The Whore of Babylon Speaks - GoW Official Statement

[Master Zen]

OFFICIAL GLORY OF WAR STATEMENT


When the current war between ND and Spain (later GS) began, GoW adopted the official "neutrality whore" foreign policy, quietly hoping ND and GS would beat each other so badly that we could pick up their respective rotten carcasses and win the game. Both teams seemed content with just nominal attacks on each other, both hoping that nuclear weapons would change all that and deal the decisive blow. With GS's aquisition of Uranium, it meant that come nukes, each of the three superpowers would have the capacity to blow at least one of the other apart.

GoW's foreign policy from the start of this game has been simple: not get our ass whooped. If that involved whooping someone else's ass to ensure that ours would survive, so be it. In the 3-nation runoff before the Bobian war, it mattered not ultimately who was going to ally with whom, what matter was that WE were not going to be the ones getting gangbanged. A similar situation has developed now, and with 3 dominant teams, it is only natural that two of them join forces against the other one as neither has the power to destroy the other two on its own. And as the neutrality whores that we are, we choose the highest bidder.

The highest bidder - in fact the only bidder - has been Neu Demogyptica. Thus, the Glory of War has the uneasy duty of declaring that a state of war now exists between our empire and the alliance composed of The Gathering Storm and Spain. There will be no nasty manifestos, no insults, no attacks. There is nothing personal either. Both GS and RP have been honorable in both war and peace. As for GoW, it is not for ourselves to decide what our legacy will be. Dirty rotten backstabbers? Perhaps, and maybe well deserved. Cunning opportunists? I'd like to hope. Whatever the case, each of the seven teams which started this game over two years ago had a single objective: to win, though the paths to victory would be different for each. Therefore our cards are on the table. If we win, we will win though the blood and sweat of battle, because we are the Glory of War. If we lose, there will be no more worthy victor in our eyes than the one who smites us down.

The reasons for us choosing ND as our finally ally are various.

1 - GS never asked us formally to ally with them against ND and I don't understand why, as the worst case scenario would have been a simple "no". Remember, we are neutrality whores. When you see a whore on the street, particulary one who has nuclear weapons under their fishnet stockings, you at least ask her what's her price, or else you run the risk of dying a virgin. ;)

2 - Roleplay has been rather frustrated at the game after ND's attack on their colonies. They think it's something personal and that everyone hates them bla bla bla. Therefore we have decided to help them by invading New Spain and leaving them a stranded on a settler-transport somewhere in the wild blue yonder. Forgive me Togas, I honestly thought that Spain would be destroyed when our tanks rolled into San Antonio. It would have saved you a lot of frustration. But you had a settler so don't blame me. Also you were just asking for it. I mean, just one Mech Inf in Santa Barbara? :p

3 - A long time ago we vowed to ourselves to avenge Vox's defeat in their war against GS. See, Vox had that kinda something that neither Spain nor Lego had in defeat. It wasn't pity, it wasn't compasion, it was laughter. You made us laugh in your cockyness, you made us laugh is your tragedy. You became that team that we knew would never betray us, not even when the survival of your protector was at stake. You know what would have happened had Voxian troops attacked ours at Stanwix? We would have lost that war. We are eternaly grateful and pledge to return your homeland as soon as possible. Just forgive us though if the radiation at Elipolis makes it a bit uninhabitable for the next, oh, 500 years or so. :scared:

4 - Ah yes, the Bobian War. The mother of all wars. Sure, we won, but it was fought entirely on Bobian soil since once our Riders had chased GS's knights to the sea like Ramses chased Moses, we encountered a little teeny weeny problem. We had no navy. So, no way to continue fighting on Stormian soil. Well, think of this now as your "home game". Same teams. New weapons. The Bobian war left a third of the continent in smoldering ruins, not that we cared since that that third happened to be Roleplay's part, but still, consider this The Bobian War II: The Empire Strikes Stormia. Coming soon to a reality TV show near you. :cool:


So, those are the reasons. They may have been a bit on the sarcastic side but below the surfice lies the truth, our truth. May the best team(s) win.

-MZ

[Master Zen]

One last thing.

The Glory of War and Neu Demogyptica pledge to win this game as allies. That means that both teams shall share the final victory if and when the Gathering Storm and Roleplay (and Lego) are defeated in war. Should either GoW or ND win by an alternative method (UN or Space Race for example) herein, victory shall still be claimed by both. Likewise, no separate peace shall be given by either of our two teams even if one or both of us are defeated. This alliance is called the Bilateral Inter-Bobian Treaty of Cointegrity and Help. Or B.I.T.C.H. for short.

Regarding Vox, GoW pledges to defend their sovereignty and have them end the game as "survivors". Of course if they choose to ally themselves with us, better yet. Mess with Vox, you get pwned. Hear that Lego? Our words are backed with nuclear weapons. ;)

A representative from ND will soon post in this thread to confirm our B.I.T.C.H.in' alliance. When that is done the save shall be passed and the battle report posted.

-MZ

[notyoueither]

Yes, well, your women will always look like monkeys, and the isotopes probably won't improve that. :)

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Yes, well, your women will always look like monkeys, and the isotopes probably won't improve that. :)

That's why we tested the bomb at Killdaria first. We were expecting an increase in the beauty factor but in the end the best we could get was this:

:(

[Darekill]

As for the one player of N.D. who was mainly involved in forging B.I.T.C.H. in the first place. Together with M.Z. I think I should be the one to confirm every word that Master Zen said.

N.D. and GoW will win this game together or not at all.

If someone should still doubt that just ask the eye he's seen it all.

Darekill
Gouvernour (AD), Prime Minister (AD) and Admiral (AD) of the islamic republic of Neu Demogyptica

[zerialienguru]

As another member of B.I.T.C.H. i can only confirm what MZ said.
Its nothing personal! (like the RP-war, this war was declared by us for saving the uranium).
GoW and ND make the "MPP" as both knows that an alone victory is not possible in this game.
So we create B.I.T.C.H. before the legoland-war.

I was first a little bit doubt about B.I.T.C.H. cause of the fairness about the other teams, especially GS who traded very fair with us but the last few turns show me that B.I.T.C.H. is the right way for us.
I think GS can understand this, they have the goal to win this game and use all possibilities for that goal and ND do it in another way. ;)

[Master Zen]

I love acronyms ;)

[Hot_Enamel]

:D

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by zerialienguru
So we create B.I.T.C.H. before the legoland-war.


Ahh but back then it was not known as B.I.T.C.H., it was known as S.L.U.T - Supra-bobian Land Union of Territories. :D

[Darekill]

Wasn't it I.N.S.U.L.T.?


Inter-Nationale Selbstbestimmende Union Landesunabhängiger Territorien?

[zerialienguru]

S.L.U.T.? Great! :D

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Darekill
Wasn't it I.N.S.U.L.T.?


Inter-Nationale Selbstbestimmende Union Landesunabhängiger Territorien?

That's the German version. ;)

[AroSch]

B.I.T.C.H.? :D

Hm, reminds me on a novel by Patrick O'Brian... not sure whichone it was. The leading character of that novel had owe money to a banking house "Hoares" and it was impossible to satisfy the creditors. So he said: "Hoares. My bankers are Hoares."

Sounds funny?

[Cort Haus]

When A Nice Kitten Eats Radioactive Soup!

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
When A Nice Kitten Eats Radioactive Soup!

That was our plan to nuke Lego ;)

[alva]

nm

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by alva
nm

/me wonders what that acronym stands for...

[Krill]

Never Mind. :)

[alva]

Yep.

Originally it was something 'bout cheese...

[Theseus]

From Locutus' summary:

"Update 2005-05-17: There is one other type of victory: an Alliance victory, in which you can share the win with a partner."

You guys were just a wee bit prescient. :cute:

[Master Zen]

GoW/ND: SIX MONTHS AHEAD OF THEIR TIME :D :D

[notyoueither]

It would have been a very different game with alliance victories from the start.

My money would be that Lego would be half of the win.

[Aeson]

We could try it in PTWDG III. ;)

Teams are allowed to make shared victory pacts with other teams. Victory pacts work indirectly as well, if team A has a victory pact with team B, and team B has a victory pact with team C, then if any of them trigger victory, A, B, and C all win.

If at any point in time, all remaining civs have a victory pact with each other (directly or indirectly), the game is declared over and all remaining teams are declared the victors. Otherwise it is played out until someone triggers an in-game victory.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Alright, I have to say something.

First of all, speeking for myself alone, I do not like this whole shared victory thing. I do think it is a rather cheep way out.

I have spoken quite vocally more than once within the GoW forum that we should be done with the yellow plague. Going back to before the Lego campaign. Basically, them refusing to assist, I considered too great a threat to leave on Bob while doing a naval invasion.

I fully supported a plan to ally with ND and kill off GS after Lego, though. For many reasons, but most prominently because it has always bugged me how we really fubared that whole landing 2 ponies bullsh!t, and I thought we owed Vox the Stormian island.

With that said, though, I am not the one playing the game. An interesting part of the team dynamic, I don't have the time to take over, and I have no real right to tell MZ that he has to continue playing. Turns take several hours now. A massive war with ND would prolong that.

With that understanding, if the only two teams with a chance of winning left in the game decide to call it a draw, I'll live with that. I am not in a position to tell the teams or the turn players that they must continue for months spending hours per turn to trigger an IN GAME victory.

I don't have to like it, I wish we would fight to declare a victor, but I fully understand it, and support the decision.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
I have spoken quite vocally more than once within the GoW forum that we should be done with the yellow plague. Going back to before the Lego campaign. Basically, them refusing to assist, I considered too great a threat to leave on Bob while doing a naval invasion.


For the record and to set things straight, ND never said that they wouldn't help us out with lego. The problem with ND was that they were only finishing industrializing while we were already mobilizing our shiny new tanks and destroyers. ND did pledge support but only various turns later. Had we not gotten lucky with Lego we might have seen an ND landing a few turns later.

Regarding an invasion of ND before the Lego war, it could have happened as we were more powerful than them and would likely have been succcessful even without a RoP rape. However, a GoW takeover would have likely changed the entire strategic outlook of the game. Lego would no longer have been the prime threat, it would be GoW and I do not find it inconceivable that GS and Lego would have arranged a hastingly-prepared invasion plan against US. Given all the territory we would have had to defend, it would have been impossible to successfully hold on to Bob even if just one of the two invaded.

This was the main reason why we made the pact to win the game together with ND. It was ND's guarantee that we wouldn't attack them instead of Lego, and it was our guarantee that ND wouldn't march north when our army was in Lego. I recall from the start saying that geopolitics dictated that GoW had no chance in hell of winning this game alone, only GS and Lego would have the honor of that. In my mind therefore it became a question of sharing our victory (which would be somewhat of a poetic justice since we never really accomplished militariliy anything alone) or having no victory at all. I chose the first. :cool:

Last but not least, a GoW vs ND war at this stage would not really "prove" who is the better team. Even without a RoP rape, the issue pretty much reduces itself to dropping a few nukes on the border cities and swarming to conquer the rest. The winner would not be decided on skill but on who struck first. Neither of us would survive a first strike of the other. Call it a twisted version of détente.

And to those who say a shared victory is cheesy, well, in demo games we frequently do things which are impossible in SP. Multiple-team exchanges, artillery trading, even city trading, info sharing etc. Why is sharing victory any different? There's no rule that says it can't be done. There's also no rule that says a game can't be over without an in-game victory. Both the PTW and C3C ISDG ended without an in-game victory being met. No one complained so why are they complaining now?

[UnOrthOdOx]

I'm not going to bicker with you out here.

You have presented this to other teams as if it were a unanimous decision by the entire team. It was not.

You state correctly that I chose the first.

Yes, you did. And yes, I'll support your decision because that is how our team functioned. That does not mean that I liked it or agreed with it. I attempted to voice such at times, but was quickly shot down by you and others, being told that it was ok and this or that would happen. Some was do to my ignorance in what was going on, afterall, I couldn't make the ND chats and you can only gain so much from a synopsis. And some was due to my desire to stick far stricter to the ideals we were founded on. I had no time to really put much effort into changing things, however, and so I will support it. It don't mean I like it.

Overall, we beat the builders, we kept the promise, if belated, to Vox. We survived a start with no Iron. I am quite pleased with all of that.

As for the ISDG's, well, I was never a part of them and cannot comment.

[Master Zen]

Another issue which I forgot to mention was economic. Assuming a GoW takeover of ND that would pretty much render much of the Bobian continent economically worthless due to corruption and possible ND city razings. Yet turning into the prime threat we'd have to deal with Lego and GS with an economy only marginally superior to that of Lego's (1/4-1/3 more at the most), and a scientific capacity still inferior to that of GS which means in the tech race, we'd get swamped. We wouldn't be remembering the nukings of Elipolis and Monsoon, we'd be remembering Yellowknife and Port Isolation. How could we be pursuing our victory objectives with the odds so stacked against us?

On the other hand, allying with ND means we can pursue a shared victory objective (taking out Lego and GS) with twice the economic capacity of our nation alone and with a scientific power to match or exceed GS. Moreso, being that neither GoW or ND alone appeared as a threat we could affort to take out our rivals one after the other. I don't know if people have stopped to notice just how simple GoW's strategy of world conquest ever since the Bobian War was. It involved identifying the most immediate threat (GS/RP then Lego), convincing everyone else about that threat, eliminating that threat, identifying a new one, convincing everonye else about the new one, etc etc etc.

This would not have worked if we were the threat, since that same strategy would have been likely used against us. So that, my friends, is why we chose the route we chose. Not everyone in my team agreed but I believed it was the best strategy we could hope for, and since no-one stepped up to overthrow me... :cute:

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
You have presented this to other teams as if it were a unanimous decision by the entire team. It was not.


It did not have to be unanimous, it only had to have a simple majority. When the treaty was presented to the team, no-one said anything against it. In fact, that was when there was the least activity in the team (our hippie builder phase, even some of the turnthreads had 0 replies) and the only ones to post in that thread was Hot_Enamel and Panzer32 both of which were very much in favor of it. So actually, yes, it was unanimous because of the three of us who said something, neither of us said no. Various turns later I made another thread with a summary of our diplomatic status with the other teams, in it was posted the treaty with ND. No replies at all to that thread.

Almost a year later now you say you've been against it all along? :cute:

The moral of the story: speak up, or shut up :p

[UnOrthOdOx]

Yes, the hippie builder phase after it had became abundantly clear that anything I said would have little to no impact. I believe I even said that if you ever decided to go to war PM me so I might get interested again.

I admit I was not around at that point much if at all. Were it not for sheer boredom over Xmas vacation, I probably would have never come back to this game. This is why I have said I support the decision at all. You made it according to how the team opperated, and I cannot take that away.

Even had I been around to post, as you say, you had majority anyway. It would have done nothing. I didn't read the thing till it was already in place. There was no point in arguing it at that point. However, I don't wish to be lumped in with the decision by association that it was a 'unanimous team decision'. It was a team decision, yes.

If you go back and read, I asked to attack ND when they were dragging their feet on giving us the agreed to cities post RP. And again when they refused to help, or at least wanted to delay that help, with reguards to Lego. My position has never changed, and I did speak up. It just fell on deaf ears. And, as such, my interest waned. I think that is a natural reaction, frankly.

I came back to write nice little stories and songs now that you stopped being a little buildering sissy and decided to bonk some heads. ;)

That's what I do best anyway.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
I came back to write nice little stories and songs now that you stopped being a little buildering sissy and decided to bonk some heads. ;)

That's what I do best anyway.

Hey, If I hadn't been a little buildering sissy, our head bonking now would have been far less effective ;)

[Rhothaerill]

Actually as far as I'm concerned, if GoW and ND were to go to war I'd support that. You guys could nuke each other into oblivion and Vox would be the winner by virtue of being the only civ left standing. :cute:

[Master Zen]

And that's exactly why we won't do it ;)

[Darekill]

No way. We might be not clever but we are not so stupid by far.
(note to myself: change the coordinates of the nuke aimed at Killdaria)

[Master Zen]

You'd nuke Killdaria? Your own former city? <img src=http://forums.mzocentral.net//style_emoticons/mzo/cry.gif>

[Darekill]

course i'd do if it's not mine anymore no one shall have it :evil:

[Master Zen]

I'll trade it to ya for Stonedina... :cute:

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Master Zen And to those who say a shared victory is cheesy, well, in demo games we frequently do things which are impossible in SP. Multiple-team exchanges, artillery trading, even city trading, info sharing etc. Why is sharing victory any different? There's no rule that says it can't be done. There's also no rule that says a game can't be over without an in-game victory. Both the PTW and C3C ISDG ended without an in-game victory being met. No one complained so why are they complaining now?
Well, as much as I left this game behind and no longer care... I cannot agree with what you're saying here, MZ. Lego has never considered an alliance victory allowed in this game - and I'd say it was the same with GS.

True, there was no written rule about it... so, I guess nobody can question your shared victory. If you and ND enjoy it, well, have it your way... but I guess I'm with those that have something about cheese in their minds. The reason why you and ND diplomatically "outplayed" teams that did not consider shared victory a possibility was that you were simply playing by different rules in this regard.

Were Lego and GS aware of that an alliance victory was an option, I am sure the game would have developed in a different way. A "war to end all wars" between GoW+ND and GS+Lego (or some other 2v2 war) could be something to remember. Instead...

I am not saying this because of Lego, actually - we lost in a fight that was as fair as a 2v1 fight can be. That war might have developed little differently if there was no secret shared victory pact between you and ND, but we would have probably still be killed, so no complaints here.

I am saying this because I can imagine GS must feel royally screwed and cheated now. I know I would. Judging from their posts, I guess GS were not naive and knew it was very likely they would be the next target. Following us out of the game before you and ND would duke it out for the grand prize, well, it would have been cruel but I could take that. But this?

A "shared" victory. Bleh.

