HOTW XII Diplogame Organization Thread. Part 2

[Diplo Holland]

OK, I just read your reply and I again say I'm sorry for sayng crap. I could have pit a smiley or two in if I wanted to make a point in a friendly way.

Hey, France you are a brilliant addition to the diplo genre and although I may not like your tactics, they have added much spice and helped the diplo game grow - along with your superb posting.

[Diplo Holland]

And without directing anything at France or Mongolia:

Their 2 attacks on the Ottomans were unrelated but unfortunately co-incided so it looked a bit unfair when the whole Mongolian empire was directed at 2 or 3 Ottoman cities in the Old World, whilst they were being attacked by the full might of France in New Holland.

Holland was the only balancing factor here.

I can see how the Ottomans might be upset, if they are, and too good a sport to complain too much here. I think they played in a timeslot that really doesn't work for them (othe games in the slot do work as they worked around this).

I know France was uncomfortable about continuing the attack and I wish Ottomans had negotiated more even if they got a raw deal. If they had placated France much earlier (given back colonies captured) they would still have the Old World cities. No way were the Mongols going to get them by war.

[Diplo Holland]

I AM getting real cranky about Apolyton's slowness, mispostings, requests to relogin when you already are etc etc... Maybe I'll chuck a France on them!!

[Diplo Ottoman]

Yes I was angry.
Because I had a sub who almost killed my civ.
At war and only 2 or 3 cities building units and 1 of those with 1 hammer production.
Did not raise tax rate to buy units with Universal Suffrage.
So I get a basically undefended New World, unable to fight.
No workers chopping even though plenty of forest about still.
If he was a 'great sub' then his allegience was to someone else not me.
So for France to take advantage of that is criminal.
For those who say I was wasting time, nonsense.
I had to individually activate up to 50 units per turn, choosing those with best promotions and health for battle, takes time.
But why was my first turn cut short, had only activated and used 2/3rds of units and someone finished turn on me (AI had officially finished my turn without doing anything other than fortifying units), this helped Mongols move more units in and made destruction of their units that much harder.

What I have now is a civ that is pathetic, back to the GDP of 10 sessions ago, dependent on gifted resources for health and happiness.
A civ that has been promised compensation for anarchy, but it does not arrive.
A civ when I am not there America does not keep its deals.
A civ that provided major help to others to get their colonies going only to get seriously backstabbed and hated by all.
If diplo means past help is ignored and only taken advantage of, I am not interested.
There has always been much talk from many civs about promised deals etc, but when time comes for implementation, they fail to deliver.
Inca, France, Mongols all guilty of promises they do not deliver.
Games cannot be fun when nothing can be believed by anyone, and you always get backstabbed.

[Diplo Holland]

Even though Otts have some facts wrong in my opinion, I really sympathise with their situation.

I'm particularly concerned with the broader issues of the game rules and the technicalities of ensuring deals are continued between subs and players.

In this regard the Otts have to take some responsibility to communicate with the subs before and after sessions and sorry I was not more online that week to update the Otts as an ally - work, health feeling sorry for myself issues

And I would like reassurance that the Western civs are within the 10 tech trade rule. I don't see how you can though and even though a breaking of this rule might be better for the game it also means the rule is broke.

Can America outline its 10 trades? A difficult task - not their fault perhaps but it does mean the rule is unworkable. Or, it means they need to do the same as the Otts and follow up all details with all subs who played their civ.

Ozzy and others, can you update on tech trades?

Holland has played everty minute of this game with no sub and can vouch 100% for its trades. One left, and as last posted.

[Diplo Holland]

Polly just asked me to relogin to post and it failed and I already was logged in.

Ozy - do you know anything about this?

The site is creaking at the seams...

[Diplo France]

I've got a few min, before I have to run off. Before I read any of your guys responspnses, crap there seem to be some, let me edit out whining I engaged in yesterday. Sleepy + drunk makes for bad results.

[Diplo France]

Originally posted by Diplo Ottoman
Yes I was angry.
Because I had a sub who almost killed my civ.
At war and only 2 or 3 cities building units and 1 of those with 1 hammer production.
Did not raise tax rate to buy units with Universal Suffrage.
So I get a basically undefended New World, unable to fight.
No workers chopping even though plenty of forest about still.
If he was a 'great sub' then his allegience was to someone else not me.

