Beyond the Pit [Pitboss Diplomacy Game] [Organization Thread III]

[Pitboss Portugal]

I would not leave this game for anything it is just too fun.

Again there can be only one winner and that is the guy with the most votes.

[Pitboss Japan]

Vote Japan and I won't attack you

[The Capo]

I want to first say that a lot of this OOC stuff is not good for the game, we shouldn't get caught up in talking too much about what people should and should not do. That said let me add to it...

I have no sympathy for Ras at all, and I'm sorry but I tried to like his attitude because, at least initially, he seemed dedicated to diplogames. But words are one thing, and actions are another thing. He staged a war, and constantly complained, often about things that weren't even happening. I know he is truly interested in Diplogames but what he fails to understand is that not everyone is going to play the game the way he wants it, which is a GOOD thing because it makes the diplomacy more vibrant. If everybody played the same way it would be a boring game, but not everybody does. He also has to understand that there will ALWAYS be a hierarchy; there will always be "little" civs and "big" civs, even if the little civs aren't so small. In this game, yes, Russia is a small civ, and Oldonia is a small civ. But in actuality they aren't really that small, they are just small in comparison to others. Its the Middle Ages right now, and most people are at that tech level. As far as I can tell Russia and Oldonia (I am not picking on you Russia, I am just using you as an example) have ten or more cities each. It just so happens that Rome and Portugal have a lot more than that (BTW Korea has five right now). So complaints about the station of your civilization are nothing more than whining. You can't blame the strong civs for being strong (because you'd be in that position yourself if you could be).

Now, about the smaller civs. Being one of them I'll say this; you can't just decide as a small civ to attack a larger one for the sake of it. It takes time, planning, and a little help from other civilizations. The idea that all of the small civs should gang up on larger ones sounds good on paper, but in practice it is quite a difficulty to plan out. When you are dealing with a large group of people for instance it only takes one of them to ruin it. Whereas when you are a powerful civ in a coalition, let's say Portugal and Rome (Again just an example, this is not based on anything that happened in game) it is much easier to coordinate and have one single policy. For instance I tried to unite the smaller civs on our continent (I posted the proposal in the story thread), I got all of them to agree to it. So we did have a union of small civs established. It was Korea, Oldonia, Japan and Wyandots actually. Part of that was that we would coordinate our efforts to further our goals. Because of the unweildiness of a broad coalition as soon as the Russo-Roman war broke out the entire system broke down and the alliance split apart (mostly at the behest of YOU Greece to be honest). So it isn't as easy as it sounds, and usually its easier to attach yourself to a larger power, which Korea is trying to avoid doing now that Greece pulled her teat from our mouth. Gross. That said, just because it isn't apparent that somebody is "attacking" a larger civ, this doesn't mean they aren't doing it behind the scenes/secretly. So don't make too many assumptions big boys.

But I think the main issue is that these OOC posts are great for venting, but ultimately they are going to harm the game if they continue down this path. I know they are good intentioned but there is too much airing of dirty laundry going on here, and the whole point of anonymous play is destroyed by the fact that we are chatting OOC with our log-ins. Wasn't the point of anonymous so you don't have personal vendettas? And doesn't that point get completely destroyed by posting OOC with your BtP log-ins? Think about it.

Alright, a few last comments about the map and the set-up since we are talking about it:

- I think the map size is good, but in the future I think the land on the starting continents should be smaller, in fact I think there should be less land in general because as someone said people expand peacefully before deciding to go to war. So for the next game, which I am going to start planning as soon as HOTW XII ends (maybe before that) I think I am going to have more vast oceans and a lot more continents to settle as colonies, but we can discuss that in the planning stages.

- As for the amount of players; I think there is an appropriate amount of players for the map size. That said; I think we have too many players for a diplogame. There are a few reasons I think this. The first is the complaints that the story threads are difficult to keep track of, and this is the case. This is the case because so many posts go up so quickly that YOUR issue may have passed from people's memories. It is also hard to keep track of people's characters with so many posts. Also it is hard to remember who to vote for, some people may be lost in the crowd. The amount of people also leaves us with no subs, because there aren't that many active diplogamers. I remember games where we'd have what we called the "core" players, then we usually invited one or two new players, and then we had an auxillery list of people (like Moker, Trev, SunTzu, Dangime) who offered to sub if we needed them. That would certainly have helped with some of the player issues we've had. And from what I can tell most of the players in HOTW XII are in BtP, so it makes it difficult to do this. Usually with limited players in two games it was easy to have subs.

