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

[Robert]

1 hour on the clock and Maya didn't play yet. I'm going to in-game pause the game. Thus it'll continue to be online, if you're going to play, just unpause* it in-game and pause it again when you're done. THat gives all players a chance to finish this turn.

*press the pause button to (un)pause the game.

[St Jon]

You are flogging a dead horse here.

The Greco/Roman war has gone way OTT. Even with a few Cities back Maya has been all but destroyed. I can see it happened with Piercia earlier and the result will be the same, just deferred. This is not in the spirit of 'not hurting anyone too badly' as there now is no way back for Maya. You really cannot be surprised that Pinchak is indifferent as whether to play or miss a Turn.

[Pitboss Rome]

St Jon, I understand what you mean and I have no criticism of Pinchak.

However, I'd feed in two other points:

1. Diplo is the name of the game. Which as I have taken it means that problems are solved, and the game dynamic is best organised, through diplo. The issue here is that there was no diplo whatsoever resulting from my attack on the Maya. At the time of the attack I was the third nation in the world on score, but with very clear blue water between me and the Khmer and Portuguese in terms of production and power. I had large numbers of cities on NP completely defenceless with Portuguese and Khmer troops nearby etc. etc. And Rome and Sparta had no interest in the other one gaining strength - we have fought wars before - so could be played off against each other. But nothing - no diplomacy. Nobody said anything IG (other than the always-ranting Russians), the Khmers sent and then seemed to recall a transport. No diplo from other nations, the strongest nations seeming to want to just stay out of everything and play their builder-game, and no contact from the Maya other than to declare endless war - all has its part to play in the current situation.

2. There is a big issue about change and expectations isn't there? Maya is still stronger than many other nations in the game. The same was true of Piercia and of Russia. But they have taken a notable drop. I can see that is extremely frustrating, destroys lots of plans, and changes the whole feel of playing - no longer being one of the leading powers who can work on their own rather than through alliances. If (or rather when, I can see it coming) Rome is decimated I am sure I will feel grumpy, feel that the game has changed so much for me that I may want to leave (as say Piercia did). But, what is the other alternative? That the nations who one-quarter into the game are the leading powers have to remain there? We have been round this before and I still believe what I said then - we have to have a game dynamic which gives a reasonable change of Portugal and the Khmer being knocked from their top spots which they have occupied all game. Endless building with the odd city changing hands isn't going to deliver that and we all know it. The only way you are going to get it is through lots of turbulence which will involve the rising and falling of nations, but that is very traumatic when folks have been investing so much in the game for a year. When I came in as a sub (about 300 AD I think) the leading powers were Maya, Piercia, Rome, Sparta, Portugal, Khmer. Do we want a game when those can change?

I don't know what the answer to this is. There is OOC restraint - remember I asked for this game to be paused a few turns back because I could have taken the whole of the Mayan lands within two more turns and didn't want to. But as far as I can see for the game to work it needs active diplomacy and solutions which come through that (like when I tried invading Russia and huge help was pumped into them to stop me) and we need a game where we believe in the rising and falling of nations. Not utter destruction, but nations having a leading role at one point in history but then falling back into the pack. (e.g. if Portugal were to lose all of NP -sorry for the example Xristo - be a bit like teh British empire - hugely dominant for a period and then, well, back to a strong but only one among many nations now, which is what Portugal without NP would be.) Russia is an interesting example. A previous player left because he felt the land and the strategic situation (with only the sea and Rome as neighbours) meant Russia had no future or at least one he wasn't interesting in playing. Fair enough. I understood it wasn't working out how he had wanted, and we all have to make our decisions about how to invest our time. But since then Russia has in fact done very well for itself.

[Pitboss Khmer]

Well, Khmer has the same problem that Rome does regarding inability to do diplomacy.

Without Maya to negotiate with Khmer are hardly likely to continue to send one transport and Tanks to the area. They are peace keepers and dynamic diplomacy is critical for this story.

Changing the status quo is very difficult in this game and concur with many of the points of view here. Khmer power in Meduian has locked down the entire continent I guess but it all makes good story sense and is historically believable. Portugal has locked down the rest with strong alliances or understandings too and that is understandeable and believable also.

