History of the World XI [Diplomacy Game] [Organization II]

[Toni]

Just to help out here:

Trading: Trade is the voluntary exchange of goods, services, or both. Trade is also called commerce. A mechanism that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter, the direct exchange of goods and services.

Gifting: A gift or present is the transfer of something, without the need for compensation that is involved in trade. A gift is a voluntary act which does not require anything in return. Even though it involves possibly a social expectation of reciprocity, or a return in the form of prestige or power, a gift is meant to be free.

[Asmodeous]

Originally posted by Frank Johnson
Guys, I have intel on your Civs.

Until I started actively complaining about you guys keeping warriors, archers, and spearmen as your only garrison troops throughout the Industrial era, that's all you had. After I reminded you that this is not a "No War Builder Game" but a diplomacy game, you guys setup a few grenadiers and cannons along side your archers. No offense, but all we have to is march right now. Really we didn't have to give you any warning. You already lost the game by allowing a military alliance to form that had virtually all the trained and massed troops on the planet. If I have to post the screenshots of your military neglect to make my point I will.

Simply put you've already lost, even with a warning and a headstart you didn't deserve. You guys played builder, not diplo. If you had completed even 1 game of Civ4 against the AI you know you would not get away with what you are doing right now, so what makes you think human players should have to put up with it and not try to win with force?

As to if we want to decide who "wins" the game, we can do that after your 6 civs are burned, occupied, and made into vassal states. If we choose to agree to a team domination victory and you're in no position to argue, then you don't get a vote.

I've seen this pattern too many times in too many diplo games.

DIPLO != BUILDER
MAKE AN ARMY

Actually, a builder strategy can, and does, work quite well against AI. I'm in a game right now where Charlegmagne decided that I was too far ahead tech wise and didn't have enough of an army and invaded. And so I retooled the whole economy and crushed his invasion force, then pushed him back and took a city, sued for peace because I was stretched a bit. Three turns later he's asking for a defensive pact and giving me rifling.

Nothing wrong with being a builder, and oftentimes no need for more of an army than you feel you can sustain.

The 8v3 is a misnomer.

It's really a 3v3.

You've got the Islamic Bloc (AD/Frank/CS) and youv'e got the "other guys" Bloc (Nolan/Arv/Toni), each with a distinctive leader that's running it.

Then you've got 5 or 6 little nations that are not in either Bloc that are trying to catch up and stay alive.

They look at the options, and you've got two...

Option 1: Spend the time and money to spread Islam around your nation that's ALREADY floundering and doesn't have the time/money/production to focus on that.

Option 2: Be able to run your own country and work indirectly with Toni/Nolan/Arv.


Now, really, to me this strikes me, from an RP standpoint, as a no brainer on how to do it. Now, if you really don't think that's a no brainer there in and of itself, let's expound it further and point out that the Islamic Bloc is threatening everyone all the time to "convert or be conquered," and the other Bloc is not.

If you were in the position of the smaller, 3rd world nations, who would you work with? Seriously.

Frank, you're over-estimating your strength. Sure, you can crush the little 3rd world guys, who cares? So can Toni, Nolan, or Arv. The thing is they can retool their economies to combat you, those three have a larger production base/land/population than the Islamic Bloc, and that is what gives Builders an advantage and why they can neglect military until it comes to a head.


It's not a pissing contest, which you seem to want to turn it into though. It's diplomacy. The problem that you see, "8v3! We're being ganged up on!" diplomatically is, quite frankly, your own fault. Threatening the little nations is great if everyone is threatening them, but when someone that can compete with you is offering them solace and friendship, you can damn well bet they're going to curl under their wing and hide and help them out as much as possible for as long as it benefits them.

Nature of Diplomacy.

Me.

[Frank Johnson]

I'm the master of doing more with less, and you guys have nothing. Bring it on.

[Toni]

So whats you ladder name Frank

Sorry nothing personal at least on my end just had to ask - its fun

[Toni]

Actually glad that this happen look how alive the thread has become

Even the ugly moments contribute sometimes

[Asmodeous]

I think you're missing the point that no one is talking smack and insulting people but you, Frank.

Me.