To be honest, no matter who claims a shared victory in this game, I myself was most impressed by what GS accomplished. Such a strip of land and... As much as I have never become fond of their "diplomatic ways", GS pulled some unbelievable rabbits out of their small, crappy hat. Do not fool yourself, MZ... it was GS killing us, not you. Sure they couldn't have done it alone, without someone tying part of our army. But they had to face almost all our navy and what limited airforce we had - yet they were able to break through. Were it not for GS tanks, your beaten forces would still be stuck in the mud at Fort Stanwix.

My hat is off to you, GS.

[Hot_Enamel]

GS was certainly most impressive.

But elite knowledge of the game mechanics, does not guarantee you a win.

Demo games seem to be won by diplomatic achievements & starting position far more regulary that military/economic might.

Sure.. give credit to GS for what they built out of nothing. But GoW, (& especially MZ) deserve at the least the same for our/his diplomatic foresight and ability to "fly under the radar".



A joint victory is a cheese. But I agree with MZ, the victor will be whoever strikes first. How does this prove anything other than who is the worst backstabber.



Within GoW I did suggest a few options.
Another 1v1 PBEM
A non-nuclear "war game".

But we may discuss this with ND after the GS war is finished.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by vondrack

Well, as much as I left this game behind and no longer care... I cannot agree with what you're saying here, MZ. Lego has never considered an alliance victory allowed in this game - and I'd say it was the same with GS.

True, there was no written rule about it... so, I guess nobody can question your shared victory. If you and ND enjoy it, well, have it your way... but I guess I'm with those that have something about cheese in their minds. The reason why you and ND diplomatically "outplayed" teams that did not consider shared victory a possibility was that you were simply playing by different rules in this regard.


I'd like to ask you, what exactly is the difference between our agreement with ND regarding victory and just a regular alliance to defeat GS and then duke it out among us two. Lego would still be gone. GS would still be on their way out too. What if we never made public our shared victory and after defeated GS we simply decided to call it quits? No difference Vondrack, and the game mechanics do not change at all. So no, there were not different rules moreso since we did not start this game with the idea that we would share victory as the pact was not done until quite late in the game.


Were Lego and GS aware of that an alliance victory was an option, I am sure the game would have developed in a different way. A "war to end all wars" between GoW+ND and GS+Lego (or some other 2v2 war) could be something to remember. Instead...


Because, like I said, Lego and GS were the only powers which could afford to think of winning by themselves. GoW and ND could not. Furthermore it is not our fault that you did not consider this possibility because your geopolitical situation did not warrant it. Ultimately the way this game ends was not in your hands to decide, and in some way, wasn't in ours either. Tell me Vondrack, would you have seriously ever contemplated a shared victory with GS given your position in the world? I seriously doubt it.

I repeat. The ISDG ended without an in-game victory. It did not end in a "war to end all wars" either between Poly and GWT. It just ended. Did I hear complaints? Nope.


I am not saying this because of Lego, actually - we lost in a fight that was as fair as a 2v1 fight can be. That war might have developed little differently if there was no secret shared victory pact between you and ND, but we would have probably still be killed, so no complaints here.

I am saying this because I can imagine GS must feel royally screwed and cheated now. I know I would. Judging from their posts, I guess GS were not naive and knew it was very likely they would be the next target. Following us out of the game before you and ND would duke it out for the grand prize, well, it would have been cruel but I could take that. But this?

A "shared" victory. Bleh.


Jesus christ, what is the friggin difference that it makes for both Lego and GS that GoW/ND share the victory if both of you would have been defeated regardless??? What's the difference if GoW and ND merely pacted a traditional alliance to defeat GS right now and then decided to duke it out?. How would Lego or GS's reputation or legacy or history or whatever change? You would still be a defeated team and join the ranks of whoever the unlucky loser of a GoW vs ND war was.


To be honest, no matter who claims a shared victory in this game, I myself was most impressed by what GS accomplished. Such a strip of land and... As much as I have never become fond of their "diplomatic ways", GS pulled some unbelievable rabbits out of their small, crappy hat. Do not fool yourself, MZ... it was GS killing us, not you. Sure they couldn't have done it alone, without someone tying part of our army. But they had to face almost all our navy and what limited airforce we had - yet they were able to break through. Were it not for GS tanks, your beaten forces would still be stuck in the mud at Fort Stanwix.

My hat is off to you, GS.

My hat is off as well. GS fought brilliantly and flawlessly in the Lego War and I will be the first to say that without breaking through at Sandonorico (or whatever its called) as well as managing to attack Stanwix, GoW couldn't have been able to win by itself.

However, you make it seem that things would have been different if GoW was in the west and GS in the east. GS would have still had only 2 possible cities to attack and their marine force could not have taken either of them. A trick like the one pulled with the transports would have been impossible since there would have been no undefended cities to land in. In the west, my dear Vondrack, you would have faced an even larger navy, which was based on carriers which would have laid waste to your battleships much quicker. It is unlikely that you would have achieved the last-minute naval victory in the gulf against us because you wouldn't have had so many full strength battleships to send in the first place. No battle, no way to block the ports, we'd have faced 5 possible landing sites of which we only needed to take one to win. Game over. You lose. :p

If anything you got lucky by facing the threat you were more prepared to face on both sides. You fought the navy you could better handle. You attacked the stack which had the weaker defense (if GS had landed in the east you would have faced Mech Infs as well as 60, not 40 tanks).

Sorry for sounding like a ***** but I just smell sore loserism. :shame:

-MZ

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Hot_Enamel
A joint victory is a cheese. But I agree with MZ, the victor will be whoever strikes first. How does this prove anything other than who is the worst backstabber.


And that would be us! ;)

[ZargonX]

Sorry for sounding like a ***** but I just smell sore loserism.

Uh, not to be critical again, MZ, but you are engaged in a bit of a bout of sore winner-ism.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by ZargonX


Uh, not to be critical again, MZ, but you are engaged in a bit of a bout of sore winner-ism.

Maybe they cancel each other out then.

I wouldn't have opened my mouth if people didn't criticize the way my team and ND chose to win. If you don't agree with it, fine, that's your problem, but don't expect me not to defend our choices just as forcefully as I have every right to do so.

[ZargonX]

I wouldn't have opened my mouth if people didn't criticize the way my team and ND chose to win. If you don't agree with it, fine, that's your problem, but don't expect me not to defend our choices just as forcefully as I have every right to do so.

I'm not criticizing any of that. I'm just pointing out that you are insisting that you could've beaten Lego solo, and that's just trash talk coming about 4 months too late :p

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by ZargonX


I'm not criticizing any of that. I'm just pointing out that you are insisting that you could've beaten Lego solo, and that's just trash talk coming about 4 months too late :p

I never said that. I not even remotely implied it.

And I quote myself:


My hat is off as well. GS fought brilliantly and flawlessly in the Lego War and I will be the first to say that without breaking through at Sandonorico (or whatever its called) as well as managing to attack Stanwix, GoW couldn't have been able to win by itself.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Master Zen
I'd like to ask you, what exactly is the difference between our agreement with ND regarding victory and just a regular alliance to defeat GS and then duke it out among us two. Lego would still be gone. GS would still be on their way out too.
I am sure you do know what the difference exactly is. You can commit to war (speaking about both wars here, you+GS vs. us and you+ND vs. GS) in a very different way, if you know you're never going to fight the only neighbour sharing a land border with you - simply because you and him are going to win together. Neither you, nor him need to care about the (im)balance of power, about gaining or losing relative strenght (as compared to the other member of the pact), because there is never going to be a war these relative strenghts would matter.

That is the difference.

It would have not changed the result (and perhaps not even the course) of the Lego War. But I seriously doubt the rest of the game would be the same, too.

The pact signed between you and ND decided the outcome of this game before GS sank our first sentry ironclad. Anybody could have done that (if considering a shared victory an option) and nobody else could have done that (if considering a shared victory not an option).

Tell me Vondrack, would you have seriously ever contemplated a shared victory with GS given your position in the world? I seriously doubt it.
Of course I would, I am not crazy. No team can win a game like PtWDG against an alliance of two other teams (assuming the teams are generally of comparable strenghts).

I repeat. The ISDG ended without an in-game victory. It did not end in a "war to end all wars" either between Poly and GWT. It just ended. Did I hear complaints? Nope.
I wonder what did these two games have in common... can't think of much. ISDG did not end because of two teams proclaiming a shared victory - and as far as I can remember, there was a team we pretty much considered the winner. A single team.

However, you make it seem that things would have been different if GoW was in the west and GS in the east.
That was not my intention. My remark was inspired by your post where you talked about how it would be your bombers levelling our cities if GS failed in the west - I do not seem to be able to find that post now...

If you or both of you were in the west, things would have been different, that's for sure. Probably not the outcome, though. But it's not how it happened.

Sorry for sounding like a ***** but I just smell sore loserism. :shame:
:lol:

Yes, that'll be it.

I love you, too, MZ. :love:

[Darekill]

The pact between ND and GoW was forged at exact the time when it became obvious that neither of the two nations would be able to win the game alone.

Consider it fair or unfair as you wish but it was as much an option in my eyes as it was an otion to ally with someone until another someone was defeated.

We could have allied with the goal to eliminate GS and Lego and then have a NAP of some 30 or 40 turns to ensure we both have the same chances to build up and then strike.

The winner would probably be ND in that case just we'd be the first to strike because of the gamemechanics. That would have been realy cheesy!

Concerning the achievements of GS AND Lego. You have my greatest respect. You played as good as you could given the circumstances.

If I were asked we'd have endet this game after the great bobian war with another winner but that was not it.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by vondrack

I am sure you do know what the difference exactly is. You can commit to war (speaking about both wars here, you+GS vs. us and you+ND vs. GS) in a very different way, if you know you're never going to fight the only neighbour sharing a land border with you - simply because you and him are going to win together. Neither you, nor him need to care about the (im)balance of power, about gaining or losing relative strenght (as compared to the other member of the pact), because there is never going to be a war these relative strenghts would matter.

That is the difference.


GoW risked a major imbalance of power vis-a-vis GS for having our stack attacked by Lego (and we knew that if you were going to attack, you'd attack us, not GS). We risked it not once but twice (by both landing and by attacking Stanwix)

ND risked a major imbalance of power vis-a-vis GoW during the Bobian War because turn order dictated that they would be the ones to attack GS's stacks during the major battles first and GoW would merely get the mopping up work. Because of this and Leo's, GoW ended the war with almost twice as many Riders than they had Ansars and we could have attacked them afterwards (our alliance lasted only until the war ended, we had no plans of winning the war together back then).

GoW also risked having Lego backstab us during the Bobian War. All our troops were either in the Alamo or in the Yellowknife while your nice little stack of knights rode through our territory. Yet we took the risk regardless. Likewise we took the risk of sending our initial Rider stack across the mountains in the east before striking RP. During this time ND could have backstabbed us (we never wrote an alliance treaty against RP, they could've nailed us then and there). What was the logic behind these risks? That if we didn't take them, we'd lose anyway.

As you can see, when relative strength did matter, teams went on with their plans regardless.


It would have not changed the result (and perhaps not even the course) of the Lego War. But I seriously doubt the rest of the game would be the same, too.


As of this turn I can almost assure you that nothing would have changed.


The pact signed between you and ND decided the outcome of this game before GS sank our first sentry ironclad. Anybody could have done that (if considering a shared victory an option) and nobody else could have done that (if considering a shared victory not an option).

Of course I would, I am not crazy. No team can win a game like PtWDG against an alliance of two other teams (assuming the teams are generally of comparable strenghts).


But that's the point, you DIDN'T do it and now you're complaining when other teams did. You didn't do it because you thought that Lego had a chance of winning alone, anyone who started with an entire continent to themselves and a huge advantage of not wasting time building massive armies and fighting wars could have seen it. I doubt I would have considered a joint victory if I were Lego. Same with GS. The difference being that they had lesser long-term prospects of victory at least economically/militarily though scientifically they were far ahead of our capabilities. I wonder, why did GS never once ask GoW to ally with them to defeat a rising ND and then duke it out for a winner afterwards with us? They never approached us. Even if their odds of winning were less, they would have been a bit bigger if they had chosen to seek an alliance with GoW against ND than having to fight the Yellow Peril™ by themselves.

So, like I said in my last post, don't complain now about a lack of foresight and about a different perspective on your shots of victory. In contrast with you and GS, GoW and ND were convinced that we could not win the game alone which is why we pacted our alliance. Tell me Vondrack, in retrospective would you have now preferred to ally with GS to fight the Bobians in a last 2-on-2 confrontation to decide the winner? Now, do you think we would be so stupid as to have allowed such a thing which would have compromised our shots at even a shared victory? We might be cheesy, but we are far from being idiots. Tell me, if you saw the evil backstabbing GoWers getting too powerful by conquering Bob, would you not have allied with GS? Likewise would you have permitted a non-Apolyton team (ND) from winning this game alone? I doubt it in either case. Don't blame us for not being powerful enough to hope for a lone victory. And don't blame ND for not being an Apolyton civ.


I wonder what did these two games have in common... can't think of much. ISDG did not end because of two teams proclaiming a shared victory - and as far as I can remember, there was a team we pretty much considered the winner. A single team.


Did GWT "prove" they were the best? Could Apolyton not have been their equal by the industrial age perhaps? Did we fight a final titanic war to decide the winner? Were our chances of victory 0% so as to have warranted quitting? Nope. Victory was a subjective decision taken because most people didn't want to play anymore and of all the teams, GWT seemed to have the biggest odds of victory (as well as the highest score).


That was not my intention. My remark was inspired by your post where you talked about how it would be your bombers levelling our cities if GS failed in the west - I do not seem to be able to find that post now...


It's in the Glory of News thread :p

And that comment was inspired by a quote of yours which spoke of the damage each Carrier raid was causing. Think 10 more turns and 10 more raids...


If you or both of you were in the west, things would have been different, that's for sure. Probably not the outcome, though. But it's not how it happened.


And the way it happened ensured that the team which would have the fate of the war in their hands was GS not us. Yet you and Zargon seem to imply that our participation in that war was irrelevant and that GS alone did you in. I can assure you that the months of preparation, the anxiety of our knowing how precarious our position was, the cruel knowledge that geography dictated our role would be no better than a bulwark despite such a tremendous spending on units, and in short the effort of our team made as a whole sure as hell doesn't warrant your team's comments that our participation was irrelevant. How would you like it if GoW started blabbering that Lego's participation in the game was irrelevant because they ended up losing? You wouldn't like it, that's how it feels on this side of the fence.

-MZ

[vondrack]

We both better save our time, MZ... not on the same wavelenght this time. You're a good chap and I have no desire to continue this coulda woulda ping-pong about the merits of a shared victory.

Enjoy it.

I posted primarily because of someone else, sorry to ruffle your feathers. :)

[Master Zen]

Consider it forgotten. :cool:

I'd hate for grudges to emerge at the very end of this game

[Master Zen]

Btw, I didn't want to make it public until after GS opened this turn's save but:

On 1360 AD a 120+ unit GoW Expeditionary Force (GeForce2) landed in Stormia. Major battles will surely follow testing the courage and sacrifice of the brave men (and bearded women) in uniform on both sides.

[Beta]

I have delayed quite a bit in posting here, as I had to make sure my opinion was not simply a knee jerk reaction to GoW and ND's announcement. I have thought about it fair bit, and read the posts in this thread a couple of times.

I am with UnOrthOdOx and Vondrack on this. I do not think the 'shared victiry' concept is in keeping with the spirit and intent of the game, and for me, it is a bit of a shame to see a game, which was such a wild ride at times, and was the first and still most significant Civ3 MP game, end like this.

In my mind, this sets a very bad precedent for future games. What happens next time - a three team alliance and a 3-way shared victory? I know - I am extrapolating here, but it is not a whole lot different. And the fact that the 'hard' alliance and idea of the shared victory did not arise until later does not make much of a difference. In future games, it will be on everyone's mind right from the start, and that will kill one of the greatest dynamics of MP civ - the strategy and diplomacy and international balancing act that is key to success.

It is so very key and fundamental to the game that all teams have to playing on the same premise - that they are trying to win. Otherwise, the game becomes flawed, and unfair to some teams.

I find it interesting that most sets of PBEM guidelines speak to each player trying to win the game - not share a win (unless of course it is a team pbem scenario). And has been stated earlier, everyone assumed that was the case heading into this game. And all teams played on that understanding, even after GoW and ND had decided otherwise - which obviously affects the entire balance of power and diplomacy. Had this intent been stated earlier - then I would have seen a GoW/ND vs Lego/GS/RP/Vox scenario shaping up.

In fact, had we in Vox any idea this was going down, we certainly would have waded into the Lego conflict. We stayed out of it for two reasons - part self-preservation (let the big guys duke it out and keep our heads down), and part not wanting to be a liability to Lego (in other words, if we were attacked, they would have had to come to our assistance thus weakening themselves.) And given what a 'close-run' thing that conflict was, Vox involvement might have tipped the scales.

And as it stands right now, Lego and GS have been eliminated, but not Vox. Now, I fully recognize that a war against Vox would be a two nanosecond event (notwithstanding the Elite Immortal guarding the capital :)), but, to be honest, would we have even bothered to stay in the game had we known this was going to be the outcome. Speaking for myself, probably not. We rebuilt and supported Lego, as we clearly owed them our existence. But in the back of my mind was the hope that the game would develop exactly as it did, with the larger teams taking each other out with whatever alliances they could create. We would keep our heads down and maybe there would be an opportunity when the last two large teams went head-to-head. That is not going to happen now. :( Now knowing that, GoW and/or ND could simply wipe us out, and say there - ends that line of logic. But again, it goes back to the understanding each team was playing under.

All that being said, I fully appreciate that the game has gone on a long time, and in some respects has become tedious - particularly with a large modern-age civ such as GoW and ND now have. The game takes "energy", and that was clearly declining. So on another level, I can understand ending it as GoW and ND have.

