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

[Robert]

Guys, one serious comment:
we may disagree with each other, but please stop giving qualifications to each other.

Ozzy:
I am not talking about the World War, the thing about judaism. I understand that Russia and India were allied in those days.
The war was not my intention, btw. not with India and neither with Russia. If you check my countless pm's to you, you must agree with that.
Neither did I have the intention to start a war with Russia. The role playing just brought us there.
I felt (role playing wise) that the hindu's were starting hostilities against judaism. The russian storyline evolved in that, with the difficulties with jews in his empire.
First I didn't want to give in to this story line, and told the jews in russia to keep cool and stop the problems.

But then the famous letter from you to me (in a special font, that appeared as a huge screaming font on my work pc! ) and I felt like Russia and America got the role-playing intention to start troubles. I have always felt that way. That's no problem, it's a role playing game. I like that story line. It was cool that we had to alliances, 2 big nations vs 5 small ones. I can see that spain helped the russians as well.

No problems there.
Though the need for this alliance, after Russia became christian, was gone. For sure since India insulted Peter II by turning down his compromis and leave away from a meeting he had organised. In a normal role playing situation, Russia would not help the indians. For sure not since Russia talked with us for 30 minutes after we left, and said that he agreed with us, but didn't want to fight India, and would remain neutral because the russian people loved the indians (in short)
Of course it's possible that role-playing wise this was just planned back stabbing. But that was not the case. It was just that India/Russia was a fixed alliance, backed up by Chinese techs.
Spain is a little bit different. I think I have no problems with the spanish acting in this game.

And once again about the pac-man:
you ask: "How do I hold a contest if pacman is not allowed?"

Well, first, it is allowed. I just don't like it.
Like it is allowed that the 3 greatest nations team up against the 3 smallest. It's not a rule that that is forbidden. It just makes a lousy game.

So, playing pac-man is allowed, I just think it makes a lousy games.
Making a contest is allowed, it just makes a louse DIPLOMACY game.
How to determine who would marry your daughter? That would either be the person with whom you have the best relations or with whom you want a good relation. Never in real history has a king given his daughter to someone who won a contest. That only happens in fairy tales, and then always the worst royal candidate wins.

In reallity kings do not give their daughters to someone who by accident won a contest.
I can see that you gave your daugther to either America (I DID show interest, just didn't grab your idea) or Russia, since we were your neighbours.
I have no problem that it was Russia in the end.

I have problems though that this meant that it was a fixed alliance. I mean, c'mon, Sita is death for 5000 years now! You can't have an alliance in 1160 because in 3000bc some girl married some woman.

In diplomacy games, diplomacy should have concequences. If the talking has no concequences, I'd rather play a normal game of civ.

And I'm really really surprised that you are upset that I invaded Boston again. It's a city you took from me. My empire was small, Boston occupied important sugar resources.

I did not invade India, I invaded occupied american ground. That's a good role playing reason.
I had the original intention to go for the new world. My tactic worked good, as you mentioned.
I just was pulled in the World War. We all got pulled in that (like I already mentioned in-game wise, we all made mistakes) but that's a good role playing story!

Anyway guys, I must ask you one question (it's the 10th already, but who's counting? )
Please stay a little bit more open to critique!
Even if you still disagree.
I listened to you guys as well, and dropped Rho'd Berth LXVII to bring Washington in.

[Robert]

And now after all the blablablabla I suggest we continue to the next game.
Ok, I know some guys hate me for this and say that we should continue this game.

Well, this game is broken. We are behind in techs a zillion years (I do not even have musketmen) and in land, in money (it took me 15 turns to upgrade 4 spearmen to 4 pikeman, you guys upgraded to like 10 cossacks/cavalry in 5 turns) (ok, I might be wrong there, but you got the point, I'm sure )

Of course we can continue, but what's the point?
I have no problem with being small. I have been small for 9 3 hour sessions already!!!!!
Though it's good to be small with large allies.
This game would be good if it would be something like: India/jewish nations (alliance 1) Russia/England/Inca (alliance 2) and China/Spain (alliance 3)
(just an example)
That would be fun. In the end Inda, Russia or China would win, but the small puppet nations would feel like half-winners as well.

