HOTW 7 - Brag the votes into your basket!

[Robert Plomp]

After the HOTW VII game has been finished, all secrets have been spilled and there's nothing left anymore to talk about it's time for one last talk!

All players (co-players) of the game have to vote to give their view on the ranking of all HOTW 7 players in 3 cateogires:

Military Achievement
Diplomacy
Storytelling/Roleplaying

Voters rank a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place among the various civs (and the players who have played them) and points are given out based on that. DO NOT VOTE FOR YOURSELF. Voters are free to decide exactly what criteria they favor under those three categories. Some ideas though:

Military Achievement - military victories (both battles won and wars won), great tactical maneuvers (both with individual battles, and the long term consequences of wars), possessing a large military throughout the game, or a particularly massive build up at any one time, having a particularly well promoted military, number of great generals,

Diplomacy - talking oneself out of war, talking another into war, maintaining alliances, breaking other's alliances, negotiating profitable tech trades & resource trades, double-dealing, resiliency (setting up webs of backup plans and secondary alliances in case of defeat or betrayal), negotiating profitable border agreements, coordination of plans with allies, success at concealing plans from enemies (or allies), success at feeding false information, backstabbing (for gain), playing rivals off each other,

Storytelling/Roleplaying - use of innovation/creativity in posts, use of technology, maintaining a rich in-character dialog in game, maintaining a rich in-character dialog over AIM or PMs outside of the game, writing entertaining and well written stories, use of visual media and creation of visual media (pictures, video, etc) for posts, incorporating and paralleling historical events/people, rich characterization, bringing game decisions into the real world (i.e. changing from slavery to emancipation isn't just a game mechanic it has a real effect on the fictional people living in one's empire and should be incorporated into a story), consistency between stories and gameplay, making decisions in game because it fits your story or characters even if it isn't the wisest game play decision,

Let's get over and done with this

Update/edit: included Ozzy's comments in this post

[Robert Plomp]

Why do I deserve your vote:

Story telling
The rise and the fall of India
This is the most easy category in which I'm clearly the #1 player (brag thread, remember ). The ancient indian stories were entertaining! Some highlights: Founding of hinduism, Mysterious end of Robert, Arjuna the Archer, Arjuna the archer and the village of Maniju, Manu and the god-fish, Samudra-Gupta and the birth of Krishianity, obviously the entire Krishnianity story-line, The story of Asoka and Ghandi and their lost father, Lala Lajpat Rai,
(1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7), The rise of the Indian Republic, The speech of Balaji, The complex system of Indian political parties leading to the end of India. And last but not least the setup of the fall of the Indian empire by provocing the Bulgarians to nuke the Holy city of Krishnianity, Krishnai, and razaing most of the important Indian cities.

Diplomacy
With story telling I'm the must-be #1 (brag thread, remember ), my diplomacy is a failure. The diplomacy with Egypt and China resulted only in India paying for the debts of both Egypt and China for most of history. During both Indian/Bulgarian wars both Egypt and China were hardly able to help india (eventhough they both tried). India tried to backstab it's allies during the days of Asoka by allying with Bulgaria and Arabia. This failed and lead to the ultimate hate from India towards Bulgaria. In the last days India was behind much diplomacy to the fall of Bulgaria (which failed) but also kept open all options to ally with Bulgaria and Arabia once again, but failed to establish such an alliance. If the vote for diplomacy is for those who succeeded most, then I do not deserve any votes. The ultimate fall if India is the great example of my diplomatic failure. When my army marched against the Bulgarians in a final attempt for victory, none of my allies stood up for me.
If the diplomacy vote is for those who tried to stir up diplomacy on Terra, the Indian attempts for peace between England and Incan (vassal-state agreement), for behind the scenes backstabbing, I may deserve some good votes!

Military Tactics
What can I say? If you look at India you see a smoke pile of radioactive garbage. India clearly failed. India even forgot to nuke Bulgaria back with the ICBMs stored on Tan. (oops). All my military tactics horribly failed. Not only because my army was too small, but also because I made the wrong moves.
If votes are being given for the nation that at least tried to stir up Terra military wise, then I may deserve some votes anyway

[OzzyKP]

Edit by CyberShy:
Ozzy, I've included your comments in the first post of this thread. You may want to use this post to post your arguments

[Toni]

Military:

What can I say this is where I shine, Fought 3 wars, 1st against the Romans (AI), which I destroyed and took there land to further boost my empire. 2nd war vs. China and India, where Indians forces were totally destroyed and a city was razed by me. All the Chinese offensive units were destroyed, was on my way to destroy what remaining forces there were hiding in China, but my allies advised me to make peace so I vassal them, could have demanded India to become my vassal as well but did not want the extra maintenance cost. 3rd war India attacks Bulgaria with a huge amount of units on many fronts. All Indian units are completely destroyed on the old world, with 3 cities razed to the ground. Game ended before I could counter attack what army they had in the new world. Also Bulgaria was the only nation to build a Nuclear weapon. The Nuke was used to weaken a huge amount of Indian forces which after that were very easily destroyed. Also Bulgaria had the biggest army in the late game and had five great generals more than any other nation. Thanks to the right moves all my military tactics succeeded.