[Toni]

Well i think your postings will be more appropriate here:

http://www.myleague.com/civ4players/

[Robert]

I don't think there are insults in this thread.
I think things have been said yesterday in the game that shouldn't have said, that's what happens in the heat of the moment.

I don't think anybody called Toni a cheater, but maybe someone did in the heat of the moment. I wouldn't call Toni a cheater, though I think it's clear that trading techs with AI's is against the rules. And maybe we never made that clear to the new players, but Toni should've known that as a veteran. No need to start an academical study on the word 'trading'. These things have happened in the past, and maybe all of us have done things like this, therefor I would never call Toni a cheater, though I think that as a veteran (and a winner!) he should be a bit more responsible for the game as a whole. But that's not a rule.

Regarding the 8vs3 alliance, that was my thing. I have to rectify that partly. After more study I conclude that Arvcran never traded his techs to that many civs. Only Toni traded his techs to 5 civs. The other 2 civs (AI) got some but certainly not all techs from Toni.

Therefor there's certainly not a 8-block. My fault.
Having said that, Toni is doing business on grande scale with 5 other civs. I don't think that the other 5 civs are all connected to each other, but Toni is.

I won't say that's against the rules.
I think Toni is a very smart diplomat. I know from earlier games that Toni always tries to be friends with me. He tried that this game as well, but I just decided to take another route.

I think Toni is a very good player, and very keen in setting the right circumstances for his civ to win the ultimate builder game. That's not against the rules, or whatsoever.
Having said that, I don't think that it's very good for the game.

I think the game is most interesting if there are 3 or 4 alliances in the game. There must be competition, and in our game there's not much competition, except from the Islamitic Faction. I think games where all civs just play their own game are boring.

It's not for nothing that the story thread is almost dead. There's nothing interesting going on. No diplomatic conflicts, no insults, no games, etc.

And that's what I blame Toni for a bit, I think that what he does, how clever and smart it is, and I do certainly admire Toni as a good civ player and a very smart diplomat, isn't really good for the game. It makes the game boring, and removes the entire role playing part.

I think that players, and certainly the veteran players, should be willing to stir things up now and then. Betray their allies, start a war, setup civs against each other, start an isolationistic approach. And sure, it's not a rule that you have to, but it makes the game much more interesting.

I just hope that people understand what I'm trying to explain. I'm not blaming anyone for cheating or sneaky gaming. I just hope that players, and since Toni is most probably by far the best player among is mostly he, also want to take responsibility for the game.

[Robert]

Originally posted by Asmodeous The problem is here:

quotes activity table

And it's not anyone in particular. It's everyone, and it's not just the lack of posts on the story thread, it's the lack of posts on the organizational thread. Look at how many sessions throughout both of those have zero posts from anyone.

Keep in mind that the table only shows the last posts.
Not the posts of all players in all sessions.
Thus the activity table only shows when a certain player posted a story or organizational post. And yes, some players are really behind in story telling.

The organizational thread isn't important game-wise, it's good though to drop by in there once a week. Though since all players, except Dacole and MrLincoln, are very dedicated to this game, this becomes less important indeed.

[Robert]

Originally posted by Toni


Sorry to spoil the plan - but this is one civ victory game not a team game guys! Its called a diplo game not Team battleground

Since there's no prize, 3 civs can consider their win satisfying. Remember that Ozzy won a SS victory in HOTW5 with the help of me and Kunojilym. Ozzy was the official winner, though both Kuno and me were sub-winners as well. (which was cool, since my civ, ie, was very small. It showed that a small civ can be victorious in diplo games as well!)

BTW, we didn't had a 3-way alliance through the entire game. In fact I had many wars in HOTW5 with OZzy, in the end he more or less vasalized me (before Warlords ) and I became his loyal vasal.

[condor223]

By complaining about everyone ganging up on the three Islamic nations, it seems that the threat of being killed off will actually create that situation.

There are smaller nations that are loosly allied to our core alliance. They trade at times, we gift at times, if they feel threatened. Lincoln is due back next session, and was trading with us so many turns ago, so I see no problem with any gifts or trades made. He could have lost much land mostly cause he was unable to be around and we had no ability to find him a sub.