I understand that, but you have to see I attacked you when your power rating was still high, ask Holland or an other civ about how my fight with you whent when there was a sub. I c
aptured two
of your cities, lost one, had a battalion stuch in your territory and had to rush defenses for New France.

Also when Mongolia attacked your sub was willing to negotiate, I was hoping to swap the city I took for my colonies and a bit of gold to offset the destroyed towns.

Originally posted by Diplo Ottoman

So for France to take advantage of that is criminal.

Let me agains say, that when I attacked the sub did not seem incompetent by any strech of the word. He may have done moronic things but I was not aware of them.

BTW Are we supposed to leave civs with subs alone? Its not quite the impression I got.

Originally posted by Diplo Ottoman
For those who say I was wasting time, nonsense.
I had to individually activate up to 50 units per turn, choosing those with best promotions and health for battle, takes time.
But why was my first turn cut short, had only activated and used 2/3rds of units and someone finished turn on me (AI had officially finished my turn without doing anything other than fortifying units), this helped Mongols move more units in and made destruction of their units that much harder.

Ok, I belive you didn't waste time, your civ was under attack from two fronts, a bad situation. One that calls for some additional managing .

Originally posted by Diplo Ottoman
What I have now is a civ that is pathetic, back to the GDP of 10 sessions ago, dependent on gifted resources for health and happiness.

True, sorry about that. The war I had planned was only meant to be payback for your invasion and the sabotages, it wasn't meant to turn you into a rump state.

But you must admit you made a very bad call with the migration. If you had stayed a classical colonial power you would have a much better position now. You sold off some wonderfull and fully developed cities.

There are some upsides, you are still advanced. All you have to do is switch to the proper civics and go fully into a cottage economy while building improvments. You don't need to worry about having any armed forces for like the next 50 or so turns. That is the reason I said you should become neutral, and the reason my civ guarantees it. Sorry for not stating it that way in the story thread, but that kind of a position would make no sense. After strugling to think of a good ingame explanation I decided to use post-WW2 Japan and Germany as a bit of inspiration.

Originally posted by Diplo Ottoman
If diplo means past help is ignored and only taken advantage of, I am not interested.
There has always been much talk from many civs about promised deals etc, but when time comes for implementation, they fail to deliver.
Inca, France, Mongols all guilty of promises they do not deliver.
Games cannot be fun when nothing can be believed by anyone, and you always get backstabbed.

You went into anarchy not long before the session ended. Send the players who promised it PMs and I'm sure they will deliver.

BTW What deals are you refering too?

Also, if I had known you have no defensive treaties I would have probably pulled out at the time of the Mongol invasion. Mongolia probably would have not attacked. I think they assumed they would be attacked by Holland for attacking you. And assumed much like I did, that the gifted units where stalling.

Originally posted by Diplo Ottoman
If diplo means past help is ignored and only taken advantage of, I am not interested.

I agree with this. But surley you can't say you provided past help to Mongolia. Or that you have not been an enemy of France in recent years.

Perhaps you should ask why civs that you helped and had good reations with did not help you by declaring war.

Originally posted by Diplo Ottoman
There has always been much talk from many civs about promised deals etc, but when time comes for implementation, they fail to deliver.
Inca, France, Mongols all guilty of promises they do not deliver.

Ok, I'm sorry what didn't I deliver? You got all of Germany with the exception of a size 1 arctic city, what exactly do you want from me? Are you refering to deals before this war?

Can't speak for the Incas or Mongols since I don't know what they spoke of.

Originally posted by Diplo Ottoman

Games cannot be fun when nothing can be believed by anyone, and you always get backstabbed.

Again very true. I happen to agree with this wholeheartedly. Getting back to a game to find you have been backstabbed and attacked while a sub was in charge is not a good experience.

But if you don't want to be backstabed don't be treacherus. No one forced (or your sub) to sink my ships and destroy my towns. And no one forced you to invade my land and conquer two cities.

You should expect to be treated poorly by your enemies and well by your firends. I can't say who your firends are, but I tought you still had good realtions with lots of civs. Why didn't any of them come to help? (Holland did, but it just provided troops, not a declaration of war. To be honest if Holland had declared war upon me, I would have likley settled for a white peace. It is true that me and Mongolia might have allied once we where both at war with you, had Holland joined forces with you.)