However, I still would like to see the showdown played out. Make it non-nuclear - set a start date 5 turns hence so each team can be prepared, toss a coin for who gets to attack first - and let us all watch. Now that would be fun. :D

In my mind, a game of civ only has one winner - that is the way it was set up and intended to be played. No 'shared' victories. And no second or third places. The GoW/ND proposal, IMHO, means that no one wins the game - or conversely - we all do. Maybe that is the best interpretation.

Because, without that showdown, it will be as T.S.Eliot suggested:

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

[UnOrthOdOx]

:lol:


No offense, inside joke. You'll probably get it soon.

[Hot_Enamel]

Originally posted by Beta
However, I still would like to see the showdown played out. Make it non-nuclear - set a start date 5 turns hence so each team can be prepared, toss a coin for who gets to attack first - and let us all watch. Now that would be fun. :D

In my mind, a game of civ only has one winner - that is the way it was set up and intended to be played. No 'shared' victories. And no second or third places. The GoW/ND proposal, IMHO, means that no one wins the game - or conversely - we all do. Maybe that is the best interpretation.

Because, without that showdown, it will be as T.S.Eliot suggested:

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.


If you note the discussion in the other demo games, agreements are being made that there can be only one winner. This Demo game was the first. We learnt a lot from it. Perhaps this was also a lesson. Having a one winner agreement at the start will fix it up for all the furture games.

Anyway..

The problem is that you should take a look at the border we share with ND. How do you defend that ? He who strikes first will win. So whoever wins the coin toss will win.

If its a spaceship race ... is that fair ? ND & GoW have been sharing techs & gold quite unevenly. Is it fair that we should start at the same tech level ?

In my mind, a joint victory is far more satisfying than just tossing a coin. ND & GoW wont attack each other.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Beta
... it will be as T.S.Eliot suggested:

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.


I wish there were a smiley showing a little guy shooting an arrow for a bullseye.

[Master Zen]

What would a GoW vs ND faceoff prove? Nothing.

If a x-number of turns was set before war the outcome would already be decided: ND would win because of turn order as GoW would find it impossible to defend all our territory against their army.

Likewise if a coin-toss was made and GoW struck first, same thing, it's be a matter of cracking ND's outer shell and swarming in with tanks/settlers.

In either case, no team could conceivably withstand a first strike from the other (a kind of conventional M.A.D. - mutually assured destruction).

The other possible victory is a space race. Are you honestly expecting us to play for another 3-4 months just to prove who was the better builder? Moreso would you expect Vox to tag along for all this time when they would pretty much have no role in this?

In either case it is pointless. No team can prove anything by beating the other at this stage of the game. And since ND and GoW would have probably had a "reach the end together and then duke it out" agreement had shared victories been deemed illegal by Trip, no outcome in this game would have changed.

That's honestly what I don't understand about this whole argument. Nothing would have changed except who the 6th loser would be. And considering GoW and ND's relationship throught the game we don't feel the need to prove anything to the other (and much less to the other teams).

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Master Zen
That's honestly what I don't understand about this whole argument. Nothing would have changed
MZ, CIV is going to have a shared victory thing. Now, assume that in order to get it, you are required to sign a treaty in game, much like the MPP treaty in SP. So... anyone with an embassy would be able to see that you had a treaty.

I know this is not in Civ 3, I know it was an out-of-game agreement, but let's just suppose it can somehow show up in-game.

Now, before invading Lego, you sign a treaty with ND. Do you really believe we would have invaded Legoland If we had spotted this? Do you think, that if we got Lego to join us in invading you, you even had a chance of surviving? ND was out of the picture, as they were still finishing their buildings before building defenses, they couldn't help you. Would it have changed the game? You bet.

I don't mind shared victories, if these have repercussion in game as well. There is no balance, while everything else in the game is balanced. If you build more units, you are penalised each turn as you have to pay more upkeep. If you go for more culture, you can't build units. If you build more cities, your efficiency goes down due to corruption. Every aspect of Civ 3 has a counterweight. A shared victory has not, it's just a free advantage without any penalty. Making an alliance visible in a diplo game, could have proved to be too much counterweight, but it certainly would have tried to balance out the advantages you get from it.

DeepO

[Master Zen]

DeepO, you're assuming that teams would blow their cover by signing treaties in-game risking that others might see them. Did we ever sign a formal alliance vs Lego? Never. Should we have done so the moment we agreed on GAUL? It would have been the epitome of stupidity since Lego would have seen it many turns before we actually invaded.

Players sidestep the technical aspects of the game when it suits them. All of us are guilty of this.

[DeepO]

I agree, but the difference is that even before you built the first unit that invaded Lego, Lego was well aware of an alliance between us against them. We were never to secretive about that, it was of no use anyway... we weren't going to share a single tech with them, and the moment we kept techs from them they knew what was going to happen.

This same thing doesn't apply to the GoWND situation. You even fought a war with us as allies (without any treaty signed, I might add) while more strongly allied to ND. We could not have known.

And yes, everyone is guilty of sidestepping technical aspects, but there is a difference between capturing catapults and declaring a new victory type.

It's also just a suggestion, but I certainly hope that in CIV, a shared victory would be visible a long time beforehand, so there is some way of reacting against it. Maker it visible in game, and give something in return as well. E.g. give both teams all unit information, share research and gold reserves, etc. But balance it so that it others have a chance to respond, instead of after the facts just be told "ow, we had an alliance for the last year or so. Sorry, we win."

DeepO

[Kloreep]

Originally posted by Hot_Enamel
The problem is that you should take a look at the border we share with ND. How do you defend that ? He who strikes first will win. So whoever wins the coin toss will win.

Indeed, quite a problem, isn't it?

However, from what I've read, you guys seem to think the GoW-ND relationship ran deep enough that you would have both signed a wipe-everyone-else-out pact and honored it if the shared victory had been overruled by Trip. I must say, that's the only reason I am not pissed off about this.

[Beta]

Originally posted by DeepO

Now, before invading Lego, you sign a treaty with ND. Do you really believe we would have invaded Legoland If we had spotted this? Do you think, that if we got Lego to join us in invading you, you even had a chance of surviving? ND was out of the picture, as they were still finishing their buildings before building defenses, they couldn't help you. Would it have changed the game? You bet.

I don't mind shared victories, if these have repercussion in game as well. There is no balance, while everything else in the game is balanced. If you build more units, you are penalised each turn as you have to pay more upkeep. If you go for more culture, you can't build units. If you build more cities, your efficiency goes down due to corruption. Every aspect of Civ 3 has a counterweight. A shared victory has not, it's just a free advantage without any penalty. Making an alliance visible in a diplo game, could have proved to be too much counterweight, but it certainly would have tried to balance out the advantages you get from it.

DeepO

Where's that bulls-eye smiley when you need it. :b:

Beautifully stated DeepO. You have explained well what I was trying to say.

MZ - understand your point about the showdown - but it would be fun. So maybe we boil it down to simply the coin toss. :lol: (Or a best 4 out of 7 rock, scissors, paper contest. ;))

[UnOrthOdOx]

You know....

I think we ALL understand the reasons behind both GoW and ND not wanting to play this out. Nothing would have changed, ND/GoW had a kill each other last agreement from WAAAAAY back. The current state would still be in place.

However, there are those of us who would LIKE to play it out/ see it played out.

How about putting up insert save here for play via PBEM's for those who want to see it played out. Trip can give out the passwords to the individual players. They can form whatever conditions they want (wait 5, 10 turns, no nukes, space race, etc).

[Krill]

I think it would be fun if we could relocate the resources, and the start positions, and play it out from the start again as a normal PBEM. I'm up for it if anyone wans to play... :hopes:

[UnOrthOdOx]

If you can manage that, I'm game.

[Krill]

Well, Trip ripped the game when they was the big crash, so we could always ask him (how) to do it. Or maybe he wants another go at keeping Lux alive...

I know it is possible to rip the game seed, and conditions, using Seedbeast, but I don't have a PTW editor to reconstruct the map with.

[Beta]

Originally posted by Master Zen

In either case it is pointless. No team can prove anything by beating the other at this stage of the game. And since ND and GoW would have probably had a "reach the end together and then duke it out" agreement had shared victories been deemed illegal by Trip, no outcome in this game would have changed.

It would have been nice to know that Trip had 'deemed' a shared victory possible, and when he 'deemed' it. This by itself would have been sufficient information to change the course of the game - and from what I can tell (and I well may have missed it), this was never shared with others.

That's honestly what I don't understand about this whole argument. Nothing would have changed except who the 6th loser would be. And considering GoW and ND's relationship throught the game we don't feel the need to prove anything to the other (and much less to the other teams).

Sorry - don't agree. Had all teams understood that this concept of shared victory was possible - the outcome could have, and likely would have, been very different.

And that's honestly what I don't understand about your whole argument. :) (Sorry MZ - couldn't resist)

[Krill]

MZ is now going to post that shared victory was acceptable, it's just that we did not think about it, or that we could have won alone.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Does anyone deny that a secret "we'll kill each other last" agreement was possible?

If not, the current situation would not have changed in the least, other than Vox would soon be finding themselves attacked.

I've already said, I DISLIKE the whole shared victory as much as any of you. However, I was also all for the killing each other last deal we originally struck. So, in essence, the world as it is now is just what would be if they hadn't changed it to a shared victory, because we ALREADY were going to remove everyone else before we had a final battle anyway. The turnplayers just cannot put in the time to fill that final battle out. And, honestly I can't blame them.

My own personal life has changed drastically over the course of this game, including the birth of a child, a new job, a new house, and a new car. Essentially, we are all older, and all have more responsibilities in RL than a few years ago. Not allot of young bucks left.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
Does anyone deny that a secret "we'll kill each other last" agreement was possible?
No, sure it could. No point in denying that, nor any gain. I've stated a couple of times before that it leads to the same result. A "we'll kill each other last" alliance, is just as well a shared victory if you view it from those who are defeated first. It's the same inbalanced advantage you get, without any repercussions.

DeepO

[Krill]

(Again, this is my personal view)

I don't (or rather, would not) have a problem if there was a "We'll kill each other last" agreement. There would always be the chance of a backstab (among other things), as the other team has to go at some point in the game.

[Kloreep]

Originally posted by Krill
(Again, this is my personal view)

I don't (or rather, would not) have a problem if there was a "We'll kill each other last" agreement. There would always be the chance of a backstab (among other things), as the other team has to go at some point in the game.

Agreed. (My own personal view. ;))

[Krill]

It is game breaking, no doubt about that, but when you look at it from another angle, it is the only way of forging an alliance where there is going to be a duel when there are three teams present.

[DeepO]

It's exactly the same with a shared victory. The turn after GoW invaded Stormia, ND could have swept their agreement aside, and invaded and conquered them. And claimed domination for themselves. Shared victories hold a risk, exactly because they aren't registered in the game. I'm simply saying that the risk of a backstab does not balance out the advantages, not even close.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Krill
It is game breaking, no doubt about that, but when you look at it from another angle, it is the only way of forging an alliance where there is going to be a duel when there are three teams present.

Krill, you're talking about a situation, where only 3 teams remained. GoW and ND signed their agreement when Lego was still one of the two teams with the most potential in-game. And GoW allied with the 4th power, to thin out the top a bit... it's different.

DeepO

[UnOrthOdOx]

See. I'm really confused by how the other teams approached the game, then.

From the beginning GoW sought to find someone to join in a 'we'll kill each other last' agreement. Our first choice, based on map positions was RP. ND filled the role nicely. I don't think we ever considerred another way of approaching the game. Frankly, it is a very sound approach to any such game. We signed it WAAAAAAAAAAAY back before the RP war.

We questioned ND's faithfullness on occasion, and considered backstabbing them before they could us more than once, but here we are.

RP, from what I understand sought the same type of deal from Lego???

When they open the forums, you'll see my original plan was precisely this, only to have Vox help us backstab ND. Of course, the plan was to finish Lego with cavalry, too...

(Actually, I believe I had the 'random ravings', and MZ had the 'Evil Plans'. To help you navigate the forum later.)

The true triumph of diplomacy in this game was ND and GoW sticking together dispite their differences. ND's refusal to let us have the Iron after Lux. Them being rather upset at the start of the RP war. Them refusing to help during Lego. Etc etc. Many things could have drove a wedge between us. Coupled with the, at times wider than others, language barrier, it was truly a great feat.

[Beta]

Krill raises the subtle difference. A 'we kill each other last' agreement is very different then a 'shared victory' agreement. The former has the element of doubt, and a clear understanding that at one point, the two teams will have to fight it out for victory. Which is much different that where we find ourselves now. GoW does not want to go for a spaceship victory - as they have clearly brought ND up to tech parity. Why would you do this if the intent was to eventually have to defeat them. And would you not have played the game somewhat differently, or prepared differently, had you really believed that you would have to attack each other eventually. So, I would suggest there was never a true 'we kill each other last' agreement.

And if there was, and you now decide that it is not worth playing out (and again - I fully understand why that is), then I say the game ends incomplete.

And I will restate, at this point I am arguing more for the sake of all future demo games. I am concerned what happens here may have severe repercussions for on-going and future MP demo games.

[Beta]

Originally posted by DeepO


Krill, you're talking about a situation, where only 3 teams remained. GoW and ND signed their agreement when Lego was still one of the two teams with the most potential in-game. And GoW allied with the 4th power, to thin out the top a bit... it's different.

DeepO

Yes - very different. :eek:

If that is in fact the timing of the 'shared victory agreement' then IMO, I would say victory by any team is null and void.

If GoW, ND, or Trip had come forward and said, btw, "It has been determined that a shared victory is possible", can you honestly tell me you don't think that would have changed the course of the game. C'mon.

As it is - two teams knew it was possible, and everyone else played on under another set of assumptions.

Can someone please confirm when it was 'deemed' that a shared victory was possible? Did it pre-date the Lego invasion?

[Krill]

It is game breaking, no doubt about that, but when you look at it from another angle, it is the only way of forging an alliance where there is going to be a duel when there are three teams present.

Krill, you're talking about a situation, where only 3 teams remained. GoW and ND signed their agreement when Lego was still one of the two teams with the most potential in-game. And GoW allied with the 4th power, to thin out the top a bit... it's different.

I know. I was just pointing out that it is possible to view some, or most, late game alliance as a "We'll kill each other last" alliance

[DeepO]

UnO, I'm perfectly aware that getting a shared victory is also an achievement. I do not want to sound like I think it was the easiest thing to do. But I can't congratulate you on something I do not believe in, you must understand.

I'm also not going to put it so black and white, and say that for us it was never mentioned that having a last fight between two nations would have been a good way of ending the game.

I think the difference lays that we would not have agreed to this sooner. We didn't sign alliances for such long time, not even with RP. We did not ask for a long during treaty with Vox after we rescued them (because you can say what you want, but GS moved Vox, not Lego. And we got very little in return. We didn't ask for anything, only it's sad to see that the goodwill we thought we had 'bought' seems to have been forgotten or twisted over time). We ended up more or less allying with RP, but if we could have avoided it and just protected them against the agression so they could have existed on their own, it would have been better for us.

So, yes, we obviously approached the game quite differently. It would have been easy to sign such a shared victory agreement with RP at the time of the Bobian war (not that we would have won, in a shared way or not, but we could have signed the treaty). We specifically didn't do that.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Beta
Yes - very different. :eek:

If that is in fact the timing of the 'shared victory agreement' then IMO, I would say victory by any team is null and void.

Well, I got it from GoW's own history thread. The plans to invade Lego existed from before the ratification of the GoW-ND treaty, but it was several turns before we even embarked. It would have given us enough time to move all our transports to the other side (or build new ones), and went the other direction. And I can tell you, that such a decision would have been one of the fastest in GS history, as nobody would have even tried to argue against it.

Well, the decision to try to save RP was also taken in one night time. By next morning, we had a basic plan to help them, and deploy troops.

DeepO

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by Beta
Krill raises the subtle difference. A 'we kill each other last' agreement is very different then a 'shared victory' agreement. The former has the element of doubt, and a clear understanding that at one point, the two teams will have to fight it out for victory. Which is much different that where we find ourselves now. GoW does not want to go for a spaceship victory - as they have clearly brought ND up to tech parity. Why would you do this if the intent was to eventually have to defeat them. And would you not have played the game somewhat differently, or prepared differently, had you really believed that you would have to attack each other eventually. So, I would suggest there was never a true 'we kill each other last' agreement.

By this point, we have the respect for each other that, no, we would not have played different. We would eliminate Vox and set aside some amount of turns to build up. But, due to game mechanics, there is little point to that now. We originally thought we'ld be finishing everyone off with cavalry and not be sharing a fully RRd continent. I think that, more than anything, made the change neccessary.

We did not hold back attacking Lego, even though we knew we would be attacking GS a few turns after that was over.

And if there was, and you now decide that it is not worth playing out (and again - I fully understand why that is), then I say the game ends incomplete.


As I've said, personally I agree, but at the same time, I also see that there is really little point to a majority on both teams in putting in the time and effort it would take to finish.

[Krill]

As I've said, personally I agree, but at the same time, I also see that there is really little point to a majority on both teams in putting in the time and effort it would take to finish.

I agree. You would have to use an artificial set of rules, like pillaging all RRs in the world, or promise to pillage all Aluminium and Uranium on Bob, and fight over the other resources in the world to build the space ship. Only worthwhile if both teams want to do it.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
We did not hold back attacking Lego, even though we knew we would be attacking GS a few turns after that was over.
This has always been a risk, and we did talk about it during the buildup to the Lego war. It was deemed that we couldn't defend against that in anyway, and so it was useless to plan for it. We did have our defenses in place, and at the time of leaving Lego I would have welcomed GoW to try and invade us. We actually rushed off Lego, already chaining units back to Stormia before the last city had fallen. It would have been a better show then the nukes. Not that it would have saved us in the long run.

It's similar to what we tried to do with invading Bob while under attack. It's very unfortunate that we weren't given the chance to do it. It wouldn't have made us win, but it could have given a nice battle. It was what many of us thought Lego would do, when they realized that more than twice their numbers where on way of invading them. Just load a couple of transports with units, and take it to the home country.

