HOTW V - Set Up Thread II, or The Return of the Mods

[deity]

... which is a shame as the game just ends up as a war fest (like I did in HOTW4, but we talked about it then and agreed on a time machine restart year)

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by deity
Many games in Civ2 banned spies but I don't think we should that.

But Russia's motive is weird. As a player I would never do this plus I would always negotiate smartly. It's obvious that Russia is dead if this continues...

First of all, as far as I'm aware most (if not all) of the sabatoge has been mines, not towns. So that's not so bad. And even so, there hasn't been any blitzing to destroy someone's economy.

Putting role playing aside the amount of damage Frank actually suffered from those attacks is really miniscule. Russia in paying for the spy missions probably spent more of his economy on carrying out the missions than Frank suffered from their effects. Given the money Russia is paying out now in penalties Frank is actually making a huge profit on this.

To be quite honest I'd gladly trade in a few turns of not having oil for 50 gpt.

As for Russia's motive, I think it was entirely for role playing purposes. Unlike the many of you Kuno is courageous enough to make game decisions that hurt him in the game just because it fits with his story. He switched to Communism so wanted to play up him being the bad guy and engage in some cloak & dagger cold war style.

Unfortunately Frank isn't playing along so HOPEFULLY Kuno won't be stupid enough to push this thing to war and cut it the heck out. And if someone is trying to frame Kuno or anyone else to provoke a war, they HOPEFULLY will fail utterly.

[Frank Johnson]

The point isn't exactly that the damage is big or small. Its the mentality behind it.

The damage done to a town can be really big when you consider that I've lost 2 towns for 60 turns in mature cities with universities, banks, wonders, and such. I might pull down 50 gpt from suicidial terrorist maniacs, but just with the 2 damaged towns 6gpt after modifiers is probably costing me something closer to 12 or 15 after modifers and lowering of trade route values. And that was in like the 5 turns we played last session.

You're right though, whoever is paying through the spy missions is paying through the ass. They've already accepted that they can't achieve anything on the world stage for themselves, so they'll sacrifice their own state to cover someone else's ass while they win. That's the main problem I have here. And the ultimate problem will be, if that's true then I'll have to over run 2 countries with tanks, because both have already gone sucicidal or encouraged the idea and are just trying to delay the conflict that's already started.

Roleplaying to fit your civ name in every situation is stupid. Put me on the record. STUPID. Ozzy you don't let real India dictate what HOTW5 India has to do or RP so don't throw that at me.

[The Capo]

Let me try and play the mediator here; first of all Frank I don't think Ozzy meant it that severely, and as for Ozzy; Frank is well within his rights to invade Russia right now if he wants to.

We're seriously letting this entire thing get carried away here, I understand you were busy with real-life things during the past week Ozzy but you've been kinda short and a little childish when it comes to running the UN; people don't have to listen to you, and things aren't always going to be a rose garden. If a state decides not to cooperate with the UN, or entirely ignore it, or claim it is ineffective, then that is their decision, it isn't up to you how they should act simply because you built the UN or are its Secretary General. Further, if this is a play by China to rationalize a war with Russia then that is fine too, you know what the response should be? It should be that you and Russia build some tanks, build some infantry, or whatever the hell else you think you'll need to stop them, that should be the response.

Frank; you are kind of getting a little ridiculous here. You can't be angry with Kuno the player for using Spies, that's insanity and you know it. Its part of the game, in earlier Diplogames they made rules against Spies, and took steps to stop things like spies and nukes and what have you. Recently though, we've taken a much more hands-off approach to the games. This has resulted in increased wars, but also a lot of other things that can be considered unfair or even cheating by some (ie what happened earlier with Lz and Cyber). But you are absolutely right when you say that doing things simply for storyline reasons is stupid. Now in some ways it isn't; for example I kept my civics on things that may not have been the best decision for my civilization because there was NO REASON to change them, I was pretty successful and just because there was something slightly better didn't mean I was going to change it. Later on I figured out a STORYLINE to EXPLAIN why I would change it, which is what I think the point os the storylines are.

