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

[deity]

Capo: I mean, its not like you guys are out of it, its just going to take a while for you to catch up, a few deals, a few cities grow a few more sizes, and voila! It doesn't take much, honestly if Inca and England think they are stymied, or think the south is stymied why aren't they giving them tech? They have Astronomy, why won't they trade with Russia or India? I don't understand, and you may say "Well they don't want them getting the technology." Which makes sense, but is hypocritical on two points (1) when you say that you can't complain when others say the same thing and (2) it creates a static situation, the very same situation you are complaining about now, and is an example of how the weaker nations aren't helping themselves.

The Northern Alliance is a separate entity to the Star Alliance and there are secret asrrangements in place that you are not aware of.

As has been stated the English and Inca (The Northern Alliance) have the worst land. Are we going to squander our one small advantage in catching up?

And the New World is not such an advantage anyway compared to big civs on Terra who have cottages and resources developing already for thousands of years - give me that anyday. But I'm having fun

And don't forget to maintenance costs of NW cities is huge - putting further pressure on our chances of ever catching up tech wise. In fact we have no chance if the big 4 keep sharing techs the way they are.

[LzPrst]

me too lmao at capo's claim at a bad start.

look at the amount of lands available to myself and france. it may be good, but in reality there is room for only 4-5 cities for those 2 nations combined. that we have squeazed in 7 (france building very close to 2 of my already existing cities) is on the brink of madness and has permanently choked off the growth potential of our main cities. luckily I have islands to expand on. if I didnt I would have had 3 cities, france would have had 4 and with the exception of our capitals they would all be sharing more than half of their city squares with a foreign city. maybe I should have let france share the islands with me, but the fact is, england got there before me and I had to first fight and threaten, then diplo to the extreme to work out a presence for myself there. luckily england was willing to negotiate and we closed a good deal for both parties I feel.

france otoh has never bothered to diplo. which is why he, sorry cyber and dragon but this is what I feel, doesnt belong in a diplogame. diploing is the whole point of the game and france isnt participating in it. that has to change or we may have to do something about the situation.

there are 2 options in addition to dragon getting more involved,
1. wiping them out
or
2. replacing the player.

we could of course just keep going with the situation as it is, but I dont think its much fun for dragon as without diplo he cant get anywhere and he wont diplo. also it locks up the diplomatic situation in the region. I hope you are reading this dragon and decide to pick things up, you've been a steady and reliable player for a long time now and thats a good thing, however, since you arent participating in either the ic or ooc forums, france is to me almost an AI or a tag-along vassal of america, I think that you need to turn that around. you dont have to storytell extensively, but you should at least write something indicating your interest in your civ and its relations with other civs.

[deity]

Cybershy:

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.

11. Deity has solved all peer to peer issues!! Hosted a big 8 player game yesterday running for 5 hours. NO OOS, no drops, perfect!
The solution is to eliminate 2 sets of IP addresses for translation, despite Sorens saying that correct port forwarding is the answer. I found that if you have an ADSL modem with it's IP going to a router with another IP and with lots of players you run into trouble. GET RID OF ANY SECOND IP's!! Connect directly to the net via an ADSL modem OR through ONE modem &/or router only.

10 - 1. Continue current game, either from 1255 or even 1290 and see what all the players do now that we've had this discussion

If we do introduce rules -
* I agree and in fact I first promoted the idea of only trade techs you learn (hard to police though and easy to make a mistake)
* no unit upgrading for other civs (absurd to abuse the unique units concept)

I will always prefer Terra/marathon BTW.

[KunojiLym]

Originally posted by deity
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.

I might not have put it so bluntly, but that's the essence of it, more or less.

I'm in favor of going back to the 1255 AD save, By the way, Ozzy, calvarly are still enough to pwn them; I pwned English Redcoats in my SP game just now with Egyptian cavarly, heck (Of course, that was with cannon backup... details details ) Given that, here's what I'd do (should we go back to the 1255 AD save). Instead of upgrading the Indian knights myself, I'll instead supply funds to India for Ozzy to upgrade them. Peter had already determined to do that IC-wise in any case; I admit that Cossasks are pushing it, though. And like I said, the IC fallout of Peter's covert support is yet to be played out.

If it makes you feel any better, I can *gurantee* you that everything will change once I get Communism. Wait for it.

[KunojiLym]

Oh, also, maybe it's time for the modders/SDK-ers among us to come up with a diplogame mod. I think we've learned enough from this that we can start working on on.