BTW, because we thought it would have been so pointless to wait for the inevitable, we were speculating on asking you if you were going for a shared victory, in which case GoWND already had domination (a false one, of course). Maybe we should have done that after the Lego war. Who knows, it's all nice in hindsight.

DeepO

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by DeepO
UnO, I'm perfectly aware that getting a shared victory is also an achievement. I do not want to sound like I think it was the easiest thing to do. But I can't congratulate you on something I do not believe in, you must understand.

Again, I'M WITH YOU. I don't like it either. I wasn't active when it was signed. What do ya do?

I'm also not going to put it so black and white, and say that for us it was never mentioned that having a last fight between two nations would have been a good way of ending the game.

We never saw it any other way. :shrug: What can I say? Glory of WAR. We never considered a victory condition other than domination or conquest until this. I'm still a little baffled how we maintained tech parity...let alone sporadic superiority...

I think the difference lays that we would not have agreed to this sooner. We didn't sign alliances for such long time, not even with RP. We did not ask for a long during treaty with Vox after we rescued them (because you can say what you want, but GS moved Vox, not Lego. And we got very little in return. We didn't ask for anything, only it's sad to see that the goodwill we thought we had 'bought' seems to have been forgotten or twisted over time). We ended up more or less allying with RP, but if we could have avoided it and just protected them against the agression so they could have existed on their own, it would have been better for us.

So, yes, we obviously approached the game quite differently. It would have been easy to sign such a shared victory agreement with RP at the time of the Bobian war (not that we would have won, in a shared way or not, but we could have signed the treaty). We specifically didn't do that.

DeepO

And here, at the time, I was thinking you guys were trying to buy votes by all this goodwill. Did you make Vox sign they would vote for you to let them live? RP? (I asked these in our forum) We were ALWAYS looking way in the future. Sometimes to the detriment of the short term....

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by DeepO

This has always been a risk, and we did talk about it during the buildup to the Lego war. It was deemed that we couldn't defend against that in anyway, and so it was useless to plan for it. We did have our defenses in place, and at the time of leaving Lego I would have welcomed GoW to try and invade us. We actually rushed off Lego, already chaining units back to Stormia before the last city had fallen. It would have been a better show then the nukes. Not that it would have saved us in the long run.

It's similar to what we tried to do with invading Bob while under attack. It's very unfortunate that we weren't given the chance to do it. It wouldn't have made us win, but it could have given a nice battle. It was what many of us thought Lego would do, when they realized that more than twice their numbers where on way of invading them. Just load a couple of transports with units, and take it to the home country.

BTW, because we thought it would have been so pointless to wait for the inevitable, we were speculating on asking you if you were going for a shared victory, in which case GoWND already had domination (a false one, of course). Maybe we should have done that after the Lego war. Who knows, it's all nice in hindsight.

DeepO

We attacked you as soon as we could. The sheer logistics didn't allow it any sooner. Sorry about the nukes, I never got my last ride because of them. :(

MZ promised I would be thrown at a tank, infantry, or some other suitably suicidal attempt.

[DeepO]

neither RP nor Vox needed to vote for us in the UN, no. They would have been welcome to do so, and in case of RP (in the situation where they ended up in) it would have been hard to believe they would have voted for anybody else. But neither of them was forced. But, ask Lego what they got for Vox' freehaven.

It's not a matter of not looking to the future, it's just that those were emotional decisions, from which we didn't want to profit indefinately. We believed, or at least I did, that by not forcing them, they wouldn't grow frustrated in an old treaty that was signed in a different time. We debated asking Vox to give us all their free techs they received from switching eras, and we didn't ask them.

We were given Theology from Lego, as they claim for Vox, but we saw it at the time as a wonder they would get, which otherwise would have been ours for sure. A tech for such a wonder is a very small price, we thought we were doing them a favour, not the other way around. So, in reality, there was little we gained, it was simply not such a treaty where GS only wanted to profit from. The cities we got, were depopulated (we made the plan for the Voxodus, we knew how many workers and settlers would leave), which they wouldn't have been if we had taken them. In return, we got 2 or 3 markets... Big deal, I would say.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
We attacked you as soon as we could. The sheer logistics didn't allow it any sooner. Sorry about the nukes, I never got my last ride because of them. :(
Well, that's why I would have welcomed an attempted invasion right after Lego. We were stronger than you on our home ground. Against two opponents you can't win, but this would not have been a stroll in the park, it would have cost you.

DeepO

[Kloreep]

UN vote wasn't part of our treaty with Vox either, I just checked. (Though I'm embarrassed to re-discover the GA warrior clause. Talk about cheese.)

Edit: Posted it in the Historical Documents thread.

[UnOrthOdOx]

For the record, I knew you were the ones to move Vox.

If you look back, I was the only one outside GS defending your right to finish them if you wanted.

What I DIDN'T understand was WHY. The only thing I could come up with was the vote. I later learned that was not the case, so I figured it was strictly a PR move because the forum, for reasons I also don't get, was totally against finishing Vox off at that point.

[DeepO]

UnO, PR because of the forum? No... you still underestimate what kind of effect the forum had at the time. Not a single friendly word, only threats, taunts, and flame wars whenever we made a post. The forum could have gone forever, and we didn't care.

We were just feeling philantropic, and didn't want to remove a team from the game which had invested a year of their time, and which we learned to know because they were the first we dealt with. Don't forget there was a time when we actively tried to ally with them, we never hated Vox, there was no sense of revenge. Everyone has said over and over again that GS was playing against super AIs, well, perhaps if you consider our in-game actions but certainly not our treaties. We simply wanted to let Vox live, and give them a half decent start so they could play the game out as a minor power.

The only gain I can think of, is that it would have been hard for any other team to attack Vox, and take their space. (just for PR reasons, not even GoW would have considered to invade them right after the voxodus when they were easy bait) Which means the total space in the game came down. Which meant that in comparison, Stormia became a little bit bigger.

DeepO

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by Kloreep
UN vote wasn't part of our treaty with Vox either, I just checked. (Though I'm embarrassed to re-discover the GA warrior clause. Talk about cheese.)

Edit: Posted it in the Historical Documents thread.

No it wasn't, though it was assumed in Vox that we would vote for Lego if the situation arose.

The GA warrior clause was definite cheese. I don't know how it got in there, but I'm glad it wasn't used. :)

[Kloreep]

Yes, Lego thought it was cheese too and that's why we were glad to get it with wonders. Apparently didn't stop us from putting it in, though. ;)

[ZargonX]

I thought we had agreed not to do the warrior-GA thing? Ah well, so goes memory... :dizzy:

[Kloreep]

Yes, we agreed to at some point. But since that was included in the treaty, I'm imagining it was after the Voxodus.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by DeepO

Well, that's why I would have welcomed an attempted invasion right after Lego. We were stronger than you on our home ground. Against two opponents you can't win, but this would not have been a stroll in the park, it would have cost you.

DeepO

It was impossible. We needed to send most of our transport fleet to the east, plus our carriers, plus most of our navy. In fact, we still didn't send the fleet because of the threat that Lego's ghost navy still presented to us, it was only until Lego disbanded their fleet that we started sending the navy east.

Just fyi, on the exact turn we attacked you and RP, our last two carriers got within striking distance of RP. That's how long it took.

As for the transports, we sent 10 IIRC from the Lego veterans, and built 3 more in the east during that time (note that we have very crappy eastern coastal cities). It was all timed so we'd be able to invade RP and then land in Stormia ASAP. It's quite suprising just how little this invasion took in terms of preparation. Nothing like that against Lego with specific timelines and movement paths, this almost seemed improvised yet the execution was flawless, of course, we would've prefered to land at Dissidentville had it existed. ;)

[Master Zen]

Also, another interesting thing, GoW and ND never conducted joint planning in this war other than in selection of targets for nukes on the first turn strikes, ND simply asked us not to hit certain cities since those were supposed to be their targets.

That's why there was no joint invasion, ND had yet to achieve naval dominance in the south sea and they didn't think they could land at the time. And given that we were ready, we decided to go for it alone.

The only other useful bits of communications were simply ND's spy in GS which they used to provide us with GS's troop strenghts (tidbit: we tried every turn to plant a spy in GS and failed miserably each time :lol: ) as well as sharing pictures of the naval situation.

[Kloreep]

Originally posted by Master Zen
(tidbit: we tried every turn to plant a spy in GS and failed miserably each time :lol: )

Since the game is over, I suppose I should tell you that chances of failure following the loss/plant failure of a spy are very high, and you have to wait several turns for your chances to approach normal.

Hence why we risked going for someone's spy (GS, I think) at the beginning of the invasion. It was a gamble... but if it worked (which it did) we knew we'd buy at least several turns of GS inability to investigate cities right when they were forcing us to try to balance our city defenses vs. Marines.

[Beta]

Originally posted by Beta


Yes - very different. :eek:

If that is in fact the timing of the 'shared victory agreement' then IMO, I would say victory by any team is null and void.

If GoW, ND, or Trip had come forward and said, btw, "It has been determined that a shared victory is possible", can you honestly tell me you don't think that would have changed the course of the game. C'mon.

As it is - two teams knew it was possible, and everyone else played on under another set of assumptions.

Can someone please confirm when it was 'deemed' that a shared victory was possible? Did it pre-date the Lego invasion?

MZ - can you please confirm when the 'shared victory' was deemed possible?

[Master Zen]

In 1030 AD when the treaty was shown to Trip who gave the ok. Had he deemed it illegal we would've scrapped the plan, plain and simple.

[Master Zen]

As to whether "two teams knew it was possible, and everyone else played on under another set of assumptions." honestly I think that's a weak argument.

Every team had to play under the assumption that X and Y teams could possibly be allied against them. It changes nothing that the two last standing teams simply decide to not fight and share the victory.

I still have not heard a shred of conclusive evidence that this game would have been any difference from a shared victory or a "ally until we destroy everyone else and then duke it out among ourselves" which apparently would have been a valid strategy as far as most arguments here are concerned.

This is the main reason I honestly don't understand why all the complaining. The shared victory changed nothing since ND and GoW would have followed the exact same course, getting rid of every team one by one until we remained. Then we either would've duked it out, played a space race or left it to any survivors to decide on the winner via a UN victory. We simply decided that should we reach that point, we'd do nothing.

If any team should be whining it should be GoW and ND since niether can now claim a full victory. The fact that we are perfectly happy with the result is all the more ironic given the responses of those who played in teams that lost.

:shame:

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by DeepO
UnO, PR because of the forum? No... you still underestimate what kind of effect the forum had at the time. Not a single friendly word, only threats, taunts, and flame wars whenever we made a post.

I never said a single word against GS until the NAP. And I still stand by my stance that you broke it in spirit. You knew our plans, you purposely blocked our path, you were warned continuing to do so would be seen as an act of aggression in violation of the NAP, you continued to do it, and you sent a written declaration of war to our ally, who you KNEW we were allied with in the war. If that is not breaking it, I don't know what is.

I came out in support of you when everyone was *****ing about you being elitist. I didn't care about you being the Strat forum gurus. I didn't care that you would deny members, or at the least encourage them joining other teams. I said so publicly. I came out in support of you during and after Vox. I made it a POINT never to say anything bad, and to say when I agreed with you.

Yes, there were friendly things mentioned. Go back and look. They may have been drowned out.

[Hot_Enamel]

Just on this point...

I proposed that we made Trip our official game umpire many many months ago.
Almost everyone rejected the idea. :rolleyes:
It happened soon after the Bob war.
GS was already using the F1 exolit.
They also warped cats to RP.
We were talking about the invasion of Lego, using ship chaining.

I think GoW was one of the few teams who wanted these tactics classed as exploits.
:(



Trip had no authority to deem the GoW/ND treaty as acceptable or not.
We tossed the idea at him , and I think he said that he could not stop us if we wanted to follow through with the idea.

And since GoW needed the treaty to be kept secret. He would not be allowed to "report" it to the main forum.

[Kloreep]

ND and GoW might have followed the exact same course. Can you say that of other teams?

As I said, the only reason I'm not angry about this is you say you would have simply stuck to the kill-em-all pact with ND if not for the shared victory treaty. Fine. In that case, things would play out exactly the same. But if the thought of shared victory had entered my head as a valid treaty, I would have been screaming to make offers when we got cut off on tech in the Ind.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Master Zen
It's quite suprising just how little this invasion took in terms of preparation. Nothing like that against Lego with specific timelines and movement paths, this almost seemed improvised yet the execution was flawless, of course, we would've prefered to land at Dissidentville had it existed. ;)

I wouldn't call it flawless... If you had nuked Elipolis 1 or 9, instead of Elipolis itself, you could have taken out GS for all intents and purposes that first turn. Nuking the city directly eliminated any possibility for a blitz on your part.

No idea why you didn't try to get a rolling invasion on GS. At worst, if it had looked like it wouldn't work, you could cut the roads by Elipolis.

[Aeson]

Just wondering...

Did Vox have any units warp to Estonia by giving up the city on Bob?

[Theseus]

Of the various threads in this thread, I'd just like to say that I always thought UnO was pretty straight up... he calls'em like he sees'em, both for good and bad. He *can* be a bit unruly at times... but what the heck. :)

And I have a personal confession (again, not the team, just me): I still don;t think we technically broke that NAP, but we sure bent it into a pretzel. I was not happy about it then, I'm not now, and I'll not repeat same in any of the individual or team PBEMs I am in now or in the future.

/me thinks: That damn honor code. Hmmm... ;)

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Kloreep
ND and GoW might have followed the exact same course. Can you say that of other teams?

Of course I can, because in neither case the other teams would have found out about it. It had to be secret, whatever alliance be it a shared victory or a kill-everyone-and-fight-ourselves. Had we made it public, the ones on the receiving end of an alliance would've been us.

If Trip had said no way, this is illegal, or that it's ok but you have to make it public, we would have never signed it. Only in this scenario could I admit that things would have been very different.

But as it is, any type of alliance between GoW and ND no other team would have ever found out about it, so the course of the game would have been exactly the same.

[Hot_Enamel]

Originally posted by Aeson
Just wondering...

Did Vox have any units warp to Estonia by giving up the city on Bob?

I can honestly say ... Got no idea.
Dont recall anything about it in the GoW forum.

I assume they took the same galleys they used to land there.

[Master Zen]

I find it rather ironic that despite now being accused as the epitome of cheese, GoW actually voted against most of the exploits which Lego and GS were adamantly in favor, particularly that borderline-cheating tactic which is F1/City Arrows (which IIRC has been banned from every other demogame).

GS and Lego's excuse: that it permits a broader array of strategies like hiding builds and last-minute changes, etc.

Of course, since both actively wanted to use such a trick to cover up wonder builds it was... well... not deemed "cheese", it was deemed "strategy".

:hmmm:

And yet in an interesting change of terminology, GoW and ND's grand strategy of winning the game together is now labeled "cheese".

:hmmm:

Double standards :q:

[Aeson]

So I take it GoW didn't "What's the big Picture" to swap prebuilds for tactical nukes the turn Space Flight finished?

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Aeson


I wouldn't call it flawless... If you had nuked Elipolis 1 or 9, instead of Elipolis itself, you could have taken out GS for all intents and purposes that first turn. Nuking the city directly eliminated any possibility for a blitz on your part.

No idea why you didn't try to get a rolling invasion on GS. At worst, if it had looked like it wouldn't work, you could cut the roads by Elipolis.

Problem is we didn't have any settlers. Our settlers were built next turn and embarked on a transport which was built in Surfer's Paradise or one of those cities and which was only to join the main stack later.

We could have tried attacking the 3-tile-spaced cities with our 3-movers. We knew you had a plethora of tanks and mech infs and it was possible that they would have blunted any attack from the cavs, let alone the riders if for a bad stroke of luck they'd be in one of the cities in our way. Of course we could've gotten lucky and those cities just been defended by 1 mech inf for example which means we might have actually taken them. The problem here was that unless we found and destroyed where GS was marshalling its army we would have been subjected to a counterattack which would have placed the invasion in jeopardy despite the fact it could have been a death blow to GS.

Perhaps if ND had invaded that same turn we would have attempted such a thing since you couldn't have successfully counterattacked both our armies (kind of a repeat of the Lego War), but we had no clue when ND was going to be able to land.

Moreso we also figured that our advantage should have been overwhelming enough that we would have inflicted the killer blow eventually and with lesser casualties. Part of that reason was why we landed where we did: we knew that you would be insane to attack a stack of 40+ Mech Infs in a mountain tile. A mountain hopping strategy - despite being longer - would threaten practically every city in central Stormia including EotS.

So it was all a matter of playing it safe instead of rushing in for a possible-yet-uncertain kill. In the end we didn't lose a single unit in the invasion and you razed practically every city in our path (and even some that weren't in our path). For all our intents and purposes, that was flawless.

-MZ

[Aeson]

Problem is we didn't have any settlers.

Then that was a flaw in planning, wasn't it?

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Aeson
So I take it GoW didn't "What's the big Picture" to swap prebuilds for tactical nukes the turn Space Flight finished?

Only because it was voted in favor. :p

And for the record GoW never before that invoked the F1 trick because I had failed to read the poll and assumed that it didn't pass. it was only when H_E reminded me that it was allowed that plans changed.

It was also a sort of "give you a taste of your own medicine" move. If you and Lego had voted against such an exploit you could have had a chance at stealing the tech and perhaps the war would not have been so easy.

I think there is no better proof at just how unstabling an exploit it is than what we did on that turn. Take it as a lesson for next time and vote against it ;)

-MZ

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Aeson
Then that was a flaw in planning, wasn't it?

Why? You're assuming we wanted to swarm through Elipolis instead of striking closer to your core and dare you to counterattack us.

Just because we didn't do what you would've done doesn't make it a flaw.

[Aeson]

The attempted tech steal shows very well how GoW's invasion was seriously flawed. GS had a dice roll to get up to 8 tactical nukes that we couldn't have gotten at all if GoW had "rolled" (or even consistantly nuked the Uranium).