Now, we've seen entirely falsified things occur and we've let them go because it is part of the story. I am proposing this STOP NOW. I don't like that some people are claiming they have been attacked by terrorists when they haven't (America and Inca), I further don't like the fact that they assign a nationality to a COMPLETELY FAKE terrorist. We've got to remember we are playing civilization, and if it doesn't happen in the game there is only so far you can go with your creativity. Now you may say "Well Capo you had Liberal rebels bomb San Pedro a few times," now what I did there was take a civil disorder and explain it as a riot/bombings, to fix it I said the Governor got troops to enter the city (which I did, and due to my Hereditary Rule civic the riot ended), now THAT is how you are supposed to role play the game. Please, stop making **** up everyone, it just causes more animosity, and more making **** up, and more aggression.

And as far as doing things your civ actually did in history, well its stupid and its not, its stupid if it doesn't make sense, and its not because well your civ really did it in real life and it should be part of their culture. I think the best thing to do right now is forget this, realize its just a game, get over it, confirm for next week, and maybe test our connections between now and then.

So, I confirm for Friday.

[Robert]

I don't understand why China didn't invade Russia for these terror actions. I would have done that. If Germany plants another spy in America it's toast.

That every war becomes a world war is because all players are too much eager to team up in a big alliance. I'm only in an alliance with India and with no one else. Of course I feel symphaty for Russia now the whole world is against it. But that's only because the rest of the world was about to gang up on Russia.

If nations would restrain itself more and not jump into every war the world wars would be much rarer and the game more interesting. There's no problem with a war once in a time. Not even if a civ loses a few cities. That's civ.

I hope that we will continue to play civilization and not restrain each other too much. Let Russia use spies. And let China start a war with Russia for it. That's civ.

I think that Russia isn't forced to play the stalin way (as Germany doesn't need to play the Hitler way and Spain the Franco way) but they're free to do so if they like to.

[Robert]

I don't like that some people are claiming they have been attacked by terrorists when they haven't (America and Inca)

Excuse me.......?

[deity]

Originally posted by CyberShy
That every war becomes a world war is because all players are too much eager to team up in a big alliance.

Yeah, you might have a point there.

I got involved supporting China because I was sabotaged at the same time. But maybe best to let Russia/China sort it out = need some good posts.

[deity]

I love the way Capo comes in all calm and peaceful trying to diplomatically sort things out and ends up spitting chips

Originally posted by The Capo
Let me try and play the mediator here; first of all Frank I don't think Ozzy meant it that severely, and as for Ozzy; Frank is well within his rights to invade Russia right now if he wants to.

We're seriously letting this entire thing get carried away here, I understand you were busy with real-life things during the past week Ozzy but you've been kinda short and a little childish when it comes to running the UN; people don't have to listen to you, and things aren't always going to be a rose garden. If a state decides not to cooperate with the UN, or entirely ignore it, or claim it is ineffective, then that is their decision, it isn't up to you how they should act simply because you built the UN or are its Secretary General. Further, if this is a play by China to rationalize a war with Russia then that is fine too, you know what the response should be? It should be that you and Russia build some tanks, build some infantry, or whatever the hell else you think you'll need to stop them, that should be the response.

Frank; you are kind of getting a little ridiculous here. You can't be angry with Kuno the player for using Spies, that's insanity and you know it. Its part of the game, in earlier Diplogames they made rules against Spies, and took steps to stop things like spies and nukes and what have you. Recently though, we've taken a much more hands-off approach to the games. This has resulted in increased wars, but also a lot of other things that can be considered unfair or even cheating by some (ie what happened earlier with Lz and Cyber). But you are absolutely right when you say that doing things simply for storyline reasons is stupid. Now in some ways it isn't; for example I kept my civics on things that may not have been the best decision for my civilization because there was NO REASON to change them, I was pretty successful and just because there was something slightly better didn't mean I was going to change it. Later on I figured out a STORYLINE to EXPLAIN why I would change it, which is what I think the point os the storylines are.

