not mine…
- Ben
Rhun Easterlings
Ben, not in this game. Clearly not your plan. Where is the paranoia when you really need it?
Since all diplomacy between the Rhun and any parties has been through this board, I will post our response to all:
Ben,
Sorry it took so long to get back to you. It was not “gunboat diplomacy” but rather alot of work. As I am sure this message will probably be posted, let me explain what is happening.
First, let me congratulate you on a brilliant strategy with the Rhun. Historicaly, the rhun are never allowed to grow unopposed for longer than 3-4 turns. The free usually bully them into flipping FP, or the DS have already bribed them with a backup and plan to sink the NM. You plan would have allowed the Rhun to develop into a powerhouse, and a huge ally to either team.
Unfortunatly, we (the FP) felt that your contest heavily favored the DS. Initially, I thought the idea would be fun, so as a team we agreed to it. But, after a few turns we realized our mistake. By not declaring where you would be camping we immediatly ran into conflicts, as you well know. By refusing to tell us where you were going, other conflicts occured. (Costing the FP MULTIPLE camping attempts.) You know that getting a solid economic base early is essential in a grudge game, and your emmisaries were preventing this from happening. We tried to negotiate with you on this matter, and thought we had come to a settlement that you then backed out of.
We also feel that it would be easier for the DS to build the city. Short of planting Elrond in the same hex for multiple turns (an act of suicide,) the free would have to have an entire emmisary company devoted to that one hex to improve the loyalty enough to allow another character to turn it into a city. With the DS’s emmy artifact any new 30 pt emmy was now a 60, giving them a huge advantage.
So, now we are looking at a race that may be possible to win, but only if we devote an entire emmisary company to it, once again keeping them from camping, and even then we would not be assured of a victory. If we did win, the we would have a FP Rhun that would still have to march into the back or Mordor. If teh DS won, they would have a huge ally right next door to the NM capital. As the NM, this made me VERY nervous.
Sooo, last turn we sent out some diplomatic feelers to all of the neutrals. This grudge team had never jumped a neutral, and were very nervous about it. The response from the other neutrals was not necessarily supportive, but certainly was not condeming. We decided to act.
Why didn’t we notify you… Well, Ben you are a VERY good player, and a very dangerous enemy. We knew with this plan, we could take every gold producing pop center you owned (with the exception of the village at the front door of mordor and any camps,) thus eliminating you from play. Lets just say we decided to pull the band-aid off quickly rather than slowly. We do already regret that it had to come to this, and if you somehow survive this turn I am sure we will regret it even a bit more.
I have explained our position, and no, I really cant think of how we could be disuaded.
Bard of the NM
(and your teammate in another game… which makes this even harder)
Interesting… I never viewed the DS as having an advantage, but perhaps I should’ve made the rules a bit more strict and not allowed either team to mess with each other. Oh well, live and learn… Next time I’ll do a scavenger hunt.
Heck, I haven’t even been recruiting at all… You guys are going to walk right over me.
- Ben
Rhun Easterlings
Ben, I was really surprised you hadn’t been recruiting, especially since you kept saying you were expecting to be jumped by either side at any moment.
NM-21
Any other current neutrals not responding to the devious Elves Carrots? Perhaps youd better look out for their big sticks...or rather the troops of their allies. Funny how elves always go missing when theres a battle to be fought. All that sneaking around, no doubt…
The Voice of Adunaphel
Originally posted by Baja21
[b]Ben, I was really surprised you hadn’t been recruiting, especially since you kept saying you were expecting to be jumped by either side at any moment.NM-21 [/b]
Actually the thought of me being jumped was in jest. I trusted your side not to jump me because you hadn’t done so in the past and the DS couldn’t touch me, so what did I have to worry about? I was content to sit on my butt, build my economy, and as the city race came to a close I would’ve started recruiting HC. The only thing would’ve been for me to see which way to send my troops. Whatever the case, whichever side I ended up attacking would’ve had an entire turn to prepare since I wasn’t going to be surprising anyone.