Luck determined that wouldn't happen, not GoW's invasion. If GS had gotten those Nukes, there would have been a whole lot of GoW and ND casualties.

[Master Zen]

To be honest, I had no clue that it would be so cheap to try and steal a tech (you said something like 1,600g?) or that you'd actually have that many gold to do so.

Last time I actually tried to steal a tech in Civ3 was probably over 2 years ago and I recall it being quite expensive.

Because of this the possibility of GS attempting such a thing never crossed our minds or else we definitely would have nuked the Uranium every 2 turns.

[Kloreep]

Originally posted by Master Zen
Of course I can, because in neither case the other teams would have found out about it. It had to be secret, whatever alliance be it a shared victory or a kill-everyone-and-fight-ourselves. Had we made it public, the ones on the receiving end of an alliance would've been us.

I'm not talking about the secrecy of the GoW and ND pact, I'm talking about shared victories being possible in the first place. Not quite the same thing. So far as I know, F1, unit chaining, and all the other examples you cite have all been brought up in the public forum so that all teams know about it, and can exploit it if deemed acceptable. The idea of a shared victory pact never was. Granted, bringing it up would have defeated the point, which sucks, but this situation we ended up in anyway rather sucks too, at least from my PoV.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Master Zen
I think there is no better proof at just how unstabling an exploit it is than what we did on that turn. Take it as a lesson for next time and vote against it ;)

I'm not the one whining that it was used. I think it's perfectly valid to use, GoW, GS, Lego, whoever. I just wanted to point out that GoW is trying to have it both ways. Using the tactic, and maligning others for using the tactic.

It was never against the rules. It's commonly accepted in some communities, outlawed in others. If you want to look at it as cheesey, feel free. It has nothing to do with whether or not calling shared victory is a double standard though.

A double standard is when one applies different reasoning to their own actions as the same actions of other people. That is what you are doing MZ, not what those calling shared victory cheese are doing, as they did not claim shared victory.

It was also a sort of "give you a taste of your own medicine" move. If you and Lego had voted against such an exploit you could have had a chance at stealing the tech and perhaps the war would not have been so easy.

We did get a chance at stealing the tech. Yes, the war would have been different if it succeeded, but the end result would be the same regardless.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Master Zen
To be honest, I had no clue that it would be so cheap to try and steal a tech (you said something like 1,600g?) or that you'd actually have that many gold to do so.

Like I said, a flaw.

[Hot_Enamel]

Originally posted by Master Zen
Because of this the possibility of GS attempting such a thing never crossed our minds or else we definitely would have nuked the Uranium every 2 turns.


I recall telling MZ that I think we should do this.
One of the forum pics showed that GS had reconnected the uranium with a worker.
I think I caught MZ on chat, and told him to nuke it and keep nuking it.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Kloreep


I'm not talking about the secrecy of the GoW and ND pact, I'm talking about shared victories being possible in the first place. Not quite the same thing. So far as I know, F1, unit chaining, and all the other examples you cite have all been brought up in the public forum so that all teams know about it, and can exploit it if deemed acceptable. The idea of a shared victory pact never was. Granted, bringing it up would have defeated the point, which sucks, but this situation we ended up in anyway rather sucks too, at least from my PoV.

Perhaps if you had been in GoW or ND's situation you would have thought differently. I've already mentioned a gazillion times that it was history which made us take this decision and that had we been in Lego's or GS's position we might not have (well perhaps in GS's case yes but only if Vox hadn't invaded) because the geopolitical situation never warranted it.

Maybe if people actually bothered to step in our shoes for a change instead of arguing everything from the Lego or GS perspective they'd be a tab bit more receptive of our point of view.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Hot_Enamel



I recall telling MZ that I think we should do this.
One of the forum pics showed that GS had reconnected the uranium with a worker.
I think I caught MZ on chat, and told him to nuke it and keep nuking it.

It was too late at that point. The tech steal had already failed. We wouldn't have left the Uranium hooked up otherwise, to possibly keep you from nuking it again.

Since it was hooked up, it was guaranteed to get nuked, thus one less nuke that anything useful could be hit with. So we left it hooked up to force the nuke.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Aeson

Like I said, a flaw.

A flaw in our perception of the game mechanics (i.e. thinking that tech steals was more expensive than it really was) not a flaw in the actual execution of the invasion.

[Kloreep]

I am not arguing with the necessity for the alliance. I definitely agree it was the best option for the both of you. However, we once again run in to the problem that plagues this DG: as the first one, we run in to all kinds of things we never anticipated.

Let me give an example to try to communicate why this bothers me. I forget how the F1 trick came up, but let's say it never did. Let's further say that Lego, GS, & RP all found it and decided it was valid for use, but that none posted publicly because it would let the other teams know what advantage they were getting through what they deemed a perfectly valid game mechanic. The other teams have no clue and do not use it.

Now, after the game, we post about using it as part of the AARs. You find out we played the game in a way you considered cheesy, perhaps a downright exploit. Perhaps it even helped one of us out of a tight spot in a way you thought would not have been possible and no team was considering. Would you be happy that the teams had been playing under different sets of rules? That we had not brought up what you believed to be a questionable tactic so that it could be resolved, and uniform rules set agreed to to clarify what you saw as a grey area?

This was a sticky one because bringing it up nullifies its use. Nevertheless, that does not make it any less the case in my eyes that our teams were effectively playing under different rules; and that bothers me.

[Hot_Enamel]

Originally posted by Kloreep


I'm not talking about the secrecy of the GoW and ND pact, I'm talking about shared victories being possible in the first place. Not quite the same thing. So far as I know, F1, unit chaining, and all the other examples you cite have all been brought up in the public forum so that all teams know about it, and can exploit it if deemed acceptable. The idea of a shared victory pact never was. Granted, bringing it up would have defeated the point, which sucks, but this situation we ended up in anyway rather sucks too, at least from my PoV.

One could also argue that because GoW didn’t know that the F1 trick, ship chaining & unit warping was acceptable, then we too were disadvantaged. GS & Lego used those tactics and never thought of bringing it up in the main forum. (Until well after the event.)

In fact, it was only after GS falsy accused GoW in the main forum, of getting double duty from some catapults, was there some discussion about tactics used by GS.


{edit} Kloreep beat me to it. :)

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Master Zen
A flaw in our perception of the game mechanics (i.e. thinking that tech steals was more expensive than it really was) not a flaw in the actual execution of the invasion.

Your invasion could have stopped us from ever having any chance of building a Nuke. You didn't do what it would take, and so GS had a chance. Your execution of the invasion had a flaw. One that luck covered up for you, but it was still a flaw.

[Hot_Enamel]

MZ ... Let Aeson have his point.

Yes, it was a flaw in our plan.
EVERY plan has a flaw.

Big deal.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Aeson
I'm not the one whining that it was used. I think it's perfectly valid to use, GoW, GS, Lego, whoever. I just wanted to point out that GoW is trying to have it both ways. Using the tactic, and maligning others for using the tactic.


We're not maligning you for using the tactic, please read my posts carefully before responding. I'm maligning you for having voted it in favor. After it was voted I have no grounds of maliging anyone for using it since it was a legitimate move regardless of how cheesy we might think it is. Moreso I don't even know if you used it or not after it was voted, and honestly, I don't really care. I'd only raise a word if I found out you used it before it was voted since in my opinion it's as close to blatant cheating as you can get, but oh well, the fact we've been arguing about what's cheesy and what isn't for the past days without anyone ceding their position, it would be a pointless argument.


It was never against the rules. It's commonly accepted in some communities, outlawed in others. If you want to look at it as cheesey, feel free. It has nothing to do with whether or not calling shared victory is a double standard though.

A double standard is when one applies different reasoning to their own actions as the same actions of other people. That is what you are doing MZ, not what those calling shared victory cheese are doing, as they did not claim shared victory.


Double standards is whining about a team which did not follow the "standard" victory conditions when you allowed another civ which had no chance whatsoever at winning to be your vassal and openly assist you in winning (hence they weren't following the standard victory conditions either). I doubt the prospect of victory ever passed through the mind of Roleplay after the Bobian War at their best they could have hoped to be a "survivor" much like Vox now with the satisfaction that they aided GS in achieving their victory. Same with Vox.

Double standards is whining about why we kept this alliance a secret when your own team kept secret its alliances with others (us) long before Lego found out about it despite the fact there was clearly an in-game mechanic to mark an alliance. When secrecy benefited GS, you took advantage of it, when it killed you, now you complain.

Double standards is saying a secret alliance-to-destroy-the-non-Bobians-and-then-duke-it-out-ourselves would have been a perfectly acceptable strategy and yet maligning a shared victory when you know very well that the eventual outcome regarding Lego and GS wouldn't have just been similar, it would have been identical. Neither you nor anyone else has yet to provide even the most minimal evidence to the contrary other than "things would have been different, bla bla bla". Please, explain HOW different.

Double standards is insisting that only an in-game victory will be the one that "counts" when countless PBEMs and even other demogames (tsk tsk, ISDG) ended in out-of-game victories which hadn't even been agreed upon at the start of the game. What if GWT in the ISDG had insisted on continuing playing until an in-game victory was met and everyone else refused? For the same reason you cannot force ND or GoW to go ahead and do something we don't want to do. Double standards here is attempting to force your type of victory upon others and whining when we did the same to you (with the difference that we won and hence have a little more clout in deciding what outcome we want)

Double standards is saying that this victory really proves nothing when a GoW-ND war at this point would prove even less other than who had the balls (or luck) to strike first.

Sorry Aeson, but the only one who's been arguing this whole matter in double standards has been you and others which have argued similarly. What's most pathetic about this is that I'm sure some of you would have used any excuse had another team won to somehow diminish their victory. If Lego had won we'd be hearing "bah, they had a whole continent to themselves, plus they had a vassal state", if GS had won it'd be "no fair, they had a monopoly on the strategy gurus it was an uneven fight, plus they also had a vassal state".

Things would be so much easier if you just accepted the fact that this game is over, GS didn't win, and nothing would have changed this fact. Only then will you realize just how utterly pointless this whole debate has been.

-MZ

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Aeson


Your invasion could have stopped us from ever having any chance of building a Nuke. You didn't do what it would take, and so GS had a chance. Your execution of the invasion had a flaw. One that luck covered up for you, but it was still a flaw.

Our invasion sucked. Happy now? ;)

-MZ

[Hot_Enamel]

Originally posted by Kloreep
This was a sticky one because bringing it up nullifies its use. Nevertheless, that does not make it any less the case in my eyes that our teams were effectively playing under different rules; and that bothers me.

Kloreep,
It bothers us all, that we did not have a set of rules at the start. Each team had it's own tricks/exploits. Within GoW, some thought the joint victory was cheesy. Some (Uno :) ) was still calling for ND blood.

We all would of prefered one winner.

It doesnt bother me that you call our win cheesy.

But it is posts that imply "we did not deserve to win because we cheated by using different rules" that gets up my nose.

As you and I agree... we all had different rules.
I have never used the F1 trick in any PBEM or SP.
Until I found out that GS did it.
I consider it an exploit.
GoW only used it, because it was defined as a valid tactic halfway through the game.

[Kloreep]

I'd just like to re-iterate part of a post of mine.

Originally posted by Kloreep
However, from what I've read, you guys seem to think the GoW-ND relationship ran deep enough that you would have both signed a wipe-everyone-else-out pact and honored it if the shared victory had been overruled by Trip. I must say, that's the only reason I am not pissed off about this.

This is why, while I am disturbed by the shared victory matter, I ultimately find it to be pretty academic. In fact, I should probably just shut up now, since this debate has not gotten anywhere in 4 or so pages.

/me goes back to rummaging through old Lego threads.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Hot_Enamel
It doesnt bother me that you call our win cheesy.


Exactly.

I don't think anyone in GoW could claim that this was better than having achieved a sole victory. I don't mind it being called cheesy either.

What pisses me the f*uck off is people who say "we're not going to congratulate you" or "I will not recognize this victory" and other such hypocritical nonsense. Because I for one would have been the first to congratulate whoever won by whatever means insofar as it was not blatantly cheating. Coming from teams which actually lost is even more insulting.

I would have thought that at least the endgame in this demogame would result in sufficient camaraderie and recognition to make up for all the trash all of us have had to endure at one point or another.

Guess I was wrong. :q:

[Hot_Enamel]

Originally posted by Aeson


It was too late at that point. The tech steal had already failed. We wouldn't have left the Uranium hooked up otherwise, to possibly keep you from nuking it again.

Since it was hooked up, it was guaranteed to get nuked, thus one less nuke that anything useful could be hit with. So we left it hooked up to force the nuke.

Oh ... I realised that.
I wanted that uranium hit every turn.
We didnt do that.
It wasnt that I saw we didnt hit it, that I asked MZ to do it.

I posted in the GoW forum...

That ND should do more pillaging to protect the Uranium in Lego. (I think they had a worker on the tile) You could of captured the tile and used the worker to create a colony.

I even posted my concerns that Vox had connected up their uranium & might trade it to you.

[Kloreep]

Cross-post with HE.

HE, I do not think GoW or ND cheated. I would be calling for your blood if I thought that. ;) Rather, I think it is an extremely gray area, which was mishandled.

I'm sorry you thought I was calling it a cheat, for I think it was not. Just as it had not been agreed to be acceptable, it had not been agreed to be unacceptable either, nor do I think you had any bad intentions; considering those two things there's no way I'm calling cheat or undeserved. And as I posted above, there's the fact that no, things would not have turned out differently if shared victories were outlawed altogether.

Since it was mishandled, there is quite some cheese to it, yes, but no more than that. (On the subject of F1, I believe I have said before that I made the mistake of voting for it because I wanted luxury trades to be uninterrupted. I did not consider there was the other option of allowing it for that purpose but disallowing it for build changing. But enough of this tangent)

[Master Zen]

Klo, I think you made it quite clear that you never mentioned it was cheating, just that it was cheesy.

I will not fundamentally disagree ;)

[Hot_Enamel]

What MZ said.

I know I quoted you, but that doesnt mean I was directing my comments at you.
It's a bad habit.

;)

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Master Zen
I find it rather ironic that despite now being accused as the epitome of cheese, GoW actually voted against most of the exploits which Lego and GS were adamantly in favor, particularly that borderline-cheating tactic which is F1/City Arrows (which IIRC has been banned from every other demogame).

GS and Lego's excuse: that it permits a broader array of strategies like hiding builds and last-minute changes, etc.

Of course, since both actively wanted to use such a trick to cover up wonder builds it was... well... not deemed "cheese", it was deemed "strategy".

:hmmm:

And yet in an interesting change of terminology, GoW and ND's grand strategy of winning the game together is now labeled "cheese".

:hmmm:

Double standards :q:
You know, MZ... I guess I'm getting real pissed off and it's not because of the shared victory thing.

Originally posted by vondrack
After polling internally, Legoland approves using F1 + cursor keys (no tile double-duties, though) during the pre-turn phase.
Originally posted by vondrack
Legoland polled on the proposal internally and decided to abstain. We will accept whatever others, having stronger opinions on the issue, decide.
How does this equal to "being adamantly in favour" of these rules? How does this suggest why Lego voted in favour of the F1 trick rule? We haven't used the trick a single time before it was approved and voted in favour - as Kloreep pointed out - mostly because of needing to work around a bug interrupting luxury trades.

Wage your words, mate.

You may wish to take a deep breath and slow down a bit. If "we" are reluctant to see the situation from your PoV, then you are not trying to see the situation from our PoV either.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Master Zen
We're not maligning you for using the tactic, please read my posts carefully before responding. I'm maligning you for having voted it in favor. After it was voted I have no grounds of maliging anyone for using it since it was a legitimate move regardless of how cheesy we might think it is. Moreso I don't even know if you used it or not after it was voted, and honestly, I don't really care.

My apologies if you never meant to infer that GS did anything wrong in regards to F1.

(I'll let the "We're" pass... as definitely some on GoW did malign GS for using it... but I'm just not sure who the hell you are talking about by "we" given your tendancy to misuse pronouns.)

--------------

The rest of your post had nothing to do with what you originally posted. As you were responding to my response to that, my statement still stands. It is not a double standard to call "shared victory" cheesey and not apply the same label to game mechanices.

Are you going to address that statement, or simply throw up as many strawmen as possible so you don't seem to be avoiding the issue of the discussion we were having?

-------------------

I'll still address the rest of your post, because there is a lot to refute there. It's just nothing to do with what we were discussing.

Double standards is whining about a team which did not follow the "standard" victory conditions when you allowed another civ which had no chance whatsoever at winning to be your vassal and openly assist you in winning (hence they weren't following the standard victory conditions either). I doubt the prospect of victory ever passed through the mind of Roleplay after the Bobian War at their best they could have hoped to be a "survivor" much like Vox now with the satisfaction that they aided GS in achieving their victory. Same with Vox.

Standard victory conditions are absolutes, trigger one and you've triggered one. How you get there is it's own topic. "Shared victory" in this case is an opinion. These are seperate things. Viewing one in a certain light is not a double standard even if the others are not viewed in the same light.

(I do agree with your underlying sentiment though... I don't think the agreement between ND and GoW was any different in this regard than any other agreement made in the game.)

Double standards is whining about why we kept this alliance a secret when your own team kept secret its alliances with others (us) long before Lego found out about it despite the fact there was clearly an in-game mechanic to mark an alliance. When secrecy benefited GS, you took advantage of it, when it killed you, now you complain.

I agree this is a double standard. (Why didn't you use this instead of the patently false one you tried to pull?)

I'd like to point out, I haven't complained about secrecy at all. "You" is confusing, or you are wrong about what I have said. (Try quoting exactly what you are referencing, it will help.)

(ps. It would have been nice to have known that some would consider shared victory viable though. I could have saved a lot of time by not joining what I view to be a mostly pointless exercise. I'm greatful to ND and GoW for making it public in time so I could leave the C3C IDG before wasting any more time, especially on the same team as those who have shown a tendancy to invoke something that would cause me a great deal of embarrasment to be associated with.)

