Looking for easy-going PBEM game

Chinetter said:
My apologies to Grendel for posting his email addresses here. No idea what would possess me to do that; I've been on the net since 1988 and certainly know better.

No wonder it's going so slow, you caused his e-mail to be loaded with spam =]
 
The world entered a new stage of development: New lands were discovered, new technologies invented, but not only cultural achievements were made in the last centuries... New ways of destruction, advanced tactics, modern weaponry like Crossbowmen and the feared War Elephant found their path into the hands of militarist criminals in India. After the last war between China and India, the German government sent out observers to clarify the situation in the far east. The borders between the two countries were severely altered in favor of the faceless dictatorship in New Delhi. Countless Chinese villages in southeast Asia were destroyed, complete cities eradicated from the face of this earth. The Indian city Kolhapur was build on the bones and with blood of the Chinese peasantry. Stories tell of Indian landlords, depraved and uncompromisingly greedy, who oppress the sinomongolian families who chose to stay in the region of their forefathers in any way imaginable.

Collecting as much geopolitical information as possible, inquiring leaders about complex political relations on the international stage, a few decades ago our inspectors became aware of Indian rearmament at the Chinese-Indian border. As our analysis clearly shows, in the last few years the Indian military budget rose to about 140% of the level a mere handful of decades ago. Another indicator of imminent Indian aggression against its peaceful neighbor in the northeast was the brash amassing of 250,000 soldiers at the eastern border. The recalcitrant warmongerers in New Delhi were all too eager to turn this border into a front and push it farther into the heart of the Chinese motherland. German observers finally reported to Berlin about preparations of a hideous sneak-attack against Beijing. An army, larger than anything ever seen before, is marching towards the Chinese capital. The Chinese embassador to Germany conveyed a plea by emperor Qin Shi Huang for support two days ago. A public hearing of the head of the observer mission to China, Edmund Luegemann, confirmed the findings. Asia is at war.

Stability in Asia means stability for Europe as well. Therefore, the German military high council sees no alternative than to conduct a punitive expedition against the Indian peril in the middle east, with the hope that the civilian castes in New Delhi will seize this opportunity to overthrow its rulers and install a democratic government that is able to keep its generals under control. Germany wishes no deeper involvement in Indo-Chinese matters, but there are times when peace and freedom are in danger and bold actions are inevitable. The time has come to fight back.

:king:
 
Hmf. A simple "give us Baghdad or else" would have been perfectly clear.

Getting a second city from me, however, will suck for you -- having seen the units you've brought to the party I can promise that. You could instead have Baghdad (or whatever the city in that location is actually named, I forget) peacefully, in exchange for stopping there. Your call.

Meanwhile I'll be traveling Sunday evening through Tuesday evening (U.S. time) without game access.
 
Chinetter said:
Hmf. A simple "give us Baghdad or else" would have been perfectly clear.

Well, it's not only the city I'm after. You scared me a little bit a few turns back, I didn't expect you to be this close to my territory at all. I'm curious though - you must have noticed my axemen at the Chinese border already decades ago. I'm counting on that all your military is now attacking Beijing and the west is rather empty, but that would also mean that you simply ignored my scouting unit in southeast Asia?

Getting a second city from me, however, will suck for you -- having seen the units you've brought to the party I can promise that. You could instead have Baghdad (or whatever the city in that location is actually named, I forget) peacefully, in exchange for stopping there. Your call.

Thank you for the offer. I also forgot the name of the city, but I already renamed it to Bagdhad. It's a poorhouse though, I recieved a mere 5 gold for overrunning it and not even one of your temples have been build yet. Since you are involved in a two front war, I hope the second city will be accessible as well and usefuller. It looks though that my presumptions are slightly off, I expected a second city at the coast of the Persian Gulf, in the region of Sistan and Baluchistan and not in the mountains as it now appears to be? That could mean that there's even a third city in reach before your - probably heavily fortified - capital. We'll see.

At the end of the day, two balanced powers in Asia are better than a single one with no outside leverage except my own, rather modest, military.