But now it's China-Russia-India vs the rest......
what good can that bring?
That's our point. This game is corrupt. There's no fun in it. No fun for us and no fun for you either!!

We have a great 9 player group, I suggest we start a new game and learn 3 lessons:

1. Let the role playing have concequences
2. Keep the game ballanced
3. All participate in the role playing

these lessons are my point of view. You can disagree, that's fine with me.

I suggest for the next game:

1. Pangea
2. Normal size
3. 10 players (Trout may want to play now)
4. no barbarians
5. only trade techs you discovered yourself (keep a list and stay honest)
6. all participate in the story thread (Dragon, and to some extend this counts for Nolan and Nico as well)
7. Marathon speed
8. Either get your own subs or organise the AI with orders
9. If there's an AI sub and it attacks you, just do whatever you want to do. That's the prize you pay for not being available or having a sub organised
10. We restart untill everybody is satisfied. If two players within start too close to each other and it comes out within 10 turns, we restart
11. We start next saturday 22:30 UTC and play for 3 hours. Deity hosts.

[LzPrst]

I quit when the russian built\upgraded army of some 15+ cossacks showed up outside boston after russia giving the impression that they would stay neutral.

and as for any clues as to whatever you guys had figured you would do, the position of spanish and chinese troops in india and your threats and declarations that spain would involve itself "limitedly" made me think that you all decided to abandon rp and wipe us out. any other thoughts would be overly optimistic dribble following the history of the game. the most likely event was that india would take boston and washington and maybe more from america, and then take cities from france and germany. what else would an army consisting of some 20-30 units consisting of a ****load of cossacks do? Indias intentions were clear and publicly announced. crush america and germany.

the fact that it seemed to me that all the mighty nations of the world would join in on this despite all rp'ing and diplomacy seemingly leaning in the opposite direction, didnt really encourage any further playing.

[condor223]

The game is far from set and over. Having done a little exploration, China has discovered Terra, and notes some of the civs without much of a starting position, having been squashed, are going to change the balance of things. There are barbarian cities which have a population of 6-10, so bring and army not a settler! One small civ has discovered its path to being an end game contender for the lead. The largest civs at this moment are not going to be the largest civs at the end!!!

Ahoy Mates!!

All the small civs have to do is get techs to get out there and take land!!! There is a lot of it out there!

[condor223]

I dissagree about ten players. It is very hard to get everyone together with 9.

Folks with older computers might not be able to play the large size map. Also note a game with fewer players will have finished a month earlier and still have room for lots of diplomacy.

[LzPrst]

as for pacman being the contest decider is in my opinion a good call and an amusing one. that the alliance resulting from it should last for 4000 years completely irrespective of any events following is in my opinion a bad call. and that is the impression I got.

america and germany could defend ourselves against india alone, this is what we aimed for. to build lots of pikemen and hold off the indian cavalry. a stack of some 20 cossacks tilted the balance of power to such a degree that there was no point in fighting back. india went from having hardly any military to having the most powerful army by far in no time. this can only have been achieved with substantial support from the other major nations. especially since India managed to build the taj mahal, one of their most productive cities had been out of the loop for some time, thus their army was boosted greatly by someone else, and only the other great powers would support india and have the technology to support them with that kind of weapons. and they did, specifically russia since the cossacks was far more numerous than the regular indian cavalry. also the presence of chinese cho-ko-nu's only led me to conclude that the suspected alliance between the great powers were a fact and the destruction of the southern nations inevitable. what other conclusion could I possibly have made?

[LzPrst]

@ nolan

tech? china, india, russia and spain are 4-5 or more techs ahead of the southern nations, AND swapping those techs with eachother, we have nothing to offer to get into the tech trade and will always be far behind. it takes 60 turns to research the cheapest tech I have available, constitution for example, despite having built hardly anything but cottages in all my cities on the islands.

it was not the position in itself, it was the wild techtrading between the tech leaders that sank us from the tech race and thus from the arms race.

try defending agaisnt cossacks with pikemen and macemen. I didnt even have engineering and gunpowder until I managed to trade it for nationalism with england. america didnt have gunpowder either.