Diplomacy:

Was able to fool the western alliance into believing that I will work with them and this gave me enough time to grow my army and continue with my development goals. Started an alliance with the Arabs from the very start, both nations weren’t ranked top at that time, but with great team work we made it the strongest alliance on Terra. Was instrumental into getting the Inca to aid me in the great western war, by attacking China in the north. Also worked well with my allies, which lend me units to better defend myself. Many war plans were developed in case of war vs. the Choson, Vikings and the western alliance. Excellent tech corporation with allies, which made us the tech leaders on Terra. Was able in the early game to use my strong ally the Arabs as a shield from foreign nations, while I was focusing on researching, which paid greatly in mid-late game and this gave both nations a huge time lead on building the SS.

Story telling:

Mediocre here, was never my strong side, did what was required from me but nothing more. I consider myself a bad writer, so never really enjoyed it. Being Bulgarian was what really helped me write my stories.

[OzzyKP]

Well I prefer to just let my actions speak for themselves, but I guess I can do a bit of bragging...

Military - I was the most militarily successful and active player in the game.

Wars:
Roman War - Early in the game I joined with Bulgaria to drive back the Romans who aggressively expanded and placed a city right on the border of my capitol. I razed their city.

First Kushren War - Later, the Kushren tried to finish off the Romans, but I closed borders with them so their army couldn't make it to the weak AI Romans. They just sent the army to me instead. I destroyed their army with minimal losses and pillaged their territory.

Celtic Jihad - Invaded Celts to spread Islam, took a city with minimal losses. I offered peace and they accepted my terms to become my vassal and convert to Islam.

Choson Jihad - The Choson declared war in response to my invasion of the Celts, as I expected, and I had saved the bulk of my army to deal with them. The great Choson wall was better fortified than I anticipated and my invasion was beat back. Significant losses on both sides. The war was between the two biggest armies (I forget, Choson may have been bigger...) and while no land was exchanged, Arabia scored a victory by causing far more pain to the Choson than Arabia suffered. Plus Arabia got maps (and maybe Astronomy, I forget).

Kushren Jihad - Another war to spread Islam, not long after the first two Jihads. One city was captured, and others would have soon fallen had Conq not missed a session letting the Kushren go AI (who I couldn't attack). I had him beat and would have pressed my advantage if he didn't leave. Ultimately I was victorious, he converted to Islam and I returned the city.

Western War - While I didn't fight directly, I gave a good sized army to my Bulgarian ally to defend himself against the Western invasion. My troops (well upgraded from the Jihads) proved critical for his defense.

For most of the game I held the largest military, and for all of the game I held a top 3 military. Furthermore through skillful use of my spirtual trait and my great generals (plus I built West Point) my troops were the best trained in the world.

Diplomacy - I maintained a close alliance with Bulgaria for most all of the game. I brought in England to our alliance mid-game when we needed a third partner. They proved to be an excellent ally. I also earned friendly relations with the Celt replacement - Cole. And I helped keep the Inca under Levi loyal to us up to the point of their war with England.

My best diplomatic maneuver was my war with the Choson. Deity had a good tech lead, exclusive access to the new world, and was starting to trade on that success with other powers. While I never took territory from him, my war was extremely costly to Deity - my main rival. He had to slave his cities considerably to match me in war, a significant setback that changed the balance of the game permanently. By Deity's own admission the game may have ended quite differently if I hadn't out maneuvered him here.

Throughout the game I held my allies in check to prevent them from taking too much territory from their neighbors. (you guys should thank me).

I had closed borders with many civs for much of the game, an action that (I hope) hurt their economy, but at the time didn't affect me since I was running a specialist economy with mercantilism.

Either through fear, promises, or luck the massive anti-Arab & Bulgarian alliance never materialized. While I can't claim a lot of credit for it, the outcome speaks for itself.

I did a great deal of negotiating with my allies over the possibility of a Choson invasion late in the game. Thankfully it never happened, but our dilligence to expand our military and create a diplomatic offensive in the thread contributed to that.