Double standards is saying a secret alliance-to-destroy-the-non-Bobians-and-then-duke-it-out-ourselves would have been a perfectly acceptable strategy and yet maligning a shared victory when you know very well that the eventual outcome regarding Lego and GS wouldn't have just been similar, it would have been identical. Neither you nor anyone else has yet to provide even the most minimal evidence to the contrary other than "things would have been different, bla bla bla". Please, explain HOW different.

This has nothing to do with double standards. Nothing at all. This is a case of not understanding the nature of GoW and ND's relationship. That is not a double standard. That is a misunderstanding. Two completely different things.

And "you" is still confusing.

I've stated a couple times that I agree with you on how things would have probably been the same regardless of whether it was a shared victory alliance, or simply an alliance. I won't dispute your analysis of the relationship between ND and GoW, because I certainly am not in a better position than you to judge.

Your claim that it would have definitely been exactly the same is ludicrous though. We'll never know for certain, and anyone who honestly approaches the issue would realize that there is always a possibility that a difference viewed as insignificant or even non-applicable can still have an impact on events, sometimes of an extraordinary nature.

Double standards is insisting that only an in-game victory will be the one that "counts" when countless PBEMs and even other demogames (tsk tsk, ISDG) ended in out-of-game victories which hadn't even been agreed upon at the start of the game.

Depends on how those other PBEMs and demogames' victories are judged. If they are judged the same, then there is no double standard.

I personally would say that in any case where "shared victory" hadn't been stated as a victory condition before the game began, that "shared victory" wouldn't be a victory condition I would observe. If for some reason an in-game victory condition couldn't be reached (or definitely would be reached), then an agreement of all parties involved on a solution would be acceptable to determine who would have won if gameplay hadn't halted.

Perhaps some here have double standards when it comes to this point. Certainly some don't. I can only speak for myself on this point.

What if GWT in the ISDG had insisted on continuing playing until an in-game victory was met and everyone else refused?

The game probably would have died without a consensus on who won. But who knows. I had very little involvement in that game, only having a quick read-up of the events from a Apolyton perpsective after joining the C3C IDG group.

For the same reason you cannot force ND or GoW to go ahead and do something we don't want to do. Double standards here is attempting to force your type of victory upon others and whining when we did the same to you (with the difference that we won and hence have a little more clout in deciding what outcome we want)

I'm not trying to force ND and GoW to do anything. I've stated my opinions on a few subjects. It's up to ND and GoW (and Vox) to determine how (if) to play out the rest of the game. I (and everyone) have the right to my (and their) opinion about how to view what does (or does not) happen though.

Can't take that away MZ, no matter how many "double standards" you try and come up with.

Double standards is saying that this victory really proves nothing when a GoW-ND war at this point would prove even less other than who had the balls (or luck) to strike first.

Nope. You really have a problem with determining what double standards means, and also with understanding the nature of what GoW and ND are claiming.

Claimed victory is not triggered victory. I can view one as different than the other and not have a double standard.

I've already stated that I don't think triggered victory is all that meaningful, outside determining who actually won the game. That's sorta the definition though, triggering victory determines the winner. (Not necessarily how they are viewed for that victory of course.)

Sorry Aeson, but the only one who's been arguing this whole matter in double standards has been you and others which have argued similarly.

You still have failed to show one instance where I have applied a double standard. (If you would quote where I have said one thing, and then failed to apply the same reasoning to another, it would be helpful. Your unsupported, poorly targetted assertions are logical garbage at best.)

What's most pathetic about this is that I'm sure some of you would have used any excuse had another team won to somehow diminish their victory. If Lego had won we'd be hearing "bah, they had a whole continent to themselves, plus they had a vassal state", if GS had won it'd be "no fair, they had a monopoly on the strategy gurus it was an uneven fight, plus they also had a vassal state".

You can guess what you want to about how I would have reacted in different situations. Your derogatory assumptions in that regard are meaningless attempts at divination. Have fun with your crystal ball Cleo.

Things would be so much easier if you just accepted the fact that this game is over, GS didn't win, and nothing would have changed this fact.

The game is over when ND, GoW, and Vox stop playing it. That's just fact. I haven't argued against that ever. That could happen with or without a victory condition being triggered.

GS didn't win. I've never argued against that either. We lost. You keep trying to make the point that I have somehow said otherwise, and have yet to ever support it. I'd hope you could at least have the integrity to offer an apology for your blatant and continual lying about what I have said.

The "nothing would have changed this fact" is completely wrong. Obviously if GS and/or other teams had played differently GS might have won or the game might not be over. (Which it doesn't seem to be quite yet anyways...)

Of course what you meant to say was that "and whether or not ND and GoW shared victory or had an alliance would not have changed this fact". I would agree with that, with the "probably" clause added to cover the unlikely possibilities of course.

Only then will you realize just how utterly pointless this whole debate has been.

It may be pointless for you, that's your right to decide. I'd recommend you not take part in endevours you find pointless... it's just pointless.

Back to your crystal ball to determine my own regard for this discussion? I've enjoyed these discussions. Maybe the crystal ball needs a tune up?

Our invasion sucked. Happy now? ;)

My happiness isn't linked to what you do or do not conceed.

You are again wrong though. Your invasion didn't suck. It achieved the elimination of GS, it's primary objective (at least I'd suppose that was it). It just wasn't flawless. That was all I was pointing out.

[Aeson]

ooops... double post

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by Theseus
He *can* be a bit unruly at times... but what the heck. :)


What you mean? :good:

The only thing that really got under my skin was when GS, or at least a member of GS, attacked a poem that ND wrote.

This happened at the same time I saw a total, uncalled for, beat down of a new member in the Strat forum, and I had just received a warning from the mods that I should probably stop writing myself as people were complaining. Yeah, I totally lost it at that point.

1: I was not going to stand for anyone flaming newer poly members ever again. For any reason.

2: I was not going to stand for anyone flaming a creative work: poem, 'news', story, anything.

3: I was flat out pissed that someone would run to the mods instead of posting their complaints to my face.

Yeah, I totally broke down at that point. Damn near left poly all together, and certainly quit paying much attention here for almost a year after that. Had it not been for sheer boredom over a Christmas break, and MZ needing me to play a few turns, I may have never returned.

Anything other than that one instance, I was actually just playing with you guys because it seemed to get under your skin.


I don't have the time to read through the rest of this debate. I've made my feelings known on the whole shared victory thing anyway.

[Hot_Enamel]

Why do I get the feeling that Aeson is the type of guy who just always insists on getting the last word in.
;)


All we need in this thread now, is a Togas rant.

"All you ****ing ****ers are really ****ing me off.
Roleplay was unjustly attacked by those muther****er GoW ****ers. If they had of done what they were supposed to ****ing do, Roleplay would of ****ing won this game.
I hate you ****ing all."

:love:

[UnOrthOdOx]

That was a bit low...Let's leave Togas alone, huh?

[Donegeal]

I would like to take this post to distance myself from the current squabling going on concerning exploits, joint victories and cheese. I mean, I don't even see how cheese can be deemed bad! (I'm from Wisconsin).

Donegeal goes to rummage around old GoW threads like Klo is doing with Lego.

[ZargonX]

What pisses me the f*uck off is people who say "we're not going to congratulate you" or "I will not recognize this victory" and other such hypocritical nonsense. Because I for one would have been the first to congratulate whoever won by whatever means insofar as it was not blatantly cheating. Coming from teams which actually lost is even more insulting.

I would have thought that at least the endgame in this demogame would result in sufficient camaraderie and recognition to make up for all the trash all of us have had to endure at one point or another.


MZ, I've mostly been trying to stay out of this, but I think you are missing an important factor here. There was a fundamental difference of understanding about how the game should be played between the various teams, and that obviously creates discussion. And the discussion should be more civil, for the most part. However, you are missing the fact that several points early on, you made very blatent statements about how clever GoW was, and how much better you did things than the other teams, and how genius all of your master alliance plans were. Of course that's going to piss people off. When there was a fundamental difference of understanding, telling the other people (indirectly) that they were stupider than you for not doing it is not going to elevate the tone of the conversation any.

I'm not saying you did it on purpose, and I'm not saying you were alone in it; but please do not entirely blame everyone else in this situation. That's just not fair.

[Beta]

Originally posted by Master Zen


Exactly.

I don't think anyone in GoW could claim that this was better than having achieved a sole victory. I don't mind it being called cheesy either.

What pisses me the f*uck off is people who say "we're not going to congratulate you" or "I will not recognize this victory" and other such hypocritical nonsense. Because I for one would have been the first to congratulate whoever won by whatever means insofar as it was not blatantly cheating. Coming from teams which actually lost is even more insulting.

I would have thought that at least the endgame in this demogame would result in sufficient camaraderie and recognition to make up for all the trash all of us have had to endure at one point or another.

Guess I was wrong. :q:

Mellow MZ.

I am impressed with the victory, and I do congratulate GOW. I apologize for not stating that earlier. Ditto to ND. :b: :b: :b:

In fact I was impressed with the whole game and all the teams(other than of course some bumbling moves made by the dolts in Vox :)). Using the journey and destination analogy, it was the experience of the game more than the final outcome that was rewarding.

Ok - but that being said, I am still concerned with the 'shared victory' notion, and the fact that teams were playing under a different set of assumptions. And this in my mind is a lot different than a technical game exploit like F1 or ship chaining. It is fundamental to how a team approaches the game from a strategic and diplomatic perspective. Had GS and Lego known that a shared victory was possible, I suspect the game would have been very, very different. It probably would have been a Lego/GS vs GoW/ND showdown.

And the idea of shared victory is much different than a "we agree to kill each other last" agreement. Very different. That being said, I fully acknowledge why you don't want to finish the game off, but then again, that seems to me to be partly the result of the blurring of the lines between the "shared victory" and "we kill each other last" notions. If that point is nort clear I can explain my thoughts further.

As stated earlier, I am more worried for the precedent this sets, and the harm it can do to other demo games (the C3CDG comes to mind).

And I also acknowledge that this debate is detracting from the fun and camaraderie, but I believe it is an important enough issue to pursue. MP demo games are a big part of Apolyton, and the concept of shared victory as a victory condition has significant consequences.

I am not wanting to upset you or anyone else; but I do firmly believe this debate/dicsussion should continue.

Again - congrats on the game! :)

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Aeson
(ps. It would have been nice to have known that some would consider shared victory viable though. I could have saved a lot of time by not joining what I view to be a mostly pointless exercise. I'm greatful to ND and GoW for making it public in time so I could leave the C3C IDG before wasting any more time, especially on the same team as those who have shown a tendancy to invoke something that would cause me a great deal of embarrasment to be associated with.)


You knew knew because no other teams found such a strategy viable. Who could GS have allied with as an equal partner to win the game together? How about Lego? I've repeatedly stated that I myself would not have considered such a thing if I had been in GS or Lego.

As for leaving the C3C IDG, your loss not ours. I myself would not like to be in the same team as others who think themselves too self-righteous to be in our company. Maybe instead of making these sublime tanturms you could work so that the next demogame is as free of exploits or alternate strategies and then actually enjoy it. As it stands though, when I read comments like this I can't but think that you consider those who play differently than you unworthy of being your teammates.

Sad.


Your claim that it would have definitely been exactly the same is ludicrous though. We'll never know for certain, and anyone who honestly approaches the issue would realize that there is always a possibility that a difference viewed as insignificant or even non-applicable can still have an impact on events, sometimes of an extraordinary nature.


I can tell you this: had Trip not allowed us to share the victory, we would have made an alliance to defeat the others and then fight among ourselves in a way which was specifically described. Perhaps it would have been a bit difficult to agree on how to wage war, so it would have ended in a space race. I have no clue. But I'm willing to bet that until the turn GS was knocked out, things would not have changed.


Depends on how those other PBEMs and demogames' victories are judged. If they are judged the same, then there is no double standard.

I personally would say that in any case where "shared victory" hadn't been stated as a victory condition before the game began, that "shared victory" wouldn't be a victory condition I would observe. If for some reason an in-game victory condition couldn't be reached (or definitely would be reached), then an agreement of all parties involved on a solution would be acceptable to determine who would have won if gameplay hadn't halted.


And which parties agree? All of them? Nope. Did CDG or Firaxis, or the Grenouilles have a voice on how to end the ISDG? No, because they lost. The ISDG ended in an agreement between those teams still playing, namely Poly, CFC, CGN (what was left of them), GCA and GWT. Likewise this game ended in an agreement by the those which are still alive. ND does not dispute it. GoW much less. If Vox were to dispute it then we'd probably be taking them out right now.


I'm not trying to force ND and GoW to do anything. I've stated my opinions on a few subjects. It's up to ND and GoW (and Vox) to determine how (if) to play out the rest of the game. I (and everyone) have the right to my (and their) opinion about how to view what does (or does not) happen though.

Can't take that away MZ, no matter how many "double standards" you try and come up with.


I respect your opinion, I just happen to disagree with it and honestly find it deplorable. Why? Because I would have congratuled Lego if they had won even with the aid of a vassal and an entire continent. I would have congratulated GS if they had won despite being formed by the bulk of the strat forum community. I would have contratuled GS/Vox if for some strange twist of history you two would have allied and played for a joint victory yourselves.

Likewise I don't think you quite understand how downright disappointing it is to have your victory tarnished by people who simply disagree with the way it was achieved and have these people openly state that they will not recognize it or that they won't congratulate anyone, that it was invalid in their eyes etc. etc. Because I'm sure you would not like it if people started blasting GS if you had won because you were the strat gurus and that your victory was not fair. I doubt Vondrack or Zargon would like it if Lego was trashed because they were the most favored nation by the map generator and on top of it had a vassal state to aid them.

Sheesh, I'm not asking for people to bring out a box of laurels to crown on GoW and ND. Heck, if people want to label this a cheesy victory, fine, like I said, I won't disagree with that assessment. If people want to laugh and joke about our victory, great. But seriously, put yourself in our shoes and see how this gang of underdogs is now being maligned for not winning the way everyone else wanted to win. Try to think of what your reaction would be if people soured your own victory and I assure you, from what I've seen the last couple of days, there'd be plenty of evidence to sour anyone's victory if they wanted to.

Perhaps our mistake was not being taken seriously by the community. I for one have never claimed anything other than being either a goofball or an arse, depending on the situation. I do prefer to joke about things or argue my ass off instead of acting like a serious professional crack Civ-player they way most GSers like to be seen (and some non-GSers also). I guess people with that attitude and those like me and the other GoWers don't mix. Perhaps that's why having such a team win (err... half-win) was subconciously abhorrent.



I've already stated that I don't think triggered victory is all that meaningful, outside determining who actually won the game. That's sorta the definition though, triggering victory determines the winner. (Not necessarily how they are viewed for that victory of course.)


You've stated that you won't view anyone other than the team which wins the in-game victory condition as the legitimate winner. Which is it then, because this is a blatant contradiction.


You still have failed to show one instance where I have applied a double standard. (If you would quote where I have said one thing, and then failed to apply the same reasoning to another, it would be helpful. Your unsupported, poorly targetted assertions are logical garbage at best.)


I don't have to quote anything you said, I just have to show what you did to prove that your team did many of the things that fall under the same perspective you are now maligning GoW and ND for. And I've already explained precisely what.


You are again wrong though. Your invasion didn't suck. It achieved the elimination of GS, it's primary objective (at least I'd suppose that was it). It just wasn't flawless. That was all I was pointing out.

One thing was our invasion, another entirely different thing was our strategy to deny you uranium. For the latter, I will defintely agree with you that it was far from flawless as apparently you had the chance to build the nukes had the RNG not prevented it. Many factors generated this flaw: my ignorance and hence naiveness regarding the cost of tech stealing as well as my confidence that if we didn't hit the uranium, ND would be hitting the aluminum. Apparently there was a turn in which neither was accomplished. Big flaw I agree.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by ZargonX
MZ, I've mostly been trying to stay out of this, but I think you are missing an important factor here. There was a fundamental difference of understanding about how the game should be played between the various teams, and that obviously creates discussion. And the discussion should be more civil, for the most part. However, you are missing the fact that several points early on, you made very blatent statements about how clever GoW was, and how much better you did things than the other teams, and how genius all of your master alliance plans were. Of course that's going to piss people off. When there was a fundamental difference of understanding, telling the other people (indirectly) that they were stupider than you for not doing it is not going to elevate the tone of the conversation any.

I'm not saying you did it on purpose, and I'm not saying you were alone in it; but please do not entirely blame everyone else in this situation. That's just not fair.

If I have acted arrogantly or boasted too much, my apologies, I honestly don't think I did but perhaps people saw otherwise. Of course I will mention those strategies which I think were GoW's best since I feel it was because of that that we won.

Nevertheless, if the beef is with me then just say so and I will not hesistate in either toning down my responses or openly apologizing to those who have felt offended. But don't use the shared victory issue as a proxy for that.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Beta
And the idea of shared victory is much different than a "we agree to kill each other last" agreement. Very different. That being said, I fully acknowledge why you don't want to finish the game off, but then again, that seems to me to be partly the result of the blurring of the lines between the "shared victory" and "we kill each other last" notions. If that point is nort clear I can explain my thoughts further.


Yes it is very much different. But the difference only begins once everyone else is destroyed and the two teams decide to face of among themselves. Everything that happens before that does not fundamentally change hence my argument that at least prior to 1380 AD, nothing would have been different. Perhaps now, in 1395 AD GoW or ND might no longer exist ;)

[Kloreep]

No wonder I don't seem to be getting my point across.

Originally posted by Master Zen
You knew knew because no other teams found such a strategy viable. Who could GS have allied with as an equal partner to win the game together? How about Lego? I've repeatedly stated that I myself would not have considered such a thing if I had been in GS or Lego.

Why would inequality matter in a shared victory alliance? I would have gone for it.