[condor223]

I dont have constitution... not yet...

Seems our tech routes differed.

[The Capo]

If this you guys knew everything would be stacked against you, or at least THOUGHT it would be, WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU ATTACK INDIA?

Why are we not answering THIS question?

And don't tell me you didn't because what Russia did is exactly the same thing you did. BTW Spain was present there because we were exploring, which is outlined in my posts and true to theh spirit of my leaders. Honestly if you want it to come out it will; the other reason Spain was there is because GERMANY ASKED SPAIN FOR CHRISTIANITY.

Don't ***** about the fact that I am there when you asked me to be.

I await your response.

[The Capo]

Hmm, perhaps I should get CHRIS to arbitrate this matter, he would be objective and is very good at explaining diplogaming to people.

[Robert]

The Capo: I never expected that Russia and China would help India to get the american city of Boston back.
I directly negotiated peace for Boston.

For sure sine we have talked with Russia for 2 hours thursday evening (the summon) in which Russia CLEARLY stated that it was neutral. Not in a backstabbing way, there were plenty role-playing reasons for that.

And America asked for christianity, that was one of the role playing things I tried to get Russia neutral.

But once again, there's no need for arbitrage, I don't need to be right or something.
I just want a good game, and I wish we would all learn lessons from this.

It's not a problem that it went wrong. It's our FIRST civ4 diplo game.

Nolan: I think we can play with 10, we play with 10 as well right now and it goes very good. These 9 players can play, and I think we should include Omni, since he was about to be the 10th player anyway.

And I'm sorry, but if you guys want me to continue, I'll continue this game. But the ballance is off. There's no change that I can get to the new world soon anyway, and there's no change that I can build up an army to get barbarian cities. I am FAR behind.

Ozzy: Dragon walked with his settler because I founded my city before he did, and therefor he couldn't found his city anymore, too close to my border. Now I remember.

[Robert]

But let's stop talking, all say:
- restart a new game? (YES or NO)
- continue the current game? (YES or NO)
- If we restart: do you agree with my rules?

I suggest that we continue playing together, either this game or a new game. We are a good dedicated group, we have had MUCH FUN for 10 weeks. It would be a waste if we would lose that!

[LzPrst]

I dont have constitution either, as I said, 60 turns for it, but neither do I have liberalism, education, banking or military tradition. all techs possessed and shared between the big powers.

and capo. your letter to me in PM says that you already have troops in india and that they may get involved in a "limited" way. if you meant missionaries and the like then you couldnt involve yourself in a "limited way" nor would explorers be counted as any kind of a threat, even if it was a conquistador or two as long as you didnt seek to involve yourself by declaring war on us. we might risk a war with india, but not with all the major powers or any of them for that matter. which is why we conducted several hours worth of diplomacy to prevent this.

your letter made me think that you were supporting India again for whatever reason and that my diplomacy overtoure with you was wasted. the cossacks and major power buildup of Indias military was unexpected. we assumed India would have to build their own military, which we would be prepared for. the assurances of russia to stay neutral strengthened this hope. we thus thought we had a fighting chance. indian cossacks caused me to think that the diplomacy with russia was wasted as well. chinese cho-ko-nu's were a total surprise and made me assume that the 4 nations were in fact league and that all my diplomacy attempts were worthless. how could I have come to any other conclusion? based on the diplomacy conducted at the time I believed we could hold Boston and America could perhaps get a little stronger.

instead, india, with unknown support from russia and china, and I assumed from your letter, yourself, were going to reduce the southern states to rubble, as they had declared that they wanted to do. That you, if seemingly if not in fact, supported this made me give up on the whole game.

and furthermore, I did not attack india. I didnt even consider myself allied with america at the time. in fact I was considering fighting a war with france and thus by extension america. I chose to not do this since i figured reducing a weak nation even further would be rather rotten of me. however, when america made a bid for boston I decided that in the interest of balance of power I would support that. the reason should be obvious, India, superior in tech, land and production to america could get on without it, America could not. I figured india would accept this at least ooc.

and finally, in my most honest opinion, the first great war was desired by india, in fact as I see it, they pushed for it. it may have been desired by america as well, but americas repeated begging in direction of avoiding war makes me think it unlikely. the 5 nation alliance was a defensive one in my eyes. the fact that you supported the aggressors in this didnt really elevate my hopes for people diploing.

the outcome last night confirmed my suspicions that diploing was useless dribble and a waste of time as nothing we could do would change the cooperation between the large powers, based from my deductions of what I have stated above.