[deity]

Originally posted by KunojiLym
I might not have put it so bluntly, but that's the essence of it, more or less.

LOL, sorry. I tend to lack diplomacy in RL sometimes

There is still the issue of all those units but I'm sure we can find a start point for next session. Bulk gifting of units for war is also a problem I guess. What if Spain gifts those Conqs?

And there is still the tech issue....

We sure know how to get ourselves in a muddle!!

LOL

[deity]

In fact I know we'll all get through this... bit like marriage...

It's a great group and we can't afford to lose any of us, including Dragon IMHO.

Better just to keep encouraging him to write a para each session than be negative about it.

Peace and love

Yes you to Capo

[Robert]

Ozzy, just an OOC question, do you from a neutral ooc point of view think that Boston belongs to India as well? Or do you OOC more are like: "The Americans have a point to try to go for it"?
I can see that you claim the city in-game. No problems with that of course. But I get the feeling that you even ooc claim Boston........

Regarding Dragon: I wonder how many of you ever tried to contact him privately, just to try to get him more involved in the game. He does have pm-notification turned on.

[LzPrst]

I pm'ed dragon once to ask him about his plans in order to try and start something. i didnt really feel that I got anything back that I could work with. but diploing isnt just sitting around waiting for someone to contact you, some proactiveness is necessary.

just a thought project for ozzy, if the star alliance had conquered madras and forced you to accept a peace treaty handing it over to america and later rejecting any possibility of returning it, would you, honestly, have abided by that peace treatment for evermore? never trying to reclaim the city by force?

america had poor diplo prior to the move, but the move itself is in most of our eyes justified. cant you see the issue from both sides?

[Robert]

LzPrst, I agree with you about my brother.
I just wonder if we together couldn't have done more to get him more involved?

Regarding Boston: There was no change in hell that I would get Boston back without the huge intimidation. I was ready to negotiate about the reclaiming of Boston. Ready to give all kinds of stuff to India to payback. I just needed the huge force at his gates because otherwise India would've never given in. I never expected that he would give me everything I asked for and wanted nothing in return.

Now I know that all he tought was: "I'll give it now, and me and my mighty neighbours will reclaim it pretty soon again" (which is pretty bad diplo as well )

[LzPrst]

and then a question to peter of russia:
does India really need help to defeat the southern nations? they have a large technological advantage and a large army that will be near-unstoppable once it is upgraded. what does peter think the result of india pfwn'ing the southern nations will be?

I just dont understand his thinking. is he willfully risking internal troubles with the clergy in order to support a war of conquest and submission so that one of his bordering nations should grow more powerful, so that it in the future, if the alliance falters, will be able to threaten russia? is he daft?

[LzPrst]

and as for dragon, I'm trying to get him (you, if you're actually reading this) more involved by pushing him a little. I dont want him out, I want him in. but a little more in than he currently is. and sharpening the situation a little may be the incentive needed.

[OzzyKP]

First of all, INDIA IS NOT THAT BIG. Everyone keeps calling me some massive superpower that can crush everyone. That is such a bizarre comment I don't even know where to start.

I'm in the middle of the pack for territory. There is NO WAY I can stand a chance against France, Germany & America - even with cavalry. Especially since Germany built up the biggest army in the game not too long ago. Ya know, back when I thought our peace treaty meant something and I was building peaceful stuff.

The only reason I have cavalry in the first place is because of our alliance. If I didn't have that alliance, I'd be weaker than Germany. India's territory is comparable with everyone else in the game. India's tech is probably worse off because I'm not financial - like half of the civs in the game are. Points don't mean strength. I nabbed a few wonders and I get points from those. So please quit thinking of me as some dominant superpower. I'm not.

Lz & Cyber - for one thing comparing Madras & Boston is not a good comparison. Madras is an important city. Not only is it the holy city for two religions, but it is my only city on the east coast of the continent. Boston was always a small, neglected outpost of America. I never dreamed of taking Washington from them, and I figured Boston would be acceptable since it was just a small city half covered by my culture anyways.

So if Madras was taken, yes I would try to get it back. Eventually. Not like the next turn. And I wouldn't just mount a massive surprize attack. If they were going for a city as marginally important as Boston, then no, I probably wouldn't risk all of this to take it back. I'd be too worried about diplomatic reprecussions for starting a war so blatantly. However if I'd known that the people in this game really don't seem to care about such blatant actions like what America did, then maybe I'd consider it.


