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

[OmnipotentTrout]

(looking forward to a time-machine story post )

[LzPrst]

I do want to finish this game. but as I said before, there are some serious diplomatic problems that we need to work out. I dont want handouts, I just want a level playing field. the ability to influence other nations through diplomacy. as has been proven to me this is not possible with the large and important powers effectively rendering the main point of the game dead.

especially the russian promise of neutrality followed directly by a massive effort to support india resulting in a conclusion that russia cant be trusted at all.

also, since china silently has supported india, without any RP reason for it presented or any diplomacy indicating it for over 3000 years, combined with what looks to me as an unwillingness (or inability, I know you're busy nolan) to open for diplomatic ties with others strenghtens this point.

spains seemingly repeated "selling out" to the highest bidder, regardless of longterm consequences doesnt exactly lend confidence to smaller nations' ability to work with them.

the problem is, how do we solve this, move on and reestablish trust in the heart of the game, which is diplomacy, without the strong appearance that things are being rewritten and handouts given to those who thus far have suffered from this inflexibility? I dont want handouts. I want a dynamic and flexible playing field allowing for workarounds of one's weaknesses.

How can we accomplish this?

[NicodaMax]

Oh boy, a lot to read, so I'll reply in parts...as I read on (I'm warning abou this 'cause some of my remarks may be off or addressed in later posts (which I've had no time to read yet) so if that's the case ignore them )

First of all, I do believe Diplogames should have some early checks and a few rules to guarantee some early balance and long term enjoyabilty and playability. All mp experience shows that (e.g. demogames, epic games, some pitboss games currently being set up). I agree though that rules should be kept simple and minimal, but they're needed. Its not the point now to go into details on that.

(damn, less time than I thought. I'll have to continue this discussion tonight as its mother's day here in chile...)

[LzPrst]

i disagree against actual rules and in a diplomacy game.

nations should be allowed to conquer large areas and dominate regions from early on, for example egypt, persia, assyria, greece and rome were all major powers long before 1.ad.

however, in order for this to work, certain unwritten guidelines should be observed, for example large nations should assist smaller ones in some degree, of course they should still be allowed to gain by this relationship. large nations should also have less "territorial integrity" than smaller ones, being more inclined to give up cities if it can be overcome. flexibility should be a keyword for all civs. and finally distance should have a larger impact on diplomacy in early age.

for example, it should be possible for a civ to start off by building a mighty empire through early expansion and conquest, but in time abandoning outer rim cities, allowing other civs to become predominant, focusing on other matters creating a greater fluctuation in empires.

a slight problem exists in the game. For us, time and distance is so short that it isnt really "respected". for example, spain allying with india during the great war is similar to real life spain allying with india in the middle ages. it is unthinkable in the real world because the 2 are so far from each other in distance and culture that very few common interests are shared. what could india in the real world have done for spain militarily or otherwise, and vice versa. unfortunately this is not represented in game mechanics, but I feel it should be in a diplogame by rp'ing.

this is one reason why I havent been diploing as much with spain and china as I could have. I have considered them far off nations whose contact would be limited until the age of seafaring.

I suggest that we sit down after this game and dicuss some thoughts and ideas to be added to the diplogame faq so that our experiences from this game provide future games with the base for even better diplogames. specifically I feel my theories stated above, on suggestions for the activities and goals of larger nations, should in some respect be incorporated, or at least debated.

[NicodaMax]

Originally posted by The Capo
First thing I'd like to ask, before this continues is why everyone assumes this is going to be a 4 v 4 alliance the whole time....[/SIZE]

What's wrong with assuming that? It is a legitimate preoccupation as we all want the game to be the best as possible, in the sence that it is entertaining and more than a wait 'till you die by hitting enter kind of thing.

....During that alliance I had to put up with the Inca settling in lands that I thought should be Spanish, but whatever I dealt with it. Then suddenly my so called allies are supporting a foreign war, far away from where we live (as we are the northernmost civs) and I didn't want to join. The war proved to be a five on one situation to start and I realized that my friends had no interest in being allied to me when they had three other nations to ally with and no more reason to help Spain, then India asked me to help them......