Maya and Sparta and Rome tried to disturb the world order but it failed in game and only succeeded ooc because of players leaving.

It is a problem and I don't know the answer but it is still a good game and I don't criticise the builder approach either. For me war is not an automatic pre-requisite to play or enjoy this game. If it happens, it happens. I don't believe in creating artificial wars either. Khmer could easily have started wars in Meduian but it made no sense story wise or game development wise.

[Pitboss Rome]

Wise works Khmer. And I don't mean to criticise builder-play, just being touchy about any suggestion (probably imaginary) that launching a war is a 'nasty' thing to do. And I agree about the storying - I have been storying the forthcoming attack on the Maya since Marcus Aurelius took over centuies ago (just as Khmer has been storying its leading, but peaceful, role in Meduian).

What I don't understand though is your thought that

Maya and Sparta and Rome tried to disturb the world order but it failed in game and only succeeded ooc because of players leaving.

I think that Maya, Sparta and Rome (together wtih Korea a little earlier) have disturbed the world order, but sadly this has resulted in players leaving or losing interest. The disturbance is the cause of players losing interest.

But I do agree with you there is still lots of good potential in the game.

[St Jon]

Rome,

I was not criticising you, or Sparta, for waging War. I was simply pointing out what 'has' happened not condemning anyone. Diplomacy has been sadly lacking and I am unsure why the other major powers felt able to just accept huge increases in Roman/Spartan power. The impact on Game Balance is massive! Why Portugal/Khmer or any of the hard to reach Meduan Civ's didn't just offer Vassalage, which definitely can be reversed, to Maya and bring the War to a grinding halt, at least for a while I don't know. It would have forced you two guys to consider if you really were prepared to fight a 2, or even 3, front War.

I do believe that Maya has, to an extent, neglected diplomacy since the departure of Korea. A belief that you can fight the World single handed is usually misguided and will generally prove very damaging. You also cannot offer promises which you never honour and expect others to retain trust in you. A lack of foresight, especially for the inevitable, is especially dangerous and ignoring the potential for gain from 3rd party quarrels likewise as it is always better to see your enemies troops die whilst keeping your own powder dry. Had things been different Maya would have had at least 4/5 rounds longer to prepare - critical - and Spartan gains could never have been achieved so quickly and at so small a cost. Regardless, Maya could never win a 2 front war but would have been in a position to negotiate a much more favourable peace as both aggressor nations have good reason to wish to minimise the gains made by the other.

I accept that you very honourably halted your attack when seeing Maya were no longer playing their turns. It will be interesting if any lasting good will emerge from this but I sadly doubt it due to OOC opinions and feelings. It does however, raise another interesting question. Does a player failing to take their Turns make them immune from attack? Some Civ's regularly miss Turns and England have not logged in for longer than I can remember. Were I their close neighbour would that mean I was forbidden to declare war upon them?

Russia is just a case of doing the best you can with what you've got - a true hopeless case is rare and if one road to success is blocked you must set out upon another. For a low power Civ diplomacy is critical if you are to prosper and only a little flexibility needed to get what you want by other means than warfare. I am sure we will see Japan improve markedly under her new Government - sad that the 'capitulation’ option was used as it could harm her later - as the new player is clearly much more able than his predecessor.

[Pitboss Rome]

Thanks. I'll stop being paranoid ...

[Robert]

If we're pulling some meta-observations, then I'd say we have some different kinds of nations:

- Portugal: powerful, isolationistic, uses diplomatic pacts to keep peace, peaceful
- Khmer: altruistic, dominant, peaceful, uses diplomacy to keep peace
- Rome: militaristic, aggressive, expansionistic, powerful, uses diplomatic pact to secure itself
- Sparta: altruistic, dominant, uses diplomatic pacts to secure itself, militaristic, expansionistic
- Maya: aggressive, isolationistic, expansionistic

If we look at these 5 main powers (of a couple of turns ago) we see that Maya lack any form of diplomacy. Maya lacks good friends. Maya lacks any pact.
Portugal only has to 'fear' Khmer and Rome. It has secured NP enough to not fear the Khmer. It has a mutual defence pact with Rome to ensure that Rome won't attack.