Also late in the game I negotiated with Deity for a possible alliance to shake up the game a bit. It didn't materialize, but was an interesting possibility.

Finally, I think I strung along India for a bit, leading them to believe (with minimal effort) that I would turn on Bulgaria mid-game. This emboldened the western alliance to invade Bulgaria and led to their inevitable beatdown by Arab, Bulgarian and Incan forces.

Storytelling - I kicked some ass here. My storyline expertly blended Biblical, Islamic, and Arab history with gameplay to produce a compelling narrative for the game. I like my early history where I took Jewish history and gave it an Arab bent, and how I explained the hut popping process in terms of Soddom & Gammorah, and my war against the Romans. Translating a Bible passage into Bulgarian for Toni's benefit was cool too. It served the story as well.

I did a great deal of research for the game (too much maybe), but I now am pretty familiar with the history of Islam. I based my posts heavily on history, but always to serve game play as well.

I sought to duplicate the Islamic Jihad in the real world and succeeded in converting the Kushren and Celts by the sword for purely role play purposes. I made spreading Islam a huge priority and it paid off with 29% spread by the end of the game. I also allowed my end game strategy to be determined by voters, a realistic and creative move imho. I timed it so the Jewish temple was build during the reign of Solomon. Plus I built a Sheba city so i could have a plotline with the Queen of Sheba, and later used that to tell the story of the origin of Muhammed since it was tied in with a war with Ethiopia (a possible location for Sheba).

I made some really cool graphics for my stories too, and spent a lot of time on them. So I'm posting them again since I'm still proud:








Plus my newspapers were good recaps of the sessions. And Ozman's dream that incorporated real literature on the subject modified to deal with the spacerace and the rise of the Ottomans. I think I did a good job of staying in character for in-game discussions too.

[Toni]

Just curious Ozzy did you had the most kills in the game?

I just counted my kills total is 161!

Can someone beat that? I think to think oneself as being the most militarily successful you should have the most enemy kills.

Pls do not take my earned spot

[OzzyKP]

There are many more aspects that just unit kills. I'm sure if I tried to wipe out the Celts and Kushren down to the last then I'd have a lot more unit kills, but I fought tactical wars.

[Toni]

Very easy fights Ozzy very Celts and Kushren where just too easy, a win against deity i would have given you more credit. Tactical wars are done vs weak nations.

I personally I believe that you didn't do well in this category, u will see my votes. I gave u 2nd place , there was a nation which won wars against much tougher enemies then u did and its England.

I know this section we are suppose to brag about our accomplishments, but staying relistic would be nice.

One more thing, u attacked those nations, when u felt you were ready, Both big wars i had i was the attacked one very different compared to you. Its another thing when u have a huge army and u go and beat some weak civs. U felt just like that vs the Choson as well, but deity fought u back.

As u can see i just disagree in the Military section, I think u did very well in the other two though.

[Robert Plomp]

Pst, no debating here
Just brag your own brag and leave it to that.

I'm not going to add that Ozzy needs much more then a few lines to make his point, either.

[Toni]

I'm not going to add that Ozzy needs much more then a few lines to make his point, either.

[Glohithia]

When I took over England, they were ok in technology but very behind in any infrastructure. Not much was built in the cities and the land was almost unworked. The worst was the almost total lack of cottages.

To make things worse, in my mind, was the fact that I thought everybody was already grouped in 3 way alliances, since that is the only way to work things with the tech trading rules in place. I was surprised that Ozzy and Toni approached me and offered a spot to make their alliance a three way. That was the single most important event in England's growth. Both Toni and Ozzy pretty much carried me thru the first half of the game, gifting me resources (and out teching me 2 to 1 sometimes) to get me out of trouble. They were honorable allies and at first I had problems believing they didnt have a hidden agenda

Due to my lack of cities and the constant "catching up" I was doing, I never had any cities build wonders and I decided to totally forego the space ship. I decided to pay back my alliance by building a large military and use it to help them fight off attacks as they built the space ships.

Because of this, I dont really think England deserves any votes. Ill make a pitch in Military because after a while I was able to field quite a good army, but I had the benefit of concentrating soley on military. So even that is suspect in my mind.