Shall we be at peace with this insult business.. after all

>>>> Every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you'll never get back. <<<<<<

We play for pleasure, insults have a way of ruining good feelings.

As I see it now, it is really time for the 8 to join forces if only to save their own skins, since so much military has been built up round the AI civs. Maybe this was done to take out the players who don't play that often, but why in the he..ll do we even take players at the last min who cant play and have no sub?

It seems we stuff our initial starts with anyone who says they want to play, then suffer with their abandoned civs, making it meat for those who want to grow more. If there is a next time for me in a diplo game I will not want to play with everyone and anyone. I show up, I even called toni for a sub from the hospital, when i could not make the session.

The in game insults really turned me off on this diplo game. I was really considering leaving my civ for the warmongers to carve up, since it will be an ai.

/rant

The non Islamic nations better get together asap!... we DO need to make ourselves safe. So therefore the holy trinity will have caused the 3v8 next session.

[Toni]

I will finally get a story sometime this week - and I will write about all my accounts with every single civ in this game – so ppl can see what really has happened during the last couple of centuries.

I’m not a regular poster but you will see that I have been developing all my relations with all civs closely connected to the events in the game since the very start.

And i have been fair to every single onein my Initial talks

Then you can judge my civ actions

[Robert]

Originally posted by Asmodeous


I don't think this makes sense.

For instance, in WWII, you had a secular state (Russia) allied with Christian States.

In modern times you have Christian States aligned with Jewish, Secular, and in a few cases Muslim States (like Jordan for instance).

That's modern era, like I said, freedom of speech and modern times will obviously come with different approaches to alliances.

In the past millenia allianes have been based on religion, 90% of the time. It's obvious that there also can be war among same religion-civs. (not all wars are alliance-wars! you can have a 1vs1 war as well)

You can look over history and find all sorts of cases where different religions found good reasons to work together, in fact a great many religions are non-violent religions that tend to work together with any other religion calmly.

Sure, but that's where the game becomes a game.
For in-game reasons I think it's much more interesting to use religion as an alliance tool. It makes religion much more important in a game (which is interesting especially for diplo games!), it makes the role playing more interesting, and one can obviously chose to become part of a religion. Deity had no Islamitic cities, he allowed me to spread Islam to all his cities and become Islamitic himself.

Buddhism, Shinto, Taoism (which again isn't really a religion. . .), and Neo-Pagan come to mind as examples. . .

Though these aren't really religions

I think that limitting it by religion causes two things to happen.

1. You're hamstringing stories strictly because you or someone else had an issue with how certain things were done in the current game. Which is a poor solution to a different problem altogether, and will just lead to further issues.

We've had this alliance problem in the past as well.
It's always difficult to determine how big or how small an alliance can be.
In our last game we had a trade techs only twice limit.
(another reason why Toni should've known that trading all techs to all civs was certainly not in the spirit of diplogames, eventhough we lifted that rule)

Storylines will not be limited. Like our Islam-jihad storyline created our Islamitic Religion Bound, not the other way around. Not to mention that it's not wrong to be limmited somehow. I honestly think that in a diplo (role playing) game it's a bit weird if 2 very distant civs are close allies in the early game. THat doesn't fit roleplaying.

2. You're hamstringing the stories to a particular, and poor, game mechanic, and almost entirely forcing poor relations between two empires strictly because one beat another to a religion, and that group ended up having to found a different religion altogether.

It's a game as well.
And like I said, you can chose which religion you want.

(Like we've had communistic-civic alliances as well in the past! You can chose to be a communist! You can chose to be a Jew, a Christian or a Confucianist! Maybe it'll hurt you a bit. Well, that's all in the game, to what alliance do you want to belong, what do you want to pay for that?)

I think that religion should be a tool for good story-writing, and not an underlying force to make people disagree.

There's not much storywriting in this game, I think that the unimportant role of religion is debet to it. In past games religious were much more imporant.

I mean, think about current world politics. The main reason that there is so much strife currently between Muslims and Christians in reality is due to the fact, and series of misunderstandings, that the two religions (three with the Jews included) hold the same city as the Home of their religion, and this has caused, over time, countless wars to reclaim the Holy Land, and caused strife and conquest and therefore bad blood between the religions.

