Beyond the Pit -Argument and Debate Thread

[The Capo]

BTW, here is Maya's Guide to Diplogames. Its pretty appropriate to this situation in my opinion. I don't know what category I belong to (since I have been playing Diplogames for around nine years now), but here it is anyway... This was posted at the begining of the game. I believe back in July of 2008...

Ok, I think it is now time to share some DIPLO knowledge with others.

How to play Diplogames like a Pro.

There are three types of diplo players.

1. The Noob
2. The Pro
3. The Veteran


The noob belives that there are no winners in this format. They think actions and stories should take fun into consideration first, winning second. They belive that "fairness" should and will rule the day. They have faith in the community to bring about justice. They honestly think whining OOC is taboo. They are clueless to the behind the scenes politics and manipulations of the Veteran players.

The pro realizes that there is no fun in being a vassle or not having power in game. All actions have the sole purpose of furthering their civilization, and stories are a means of justifiying said actions. They realize that "fairness" is for the most part subjective, and should be tested often. They realize that the only way anyone is going to step in and help another civ is if it benifits their own civ. They realize that whineing OOC is essential. They are wise to the manipulations of the Veteran players.

The Veteran enters a game expecting to come out on top (or close to it). Nothing infuriates a Vet more then the idea that they may wind up a mediocore civ or God forbid near the bottom. If a non-vet bests a vet, they must have somehow cheated. Vets like to keep the rules loose for this reason, realizing that rule interpertation is an invaluable tool that only they weild. They mention how whining OOC is looked down upon, but only to add emphisis to the ligitimacy of their argument when they do it (ie. what happened to ME is so unfair that I MUST say something OOC although it pains me to do so ). The balance between the Vets is delicate however, they both fear and back each other up at the same time. Above all, they promote the ideas that that are often held as truths by noobs. This maintains their advantage because the less people who play like they do, the less competition. Once your eyes are open to all of this, it is quite entertaining actually to observe opinions about the same situation change depending on who is involved.

Once you realize it is their game and we only play in it, you have busted your cherry.

I'm sure I'll catch alot of flack for writing this truth. The Vets will wholesale deny it, and the noobs won't want to belive it. Some however will know EXACTLY what I am talking about.


PS: I don't mean to make it sound like the Vets all get together and conspire. It is more of a passive thing. There are also exceptions among their ranks with regards to my observations of the group as a whole. Toni for instance generally has a very non-bias view of ingame situations. This isn't to say however that he isn't one of the most sneaky in other areas.

He was particularly right about one part, but failed to realize it went beyond mere denial...

I'm sure I'll catch alot of flack for writing this truth. The Vets will wholesale deny it, and the noobs won't want to belive it. Some however will know EXACTLY what I am talking about.

This post was deleted. Two of the "vets," as he described, are moderators in this forum.

One of them hosts the game.

The other sent the, non-complete, proposal (which he did not let others see) to the judges.

Just stating the facts.

[Robert]

That's how one outsider observer sees it.

I can undestand that very well.
Unfortunately things aren't that easy, given what I said about the difference between setup-thread rules and organization-thread rules.

I just wish that we could find a solution that would do justice.
I am 100% sure that if Korea had not 'lost' the GE again and he did not fail to move in 1660, he would not have asked for a reload.

After I handed over the GE we all agreed that things were fine again.
We continued. Maya/Korea and me started peace negotiations. Maya/Korea moved and so did I. We all were fine with the results.

Untill Korea lost the GE again and he missed the turn.
Then Maya/Korea suddenly started about the reload again.
The reason I initially didn't want a reload was not for personal reasons but for the rest of the game. Everything was lost for me when I had to hand over the GE. It was only b/c of Maya/Korea mistakes that I got back in the game again. Personally I had no problems back then to reload, which I also expressed.

If we would have reloaded back then, after the judges had decided, then the situation would have not been worse for me then just only handing over he GE.
I could have pulled the false peace negotiations, the GE/GA move and Maya would most probably land in bad position again.

But Maya/Korea can't have it both ways, first continue, then fall back to a reload.