As I believe members of B.I.T.C.H. have pointed out, the GoW-ND alliance solved some matters of inequality between GoW and ND; it didn't matter if one was sending more commerce the other's way, or if ND got nukes from GoW. You never had to look down the road to competition between yourselves and you could thus form a tight, efficient alliance.

A GS-Lego alliance like the first ND-GoW one, to wipe the rest of the world out, would never have worked for the simple reason that, as you say, we would not have been equal partners. Lego simply had more land. Together we would have had a good chance of taking on GoW and ND, but if we had won, GS would have been left with bad chances in the final competition, whether war or space race, between us.

But none of that would have mattered if we had been intending to declare shared victory as soon as we wiped out Bob.

Sure, we had a chance of winning on our own. But it became quite clear when you guys broke off relations in the Ind that we could not compete on our own. I was resigned to it because, well, there can only be one, right? It would be nice to ally with someone, but the only way to do that would be to promise not to win the game or promise to otherwise mutilate ourselves to even things up. Ultimately, doing something like that was nearly as bad as losing the coming war since either would knock us out of the game, so no alliance was really possible due to us being on top - we were the prime target for the world because there could only be one winner, and we looked like it if left alone.

Perhaps you would not have taken a shared victory as Lego, but I can tell you I would have. Hence why I am bothered by the difference in rules we were playing under. There has been plenty of cheese like unit warping and F1 in this game, but in my view this is one of the few potentially game-altering pieces of cheese. Hence why I try to keep myself in the happy delusion that B.I.T.C.H. is your happy delusion, and the true victor (not that either of you, or really anyone, feels it matter) is soon to be decided by UN vote.

[bongo]

After thinking it over several times, I think I've come to a conclusion about this "shared victory" thingy. This is my personal view only and being one of the "shared victors" didn't make the process easier.
("shared victor" is going to look wicked in my sig btw :p )



The question many ask here seems to be: "is shared victor civ?". We have chosen to answer this with "you are dead, therefore you are not relevant". Which is a wee bit arrogant even if it is true ;)

At last I have arrived on the conclusion that "shared victor is not civ, at least not yet".



How can we have a "civ" ending on this game?

Problem with having a x-turn NAP, then jump each other is that with our geography, those who gets to fire the first shot wins. That would be decided by a coin-flip, and coin-flips are not civ either.

We could of course agree on special rules, like demilitarized RR-free zone, no combat settlers or a spacerace. With our level of trust that would be no problem. But those kind of special rules will alter the game even more than the "shared victor" concept.

Which leaves one final option: The Giant Backstab. That would be *very* civ but that is a path we don't want to follow.
(it has been discussed in NDs forum of course, and I am sure GoW has as well)




To those of you that wanted this game to end with Bob covered in orange goo: We're not interested, I am sorry you don't like it :(


We may hold a "Biggest Cheese" vote in the UN some time though :cute:

[vondrack]

And this, bongo, is something I respect 1000%.

Congratulations on a game well played!

:b:

[ZargonX]

I finally came up with the shared victory metaphor I was looking for!

So let's say you are in a poker tournament, and have made it to the final table. Perhaps there are two players at the table who are going easy on each other, but not in a plainly obvious way; they don't bet into each other, and they never go head-to-head against each other. Maybe the other players don't notice because they are focused on their own game. However, suddenly there are only 3 people left at the table, and the odd-man out is beset by two players who are essentially working together to take the 3rd guy's chips. When all is said and done, they drive him out of the game, then suddenly announce that they aren't going to play anymore, but instead will split the tournament prize between themselves.

If you were one of the other players at the table, wouldn't this raise your ire a bit?

My point is not that I want ND and GoW to fight it out or anything, but I just want those who claim that the shared victory wouldn't have changed anything to really understand the opposing point of view. That, and I enjoy making metaphors that involve poker. ;)

[Master Zen]

:lol:

Sadly I do not play poker and have no clue about how the game is played (I definitely should learn though), but I definitely undertand the metaphor. :b:

I would definitely call it cheesy, and perhaps I would raise a word or two but for one simple reason: it involves money, i.e. a tangiable prize, unlike this demo game which we're supposed to be playing for fun ;)

Hence, if this was a friendly game of poker which didn't really involve much stakes I would probably just laugh and mock the winners. If I was betting my mortgage in that case I'd be fuming. Likewise if this game involved a sort of cash prize or something I'd be pissed, and I probably would have not have considered a joint victory in the first place.

I think many of us have forgotten what was the raison d'etre of this demogame: to serve as practice for the ISDG which was to start no more than two months afterwards. That it aquired a dimension of its own was merely circumstantial. And given that there's a PTWDG II and a C3CDG here and on MZO, victory doesn't really prove much. All GoW and ND can claim is that we were the best in this particular game, not that we're the best period.

Moreso considering the experimental nature of this game, we can claim nothing more than just being lucky (or wise) enough to commit the least mistakes. It'll be a whole new ballgame if this game gets a successor since teams will know what to do and what not to do.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Master Zen
You knew knew because no other teams found such a strategy viable. Who could GS have allied with as an equal partner to win the game together? How about Lego? I've repeatedly stated that I myself would not have considered such a thing if I had been in GS or Lego.

I haven't said GS would have shared victory with anyone. Quite the opposite. GS, which at the time was basically NYE and I sitting around shooting the breeze on the subject of "shared victory", sent GoW an offer while facing almost certain elimination, and even then we specified we'd never offer shared victory.

GS may have made a pact at other times to share victory under different circumstances, I don't know. I would have left the team (or not rejoined) if GS did.

As for leaving the C3C IDG, your loss not ours.

I didn't say it was anyone's loss. If I had stayed, it would have potentially been my loss, and so I left.

As it stands though, when I read comments like this I can't but think that you consider those who play differently than you unworthy of being your teammates.

Depends on how "different" different is. Would you play with a known cheater knowing that they would likely end up doing something that would be cheating for your team? (And to be sure it's understood: I am not likening what you did to cheating, just offering up an argument that I figured would let you see that you too have limits to what you would want to involve yourself with.)

I wouldn't want to be on a team which claimed shared victory. If you think that makes me elitist, fine. But I just want to be clear that that is what I have said, not that I would leave a team simply because some would play "differently".

I joined the C3C IDG in large part because of how this game had gone after the Bobian war, specifically how the public forum had progressed. Which is the main factor in why I rejoined this game as well. Your "The Glory of News" is a big part of that, and also how Lego handled what happened to them. I was even thinking of joining the C3CDG Ankh-Morpork team because you were on it.

The game's lying, backstabbing, even public needling of opponents (though the misdirecting of those I do take issue with ;) ) I can deal with and even appreciate.

Not made up victory conditions though. I don't accept them as actual victory conditions except for in the circumstance I've already stated... where one is reproduced or agreed on based on what the teams think would have happened in the game if it had (could) be played out to an actual victory condition.

I can tell you this: had Trip not allowed us to share the victory, we would have made an alliance to defeat the others and then fight among ourselves in a way which was specifically described. Perhaps it would have been a bit difficult to agree on how to wage war, so it would have ended in a space race. I have no clue. But I'm willing to bet that until the turn GS was knocked out, things would not have changed.

So you see that it wouldn't necessarily have been exactly the same. Which was exactly my argument. I'm glad we agree on that.

And which parties agree? All of them? Nope. Did CDG or Firaxis, or the Grenouilles have a voice on how to end the ISDG? No, because they lost. The ISDG ended in an agreement between those teams still playing, namely Poly, CFC, CGN (what was left of them), GCA and GWT. Likewise this game ended in an agreement by the those which are still alive. ND does not dispute it. GoW much less. If Vox were to dispute it then we'd probably be taking them out right now.

GoW, ND, and Vox. As I've said before, when you 3 decide on how to end the game, it's over. How that ending is viewed is up to the viewer to decide for themselves.

I respect your opinion, I just happen to disagree with it and honestly find it deplorable. Why? Because I would have congratuled Lego if they had won even with the aid of a vassal and an entire continent. I would have congratulated GS if they had won despite being formed by the bulk of the strat forum community. I would have contratuled GS/Vox if for some strange twist of history you two would have allied and played for a joint victory yourselves.

Would you congratulate GS if we were claiming victory now though? I doubt it. You definitely shouldn't, because we didn't achieve victory. GoW and ND haven't achieved victory yet, and can't both do it in my eyes. I simply don't find "shared victory" to be a victory. I view the team that triggers victory in-game to be the victor. How I would congratulate that victor remains to be seen, and your comments directed to those congratulations are meaningless because you are trying to reference something (potentially happening) in the future.

If you find it deplorable that I don't view shared victory as an actual victory condition, so be it. But don't try to paint me as someone who wouldn't acknowlege the victor of this game. I've specifically said I would.

Likewise I don't think you quite understand how downright disappointing it is to have your victory tarnished by people who simply disagree with the way it was achieved and have these people openly state that they will not recognize it or that they won't congratulate anyone, that it was invalid in their eyes etc. etc. Because I'm sure you would not like it if people started blasting GS if you had won because you were the strat gurus and that your victory was not fair. I doubt Vondrack or Zargon would like it if Lego was trashed because they were the most favored nation by the map generator and on top of it had a vassal state to aid them.

GS sent you it's feelings about shared victory, in private, the turn (after, technically) the announcement was made. We asked you if this was really how you wanted the PTWDG to go down, with a "shared victory" that many wouldn't acknowlege as actual victory. We knew it wouldn't just be us with that point of view (or just you with yours). You chose to knowingly pursue a course of action that would lead to a response we let you know would occur. Deal with it.

There still is a chance that GoW, ND, (or even Vox) will trigger an actual victory condition set before the game started, and I for one will view that team as the victor, as plainly stated several times. I'm not trying to deny anyone victory, just let my view of what constitutes a victory be known.

Any made up victory conditions that a team decides to try to claim deserve to be pointed out as simply that, made up. If GS were to claim victory, I'd be arguing against that too.

But seriously, put yourself in our shoes and see how this gang of underdogs is now being maligned for not winning the way everyone else wanted to win. Try to think of what your reaction would be if people soured your own victory and I assure you, from what I've seen the last couple of days, there'd be plenty of evidence to sour anyone's victory if they wanted to.

If they were offering evidence, and it wasn't valid reasoning, I would refute it. (I'd enjoy doing so.) If they offered convincing arguments, I'd probably feel embarrassed. If it came down to a matter of opinion, I'd respect other's right to their opinions, but my own would be what mattered to me.

To wit, it would be just like it is now, in my shoes. Where you are trying to pass off things I haven't even said as things I have said, and make derogatory comments based off of those conjurations on your part. I find this enjoyable.

Perhaps our mistake was not being taken seriously by the community. I for one have never claimed anything other than being either a goofball or an arse, depending on the situation. I do prefer to joke about things or argue my ass off instead of acting like a serious professional crack Civ-player they way most GSers like to be seen (and some non-GSers also). I guess people with that attitude and those like me and the other GoWers don't mix. Perhaps that's why having such a team win (err... half-win) was subconciously abhorrent.

I don't think you have much insight into what most GSers like to be seen as. I don't either. I can only speak for myself. I take some issues very seriously (rules of play, and also communication), even though I can joke about them as well.

To me, made up victory conditions are a threat to competitive gaming in general. Yes, I'll take that seriously in games I am involved with.

You've stated that you won't view anyone other than the team which wins the in-game victory condition as the legitimate winner. Which is it then, because this is a blatant contradiction.

It's not a contradiction at all. The "winner" has very little meaning to me. How a team won or lost is meaningful. But triggering the victory condition does signify who the winner is. That's simply the definition of victory and victor. I can view the victor as any number of things and still accept that they are the victor.

I don't have to quote anything you said, I just have to show what you did to prove that your team did many of the things that fall under the same perspective you are now maligning GoW and ND for. And I've already explained precisely what.

Obviously you can't quote me where I was applying double standards. You want to make unsupported assertions and ignore reality.

I am saying that "shared victory" is not victory. Is that a double standard? No, because I have consistantly said "shared victory" is not victory, and have not made any allowances for it to be victory for anyone.

Instead you ignore the actual meaning of the term "double standards" and try to attribute a bunch of things I haven't said to me to fit your mangled idea of what constitues double standards.

If you want to make the point that you feel some things GS did are cheesey, go ahead. You have a right to feel they are cheesey (or not). Whether you find them cheesey or not has nothing to do with whether or not it's a double standard that I find the claim of "shared victory" cheesey.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by bongo
Which leaves one final option: The Giant Backstab. That would be *very* civ but that is a path we don't want to follow.
(it has been discussed in NDs forum of course, and I am sure GoW has as well)


The words "backstab", "revenge", "let's kill" and "poo-poo face" are probably the most commonly used in the GoW forum. :cool:

And as the GoW leader I share that sentiment entirely. If my team wanted to backstab ND, they could have easily deposed me by a simple-majority vote and the next emperor could have done what he wanted. I would have also likely quit the team becuase I would have found such a thing so vile and despicable that I could not bear myself to be assosiated with a team that did such a thing (especially after signing a treaty) to a team which had been so good with us throught the game.

Fortunately the lone voice of dissent seemed to be UnO ;)

-MZ

[Krill]

Aeson if you want to join the Ankh Morpork team, I'll get you authorized in the next five minutes.

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by Krill
Aeson if you want to join the Ankh Morpork team, I'll get you authorized in the next five minutes.

He really meant he wanted to join the Euphorica team of course. He just said A-M to throw everyone off. :D

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Master Zen
I would have also likely quit the team becuase I would have found such a thing so vile and despicable that I could not bear myself to be assosiated with a team that did such a thing (especially after signing a treaty) to a team which had been so good with us throught the game.

Originally posted by Master Zen
As it stands though, when I read comments like this I can't but think that you consider those who play differently than you unworthy of being your teammates.

Sad.

[Krill]

He really meant he wanted to join the Euphorica team of course. He just said A-M to throw everyone off.

Heh, we're the ones who lost almost half of our pop at one point. We need the help. :p

[Master Zen]

I would not think them unworthy of being my teammates Aeson. I would have been proud to have been a GoWer for all the time I was in there. It's just that being the guy who signed such a thing, played for most of the time while our teams believed a shared victory was in play and then having the team demand we backstab our ally, it would really look very very bad if I remained there. I'd feel partly guilty.

Call it a way of trying to wash my hands from such a thing. Because afterwards we'd have sh*t flying in our face from ND and perhaps everyone else and I simply would not have wanted it directed at me since I never believed in backstabbing at that level. My attitude would be a simple "I respect whatever my teammates did, I just simply do not want to be assossiated with that move since I stood in-game for everything such a thing broke".

A bit different IMO than, for example, refusing to play with a team because there are backstabbers in their ranks or people who like to play alternatively because I consider myself too honorable for such a thing. ;)

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Krill
He really meant he wanted to join the Euphorica team of course. He just said A-M to throw everyone off.

Heh, we're the ones who lost almost half of our pop at one point. We need the help. :p

I was supposed to join you guys and nobody ever authorized me :doitnow!: :p

[Krill]

Ormuzd says that you have been authorized. Could you check, MZ?

[Master Zen]

Nope, still awaiting authorization :(

[Krill]

Ormuzd is looking for the link. If you could tell him how to find it, it would help a lot... :)

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Master Zen
Call it a way of trying to wash my hands from such a thing. Because afterwards we'd have sh*t flying in our face from ND and perhaps everyone else and I simply would not have wanted it directed at me since I never believed in backstabbing at that level.

Call it a way of trying to wash my hands from such a thing. Because afterwards we'd have sh*t flying in our face from [insert team] and perhaps everyone else and I simply would not have wanted it directed at me since I never believed in [shared victory] at that level

Ignore reality all you want MZ. I stated the reason I left, shared victory being acceptable to many who were on the team. It wasn't backstabbing or other alternative styles of play. I knew those were represented on the team when I joined it.

[Krill]

UH, Aeson, Apolyton is putting a rule up before the UN asking for shared alliance victories to mae illegal..

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by Krill
He really meant he wanted to join the Euphorica team of course. He just said A-M to throw everyone off.

Heh, we're the ones who lost almost half of our pop at one point. We need the help. :p

We're invading the team Trip is a part of....so hence our team is going to have more fun. :D

[Aeson]

That would be a good rule. I left before the discussion even began. (Until GS was eliminated I wanted no part in the discussion, because I was turn player and would have responsibility for what GS as a team was doing. I also was the official public representative for the team, and don't want my opinions to be misconstrued as official team views.)

[Krill]

If you capture a slave, remember to rename it "Triprentice" ;)

[Master Zen]

I doubt that in the decide-who-is-the-best-Civ3-team-period tournament which is round 2 of the C3C any team could conceivably want a shared victory. :p

[Krill]

Plenty of people thought that nobody would want a shared victory in this demogame either.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by vondrack
And this, bongo, is something I respect 1000%.

Congratulations on a game well played!

:b:

So I take it ND deserves to be congratulated but GoW didn't deserve it...

:shame:

[Aeson]

NO team would ever start playing a demogame with the intention of sharing a victory. Everyone starts by wanting to win by themselves and most of the trajectory of the game involves trying to find a way of achieving such a thing.

Is to:

I doubt that in the decide-who-is-the-best-Civ3-team-period tournament which is round 2 of the C3C any team could conceivably want a shared victory.

As:

Thus, we contemplated a joint victory because franky, we thought it was impossible for either GoW or ND to win by ourselves, so at least claiming "half" the victory was better than losing.

Is to:

?

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Master Zen
So I take it ND deserves to be congratulated but GoW didn't deserve it...

:shame:

You've really lost it if you think that was a valid response to an act of good sportsmanship.

Vondrack was addressing a member of ND, and congratulated the team for how they played. He didn't congratulate anyone else in the same breath, only who he was talking to. What an atrocity! :lol:

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Aeson


You've really lost it if you think that was a valid response to an act of good sportsmanship.

Vondrack was addressing a member of ND, and congratulated the team for how they played. He didn't congratulate anyone else in the same breath, only who he was talking to. What an atrocity! :lol:

I made that post since I recall vondrack mentioning in another post that though he will not dispute the merits of a joint victory he could not "congratulate" us because he didn't believe in it.

