The Whore of Babylon Speaks - GoW Official Statement

[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.

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.

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.