First of all, that war was a 3 on 2 situation as russia would've supported india. Second, when it became 5 on 2 those 5 pretty much were equal to the 2 in power. The only motivation I had (and Deity as well i beieve) was that I foresaw that the game was going to become unbalanced because india and russia were going up to fast too soon, and it was a way to fix the situation the ai had put me in. You didn't see it as such and decided not to help and either keep neutral or help india and russia - it doesn't matter which as it was your right to choose and its part of this game - but I guess time has proven that I was right in supposing we had to hinder russia and india a little bit early on...

Gotta go again (be back soon)

[LzPrst]

First thing I'd like to ask, before this continues is why everyone assumes this is going to be a 4 v 4 alliance the whole time....

(pounding the dead horse into finegrained powder)
the reason I and others have assumed this is because no evidence of the contrary has been seen over all the sessions I have attended. particularly the relationship between the 4 great ones seems very cemented and static, at least to me. and in a way it is, as shown by the massive support given india in the most recent conflict, despite what I at least consider a weakening rp base.

lets use this as a lesson for future diplogames, for ourselves and others. the hot1 has a similar development that imo is unfortunate, mali+england, vs russia+arabia, with germany as neutral. the problem there, as I see it, is that there are too few players for alliances to be dynamic as the power balance is now fairly evenly distributed, though this may change and as a result the alliances may too, hopefully. though it might be somewhat 1984'ish, england+mali vs arabia+russia may change to arabia+mali vs england+germany with russia as neutral.

the alliance bloc's is something that imo should not appear until the 1900's equivalent of game time, symbolized by the alliances of ww1, before that it was mostly each nation for itself with periodic regional alliances for wartime purposes.

it seems that once an alliance has been established in rp, it generally lasts several sessions which results in several thousand years ingame. perhaps this trend is something that should be discussed in a potential "guidelines" addition in the diplo-faq. it might be an idea to prohibit, or at least discourage, long-term peace-time alliances until the invention of nationalism enables defensive pacts and such. I think it might have a very positive effect on the diplo-dynamics and in a way it does follow the game mechanics. longterm peacetime alliances has little support in the game mechanics until the industrial age comes along.

unfortunately open borders is imo way too much so early on, it should be divided into a "trade agreement" available early on allowing only non-combat units like workers, explorers and missionaries, and a "military access" agreement, available somewhat later allowing military units. we may have to accept that people's natural pattern of behaviour may intersect somewhat with what we desire from the game and make some game-mechanic changes (a diplo-mod perhaps) because of it.

[Robert]

I have no problems with a 4vs4 situation, as long as it's not the best 4 vs the worst 4.

I have no problems with nations who dominate the
game. In fact that means that they're good players.
I have a problem with 2 large nations that team up.

And I agree that there should not be much rules. Though I am really a fan of the "Only trade techs you researched yourself" rule.

[deity]

Originally posted by KunojiLym
If I have made anyone upset (in particular lzprst), then I'll apologize here. But as Ozzy said, the summit has had a real impact on the alliance, the result of which have yet to be fully played out.

Interesting post. It sounds like you didn't really want to upgrade his Knights to Cossacks but you are a nice guy in RL and I think OOC elements definitely came into your decision. ozzy pushed you into it.

And the IC result of India's behaviour has not been played out and only now are you being pushed by us(OOC) to go against India somewhat - a shame that it wasn't you to make your own IC decision earlier. but what you did was total bs as lz said.

I'm going to post a pic.

[deity]

Damn I can't get the pic cos the AI moves everything around.

I have an observing Archer next to Boston.

But basically there is a combined mass of Russian, Spanish, Indian and Chinese troops all next to Boston.

With gifting going on it might be that India is doin all the fighting but effectively the 4 superpowers are attacking Boston.

I'll post what I got from my Archer...

[deity]

That's another thing about conduct in the game that needs to be discussed. When I (ozzy) plan to attack I let everyone know in the story. I make lots of posts and build it up a lot. Why? To give people a fair opportunity to respond. A surprize attack is very poor form. Especially a surprize attack with shaky reasoning. But I've been victims of two surprize attacks. Several actually if you think about it. In the Great War, Germany & France gave no story reason for declaring war on me. And the Inca & English never gave any story reason for declaring war either. No warning for any of it.