Here are some quotes that prove that we had continued:

The Capo/Korea:

Cyber, since you have agreed not to move/upgrade any units this turn and since you have agreed to my proposal for keeping the GE alive. I will let you play your turn first (I haven't spoken to Maya about this) because I will not be able to do it until there are around four hours left in the timer. This might not workout for you though (to wait that long) so I think you might as well move before me this turn. This is not a ploy as I have already given you PMs discussing what I intend on doing this turn, and you should trust that (becuase it was an OOC post). We can return to the regular order next turn. If you'd rather not do this then you'll just have to wait because I won't be able to take my turn for that period of time.

The Capo/Korea:

You are the one who said you wouldn't, so I don't know why you are asking me. I told you that since you are doing this I would refrain from attacking Knossos for this turn so long as you reply to my numerous PMs and post in the story thread which you have yet to do. I have also said that I can't play my turn until later on tonight so if its easier for you to move now (rather than wait six hours) that'd be fine and I wouldn't be upset about that since I realize the time I'd be playing would be much later tonight (this is just because I don't have time earlier than that). I am not trying to order you around or be combative, but I figure if you aren't going to do anything right now we might as well see what you think of the proposal I've made to you, which was discussed with the Maya.

Here the game has proceeded.
Korea discussed peace after I handed over the GE.

THen I posted this:

I'm sorry, that was not my intention.
I just wanted to get the 'rules' clear to avoid a possible debate later.
I think that you have anwered that clearly now. I can do any move, and if you think one of my moves is wrong, it's an IC wrong move that'll be handle by you IC (ie. by not delaying your war till tomorrow but strike me tonight.)

I"m now going to work on an entire new story-style for my next diplo post, unseen ever in the history of diplogaming. Prepare yourself

To which Maya responded:

Then I posted my video to which Korea posted:

I think its finally safe to say that Cyber has been driven completely insane!

You see, we were contiueing this game!
I even declared war at that point!
In game I got a msg from Korea

Here's a pm I got from Korea where you can see that we negotiated peace and he accepted the GE-fix:

I thought I said Thebes OR Knossos. I think this is a reasonable request. Rightnow as I am recovering from slaved damage I would ill-afford such a far flung city (and frankly not be able to protect it in case you want revenge) Knossos is not as strong as Thebes is (in production at least) and is much closer to korea, it also (for the most part) would at least return some land culturally greek that should be part of my land according to our original treaty. I could also hand over the territory I own in New Portugal if you'd like to have that as well since the Portugese have been on my case about it for centuries.

I am being reasonable because I understand you are angry, and I want you to know this was nothing personal at all. This had been planned for a long time and at no point did we ever thinkg it was wrong (we did know it was underhanded though). But like I said we will not attack you this turn so that you can move your GE and we can negotiate this peace. Hopefully we can, but as I've said before if there is any funny business our plot will continue as planned and you will lose a lot.

Anyway, its not really Thebes I want (I was sure I edited that, but I did that extremely late in the evening/early in the morning and i was very tired), I was supposed to ask for Knossos. If it culture flips its simple; you just return it. I'll work on getting its culture up. You can keep your oil city, and if you want take Koreaz too. Then we follow the rest of the Mayan proposal. I will, of course return your units (which is another reason I am not attacking, so your units remain alive).

In short: this has nothing to do anymore with te GE-thing (where I did indeed broke the rules, and I have paid for that! I did so because I thought Korea had broken the setup-thread rules. Now I realise that even if everybody would have agreed on that I should not have 'fixed' things like this. I have apologized for that)

Anyway: it has nothing to do with the GE things anymore.
The GE-fix has been accepted.
It's the sum-up of Korea/Maya mistakes that makes them grab back to the pre-GE situation, which is totally unfair, imho.
Back then a reload would have been fine with me, for personal reasons, but I (we) just prefered to fix it in-game for the rest of the players.

Here's what I said March 4th in the org thread:

Portugal: Ozzy, Russia and Rome have expressed to be against a reload.
If everyone agrees I'm fine with reloading.
But there is no need for a reload. Korea can grab the GE back as soon as the judges say that he's right.