- Finally, and this isn't really a response to anything just a final point. I think this game is going fine, every game is different so this game did start out a little slowly but its starting to get interesting. Also I always thought of it as a test of the Pitboss style, since it was the first Diplogame played in this manner. I think it is going well, and we are learning some lessons from it at the same time, which makes it better. The fact that we are having issues and getting feedback from the players (both positive and negative) is actually a positive thing, even though it causes hiccups.

[Pitboss Japan]

@Capo, You really only have 5 cities? Are you telling me now that city wise I am no longer the smallest?

[Toni]

CAPO

Excellent observations, I agree with everything you SAID!

I am also happy that you are enjoying the game as much as the rest

[The Capo]

Originally posted by Pitboss Japan
@Capo, You really only have 5 cities? Are you telling me now that city wise I am no longer the smallest?

I don't know how many cities you have, so I'm not telling you anything, but yes I do in fact have five cities. Its a fact.

[Pitboss Japan]

I just expanded to 6 and will be 7 as soon as my ship reaches Ansuji (skull island).

[Rasputin]

Originally posted by Pitboss H Roman
I too am disappointed by Raz's actions. He garnered a number of my votes over the months. I am also a bit jealous of his situation in the game, but no, I could never abandon the Empire. And I would have appreciated a reply to my civstats diplomacy offer, once it was clear you were exiting the game.

But hey, Raz has got to do what he feels he needs to do. Not the optimal situation, so lets get it fixed and move on.

Things would have been so much different if i hadnt been stuck in a situation where all i was doing was logging in moving a pice one square to look for a barb then logging off.

My first time i thoughtthe game was going somewhere it fell down, yes some have taken it upon themselves to add some fun to game since i left

I hav ehad no ally since the game begun and that is the killer in any civ game. You need a friend an ally. i couldnt get one, either because people hated my real life persona or because i too far awayt from people.

So becasue i play for that social contact with so much anti me in the posts and stuff i needed the game to have some purpose other than that 5 minutes a day logging in and moving a piece to attack as barb, it didnt get anywhere

it is good for al lyou people becasue you knwo how to play and can tal kyouerself out of trouble in diplo.

Play on you al ldoing well...

[Pitboss Portugal]

Reload save

CyberShy:

I just had a major issue this last turn.

I just got Liberalism and picked my free tech when I logged in, immediately picking the tech I lost connection to the host server (sign came up saying that). What I did is I joined back in again and I did not have the free tech anymore. It still shows that I was the first to lib but the tech I picked before I lost my connection isn't there anymore. I also triple checked if I was given something else, there is nothing. Also you can see that Portugal score didn't increase while i was in the game, if i had picked a tech the score would have gone up.

Please reload the beginning of this turn.

I apologies to the whole group, but a reload will fix this I hope and I will be given the chance to pick a free tech after researching Lib.

Thank you

[Pitboss Spain]

Yes this is a very important thing.

@ Raz, this is a diplogame so you should either go out trying to find friends, or just make enemies and that will cause things to be more interesting.

I want to use a custom Avatar for this login, but when I try and change my avatar, it only allows me to choose from the list, not the one I want, so how can I get a custom avatar for my Pitboss account?
I want to use this for my avatar, I doubt I would get any rejections for it.

[Robert]

@Spain: you need 500 posts to get a custom avator (poly rules) so you should post more stories

@Portugal: the game has been reloaded from Japan's login on. (that was the last save I had, 30 minutes before you logged in. Only 3,5 hours have been lost.

[/color]All: Please redo your turn if you played after Japan this session! Read Portugal's post above to know why[/color]

Ps. true diplo spirit would've been if you had made a story out of it, Portugal

[Pitboss Japan]

So I don't have to redo?

[Pitboss Spain]

I forgot about that requirment. Thanks for the reply CS.

[Robert]

Originally posted by Pitboss Japan
So I don't have to redo?

Nope

[Pitboss Khmer]

Originally posted by Pitboss Spain
Yes this is a very important thing.

@ Raz, this is a diplogame so you should either go out trying to find friends, or just make enemies and that will cause things to be more interesting.

I want to use a custom Avatar for this login, but when I try and change my avatar, it only allows me to choose from the list, not the one I want, so how can I get a custom avatar for my Pitboss account?
I want to use this for my avatar, I doubt I would get any rejections for it.

Very nice Penelope.

Just curious, are you a female in RL?

You don't have to answer that