The one thing I will say is that I had a blast! Everybody was great to play with and big ups to Ozzy and Toni for really making the game fun for me and England




Military Achievement-At one point in time, just as I attacked the Inca for the first time, I had an army of Infantry and Cannons (roughly 20 of each) that dwarfed the rest of the nations of Terra in pure firepower. Others may have had more units, but I think I could have run over most cities. Keep in mind this was just as our alliance had researched Assembly Line and I spent considerable funds to upgrade my units. I was able to take two cities with no losses. Later, when the Inca renounced vassalage and massed modern troops outside of my city, I again pulled off an almost perfect assault, killing almost 40 Incan units to my 5 artillery losses and getting 2 GG's. At the end of the game, I had a sizable navy and air force as well as a very large modern army of modern armor, mech infantry, and gunships, just waiting for somebody to attack Ozzy or Toni so I could go on the offensive again


Diplomacy-I really didnt participate much in any diplomacy. I did decide to stick to my alliance after my attack on the Inca. Before that happened, I tried to make some alternate plans with deity, Kuno, and Ryk. Just in case my allies got angry with me for attacking another ally, I wanted to know if I had another alliance I could fall back on. However, deity (and the rest) would not commit to anything and really treated the whole suggestion from me with suspicion. After the attack when all was still well between myself and my allies, I decided to stick with the alliance I had till the end and would have only jumped if Toni and/or Ozzy had turned on me.


Storytelling/Roleplaying-I think I did the bare minimum here. I find it hard to make enough time to write a quality story, it comes hard to me. Im an engineer and am not very comfortable with my more artistic side. Im more analytical If Im honest, my "stories" were quite boring! Id kick my a*s*s* for the garbage I wrote if I were the lot of you

[OzzyKP]

Ok, here are the people who are voting and who you are voting for.


Carthage/Vikings - LzPrst & Rykoffe
England - Glohitha
Inca - Frank Johnson & LevitheOracle & kbarrett
Egypt - Nolan
China - Kuno
Bulgaria - Toni
India - CyberShy
Arabia - Ozzy
Kushren - Colonel_Trieze & Conquistador45
Celts - Omnipotent Trout & dacole
Choson - Deity

CS, can you send some PMs around and contact the less active players and let them know they need to help vote. And the rest of you be sure to take into consideration everyone who played a certain civ.

[Robert Plomp]

I've already sent PM's around, I'll send another batch of PM's this evening. It's not like most players react on them though

[Glohithia]

Just in case you are developing a complex CS, I have read your PM's and taken appropriate action

I have my votes in, so now Im just waiting for the final tally. Id like to know who to officially congratulate

[Robert Plomp]

I know that you're active
I don't expect people to respond to my PM's personally

I suggest that we wait wit voting till friday, so that all players have a change till friday to write a brag-story in this thread.

[Toni]

Hey to all the voters, just a reminder! Don't forget Bulgaria had a tundra start, but still through superior Military and Diplomacy became the most powerful nation on Terra and ended the game top place (A dominated position for quite some time).

I though this is worth mentioning

[deity]

Too busy - will look at this tomorrow!!

Please wait for me to start posting

[deity]

Roughly in the timeline of the game


Military Achievement (many decisions here that made sense game/story-wise but at the expense of reduced Choson points)

* Successfully supported Celts and Kushren against major barbarian attacks

* Survived a whole session of Arabian onslaught without losing any ground

* Resulting in the impenetrable defence of The Choson Wall - no nation could ever get past this

* Despite the war The Choson continued to settle the New World, fighting off barbarians and establishing many new cities

* Major military buildup as the 500 year peace deal came to an end. Arabia fills Medina with many troops 30 years prior to the peace deal ending, thwarting plans to take Medina

* From this point Choson military was always at the top and could easily match any buildup by Arabia or Bulgaria; BUT not those two nations combined - this stymied Choson attempts at any further military action. The Celts and Kushren may have been cheap pickings for Choson (or indeed Arabia) but made no sense in the storyline.

* Without strong military allies The Choson focussed on massive defence and survival of its entire civilisation in tact till the end without losing any territory whatsoever - despite the combined power of Arabia and Bulgaria who were unable to challenge this. Even the one strike of the one nuke (that we did know about BTW thanks to Bulgarian gossip!) would not have done enough damage to break through The Choson. [ FYI If deity had been at the final session the SS was going to be stopped and total military production would have continued resulting in at least parity with Bulgaria ]

* Terra's biggest navy by far - naval invasion of The Choson was totally not possible.

* First army to have 40 + Modern Armour before any other nation had built any or perhaps a few - courtesy of Terra's highest GDP


Diplomacy (many game saving efforts here)

* Very early gifting of technologies to support struggling civs - this included Bulgaria!

