History of the World 8 - Organisation Thread (Pt2)

[deity]

War is NOT taboo - you just copped diplo pressure and you are the carebear as a result!

BTW I am worried about being invaded...

[Pinchak]

I guess what I am trying to say is that nations get TOO protective when war is waged. They do indeed treat it as if it were taboo. When I was battling the Carthagens, I didn't see one nation that supported the war or was indifferent to it. Everyone clammored for peace... like they were afraid nuclear war was going to break out.

As time goes on, I could see this as realistic (expecially after the establishment of the UN). But anything before 1000AD should not be a world discussion IMO. It's not like they had CNN back then.

[Glohithia]

Pinchak, I agree with you in principle. That is why Mali has not, so far, made any comment for or against any of the wars waged to this point. We just never had any role playing reason to, they all happened too far away for us to "hear" about them.

I also have a sneaking suspicion that you are closer to the truth about how a lot of people view war in these diplo's (my opinion only) than some may let on. I may just be having a hard time telling the difference between In Character and Real World comments, but I got a similar feeling in the last game to the one you are decribing now. Im pretty sure people are just trying to maintain the integrity of the game and keep it interesting for all, but maybe it gets to be a little over protective at times? My two cents in any case

And this is a general statement and not aimed at anybody in particular, so please no offense and respect

[Robert]

I (obviously ) disagree with Pinchak and Glohithia,

1. there is imho no anti-war fibe in the game. There were wars already, and bloody wars as well, I can say. And nobody opposed the 1st Zulu-Carthagian war, neither did anybody initially oppose agains the 2nd Zulu-Carthagian war, apart of the obvious calls for peace. (which were more for the record than that they had any real impact on the game)

It was only after the Zulu were about to totally slaughter the Carthagian that people started to speak up. Remember that Carthage is a small civ on Terra, with only a few cities. Then their major city became a target for the Zulu forces. It's not as if we opposed war, it was just that the limit was reached. And we didn't oppose OOC against the Zulu, but just did it In Context. Our civ-leaders started to oppose the Zulu aggression.

2. The Zulu - Carthagian war began all about border-problems. A valid war, imho. Very well in context. It was only when the Zulu didn't try to solve the border dispute but try to gain a major Carthagian city, that was far from any Zulu 'fat cross' that my leader became unhappy with the Zulu.

My leader did support the Zulu in the war against Hippo. Obviously he had a selfish reason for that, Hippo is a pain in the Incan @ss as well. My leader is not a saint
But when the Zulu apparantly weren't going for solutions but just for simple land grab, my leader became appaled against the Zulu warmongering.

We were remembered on the history of the American-Incan war. And the way the Zulu leader behaved in an arrogant way (which is perfectly fine with me, in context) made demands rather than tried to find solutions, and the way the Zulu did ignore the calls for reason by it's allies, was too much for the Sapa Inca.

Conclusion: the Inca did support the Zulu in their war, we even sent protective troops to protect their cities. (the axemen Beta talked about during the game).

I supported them on the forums here (read back!)
But the Sapa Inca changed opinion about the Zulu (which is a good thing for a change in diplo games after all! not-so-solid alliances) but had very good in-game reason for that.

- the Zulu competely ignored their allies in all their calls
- the Zulu didn't try to solve the real problem
- the Zulu tried to grab just some land
- the Zulu behaved in an arrogant dictator-like manner
- The Zulu behavior mentioned above reminded the Inca of their war with the Americans.

3. All nations that were involved in the conflict were:
a. the English (neighbour of the Zulu)
b. The Inca (neighbour of the Zulu and the Carthagians)
c. Germany (neighbour of the Carthagians
d. Ottomans (neighbour of the Zulu and the Carthagians)

All other nations stayed out of the conflict. In short: the nations that were involved didn't come from a large distance but were neighbours of the conflicting parties.

4. That's how diplogames work, you can wage war, you can even win wars and gain cities and land. But when a civ goes too far other civs will start to defend the smaller civs. You can try to see how far you can push the border, but don't expect that other civs will sit idle and do nothing.