I'm sorry, this is off topic, but I don't think you understand much of the conflict Muslims have with the Western civilization.

Neither is it about misunderstandings.

If you read the holy books from Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, the books are very similar, teach pretty much the same things, and all three of them claim to follow the God of Abraham.

You know nothing
it's totally off-topic, but a nice issue for debate, so I jump on it
Someone has said (forgot how) that if people who follow a religion say that their religion is totally different from another religion, then why do people who do not follow either this or the other religion keep insisting that both religions are different? Even if the followers of both religions deny that?

Christianity and Islam are two totally different religions, despite that there are some people that act in both books.

The main teaching of Christianity (in general) is that humans are wrongdoers who can't save themselves and need the help of God to become perfect. That God came down from heaven to earth, to suffer and the die for the people, so that those who do not trust in themselves, but in God, will be saved.

Islam teaches that humans have to live according to the laws of Allah, and if they did well they earn Paradise. Allah is certainly not human and would never descent from heaven to earth for he's too holy for that. Humans have to earn life, nobody can give it to them.

In Christianity the main character, Jesus, is God himself, who became man, died on the cross, and raised from the grave.

In Islam Jesus (Isa) is just a man, he never died on the cross, and he's certainly not God.

In Christianity the main character (Jesus) was a humble person who suffered and turned the other cheek. According to Nietzsche the christian depection of Jesus is an untermensch, not worthy to follow.

In Islam the main character is a heroic person (Muhammed) who was worthy to receive the words of Allah, and who spread this religion by words and by the sword.

Islam is a community religion, the people should be ruled by the Sharia (in whatever form it comes, liberal or fundamentalistic). Christianity is a personal religion, it can't be laid down on people from a governament or something. The Bible teaches that christians should obey the (non christian) governament. Islam teaches that the governament should be Islamitic.

It's obvious that many followers of both religions didn't live up to what their books said, but it's clear that that's not a problem of the faith, but of the follower.

Religion shouldn't force people apart, it should force people to write and explain why they've come together or why they've grown apart.

That's what you religion want to do.
I think that a religion should explain people the sence of life, or even more important: the truth.

Just as much as they've chosen to take their religions (or philosophies) and use those to work together (such as the Dutch/Ethiopian situation where the Dutch started as the same religion and expanded it out to their religion, or the Dutch/NativeAm situation where the Natives are Philosophical Taoists and have no strife with any based on belief structure as non-action is a main part of their "religion") or to be at odds (such as the UAV wanting to force-convert to Islam, and therefore being at odds with the Natives based on the fact that the Natives are insulted that someone should tell them they "have" to change their view, even though they see such an action as empty and unnecessary).

See, that's what makes the game interesting

I think you're seeing a different problem than what is really going on, and the problem of what is really going on is much smaller than one really thinks it is, but has been entirely blown out of proportion because things got heated during the game last night, insults were tossed around, and there was a lot of yelling.

My point is that the game is boring.
Not that people cheat or do wrong things (except the AI trading)

I further think that your current intended solutions are not going to affect things any, and such issues can still be caused, and imho it kinda reduces the potential quality of stories.

I think you're wrong.

Yes, this was a dissertational thesis, I know. :/ Sorry.

love them.

I was on a roll. . .

keep rolling :P

[Robert]

Nolan,

It seems we stuff our initial starts with anyone who says they want to play, then suffer with their abandoned civs, making it meat for those who want to grow more.

I think we had a pretty solid group of players, and the people who joined at the last minute are very very very reliable. (I don't think anybody really joined at the last minute, except asmo who subbed for witlich who had technicall issues, and asmo is certainly very very very reliable)

Our problems are with MrLincoln (known from earlier HOTW games) and Dacole (also known from earlier HOTW games). Dacole left a leave of absence, and did not just not show up, but had a valid reason.

Mr Lincoln is indeed a problem for this game.
Things were perfect as long as LzPrst was playing for Russia, unfortunately right now Russia is a mess. I don't think that's to blame on a not-solid organiation before we started the game.