So you think we should have divilged the one slight advantage we had against the superpowers, the surprise declaration of war, which had been part of our PM storyline for a week?

This has nothing to do with conduct. All diplo games have had surprise attacks ozzy - inc by you I think.

Your behaviour in this latest incident has a lot more to do with conduct me thinks

[deity]

ozzy: So its not that Spain and Russia are with me no matter what. They knew I was wronged, and they came to my defence (sorta in the case of Russia). Hell, even England seemed to recognize that I was wronged when they gave me some gold after you attacked me.

Once again putting the wrong spin on something to suit your arguments.

England offerred 50 gold to attain peace.

If you'd been paying attention England supported America's right to regain Boston although did not agree with their lack of diplomacy.

Be careful how you construe things ozzy.

[deity]

ozzy: And I feel like I've wasted a whole lot of time with the Great War, which consumed a great deal of planning and strategy. That was really my crowning moment in this game, despite being massively out manned and out gunned I was able to fend you guys off with strategy alone - and maybe a bit of luck. I had a brilliant move taking Boston out from under your nose. I enslaved half of my population just so I wouldn't be totally conquered by you. I was set back greatly because of all the despiration pop rushing and pillaging of Delhi, but it seems to all be useless. Since after all that drama, all that combat, the peace treaty we signed was meaningless to you.

Look, getting in to all of this is missing the point.

Your storyline is OK, your attempts to retake Boston are OK. We all acknowledged that.

What isn't OK ozzy?

Can't you at least admit something and answer that?

[deity]

Capo: First thing I'd like to ask, before this continues is why everyone assumes this is going to be a 4 v 4 alliance the whole time.

What four? Are you referring to China, Russia, India, and SPAIN? SPAIN?

Yes, Spain.

Before the first war the most consistent thing with your role you could have done was attack St Petersburg as we discussed.

This would have brought much balance to the game and changed the course of history.

But instead you wimped out and re-negged on deals with England (6+ techs I gifted to you I believe to win your favour).

Then you suddenly suck up to Russia and India and start sending troops against us.

Pathetic.

I'm sure your convoluted (though brilliant) storylines would cause you to write a 6 page response to this but my point remains Capo.

[deity]

Capo: Out of all the countries in this game I have recieved the rawest end of the deal; I had AI control my country and a religious trait so I wasn't there to create the wonders I wanted (ie Stonehenge) and go along the path that I wanted to, so when I got there China had blocked me from the coast and I had three cities which were in positions where I couldn't settle along my coast in my own territory (the rest of my land, which everyone seems to think is glorious, was tundra).

LMAO!

LOL... England has NO wonders at all, the crappiest land imaginable and has been in conflict from the start - Mongols, Germans, Russians, Indians - all wars forced on us.

Constant use of slavery and little growth were the order of the day for us.

[LzPrst]

I do feel I must mention, again, that India too signed a peace agreement that they then decided to break. deploring america for doing it then doing the same doesnt really allow for you to take the moral high ground. that you instantly turned to genghis khan-mode strengthens the precedence that peace agreements are only binding as long as its desirable, not weakening it.
and by doing so, other nations would, if people had viewed the case with neutral eyes, be more inclined to sympathize with india, and in fact they did and offered substantial compensation for its loss.

in our case both acted like bullies, but the difference was india got support from the 3 most powerful nations to permanently reduce the southern nations, as you stated were your intentions. imo if the other great powers had viewed the situation with neutral eyes, then they would have seen quite clearly that india not only was far more aggressive in the matter (demanding boston, other american cities and the submission of germany) than america, who demanded only reunification, and thus the great powers be more unlikely to support a napoleonic rampage.

and once again, most agree that america had a stronger claim to it, and a greater need. which is why america didnt want to let go of it. also, as you mentioned, when negotiating one has to be willing to give something up and thus start with a higher demand than actually desired. following that logic, you claim america should have been willing to cede boston in return for compensation. but for some reason that same logic does not apply to you. no offer would incline you to even consider letting america have boston. maybe you were holding out for a better deal, but it certainly didnt seem that way, instead you wanted only to settle the situation by using force. exactly what you accused america of.