Portugal has the Pact Romana. A handfull of smaller nations will fight together against any party that declares war on Rome. Rome also has good relations with Portugal and Sparta (though the recent Russian - Japanese crisis shows that Rome/Spart are always one second seperated from war, but it also shows that the diplomatic construction behind Sparta and Rome secures the both of them)

Khmer has nobody to fear on their own continent b/c of altruism and alliances.

Sparta has it's defence pact with Portugal and good relations with Rome and weak neighbours that brings some safety. Sparta's altruism towards nations like Spain and Japan (and in the past Korea, which failed) ensures it's borders as well.

But then there's Maya.
Maya has invaded both it's mighty neighbours during history (Sparta and Rome)
It has no real close friends, no defence pacts and a history of backstabbing and war. I may say they have a very interesting role-playing profile, but it's not suprising that at a certain moment in time it's enemies didn't wait for a new Mayan invasion but decided to counter invade.

I can even say that Rome and Sparta knew about each other's intentions to invade Maya, but did not invade 'together'.
Some interesting secrets here:
- Sparta warned Maya for the Roman invasion of Maya (!!!) (hoping Rome would fail)
- Rome knew about Maya's attempts to invade Sparta and didn't tell Sparta! (hoping that Maya would succeed!)
- Sparta invaded Maya sooner then intended to surprise the Romans
- When Rome declared war on Maya Sparta offered Maya help against the Romans if Maya would give up Korea (it was a given that Maya would lose Korea anyway). (Maya missed a huge chance there! Setting Rome and Sparta up against each other by saving their own territory! Imagine that Spartan soldiers instead of slaughtering Mayan soldiers would have aided Maya soldiers against Romans!!!!)
- I'm sure that Rome has done some stuff as well that I don't know about....

Now also keep in mind the following Mayan mistakes:
- Maya was ready to capture the Gobi but didn't dare to do so becuase of Spartan powerplay.
- Sparta was willing to forgive (I really was!) but then the Maya's failed again to pay their (pretty small) debts.
- Maya backstabbed Sparta (by sending Spartan defence troops the wrong way by request, only to stab when the Spartan defences were gone) and then let itself be backstabbed back in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY! (Sparta hinted Maya about an invasion from the north (Rome), then the Mayan defence went north immediately straight away, leaving the Spartan border unsecured. Then Sparta was able to stab back!)
- Then Maya sent back their soldiers from the north to the spartan border to counter the Spartan invasion, giving Rome a free chance to invade from the North.

This is for ooc reasons very very sad for Maya, especially since they were a huge and good civ! I think that Mayan diplomacy screwed things up. It should've either been good friends to Rome to invade Sparta or good friends to Sparta and invade Rome.
It could've made a pact with the Khmer for assistance in times of trouble, etc.

For ooc reasons I'm very willing to help Maya, but it's how things went.
Maya lost Tikal, which is pretty tough. But considering that Maya intended to burn Athens (largest city on earth, #1 in the city top 5) it's a question if we should pitty Maya.

And after all (and most important!!) Maya is not complaining!
Maya is clearly not pleased with the situation, but all ooc aside, Maya is not complaining about it's situation!!! It's accepting the current situation as a diplo player should, big kudo's there!!!

I think things are still very interesting! There are too many major nations (opposed to normal diplogames with only 2 top-nations) to predict the (game-score) winner of this game! Things can still change!

But if nations remain passive then Portugal and Rome will have a free ride and Khmer and Sparta a semi free ride.

Just my observations

[St Jon]

Of all the adjectives available in the English language I fear that 'altruistic' is not one which would sprung to my mind when thinking to describe Sparta!

BTW. Happy Birthday Cyber!
That is unless Poly have got it wrong again!

[Robert]

I fear that 'altruistic' is not one which would sprung to my mind when thinking to describe Sparta

Well, it's defenitely a very biased description
But Sparta has always been a nation that supported it's small neighbours (till they stabbed knifes in our backs.)
Look at New Sparta, it has been left to settle to many other nations.

But like I said, I am obviously biased here

And yes, it was my birthday yesterday! Thanks!!