5. You can't behave like a total dictator warmonger and expect that other peace loving civs will still be your allie. It's either be the warmonger, but don't expect much friends (as Ozzy did in HOTW 7 with his holy war) or be peacefull and have many friends.

6. It's true indeed that in the 'real' past civs weren't that eager to help each other, which is more a modern thing. But a diplo game wouldn't be really a diplogame if we would only start to do the diploing in the last 100 turns. Not to mention that in the real world there are more then 11 civs, there were about 3000 civs, and most of them conquered each other. The existing civs of today are those who didn't get conquered in the past. If we want to have our game to mirror the real world then only 2 or 3 civs (the best ones) will live to see the modern age. We don't want that.

7. And yes, there is an OOC reason to protect the Carthagians as well, we want to keep the game interesting for them. I don't think it's a good idea to totally take the fun from a player by minimalizing his civ. But we didn't just forbid the Zulu to continue, it was not a forced rule or something. We tried to solve it in-game.

In short: if you want to be a warmonger, that's totally allowed, but don't be suprised if you find huge parts of the world against you.

[Robert]

btw, I totally love Pinchak's role in this game! I really do! He's a good story teller, and he makes the game interesting. (let's be honest, the game is most interesting so far b/c the Zulu/English, the Inca/American and the Zulu/Carthagian wars! )

Thus my post above is not against Pinchak! (Eventhough I think that he should keep my 7th item a bit more in mind)
It's more an argument against my way of playing the game and the accussions 'we' got.

And yes, once agian, I tried to do justice on our call for more flexible alliances in our last games. Alliances shouldn't be forced through out the game. If there are in-game reasons to break an alliance, it should happen.

A Christian civ can't stay allied with a Muslim-warmongering Jihad civ, that doesn't make sence. And I felt that my peacefull war-hating Inca people couldn't stay allied with the warmongering Zulu.

And it should be known that I just left our alliance and forced the other members to chose between the Inca and the Zulu. That was quite interesting

[Pinchak]

I agree with alot of what you are saying Cyber. It was never my intention to totally destroy the Carthagens. The threat of burning the capital was simply an oppertunity to get what I wanted without a long drawn out war. Not my fault it was left poorly defended. Hippo was the same. I got it down to the point where it could be taken with one keystroke... but i didn't.

I don't know... i guess im just not used to the entire world comming to the aid of a nation just because it chose to invest in tech or wealth rather then defence. Most of the games i play have a very "every man for themselfs" aspect, so i guess i just need to warm up to the whole "world community" aspect of diplo games.

I still don't fully agree that "war for profit" should be shunned as much as it seems to be. Those who cannot tech, or expand... war.

On a totally different note, i would like to address this comment...

A Christian civ can't stay allied with a Muslim-warmongering Jihad civ, that doesn't make sence.

IMO this is a very persumptive statement. In any chosen game, history is different. Perhaps the mongols are peaceful, perhaps the english are landlocked, etc...
So who is to say that two different religions cannot coexist in harmony? I personally look at religions as just another ingame tool.

Also... what if a peaceful civ of one religion was allied with a warmongering civ of another religion for purposes of defence?

I don't know.... I try not to bring real world expectations into a civ game, beyond unique units and buildings.

[Robert]

IMO this is a very persumptive statement. In any chosen game, history is different. Perhaps the mongols are peaceful, perhaps the english are landlocked, etc...
So who is to say that two different religions cannot coexist in harmony? I personally look at religions as just another ingame tool.

Maybe I picked my example wrong, I don't mean that christians can't go along with muslims in the game, I just picked two random religions, and said that if one of them became a warmongering JIHAD civ it's really weird if another religion civ will stay their allie. Because with 'jihad' I mean, the civ tries to force it's faith on other civs.

still don't fully agree that "war for profit" should be shunned as much as it seems to be. Those who cannot tech, or expand... war.

It isn't being shunned.
But it is being approached through diplo means.
That means that you can't expect other civs to stand idle when a civ declares war for profit.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by CyberShy

IMO this is a very persumptive statement. In any chosen game, history is different. Perhaps the mongols are peaceful, perhaps the english are landlocked, etc...
So who is to say that two different religions cannot coexist in harmony? I personally look at religions as just another ingame tool.