The in game insults really turned me off on this diplo game.

I don't think that the insults were that bad. In the heat of the moment Frank may have said a few things too explicit, and Toni's response at our accusions were a bit over the line perhaps, and indeed, I've said a few things that weren't totally true (arvcran trading all his techs, 8-way alliance), but that's all in the heat of the moment. We all cared enough for the game to talk about it, to wait.

We had a fight, but I think things were pretty civilized for a fight, certainly for an online fight.

Written arguments always tend to look worse then spoken arguments in a fight.

By complaining about everyone ganging up on the three Islamic nations

Nolan, I seriously think that you don't understand our point.
If there's a disagreement between two parties, it's best that both parties first start to learn what the point is of the other party, and see if there's something they can do to help the other party.

In this argument Deity, Frank and me do have a point. It may be an invalid point, but as long as you don't understand our point, we won't be able to solve it.
8vs3 (our wording, my wording) is indeed not a good depiction of the real situation, but it's not the real problem we have either. Read my earlier posts in this thread to understand more of what I mean.

[Asmodeous]

Originally posted by CyberShy


That's modern era, like I said, freedom of speech and modern times will obviously come with different approaches to alliances.

In the past millenia allianes have been based on religion, 90% of the time. It's obvious that there also can be war among same religion-civs. (not all wars are alliance-wars! you can have a 1vs1 war as well)

Not entirely. Most alliances were not based on religion, religion was really second to the core purpose of the alliance - Mutual Enemies. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is not a coined phrase because it sounds cool, after all.

Sure, but that's where the game becomes a game.
For in-game reasons I think it's much more interesting to use religion as an alliance tool. It makes religion much more important in a game (which is interesting especially for diplo games!), it makes the role playing more interesting, and one can obviously chose to become part of a religion. Deity had no Islamitic cities, he allowed me to spread Islam to all his cities and become Islamitic himself.

The disagreement I have with that is that I consider religion more of a writing tool. As it is Confucianism in our game isn't really Confucianism. Aussie has done a phenomenal job of rewriting a game-mechanic as what he wants it to be. The same goes for Judaism and Toni's view of it being an altered version of our altered version of Confucianism. I find that, personally, to be pretty damn sweet and very well done, and if you force people to be the same religion so that everyone is Confucian that wants to follow Aussie's "earth mother" you're limitting their storyboards. That is the type of thing I was referring to with that.

Buddhism, Shinto, Taoism (which again isn't really a religion. . .), and Neo-Pagan come to mind as examples. . .

Though these aren't really religions

Shinto and Neo-Pagan certainly are, and Buddhism could be argued either way.

I think that limitting it by religion causes two things to happen.

1. You're hamstringing stories strictly because you or someone else had an issue with how certain things were done in the current game. Which is a poor solution to a different problem altogether, and will just lead to further issues.

We've had this alliance problem in the past as well.
It's always difficult to determine how big or how small an alliance can be.
In our last game we had a trade techs only twice limit.
(another reason why Toni should've known that trading all techs to all civs was certainly not in the spirit of diplogames, eventhough we lifted that rule)

I think that would be really hard to track. :/

Storylines will not be limited. Like our Islam-jihad storyline created our Islamitic Religion Bound, not the other way around. Not to mention that it's not wrong to be limmited somehow. I honestly think that in a diplo (role playing) game it's a bit weird if 2 very distant civs are close allies in the early game. THat doesn't fit roleplaying.

I addressed the religion limitation above. As for the distant civs, well, that makes perfect sense. That's part of why I didn't bother to diplo at all outside of private conversations with Toni, as he was the only person I knew for about the first 150 turns I was in.

(Like we've had communistic-civic alliances as well in the past! You can chose to be a communist! You can chose to be a Jew, a Christian or a Confucianist! Maybe it'll hurt you a bit. Well, that's all in the game, to what alliance do you want to belong, what do you want to pay for that?)

See above.

There's not much storywriting in this game, I think that the unimportant role of religion is debet to it. In past games religious were much more imporant.

And that, along with the unreliable, is exactly the source of the real problem, in my opinion.