* First civ to circumnavigate the Terra landmass AND then the globe - sharing the first map of the entire world with ALL nations (as posted)

* Supported all the smaller nations in getting a toehold in the New World - gifting of Galleons to Carthage and India; plus gifting of Optics and Astronomy to many civs

* Successfully negotiated a 500 year peace deal with Arabia to end the long war; maps were exchanged and Optics gifted to Arabia as good will (but NOT as a conquered tech of course)

* Developed strategy of the Western Alliance concept with lz of the Vikings - failed due to loss of Viking leader; despite independent efforts of the Indians and Chinese but at a time not appropriate for the Choson - seen as a diplomacy failure by India and China not to wait for The Choson (changed the course of the game)

* Persistent world outings of the troop sharing arrangements by the Arabians and Bulgarians

* Pesistent pressure on the changing Inca regime to wake up to them selves and undertsand the real enemy in the world - eventually succeeded. Similar pressure failed on the Axis running dogs - the English

* Promoted concept of Carthaginian and Viking amalgamation which came to fruition

* Put forward plan to increase English culture as solution to Inca/England war but no meaningfull responses from the Axis and not adopted - vassalage causing a war situation to be maintained

* Developed strategy with Arabia, consistent with different and concurrent leaders in Choson, to curtail the leadership of the Bulgarians on the planet where Wang Kon would revolt against his father Wang Yung and convert to Islam - resulting in a jihad the likes of which was never seen unfortunately... Game decision here as deity thought it could result in the ending of the game with several players getting upset - particularly if the city razing strategy was employed....

* Developed strategy with Ryk of the Vikings to aim at a non Axis Diplomatic Victory; but proved very difficult on this planet of so many mixed egos Might have worked out in the end if deity had been in the last session maybe... I mean, who wanted ozzy to win TWICE in a row!


Storytelling/Roleplaying

* Developed storyline based on Korean history and legend; including their unique Archers and structure of the Kingdoms.

* Tailored this history to tie in with changes on this planet and used select historic graphics and maps sparingly but powerfully

* Founded Buddhism and used successfully as a reaklistic religion of the Choson (the tribe that became Korea)

* Used Choson world circumnavigation as a lynch pin to influencing world politics and development

* The Tan-gun and Tan-gun II legend was good

* The Columbus analagy story was good

* The urging of the peaceful development of the New World was novel and inter-action with the Indians, Vikings and Carthginians created a New World controlling power (only curbed by the Arabian war)

* The Wang Yung/Kon father son storyline was handy for varying outcomes in politics - eg Wang Kon would have followed the Bin laden strategy

* Note that deity's decision to limit to 5 or 6 leaders through out the course of the game is a wise move to allow storys to be more easily followed

[deity]

Originally posted by Toni
Hey to all the voters, just a reminder! Don't forget Bulgaria had a tundra start, but still through superior Military and Diplomacy became the most powerful nation on Terra and ended the game top place (A dominated position for quite some time).

I though this is worth mentioning

Choson had a tundra start too, but didn't kill AI's or raze cities

[Robert Plomp]

Ok, it's friday, I assume that everybody who'll ever brag has bragged. I'm sorry that Kuno didn't post here but we can't wait for that for eternity.

All please send your votes (and reasons 'nd arguments) to Canuck Soldier ( csoldier -<>- telus.net )

Let's say everyone has 4 days for that? (friday, saturday, sunday and monday)
Then CS can post them here maybe tuesday?

If you disagree, Ozz, just edit my post and make it whatever you want

[Toni]

Choson had a tundra start too, but didn't kill AI's or raze cities

True the Choson had a tundra start but also had 3x times the expansion land, without civs close by

[deity]

Originally posted by Toni


True the Choson had a tundra start but also had 3x times the expansion land, without civs close by

You had enough land too...

[deity]

Hey Toni, why did you edit out my smiley!?

[Robert Plomp]

Originally posted by Toni


True the Choson had a tundra start but also had 3x times the expansion land, without civs close by

Civs close by
have you watched the replay and have you seen how absurd far away from your capital you founded your 3rd city! Really, when I saw that again I understood how insulting your city placing was!

go, load the save and watch it, you'll be amazed

And please people, don't brag about your tundra starts, tundra starts are a walk in the park. I got an ice start, deep down the tundra

[deity]

Yeah, CyberSpam's start was the pits - the ice pits

[Robert Plomp]

1. I've sent my votes to CS
2. Deity, don't make me hunt you down and take you out in HOTW 8

[deity]

Wait! Kuno might be voting soon!

[Robert Plomp]

Voting or bragging?

[deity]

Both I think! Hes online now!

[Robert Plomp]

If his bragging is that good I will consider changing my votes and mail CS again with an updated table.
He can also down-brag his votes obviously