Everyone here is saying there is something wrong with gifting units... uhh, do you guys remember that's how this whole thing started with Germany & France gifting their units to America? Why is it only bad if people give their units to India?

Cyber - OCC, yes I do think that Boston belongs to India. The great war was a very important part of this game. High drama, high intensity, everyone was involved, it involved a lot of sacrifice from everyone, and you just undid the whole thing with one surprize attack.

Its like having an epic duel. Brilliant sword fighting from two very worthy opponents. After a long duel, one wins and lets up. He thanks his opponent for a great, worthy duel and walks away, at which point the loser pulls out a gun and shoots him in the back.

I just think for something so integral to this game to be totally erased because of a cheap shot does damage to this game. Why bother fighting real wars when you can just sign a fake peace treaty and then make a surprize attack next session when the other guy isn't looking. ****, you guys are all upset over India for attacking America, but its the exact same thing America did. America just rewrote the rules and India is simply following them.

Also, Boston is important to India. Because of my traits, I really don't have any chance of going overseas. Unlike the financial & organized civs, India doesn't have a huge amount of cash to afford that. America on the other hand is best suited to establish colonies - and should do that. Their traits are perfect for going overseas.

And while you guys still refuse to accept it, the alliance hasn't been eternal. Spain was not at all friendly with us until YOUR zeal in the great war drove him into our arms. That wasn't long ago. Russia, China & I were only allied because of my fair contest. It seems really rotten to me for you guys to complain about our alliance when you all turned down the chance to ally with me in the first place. I was really disappointed everyone snubbed me. But obviously no one cared or wanted to ally with India, so what do you expect?

Of course you expect India to have no allies so you can more easily steal our land.

And as for alliance realignment, before the session I kept trying to contact Deity to try and warm relations between us, but he was pretty much ignoring me. So maybe it IS true that you guys don't want the alliances to realign, you just want India to be sold out completely so I am easier to conquer.

[The Capo]

Spain had NO plans to give Conqs to India what so ever, it is ridiculous that you guys THINK you are making a valid argument by repeating it, ask Kuno and ask Ozzy and they'll tell you the same thing. That was never discussed.

On that same note I didn't give India any more money than the 1000 gold I actually gave him when America attacked Boston in the first place because they were WEAK and NEEDED DEFENSES. Did you read that everyone? I didn't declare war on America (remember) I just gave him gold, because he was weak.

You guys have overexaggerated everything to the point that you've ruined the game. The fact that you insist on having us call ourselves out and divulge our strategies because one of you was weak and quit the game is obnoxious as hell. This is the MOST ridiculous thing I have ever witnessed in my years of diplogaming, in HOTW2 I didn't complain at all when there were TWO alliances aligned together and just me by myself. Nobody gave me tech, in fact one of the alliances tore my country to pieces and I didn't ***** about it. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

[The Capo]

Look. This has become ridiculous, utterly ridiculous.

The fact that you guys think you are even remotely in the right is obnoxious; the fact is LzPrst quit the game, like a poor sport. The fact is some of the countries were stronger than some of the others, which is going to happen. The fact is that politically the "four powers" (as you call them) were aligned out of necessity and due to your attitude towards them.

Now I can understand that this could be frustrating, but that just means you have to use DIPLOMACY to get out of it. You can claim that we didn't "diplo" all you want, but that is simply just not true. I don't know how else to tell you guys this, but you are seriously wrong and your case only sounds like it makes sense because there are more of you than there are of us.

It doesn't make sense; Spain felt ignored by England when they joined the Inca and the Jews, India aligned with Russia and China because it was in their interest for peaceful borders especially with belligerent nations to their south (not to mention the marriage alliance between Russia and India), similarly Russia agreed so they didn't have to worry about their border with India in case England and the Inca decided to attack. I don't understand where you guys think the diplomacy part of the game failed. Because Russia said they'd be neutral? Are you serious, they can lie to you, nobody said just because you agree to something you have to stand by it. That happens all the time in real life, where a "neutral" country supplies money and weapons to another country.

In the end its just poor sportsmanship, its impatience, and paranoia that caused this breakdown to occur. There will be NO rules changes to diplogames, its impossiblel, the more rules you add the more you hamper the creativity of the players involved, and I personally will stand for NONE of it.

If you guys are really peeved, and don't want to continue we'll either replace you or if there are too many that quit out we'll have to stop playing the game. It would be sad if this happened, but it would be the only thing we can do.

I don't know what you all intend on accomplishing here. What do you want? I don't understand this at all!