I'm sorry, this is off topic, but I don't think you understand much of the conflict Muslims have with the Western civilization.

Neither is it about misunderstandings.

More than I let on. The majority of the issue, as is evident in the amount of Muslims who live happily in Judeo-Christian governments, is far more cultural than religious, and most cultural issues evolve from different cultures not understanding (hence: misunderstandings) the opposing cultures. From a governmental standpoint, the majority of it is about getting power and keeping it, it's dirty business.

You know nothing

I know a far amount more than you seem to think.

it's totally off-topic, but a nice issue for debate, so I jump on it
Someone has said (forgot how) that if people who follow a religion say that their religion is totally different from another religion, then why do people who do not follow either this or the other religion keep insisting that both religions are different? Even if the followers of both religions deny that?

i'm not sure what you're trying to say here, you contradicted yourself, I suspect that's a language barrier more than anything. :/ Could you clarify?

Christianity and Islam are two totally different religions, despite that there are some people that act in both books.

Similar, but different, I'll get to that in a second.

The main teaching of Christianity (in general) is that humans are wrongdoers who can't save themselves and need the help of God to become perfect. That God came down from heaven to earth, to suffer and the die for the people, so that those who do not trust in themselves, but in God, will be saved.

Islam teaches that humans have to live according to the laws of Allah, and if they did well they earn Paradise. Allah is certainly not human and would never descent from heaven to earth for he's too holy for that. Humans have to earn life, nobody can give it to them.

In Christianity the main character, Jesus, is God himself, who became man, died on the cross, and raised from the grave.

In Islam Jesus (Isa) is just a man, he never died on the cross, and he's certainly not God.

In Christianity the main character (Jesus) was a humble person who suffered and turned the other cheek. According to Nietzsche the christian depection of Jesus is an untermensch, not worthy to follow.

In Islam the main character is a heroic person (Muhammed) who was worthy to receive the words of Allah, and who spread this religion by words and by the sword.

Islam is a community religion, the people should be ruled by the Sharia (in whatever form it comes, liberal or fundamentalistic). Christianity is a personal religion, it can't be laid down on people from a governament or something. The Bible teaches that christians should obey the (non christian) governament. Islam teaches that the governament should be Islamitic.

The thing about this is that these same differences you see here are differences between Judaism and Christianity, as well (save for the "by the sword" part). However, unlike Christians and Muslims (specifically those in the hot-bed sections like the middle-east), Jews and Christians get along, even though relations are cool, at best.

That's what you religion want to do.
I think that a religion should explain people the sence of life, or even more important: the truth.

That doesn't disagree with what I said. In the enclosure of the Diplogame, religion, imho, should be a tool to write stories with, not a mechanic you use to force people to "choose sides" so to speak. I think it's unfair to the creativity of the players to tell them that "Well, you're not the same religion as so and so, so you can't be his ally". To me that's just silly. :/

My point is that the game is boring.
Not that people cheat or do wrong things (except the AI trading)

Well, tbh, with at least 3 people who are spotty, at best, and with 3 of 6 1st world powers combining together, and the rest being third world powers? It's... kinda something that's going to happen. I'd have to say that if Dacole hadn't had work and life get in the way and Lincoln either left it to LzPrst or was more reliable on staying around it would have gone differently. Plainly, the 3rd world nations have little impact in the grand scheme of things, just like IRL. There's only 6 reliable powers, and of them 2 are primary powers, and 4 are secondary powers, and the two ended up going against each other, which is cool, and the other 4 made their choices on who to stick with and stuck with them. with the lack of reliability of the other major power (russia), it made it very difficult for more than two major power blocs to come out of the situation.

I further think that your current intended solutions are not going to affect things any, and such issues can still be caused, and imho it kinda reduces the potential quality of stories.

I think you're wrong.

Obviously, but as the writing and (to your confession) reliability of certain parties are of the utmost importance to the quality of the gameplay, I don't see how limitting peoples' choices by game mechanics is going to resolve those aforementioned issues, unless you can explain to me how.

Yes, this was a dissertational thesis, I know. :/ Sorry.

love them.

I was on a roll. . .

keep rolling :P

[/quote]

You asked for it. :P

Me.