[Diplo France]

Originally posted by Diplo Holland
Even though Otts have some facts wrong in my opinion, I really sympathise with their situation.

I'm particularly concerned with the broader issues of the game rules and the technicalities of ensuring deals are continued between subs and players.

In this regard the Otts have to take some responsibility to communicate with the subs before and after sessions and sorry I was not more online that week to update the Otts as an ally - work, health feeling sorry for myself issues

And I would like reassurance that the Western civs are within the 10 tech trade rule. I don't see how you can though and even though a breaking of this rule might be better for the game it also means the rule is broke.

Can America outline its 10 trades? A difficult task - not their fault perhaps but it does mean the rule is unworkable. Or, it means they need to do the same as the Otts and follow up all details with all subs who played their civ.

Ozzy and others, can you update on tech trades?

Holland has played everty minute of this game with no sub and can vouch 100% for its trades. One left, and as last posted.

France is withing the 10 tech rule.

[Diplo France]

BTW No one answered my question. How can I break the vasslege agreement with Mali?

[Diplo Holland]

Originally posted by Diplo France
But if you don't want to be backstabed don't be treacherus. No one forced (or your sub) to sink my ships and destroy my towns. And no one forced you to invade my land and conquer two cities.

I don't understand how you can be so sure of this treachery? You may get a big surprise after the game's over; as I may be surprised if you weren't substantially responsible for the Privateering.

You should expect to be treated poorly by your enemies and well by your firends. I can't say who your firends are, but I tought you still had good realtions with lots of civs. Why didn't any of them come to help? (Holland did, but it just provided troops, not a declaration of war. To be honest if Holland had declared war upon me, I would have likley settled for a white peace. It is true that me and Mongolia might have allied once we where both at war with you, had Holland joined forces with you.)

One commander was far preferable in this war and the Ott cities would not have fallen. There is no way diplomatically that Holland would have welded France to Mongolia. Unless of course the Inca attacked you

Also, strategically it was far better to have one front with all my efforts being poured into that. Another front on our borders would have seen the Otts go under.

[Diplo France]

Originally posted by Diplo Holland


I don't understand how you can be so sure of this treachery? You may get a big surprise after the game's over

True I suppose, I can't be sure. But I can have strong suspicions, I mean which other civ would want to sabotage us on such a large scale? Which other civ was our enemy at the time? Wasn't it logical to assume the same nation that had taken and wrecked my best industrial city and taken two of my colonies in a war of conquest was responsible?

[Diplo Holland]

Originally posted by Diplo France


True I suppose, I can't be sure. But I can have strong suspicions, I mean which other civ would want to sabotage us on such a large scale? Which other civ was our enemy at the time? Wasn't it logical to assume the same nation that had taken and wrecked my best industrial city and taken two of my colonies in a war of conquest was responsible?

Yes logical but it may be wrong. France has many enemies

But it wasn't Holland either!!

[Diplo France]

Originally posted by Diplo Holland


Yes logical but it may be wrong. France has many enemies

We know that now! That's why we are going to arm ourselves to the teeth.

Originally posted by Diplo Holland
But it wasn't Holland either!!

No offcourse it wasn't.

[Diplo Mongolia]

I can't recall having any deals with Ottoman. And as shown by the war we were fairly evenly matched. I knew that Holland would support Ottoman in some fashion, and some 20 artillery and 20 tanks is a pretty strong counter to my hordes of infantry. Keep in mind that Mongolia is technologically backward. I don't have artillery or tanks. So I considered it a fight against a technologically superior opponent that would likely result in a 2 front war. Not exactly a stomping. The result of Holland giving its armies to Ottoman was a long war of attrition. Which I estimated that I would win eventually. The fact that France was at war with them at the same time mattered little, since New World Ottomania would not be well suited to defend Old World Ottomania. In conclusion, Ottoman now has what he sought, a new world migration. It is now a challenge to make something out of it. And please also keep in mind that diplomacy is an important part of making a nation powerful. Relying on one key ally all through the game is poor exploitation of potential diplomacies.

Of course, having no allies and still being a belligerent bugger is perhaps not good diplomacy either, but that is the way I have developed my civ since day one. All my "alliances", or rather, cooperations have been temporary ad hoc arrangements.