At that very moment there was no difference between reloading or handing over the GE.
We decided back then to not reload. Everyone agreed in the end (granted, Maya/Korea did not like it, and were against it, but accepted it, like I accepted to hand over the GE while I disagreed on that)
Everything that happened after it happened after it. in-game mistakes of Maya/Korea should not lead to let them have their reload anyway and correct their mistakes

Ming: Frankly, you broke the rules as stated. If a disadvantge to you occurs... bummer. You were the problem here. If you had done what the rules stated, there would be no argument... but instead, you did what was in your best interest, and not the best interest of the game and other players.

While I accept and respect your judgement, I do disagree with your vision of the clearity of the rules, like I said. There's also a ruleset in the setup-thread.
I was wrong though to take judgement in my own hands. That's indeed my fault.

Granted, I could be wrong, but it sure appears to an outsider as if you used your position as host to manipulate things to your best interest

My fault was the double move. That was done as a player. Me being the host had nothing to do with that.
After that I have handled the situation exactly like I handled the Maya/Korea, Maya/Rome, Rome/Maya double move situation: I kept the game running while trying to find a solution.

I agree now that that was not the best thing to do.
But I did not try to manipulate the situation, as a host, to get things my way.
Like I said, it never made a difference for me to have a reload or just hand over the GE, back then.

[Pitboss Rome]

Capo, I am not going to get into an argument with you. Trading words on here achieves nothing. But you are re-writing history when you suggest I wasn't harmed in the previous case. It wasn't as serious - I agree with that. I'm not trying to make cheap points, but did need to point out that as a matter of fact we haven't paused and reloaded each time, and those arguing for it now, didn't in the past.

The quotation you post is very interesting. In particular:

The pro realizes that ... "fairness" is for the most part subjective...They realize that whineing OOC is essential. ... They mention how whining OOC is looked down upon, but only to add emphisis to the ligitimacy of their argument when they do it (ie. what happened to ME is so unfair that I MUST say something OOC although it pains me to do so ). The balance between the Vets is delicate however, they both fear and back each other up at the same time.

This is very accurate to the current situation. I am a complete noob and find all this arguing between you folks who have been here a long time very sad and exactly as this quote describes. We have already had other noob saying that if this is what the game is like, they are off. They are not alone in feeling that.

I hope that people have noticed that very few of the people playing this game are following this thread. I guess that is because we:

1. Got outsiders to make a judgement. But now people are just arguing about the briefing the outsiders were given.
2. Had a vote in game which said play on, so people are ignoring it and carrying on arguing.
3. noobs say they are fed up with all the arguing and are going to leave, nobody cares, vets threaten to leave, and we all stop.

And after it all, the two sides involved (and I do mean both) still seem to think that what matters most is their side winning, regardless of what it does to all us innocent parties who have nothing to do with the problem. All we are told is - if its a pain for you blame person A or person B. Who is to blame doesn't matter at all to me - its the damange which is being done which it the problem. The damage isn't lessened by knowing who to blame!

[The Capo]

First of all, you posted everything I wrote to you out of context. Completely out of context. I am not even upset about "losing" the GE (which again was your own duplicity and takind advantage of an OOC offer to keep him alive for you despite the war, you are still an ******* for doing this). The GE was never part of the war plan, it only happened to fall in our laps when you moved it through my land. And again, I didn't miss the turn because of the GE, I already said why I missed the turn a few posts above this. Just read that again.

You didn't get it back because of our mistakes. I didn't make a mistake, I didn't move because the game should have been reloaded, I didn't kill it because you told me (OOC) that you would move him to the hills because I felt bad for you and wanted to get the game back to normal again, instead you AGAIN took advantage of this and snuck him away. You are a weasel just like Pinchak said.

This part is the most laughable:

Personally I had no problems back then to reload, which I also expressed.

I'm not even going to dignify this comment with a response.