- Ben
Rhun Easterlings
Question for the free?
I and Murmur have a bet on re the orders given to the Elven commander @ 2514 this turn just past
I said you guys would refuse and hire army (not knowing you all that well assumed you would go for the standard approach) Murmur / David reckoned you were brighter than that and might have 215ed & 408.
So which is it guys?
Of course the real smart move would have been to stand & defend but whats 2413 to you guys? - nothing; right?
yours Ren (I will be lodging a complaint with the Geneva war conventions imagine subjecting POWs to baths I mean the surname is unclean guys get with the programme!)
Ren (name, rank & serial number is all you’ll ever get!!)
Originally posted by lsd
[b]Question for the free?I and Murmur have a bet on re the orders given to the Elven commander @ 2514 this turn just past
I said you guys would refuse and hire army (not knowing you all that well assumed you would go for the standard approach) Murmur / David reckoned you were brighter than that and might have 215ed & 408.
So which is it guys?
Of course the real smart move would have been to stand & defend but whats 2413 to you guys? - nothing; right?
yours Ren (I will be lodging a complaint with the Geneva war conventions imagine subjecting POWs to baths I mean the surname is unclean guys get with the programme!)
Ren (name, rank & serial number is all you’ll ever get!!) [/b]
Sadly, the Sinda was getting special serviced last turn. Now, for those of you who dont know, there’s NOTHING like a Sinda’s special service…
Later,
JAD
“Sadly, the Sinda was getting special serviced last turn.”
–Is that, like, a euphimism? Or were “Glory-hole” Glorfindel and “Errant” Ersetor in town…?
Flatulent Reek
Couple of comments enclosed.
-
It appears we are being critized for tactics at 2514 by the team that lost an entire capital on T3? Does anyone else see the irony? BTW, I’m sure troops are on the way to the Rhun Sea. Of course, we haven’t SEEN them, but I’m sure they are coming. In the meantime, we’ll just scoop up DS camps and village. Just to let you guys know that the Rhun Sea hasn’t fallen off the map. Sort of like…um, hello, we’re over here! Also, good job taking Osgiliath…oh wait, you guys haven’t taken it. In fact, what HAVE you guys taken?
-
I find it humorous that the DS are painting us as the “dirty sneak attackers!” when they don’t have a single PC in the Rhun Area (except the totally inaccessible LR village). Thus, that DS are in absolutely no danger of a first strike by the Rhun. The NM, however, are so close to the Rhun they can look up their noses without attracting much attention. Thus, if the RE goes FP, the DS have serveral turns to fortify their back door. If the RE goes DS, the NM are usually eliminated within the next two turns. Having said that, yes, we did jump the Rhun (or are in the process of). And yes, we’ve never done this before as a team. However, we’ve never had a neutral refuse to negotiate with us before either. Just for history’s sake, how many camps did the DS loose due to overlapping camping with the Rhun? No, this is not a strong-arm tactic to force RE to flip FP. Any neutral who has ever joined our team (and there are ALOT of them) knows that we love to negotiate and communicate. However, diplomacy can only get you so far. Ben had an interesting idea that might have actually worked had he been a bit more cooperative with our team. Pehaps next game? Our team theory has always been “today’s enemy might be tomorrow’s ally”. Just ask MAL, our current team captain and fomer enemy in game 84.
Clif
Rangers
Still trying to figure out how that doofus Encalion got himself captured
"ARTIFACTS:
This has gone much better for the Dark Servants than the Freeps. Though some of the “races” have been close, Sauron`s agents have secured The Ring of Impersonation, The Ring of Wind, The Ring of Curufin and Tinculin so far. Many other baubles have been identified and efforts to recover begun…we hope to put them to good use. It was particularly amusing to see ELROHIR attempt to steal the magic harp Tinculin when it was already many leagues away… "
Yea, I’ll admit that we’ve suffered in this area. We even an EXCELLENT start which make it ever worse…heh.