[Robert]

the outcome last night confirmed my suspicions that diploing was useless dribble and a waste of time as nothing we could do would change the cooperation between the large powers

That's the real question: is a diplo game a true diplo game, if diplomacy doesn't matter at all, and hours wort of talking are just a waste of time by default.

Anyway, that's a lesson for the next game.
Are we all in?

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by LzPrst
as for pacman being the contest decider is in my opinion a good call and an amusing one. that the alliance resulting from it should last for 4000 years completely irrespective of any events following is in my opinion a bad call. and that is the impression I got.

america and germany could defend ourselves against india alone, this is what we aimed for. to build lots of pikemen and hold off the indian cavalry. a stack of some 20 cossacks tilted the balance of power to such a degree that there was no point in fighting back. india went from having hardly any military to having the most powerful army by far in no time. this can only have been achieved with substantial support from the other major nations. especially since India managed to build the taj mahal, one of their most productive cities had been out of the loop for some time, thus their army was boosted greatly by someone else, and only the other great powers would support india and have the technology to support them with that kind of weapons. and they did, specifically russia since the cossacks was far more numerous than the regular indian cavalry. also the presence of chinese cho-ko-nu's only led me to conclude that the suspected alliance between the great powers were a fact and the destruction of the southern nations inevitable. what other conclusion could I possibly have made?

1. I built the Taj Mahal with a Great Engineer, so none of my cities were out of comission.

2. All the cossacks I had, were knights that I upgraded. I had my science down to zero and I kept giving money to Russia.

3. Why on earth do you assume we were out to "destroy" the southern powers? No where did I say I was going to wipe you guys off the map. More than anything I wanted to be secure behind my borders. I thought I was after the Great War, but your surprize attack ruined it all, so I wanted to make sure you guys wouldn't do that again. Of course if you didn't surprize attack me, then we would have all been nice and peaceful. I don't understand why you guys are all mad about a war that YOU started.

4. I've been loathe to divulge this, but since you guys are talking like this is the end of the game (which I think would be a terrible idea to end this now), let me say that your summit DID affect our alliance. Capo and I were freaking out before the session started. Maybe if you rode it out a little longer before quitting and throwing a fit, you would have seen exactly what you were looking for. But honestly the last like 2-3 days was the first time all game that I'm aware of that you guys made any attempts to split us up. You sit back expecting charity, but why not try to do something on your own to help your situation? You finally get off your ass to do something about it, it starts to work, and then you quit anyways. Stick with it, you may be surprized. I think we very well may be headed toward a realignment, or would have if we didn't have all this BS drama.

5. You talk like we have no concern for the game balance whatsoever. Ask Kuno, every week, every step along the way I've been worried about game balance. Every step along the way. But you guys keep doing crap to force the issue. I assumed early on that we were moving toward a system of three alliances. Russia/China/India vs. Spain/England/Inca vs. Germany/America/France. I even made a point to drop some definite hints to people publically and privately to urge that to happen in the itnerests of balance. But instead of 3 on 3 on 3, you guys all decided to gang up on Russia and I, and you then turned the world into 5 on 4. Spain wasn't working with us AT ALL until you decided to shift the power and start ganging up on us. I was even hoping to try and restore some balance with this latest war, but again you screw it up by quitting and throwing a fit.


To answer Cyber's questions:

We should NOT start a new game.

This is like one of the best diplogames ever. All games have rough patches, just need to get past this, and we would if we'd keep playing and not throw fits.

Lz, I really don't want you to leave. I think you've been great in this game. Germany is definitely on the rebound, and if you just stick with it and down walk away you've got a good shot in this game.