The first post you put up that I said was done BEFORE you told me you wouldn't move or upgrade (but you already had, because you are a lying trickster), so then you cleverly amended it to say you would do it next turn, the only problem is you ALREADY moved and upgraded your men. So basically you are a conniving punk, and I no longer believe a damn word you say.

If anything the second quote you post shows my willingness to try and get the game back in order since you already maniuplated the players to blaming me for the waste of time when it was in fact your fault to begin with! Then you again lied, in an OOC-manner (and THAT IS important), to get your way again. You are just full of **** Cyber.

For the record you NEVER "handed over" your GE. So stop saying that.

Then you AGAIN take this statement out of context:

But like I said we will not attack you this turn so that you can move your GE and we can negotiate this peace. Hopefully we can, but as I've said before if there is any funny business our plot will continue as planned and you will lose a lot.

You cleverly did not post the message before that where you agree to move your GE to the Jogye mountains (the ones between Korea and Maya) to keep him there as a hostage so he won't be killed. You conveniently fail to post that you promised to do this, and that is the ONLY reason why he wasn't killed. You also fail to report that this was done in an OOC manner as a REQUIREMENT for me to stop arguing the matter. I don't know where you get the balls to do this, but you are either an idiot or your blatantly don't care about truth or what is right.

Again; when I said in that quote that you can move your GE you and I both knew what I meant. But I see that by manipulating my messages and taking them out of context you CONTINUE to try and gain your ill-gotten advantage.

All of this, of course, is moot. As Ming stated it should have been reloaded to the proper time and we should move in the proper order. Everything that happened after that fact is fruits of the poisonous tree. The game should be reloaded to the turn after the declaration of war. And I should move first, NOT YOU, thus eradicating your violation of the double-move rule.

[The Capo]

Rome you chopped that quote up to combine the vet and pro categories. Basically what Pinchak said was that the Vets will attempt to get the noobs on their side by acting like they don't like the OOC discussions. This is to their advantage because noobs, being new, don't realize how manipulative the vets can be (again, they don't plan it out ahead of time, but with regularity it works like this) and think that the other side (which he calls Pros) are just whining to get their way. The reality of the situation is that the vets (and by that I don't mean all of them, it was just Cybershy, but some of them unwittingly or not helped him do this) basically ruined this game by delaying the pause/reload and taking illegal turns and controlling (hosting) the game. I empathise with you, I truly do, but you are basically asking me to continue playing a game that I got dicked in, and to continue playing a game despite the rules that state we should have reloaded it. Rules that were written and broken by the host who forced the game to continue despite numerous requests not to.

I'm sorry this is happening, you don't have to blame anyone or you can blame everyone, but the fact of the matter is the game should not have continued at all, and should certainly be reloaded.

[Robert]

Capo, debating with you makes no sence.
I'm going to make one last offer (my 3rd attempt to!)

I'm willing to bring my defence of Knossos back to 1645 once again, giving you a chance to attack and take it once again.
For the record: I don't have to do this! But I do so for the rest of the players.

[The Capo]

Your offer!? That's nonsense.

This game has to be reloaded, its the only thing that should happen. Anything else, again, is wrong.

[Pitboss Rome]

I empathise with you, I truly do, but you are basically asking me to continue playing a game that I got dicked in,

Thanks for that, genuinely. I guess all I can say is that I too truly empathise with you, and that I can see I am asking you to continue playing the game, but the reason is that however much we argue about briefing etc. (a) that is what the judges said and (b) that is what the majority vote says. It seems at the moment as if the rest of us are comdemned to keep arguing, and having our game disrupted, until we agree with you. That also feels unfair, just as I understand it feels unfair for you to have to cope with a situation in which you feel you were wronged. I guess that not all wrongs in this life can be righted.

Well, that is my last post on the issue until tomorrow at the earliest. And by then I hope we will be playing again.

[-Jrabbit]

...ANNND they're right back where they started.

Which, IMHO, should be 1635 (at the point of the illegal double-move by CyberShy) and let the chips fall where they may. I'm not prepared to comment on all the machinations after that.

Congrats to you all on giving diplogaming a black eye. You guys are on your own.