Maybe I picked my example wrong, I don't mean that christians can't go along with muslims in the game, I just picked two random religions, and said that if one of them became a warmongering JIHAD civ it's really weird if another religion civ will stay their allie. Because with 'jihad' I mean, the civ tries to force it's faith on other civs.

It depends on how it is role played and whether a valid explanation is created. There is historical precedent for going against your faith to suit your strategic objectives. Look at the 30 years war. France - a Catholic country - fought on the side of the Protestants so they could weaken their Habsburg rivals.

It just depends on the context and if a good story is written around it.

[kbarrett]

I was starting to get a bit angry with Beta.

If you are getting *****slapped, and the person slapping you offers an out, you just need to STFU and take it.

Diplo games are one thing, but when you lose a war, you need to play the role, and accept the terms offered. They are better than no terms at all.

In Zulu's shoes, I would have simply told the world that this ends when Carthage accepts vassalage, and then proceed to knock over one city after another, one at a time, until Carthage admits it lost and obeys.

You don't have to be a complete wimp to play Diplo ... you just need to shift the burden of accepting terms on the loser ... if he can stop the carnage at any time by accepting the terms offered, he gets less sympathy from everyone else.

Just my $0.02

[Pinchak]

Indeed Beta was bargining when there was little room to bargin. I can't blame him for that at all. It is indeed hard to simply "give in", expecially when half the world has your back.

I think part of the problem was my fault though. I first offered a city exchange, then retracted it. My reasoning was that this war was an investment I was forced to make, and since i was winning it I didn't consider an even-steven peace agreement approprate.

I think if the world actually could have seen the entire war, instead of just hearing about it, the opinion of nations would have been different. Although it is true that by the time peace was agreed upon I had a decisive advantage, it was fairly even at the start. Beta was not over there growing flowers and all of a sudden the Zulu bust in to rape and pillage an innocent nation.

Bottom line is Beta had a HUGE force at the start, he lost much of it assulting a ZULU city without using seige weapons. Even after this great loss, he still had a decent army, it was spread out however, and defending citys that were not targets.

By the end of the war, it was widely accepted that the Zulu were baby eaters, devil worshipers, and preying on a much weaker nation. The truth of the matter was much different.

[Robert]

Originally posted by OzzyKP


It depends on how it is role played and whether a valid explanation is created. There is historical precedent for going against your faith to suit your strategic objectives. Look at the 30 years war. France - a Catholic country - fought on the side of the Protestants so they could weaken their Habsburg rivals.

It just depends on the context and if a good story is written around it.

Your example is not a perfect example of a holy war.
But your bottom line is true, if you can find a real good solution, it may work. But I think that in diplogames were oftenly far from real good solutions and people just stay allied because they don't wanna stop being allied.

[Pinchak]

That is probably (in my diplo noob opinion) the great paradox of this game format.

Actions are suppose to be based on roleplay like storylines, but at the same time we declare a winner.

IMO these are two conflicting concepts. Of course you can try to make the story fit your game winning goals, but at the end of the day actions are still going to be based on winning the game as opposed to feeding a more rich story.

[OzzyKP]

Ah that paradox has been the subject of much debate. Our best attempt to rectify that paradox resulted in the following diplo terms of victory:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=4600586#post4600586

[Robert]

+1 to Ozzy

But therefor creating a rich story (both in posts in the story thread, and by acting in the game) is a part of the model we use to determine who is the best player.

The best player is in general the player who did the best in game, was the best diplomat and had the best storyline, combined with the best military tactics.

You can be sure that you're high on the list (most probably #1) of the best military achievement. IMHO you did poorly on the diplomatic front (you lost all your allies ) but things can change.

This shows that diplo is just a part of the game. It's not even the biggest part.
We're not against war, we love war
There's not enough war, that's why it's good that you are here

But war must make sence. And if it doesn't, we will use war to bring the warmonger to it's sence again

[Pinchak]

We're not against war, we love war

Oh, good, cuz the Inca are next on the Zulu hit list!

j/k....

But am I?