Now, we've seen entirely falsified things occur and we've let them go because it is part of the story. I am proposing this STOP NOW. I don't like that some people are claiming they have been attacked by terrorists when they haven't (America and Inca), I further don't like the fact that they assign a nationality to a COMPLETELY FAKE terrorist. We've got to remember we are playing civilization, and if it doesn't happen in the game there is only so far you can go with your creativity. Now you may say "Well Capo you had Liberal rebels bomb San Pedro a few times," now what I did there was take a civil disorder and explain it as a riot/bombings, to fix it I said the Governor got troops to enter the city (which I did, and due to my Hereditary Rule civic the riot ended), now THAT is how you are supposed to role play the game. Please, stop making **** up everyone, it just causes more animosity, and more making **** up, and more aggression.

And as far as doing things your civ actually did in history, well its stupid and its not, its stupid if it doesn't make sense, and its not because well your civ really did it in real life and it should be part of their culture. I think the best thing to do right now is forget this, realize its just a game, get over it, confirm for next week, and maybe test our connections between now and then.

So, I confirm for Friday.

[Robert]

Originally posted by deity
I love the way Capo comes in all calm and peaceful trying to diplomatically sort things out and ends up spitting chips

Regarding the huge alliances,
of course should it be possible to have allies who help you a little bit, perhaps some units, border control, money perhaps. Or just to be sure that one of your borders is secure. And of course a world war should be possible as well, but not just everytime.

[OzzyKP]

Yea there is definitely a tendency to make huge alliances. I was trying to back away from that with India and set up limited, smaller scale partnerships and tactical treaties that would tie us more loosely than the alliances we all typically get into. But with everyone else forming an aggressive 5-civ alliance, it's only natural that I start looking to create a rock-solid alliance myself. Then things just spiral out of control (all the while being hopelessly outnumbered...)

But yea, most of this game has been one block vs. another in one form or another.

I agree with Cyber though. We definitely shouldn't pass rules against it or anything, and if it happens, then it happens. But it shouldn't always be the case, as it seems to have been in this game (and most other games).

One of the things I'm looking forward to with Civ4 Diplogames is the possibility of having more players. We were hardcoded at 7 with Civ2, and now we can go as big as we have patience for. The more players we have, the more opportunity to have 3 or 4 different alliances which would create a more fluid - and ultimately more interesting game.

With a lot of interest so far in HOTW7, maybe we can get a really big one going. Not too big of course, maybe like 10-11 people.

[Robert]

Well, this game already started as a 10 player game. 11 players should be possible (eventhough it gives nightmares to Nolan 8))
I just suggest we won't do Terra with that, maybe even continents. If players are spread over continents I'm that there will be less huge alliances. Why would I drop in to another alliance if that continent doesn't care me anyway.

The big alliances will go down if we'll all start to be less eager to enter a huge alliance.

[OzzyKP]

Naw continents would be terrible. Every continent group would ally together. Continent A would be Alliance A. It'd get really boring. It'd be a build fest right from the start.

I say we stick with Terra, and just restart if people aren't spaced properly.

[Robert]

Maybe you're right about continents..........
It could be possible that wars start on continents as well. continental-wars.

I still think that Terra is not a good id either because everybody is too close to each other. It's not difficult for me to start a war in spain. Pangea wouldn't have that problem.

[OzzyKP]

The midgame rush to the New World is much fun though. Plus it gives small civs a chance to catch up (like Inca & England in our game). It is the ultimate equalizer. Plus it is historical as well which allows us to RP some of the real world's colonial history.

Terra maps are the only way to go.

Using the balanced map option in Warlords will prevent anyone from being totally screwed with land, so it should be great. Being close to each other is good, otherwise we just peacefully expand all day. The more we bump elbows the better. But yea, we've been over this a million times before.

Balanced Terra Maps.

[Robert]

The terra thing only worked because some more advanced players restrained themselves and didn't go to the new world. I think that in a good diplogame nobody should restrain themselves that far.