Meanwhile I'll be traveling Sunday evening through Tuesday evening (U.S. time) without game access.

Have a safe journey.

Oh, before I forget: I noticed a "new" feature (at least for me) in the diplomatic dialogue screen. Due to our "military struggle against a common enemy" I was able to ask China to attack a certain Indian city to coordinate our forces. How convenient. Their answer was "we'll do our best!". :D
Do they really follow such requests?


:king:
 
Go for it.

I saw your unit moving around Chinese territory but there wasn't anything in particular I could do about it. What I didn't realize was that Baghdad was close to you, should have had a scout or two out in that direction.

But mainly, given the overall scores when I joined the game and since, I haven't seen much point in playing it safe. You'd just keep running away with the game and kill us all later as your tech lead gets bigger. I'm honestly not sure the rest of us shouldn't just concede -- however your invasion of India goes is there actually any possibility of anyone else winning this game?
 
I saw your unit moving around Chinese territory but there wasn't anything in particular I could do about it.

I expected you might take it out just to have that unit spying on you out of the way, but it didn't happen.

What I didn't realize was that Baghdad was close to you, should have had a scout or two out in that direction.

Yep. Actually, I should have done that, too - when the pink tile appeared in my neighborhood I thought "uh-oh". But then considering the large army in the east, I saw a chance to intervene.

But mainly, given the overall scores when I joined the game and since, I haven't seen much point in playing it safe.

I agree - the guy playing India before you until he disappeared wasn't much of a player it seems.
I had to destroy a human player playing Rome, which wasn't easy. Nobody else had a human player or any other civ in his neighborhood, so I thought the starting position wasn't that great, but after Rome was defeated, it was indeed not difficult (but very uneventful). Anyway, we've played for nine months, and I'd still like to see what everything will happen until the end.


You'd just keep running away with the game and kill us all later as your tech lead gets bigger.

I'm not planning to kill everyone off (I'm sincere with the idea of keeping Asia in balance). It's not possible either, the map is just too big. I also don't think that managing an empire streching more than one or two continents is possible (financially i.e.).

I'm honestly not sure the rest of us shouldn't just concede -- however your invasion of India goes is there actually any possibility of anyone else winning this game?

Good question. All winning options are on the table, but some are far less probable than others.
Winning by time/score and cultural is not probable for most, since I'm trying to win culturally and should already have quite a lead because of all the wonders build in Berlin, Paris and Rome and score seems to be very dependant on culture (beside tech, the army etc.).
Domination is possible for everybody, but unprobable as well since you'd have to occupy 62% of Earths land mass (I have almost 10% and certainly couldn't occupy all of Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa within the scope of the left game time).
Space Race win is open to everybody, but reliable on a tech and production lead.
I'm not sure about the diplomatic win, I don't really have experience with it. It all depends very much on whether the Americans or the Incas manage to take over both American continents. Considering the isolated starting position and the huge rain forest/jungle in South America, the Incas had a great game so far.


:king:
 
North America is not envious of the struggles in the East. However, there are some very ruthless barbarian Inuit tribes that we have been dealing with as of late.

If you guys could speed up the whole global warming thing over there, it would be greatly appreciated.
 
Germany is offering peace to India, its immediate neighbor on the eastern border. We welcome the introduction of the Jewish religion into the German culture. May it thrive and prosper.
 
Aha, I see.
Personally I'd consider the more human players the better as far as the fun and challenge of playing. With online games, replacement human players can be recruited to take over for AIs. Is that possible with PBEM games and would we want to do it? (except for China of course ;-)

Not sure if I mentioned it yet, a huge PBEM game with, let's say, 18 human players would take years to complete or even have one turn go around, but that's what pitboss games are for. It allows the max number of human players all playing their turn at the same time, thus simulating the speed of a PBEM game with two players - fairly quicker than four (or five) as in our case.

I wonder how many Civvers are able to set up a pitboss game - since you'd need a server and someone who's manually replacing players who drop out every now and then. From all game modes though, I'd go for pitboss if I had the ressources.

:king:
 
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