Elrohir and Tinculin actually get’s even funnier when I admit that Elrohir had a full 6 artifacts on him at the time. Ooops, won’t make that mistake again. Also, tell Lomelinde that I missed knifing her butt by a turn but I’ll be sure to put her bauble to good use. Didn’t see that one coming did ya? Uvatha, beware…
RoC was to be expected once we discovered who was there. We hadn’t really expected you guys to send the big Din O himself. It paid off with the RoC but the loss of Minus Morgul. Fair trade? Only time will tell. Kinda surprised you with the Riders PC, eh? Heh, could have easily gone the other way. Would have been quite a different game with Din O dead on T3. We have no regrets. I bet Din’s a refusing mo-fo now…heh. Never know when one of my twins will show up and take him down a notch. Watch your back Dinny-O. As you’ve admitted, elves are sneaky bastages.
RoW…well, we are still trying to figure it out. Did big K get a lucky 900 off? That’s the only way we can see it. We had that sucker all wrapped until that stroke of luck. Ah well, live and let live.
RoI…we’d pretty much run out of retrievers at the time. The Gondor had another focus (Minus Morgul). Again, another trade off.
Anyone located the Blue Ring yet? Heh…if so, we dare you to go retrieve it!
This is definately an interesting game.
Clif
Rangers
Chairmen of Free People Artifact Retrieval Council (at least until they fire me for incompetance)
Originally posted by Oltex
However, we’ve never had a neutral refuse to negotiate with us before either. Just for history’s sake, how many camps did the DS loose due to overlapping camping with the Rhun? No, this is not a strong-arm tactic to force RE to flip FP. Any neutral who has ever joined our team (and there are ALOT of them) knows that we love to negotiate and communicate. However, diplomacy can only get you so far. Ben had an interesting idea that might have actually worked had he been a bit more cooperative with our team. Pehaps next game? Our team theory has always been “today’s enemy might be tomorrow’s ally”. Just ask MAL, our current team captain and fomer enemy in game 84.
Clif,
You guys screwed up. I refused to negotiate with both sides and now it’s going to cost you because your side got jittery and decided not to put forth any serious effort into the contest I laid forth. I was open to negotiating on the rules of the contest, and I allowed both sides time to discuss the matter and come up with objections - but NEITHER SIDE OBJECTED. And instead I got jumped on, thanks a lot. And if the DS team did win the contest, you guys would’ve had plenty of time to prepare for it because I WOULDN’T HAVE FLIPPED MY ICON FOR A FULL TURN and YOUR TEAM COULD HAVE EASILY ANTICIPATED LOSING THE CONTEST AND PREPARE ACCORDINGLY. Ask Brian and Ben, I’m all for communicating and negotiating. But I had laid out my plans for negotiation through the contest and you guys decided not to take me up on and that’s fine. But for you to say I refused to negotiate with your side specifically, that’s bull**** and you know it.
Brian and Ben know how much of a pain in the ass I can be if I put my mind to it, and now I’ve put my mind to it. If you guys had been smart you would’ve have gone ahead and played along with the contest and anticipated losing so you could make plans for my future attack.
- Ben
Rhun Easterlings
Ben,
First, we aren’t sore about the contest rules. In fact, we thought it a pretty cool idea. We are sore that you refuse to negotiate with us for camping reservations. Because of that, we’ve lost 2-3 camps at least (thus far). Our primary advantage over the DS is economics and you were jeapardizing that.
Normally, neutrals are given a wide berth and lots of latitude by both sides because each want to recruit you. However, that show of respect goes both ways. We feel that you are not giving us that respect and chipping away at our team advantage. THAT’s why we moved in.
I, personally, can sort of understand your anger at being jumped. However, as a veteran neutral myself, I understand that neutrals are not untouchable and, in the end, it’s all about winning.
We are sorry it had to come to this. Believe me (or not), we debating this over and over and over. Whether you (and the DS) consider this a “violation” of neutrality, we consider our agression to you to be a one-time exception to our policy of neutral-friendship. We stand by our past record as a team and stand by our decisions this game.
Clif
Rangers