Of course given the plethora of comments like that made by many people it might not have been vondrack in which case I retract my post.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Aeson


Is to:



As:



Is to:

?

You really seem to get off at arguing the most minute and irrelevant tidbits. What have I been saying all along? That this game proved nothing in the grand scheme of things. Round 2 of the C3C ISDG proves A LOT. It proves who's the best site in the world in the last demogame for Civ3. If this had been the ISDG you bet I would have wanted to prove my team was better than the Germans and would have backstabbed them if necessary to win.

This game didn't. It was a game for fun between members of a same site which just a few months later decided to start another demogame thus proving that a win in one game mattered even less in the grand scheme of things. It was also started as practice for a game which did matter, the ISDG.

What are you going to argue next Aeson, that I forgot to put a comma where one was needed?

[Aeson]

You really seem to get off at arguing the most minute and irrelevant tidbits.

You bring them up. If you make a false accusation or statement concerning me, I'm probably going to refute. I do enjoy breaking things down to minute details and analysing them on that level. So what? It doesn't make your false statements any more correct to point that out.

You may find false accusations and misdirected insults irrelevent, but I don't. If you don't want to get involved in minute discussions about all the details of your statements, don't make the points for me to argue, or make them valid points, or simply ignore me. Your call.

What are you going to argue next Aeson, that I forgot to put a comma where one was needed?

At least the arguments I make are dealing with things you have actually said.

Have I ever argued against you based on spelling or punctuation? No. Yet you make the insinuation that I would participate in such a conversation. Over and over again you've done this sort of thing, making assumptions about what I might do, instead of relying on what I've actually said.

I made that post since I recall vondrack mentioning in another post that though he will not dispute the merits of a joint victory he could not "congratulate" us because he didn't believe in it.

Vondrack didn't congratulate ND on their victory. He congratulated them on a game well-played.

[Aeson]

If this had been the ISDG you bet I would have wanted to prove my team was better than the Germans and would have backstabbed them if necessary to win.

Would you have considered a shared victory pact with another team if you felt that was the only way Apolyton could win?

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Aeson
You bring them up. If you make a false accusation or statement concerning me, I'm probably going to refute. I do enjoy breaking things down to minute details and analysing them on that level. So what? It doesn't make your false statements any more correct to point that out.


Of course you seldom manage to prove that they're false.


Vondrack didn't congratulate ND on their victory. He congratulated them on a game well-played.

And you don't find it rather, how shall I put it, "double-standardish" that replies to GoWers end up sounding like "shared victory, bleh :q:" and replies to ND are "congrats, well played! :b:"

:cute:

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Aeson


Would you have considered a shared victory pact with another team if you felt that was the only way Apolyton could win?

Never. Not in a demogame which was specifically created to demonstrate which was the best civ site in the world.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Master Zen

And you don't find it rather, how shall I put it, "double-standardish" that replies to GoWers end up sounding like "shared victory, bleh :q:" and replies to ND are "congrats, well played! :b:"

Posts dealing with shared victory require arguments dealing with shared victory. Posts dealing with how a team played require arguments dealing with how they played.

They are seperate issues. So far I haven't seen anyone say ND's "shared victory" is any different than GoW's "shared victory". You have no point, only paranoia.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Master Zen
Never. Not in a demogame which was specifically created to demonstrate which was the best civ site in the world.

I apologize for assuming you would then.

If 2 of the other teams in the C3C IDG tried to share victory, as the only way they felt they could beat Apolyton (or whoever), would you accept that as a victory?

(For now assume there is no explicit ruling against it.)

[Master Zen]

and victory has nothing to do whatsoever with how the game was played? :lol: :lol:

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Aeson


I apologize for assuming you would then.

If 2 of the other teams in the C3C IDG tried to share victory, as the only way they felt they could beat Apolyton (or whoever), would you accept that as a victory?

(For now assume there is no explicit ruling against it.)

With no explicit ruling, I would call it cheesy, but I would ultimately accept it. I would also mention that it would be rather odd that in a game explicity made to prove which was the best civ site in the world two sites would choose to win together and thus not prove anything.

I some other way I'd feel also a bit honored. That two teams had to gang up to beat us. Which would prove to me that one team alone couldn't have done it and hence, in my eyes, we were in practice, just as good as they were.

You know, me of all people, would like to prove that I'm better than GWT because of what happened in the ISDG because I was left with the impression that we could have done so much more in that game if we had been given a better start and a better continent. But I also felt that the place to prove that would be in another ISDG, be it C3C or Civ4. This PTWDG would have proved nothing in my eyes and hence my willingness to share our victories.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Master Zen
and victory has nothing to do whatsoever with how the game was played? :lol: :lol:

Both GoW and ND would be equally content in having the other trigger the victory condition. Given that, I think the optimal solution for the sake of egality will be to vote for... Vox. That way I can snicker whenever you say that Vox won the PTWDG ;)

You see what I was saying. Whether Vox triggers Diplomatic victory or not, it doesn't really change how the teams played. Technically, Vox would be the victor, but you'd snicker at that. So would you snicker at GoW or ND (or NGoWD) being the victor too?

[Master Zen]

No, I'd snicker if in the future I were to read a post of yours making reference to this game and saying "Vox won". ;)

But you are avoiding to answer my point. You don't find it a bit odd that one team gets lauded for the way they played (which by saying the way they played automatically includes the way they won) and the other gets slammed for the victory the played for?

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Master Zen
But you are avoiding to answer my point. You don't find it a bit odd that one team gets lauded for the way they played (which by saying the way they played automatically includes the way they won) and the other gets slammed for the victory the played for?

No.

You have raised issues of "poor-loserism" and "borderline-cheating" to argue against people's opinions on shared victory, using broad generalizations to address your derogatory comments. Do you really expect everyone you've potentially targetted with those comments to respond as if you didn't? Still, I have yet to see even one poster say ND's "shared victory" is any different than GoW's "shared victory". (If anyone has, they are obviously wrong to have done so.)

ND has remained civil. They haven't accused any other teams of being poor sports, or exploiting the game. They have simply stated their views on shared victory, and allowing other's the right to their own. That is why no one is arguing so vehemently with them. There is nothing to argue about.

If you want to be treated the same way, behave the same way. (Though it might be a while before what you've already accomplished will settle.)

[vondrack]

It's a rather new experience to have Aeson speak for me... :lol: ...but, indeed, you can take his comments on what concerned my congratulations post as if they were my own.

See, MZ...

I congratulate GoW on a game well played. :b:

...feeling better now? Not? Why?

'cause you do not believe I mean it? I do. There is a number of GoW players, yourself included, which I very much respect for their various skills. Just like with other teams. GoW did extremely well when it came to plotting and scheming (and fighting), when it came to always siding with (or being) the stronger warring party. That's not an achievement to be belittled. How much I value it over achievements of other teams is a different matter.

I just happen to have this weird habit of congratulating only people who are not throwing "borderline-insulting" stuff my way.

Call me a jerk... ;)

P.S.: And no, it was not me speaking about how I couldn't congratulate you (though it was me saying I wouldn't argue about the merits of a shared victory and though I'd agree I could not congratulate you on your victory). So I consider your comment retracted, thus needing no further response.

:)

[Master Zen]

Vondrack, my sincere apologies if I put words in your mouth that were never said. Please understand that in a discussion of this magnitude its a bit hard to keep track of who said what precisely. Nevertheless that is no excuse for maligning you for saying something you didn't say so even if my comment is automatically retracted I still feel the need to apologize for such a thing. :)

[Beta]

Originally posted by vondrack
GoW did extremely well when it came to plotting and scheming (and fighting), ....

Vox has a different view based on a much earlier conflict. :cute:

(just so you know- I am saying this very much tongue in cheek.)

[vondrack]

:lol:

[DeepO]

:lol:

Beta, you're still my god when it comes to plotting and scheming :p

DeepO

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Master Zen
As to whether "two teams knew it was possible, and everyone else played on under another set of assumptions." honestly I think that's a weak argument.

Every team had to play under the assumption that X and Y teams could possibly be allied against them. It changes nothing that the two last standing teams simply decide to not fight and share the victory.

I still have not heard a shred of conclusive evidence that this game would have been any difference from a shared victory or a "ally until we destroy everyone else and then duke it out among ourselves" which apparently would have been a valid strategy as far as most arguments here are concerned.

How about, GoW would have been wiped out, and not Lego?

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx


I never said a single word against GS until the NAP. And I still stand by my stance that you broke it in spirit. You knew our plans, you purposely blocked our path, you were warned continuing to do so would be seen as an act of aggression in violation of the NAP, you continued to do it, and you sent a written declaration of war to our ally, who you KNEW we were allied with in the war. If that is not breaking it, I don't know what is.

I came out in support of you when everyone was *****ing about you being elitist. I didn't care about you being the Strat forum gurus. I didn't care that you would deny members, or at the least encourage them joining other teams. I said so publicly. I came out in support of you during and after Vox. I made it a POINT never to say anything bad, and to say when I agreed with you.

Yes, there were friendly things mentioned. Go back and look. They may have been drowned out.

How about the 'you get whatever cities you can get, however you get them' chat?

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Master Zen


Our invasion sucked. Happy now? ;)

-MZ

It would have sucked even more with 5 or 6 nukes raining down on it, and another 2 or 3 blowing holes in your coastal defences. ;)

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Master Zen


We're not maligning you for using the tactic, please read my posts carefully before responding. I'm maligning you for having voted it in favor.

When did we get a vote on shared victory?

[notyoueither]

Because I'm sure you would not like it if people started blasting GS

What would have changed?

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Master Zen
:lol:

Sadly I do not play poker and have no clue about how the game is played (I definitely should learn though), but I definitely undertand the metaphor. :b:

I would definitely call it cheesy, and perhaps I would raise a word or two but for one simple reason: it involves money, i.e. a tangiable prize, unlike this demo game which we're supposed to be playing for fun ;)


You ****ing *******.

Some people dumped a lot more than money on this game.

People dumped a **** load of time, and themselves, ultimately.

You think it doesn't matter because it isn't money?

You're pathetic.

[Master Zen]

Leave it to nye to continue b*tching after everybody seemed to be getting along again.

The only one who's pathetic is you pal. Here's 20g, get a f*cking life. :q:

[Krill]

MZ, be fair. You did exactly the same thing when Beta replyed...

[Master Zen]

I don't know what you're talking about Krill, please quote to where I insulted Beta or anyone else on that level.

[Krill]

Originally posted by NYE
Originally posted by MZ
As to whether "two teams knew it was possible, and everyone else played on under another set of assumptions." honestly I think that's a weak argument.

Every team had to play under the assumption that X and Y teams could possibly be allied against them. It changes nothing that the two last standing teams simply decide to not fight and share the victory.

I still have not heard a shred of conclusive evidence that this game would have been any difference from a shared victory or a "ally until we destroy everyone else and then duke it out among ourselves" which apparently would have been a valid strategy as far as most arguments here are concerned.

How about, GoW would have been wiped out, and not Lego?


Originally posted by MZ
I find it rather ironic that despite now being accused as the epitome of cheese, GoW actually voted against most of the exploits which Lego and GS were adamantly in favor, particularly that borderline-cheating tactic which is F1/City Arrows (which IIRC has been banned from every other demogame).

GS and Lego's excuse: that it permits a broader array of strategies like hiding builds and last-minute changes, etc.

Of course, since both actively wanted to use such a trick to cover up wonder builds it was... well... not deemed "cheese", it was deemed "strategy"

That last post is fairly b!tchy in my opinion...but yes, I do agree that it would be for the best if we all dropped these points

[Ennet]

Well we'll go and win by a game mechanic now so everyone's happy so this discussion is pretty much dropped. And for it being a combined victory or not, it does not matter at all. If ND or we win matters little to me as the other team will know that they "let" the other team win the game even if they are officialy not winning the game together. There are no prizes to be awarded but the fun we get out of this game, and both sides in this argument are removing the fun for all particants.

[Krill]

just a fyi, my comment was not aimed at anything in game, it was aimed more at MZs' response to NYE.

[Hot_Enamel]

I am amazed that you can even try to compare those two posts

One was a personal attack
The other was ... "b1tchy" ???

:shame:

[Beta]

For the record, I never felt I was personally attacked earlier in this thread. I was debating the issue - I was not upset with any individual or team.

That being said - that last NYE-MZ exchange has reached a new low. Time to step back and take a collective deep breath ...maybe even some apologies???

[Krill]

H_E, all of not youeithers' post prior to the final post are perfectly acceptable. I do agree that the last post was unacceptable, however, but maybe you and MZ will understand that there are some of us who care for the game, not because there is money involved, but because of our love of the game. Have someone tell you that a game, which you poured two years of your life into, is unimportant, and many will find it insulting.

Look at what Vondrack wrote when GS broke though the blockade. "It drives one almost to tears - the whole 2-year game now looks so very absurd to us."

---

All I ask is for everybody, from all teams, to please refrain from insults, mudslinging and any more debates on the merits of shared victory. We have talked about, debated, as well as argued about it enough, as MZ posted yesterday (or was it the day before?).

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Krill
just a fyi, my comment was not aimed at anything in game, it was aimed more at MZs' response to NYE.

I'm surprised that you choose to raise a word about my response (and a previous one) and say nothing whatsoever about nye's totally unacceptable behavior. One thing is "team spirit" Krill because I suspect you did because he is your teammate, another entirely different thing is indirectly condoning the tactlessness and in-civility which nye frequently resorts to. All the more shameful because this discussion was long over until he decided to ressurrect it to pour some of the bitterness which he apparently has in surplus.

If I hear another such remark from nye he's going straight to my ignore list, in the meantime he's pretty much lost any ounce of respect I once had for him. :q:

-MZ

[Master Zen]

Btw, all of us poured contless hours into the game but did it out of our own free will. There was no prize. Saying that all these years were wasted just because some team lost is to defeat the entire purpose of what this demogame was meant for: to learn, to experiment, and to have fun.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Master Zen
If I hear another such remark from nye he's going straight to my ignore list, in the meantime he's pretty much lost any ounce of respect I once had for him. :q:
Unfortunately, nye cannot do the same. Neither can I, nor anybody else. You, being an admin/moderator, cannot be put on anyone's ignore list.

So, perhaps it may be a good idea to use your ignore list right away, even if temporarily, and help the flames die out.

[Krill]

Originally posted by Krill
H_E, all of notyoueithers' post prior to the final post are perfectly acceptable. I do agree that the last post was unacceptable, however, but maybe you and MZ will understand that there are some of us who care for the game, not because there is money involved, but because of our love of the game. Have someone tell you that a game, which you poured two years of your life into, is unimportant, and many will find it insulting.

I do not condone NYEs' personal attacks, nor are they necessary. And please put NYE on your ignore list, as hopefully it will lead to the beginning of a cool down, for both of you. (edit: what Vondrack said)

---

Again, as Aeson has already pointed out, you are putting words into other peoples mouths.

Saying that all these years were wasted just because some team lost is to defeat the entire purpose of what this demogame was meant for: to learn, to experiment, and to have fun.

I have not said that the time spent on this game was wasted, and I do not think that, either. When I joined GS in March 2004, I was barely able to hold my own on emperor, C3C, but know I can beat it via OCC easily. I have made new friends, and that is something that I have had difficulty doing for most of my life. I have enjoyed myself, and will continue to do so so long as this b!tchyness does not get out of hand. I am willing to forgive and forget this incident, MZ, so long as we can agree to drop it.

Are you willing to forgive, and forget?

[Master Zen]

Krill, the beef was never with you and you know it. We might not have agreed on many things but you have kept the discussion civil and intelligent. Nye hasn't, and has not spared any opportunity to drop a biting or downright insulting remark at people who he feels like slamming in these threads. This is not the first time I have seen him behave that way, and it will unlikely be the last.

Considering this discussion got very heated yet still remained civil (at least borderline civil), then have it turned into a hippying love-fest since yesterday (thanks to - who else? - Theseus ;) ) then have nye reply to posts which were made days ago for no other reason than to continue the smear fest was enough for my patience.

And though I did not get mad, I admit I got a bit dissapointed at you trying to equate my behavior with his even going so far as to post a quote of mine which was not even remotely as spiteful or insulting to try and prove your point. Hence my comment that you seemed to be trying to defend your teammates even when they got way out of line (and you have to admit Krill, your response to nye was not even remotely as vigorous as your attempt to prove I had said similar things).

But hell, we've already gone so far during the last day or two to have this party spoiled by the comments of one ;) :b:

[Krill]

You have not seen the private forum yet, so please don't take anything I say to my teammates in public at face value, as plenty still goes on behind the scenes.

---

Actualy, I kinda have a problem when it comes to sensing which posts (and even parts of them) are directed at which people. Sorry if anything I said there was misunderstood.

[notyoueither]

I feel that I should apologise to everyone for the tone of my last post in this thread.

So there you have it, to everyone whose enjoyment has been lessened by my last post, I apologise for the incendiary language used.

[Master Zen]

Kiss and make up then? :cute:



(ok, scratch the kiss part...)

[Rhothaerill]

Mz and NYE sittin' in a tree...

Oh never mind that's just not a pleasant image. :scared:

[Krill]

I don't think it is Santa that has been eaten in NYEs' avatar...

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by notyoueither


How about the 'you get whatever cities you can get, however you get them' chat?

I commented on that chat earlier. It was a whole mess where ND and GoW didn't have the same view of GS at the time, and GoW chose to stick with ND rather than strain relations with them.

It was as much a surprise to me as you.


As to the rest of the 3 pages since my last post, none appears addressed to ME, so I just skimmed.

MZ, I'll happily 'teach' you poker. I'm sure Zargon would help me. :conspire:

[ZargonX]

MZ, I'll happily 'teach' you poker. I'm sure Zargon would help me.

That can be arranged. Just make sure you bring plenty of cash to, uh, practice with. Yeah, that's the ticket...