[St Jon]

[q]I

And yes, it was my birthday yesterday! Thanks!!

Then what the hell are you doing in posting to silly game threads? You should be out having a fun time, I am sure you can afford a baby-sitter, not frettimg over this trivia!

[Robert]

When I posted that msg it was 1am, all friends and family had just left and I was about to go to sleep. (and no, I'm not in that place anymore where I leave with friends and get drunk till 6am to crawl to my bed )

[Pitboss Maya]

Just to satisfy any curiosities, and to clear up some misleading statements...

Yes, I attacked both Rome and Sparta earlier in the game (and even Portugal). This was largely in part because things were so damn boring.

Portugal because I predicted (correctly) that if nations did nothing to stop the early colonization of NP, Portugal would gain a huge lead. My hopes were that others would follow my lead, but of course nobody in this game takes risks or wants to tarnish their peaceful "history".

Rome because frankly, it pissed me off that they were picking on a smaller nation and justifying it with some pretty lame excuses. Four other nations joining in helped my decision a bit.

Sparta because it was the ultimate underdog fight between Korea and Greece. In addition, Greece had sort of a loud mouth before that war and I wanted to help shut it.

Maya would have been much better served if I just sat back like 90% of the players and let my fields of cottages mature. Well as they say, play with fire and get burned. I should have saw the invasions comming, but the reality was that I was always a step behind on military tech.

Now I will say this, I got screwed on two peace deals. I gave Rome a city for assured peace (so I could help Korea without worrying about a Roman invasion). He broke this deal under the pretext that I broke an earlier peace deal. Quite simply (and rome has yet to give a stright answer on this), why would I have made a second deal if we already had one?

Sparta on the other hand, never set a deadline for the payment on our peace deal. When given an ultimatum, I paid 90% of it with the other 10% promised within 5 turns. Sparta claims I only had 2 turns, and didn't pay.

So bottom line is, both are deal breakers, and you guys can spin it any way you like to justify the second and fourth place civs doubling teaming the fifth place civ. Frankly, I wouldn't negotiate anything with either of you now, because I don't TRUST either of you.

You will also notice your offers for cease fire have been rejected. I promised that if you two pulled this underhanded bully move I would keep you in perpetual war. Sparta you will notice I flipped to your religion last turn.

You two justifiy the TOTAL destruction of my civ because I attacked you both before. There is however a difference. My attacks were measured war as the "rules" <--- (what a phucking joke), call for in diplogames. Your invasions are total war.

If I don't seem too upset, it is because although I lost my civ, I have ONCE AND FOR ALL proven that the "rules" are a big steaming pile of $hit used only to mislead those who don't know the real deal.

The Real Deal = Anything goes, forget Ozzy's guide to diplogames.

[Pitboss Rome]

I won't prolong this by responding to what Maya has said. I find it hard to unpick the IG and OCC stuff anyway - I'm not going to respond OOC in the org thread to why Marcus Aurelius felt the Mayans had broken a treaty.

However, we will need some clarity soon (though it isn't urgent) about how the majority feel we should handle the situation in which Maya has rejected all offers of cease-fire and engages in no diplomacy.

At what point am I allowed to say 'if you want a war, we will continue the war'.

As everyone knows, I stopped the invasion for OOC reasons because Maya was not fighting IG or diplomaticly - to avoid too much game inbalance. I have offered favourable peace terms (giving them cities). However, now it appears that Maya intends just to hide behind these OOC considerations, and maintain a war, just so that in time there is war unhappiness? Is this reasonable? In the end surely they either have to make peace, or face war, not exploit OOC restraint in war - sitting there saying 'hah we will in time cause you war unhappiness, but you can't attack me becaue that would be naughty'.

As always happy to go with the majority on this, and its not urgent - we can spend a few days mulling it over. And before anyone misinterprets, I have no desire at all to take more of Maya - I'm trying to give some back. But in the end I will need an answer to the question: "At what point am I allowed to say 'if you want a war, we will continue the war'. "

[Pitboss America]

I see the game is running again ... good!

But can a broadcast email or private message be sent to all participants when the game is paused, reloaded and resumed?

I didn't know that the game had resumed until I tried connecting again this morning and much to my surprise it has!