[OzzyKP]

...ANNND they're right back where they started.

Which, IMHO, should be 1635 (at the point of the illegal double-move by CyberShy) and let the chips fall where they may. I'm not prepared to comment on all the machinations after that.

Congrats to you all on giving diplogaming a black eye. You guys are on your own.

I tried.

[Ming]

Capo, debating with you makes no sence.

He probably thinks the same at this point

I'm going to make one last offer (my 3rd attempt to!)

Gee... the person that actually broke the rules is making the demand, and for the final time.
Maybe you should go back and actually follow the rules of your game instead of trying to get around them.

I'm willing to bring my defence of Knossos back to 1645 once again, giving you a chance to attack and take it once again.

How about going back to where the game should be

For the record: I don't have to do this! But I do so for the rest of the players.

That is probably the funniest thing I have read so far in this thread, considering it comes from the person that actually broke the rules.


Good luck guys... I feel sorry for all the innocent players in this. Like JR, said, you are on your own now.
And I agree with his other comments as well. Maybe you guys will end up doing the right thing... The rest of the community is watching.

And yes Ozzy... at least you tried.

[Toni]

I feel sorry for all the innocent players in this

Well said Ming!!! I am one of those players and I am getting tired of this boyish fight. Can't we just reload the game and resume playing. A reload will solve the crisis and fix the issue!

[St Jon]

Goodbye

Cyber, Please turn Russia over to AI, or get some other poor misguided soul to take on their forlorn cause!

What none of you people seem to realise that these arguements do not just effect the three of you, all Vet's as described, but another fifteen of us.

From a purely game context 'IC' point of view Russia's only hope lay in an utter bloodbath in the south and a mythical war with Rome with a shakey peace afterwards to allow her to sieze, at small cost, a number of defenceless Mayan cities. It is the only chance that she had and with that gone i.e. a swift Maya/Korean smash and grab raid - bloody good plan guys - that hope goes. With it goes the only point for the very existance of Russia apart from writing jolly tales about things that mean nothing. That's what a reload costs Russia!

In game I may be a total 'NOOB' to diplogaming, indeed Pitboss itself, but I do care about winning whatever Pinchak might say. If you do not care about winning then what is the point of playing? I may not want to slash my wrists when I lose or fail to enjoy an ultimately unsuccessful campaign. Playing the game should be fun but you must try! I took on a hopeless Civ but I knew their was just a vague chance of turning thiings around. Cyber you ain't that good not to see what was obvious and Pinchak you under-estimate the 'NOOB'! Toni, whatever we may think of eachother as a human-beings, you played a very clever triple-cross and deserve credit it for it. I even voted for YOU!

I said that I would quit if this happened again and I, OOC, am not a liar. You can have your fun enjoying calling eachother cheats but I am disinterested in watching a battle of egoes between a trio of 'VETS'. This game is, for me, far too tainted to be bothered with now. Sad, it seemed like a good format, but you cannot account for the random element of personality.

For the record: I do agree with you Pinchak on strong, well defined and consistently enforced rules. Why you guys cannot, do what is the norm in SMAC/X, and have an independent CMN who controls everything from P/W's down? That works, truly it does, when you have someone outside the game whose word is 'The Law' and can be approached, off thread, for something like an allegation of cheating and will look at the evidence and make a decision, based on solid rules, which is accepted and anyone who refuses to accept it is just booted from the game and end of story!

For the record: Cyber, I cannot believe you to be a cheat. You made some mistakes, and admitted them, but everything has just exploded. I now neither know or care who is right or wrong but you are a nice and good fun guy and I would confidently play you again without fear of wrong-doing.

The rest of you all seem genuinely - those of you that ever made any effort to contribute either to the game or it's well-being - seem like nice people who play within the spirit of MP gaming.

I think I'll stick to kill or be killed in future and PBEM seems a safer bet as well.

Cheers and enjoy the rest of this game,
Jon

[Robert]

I'm sad to see that some people prefer a black-white situation where the solutions are easy.
Black: CyberShy
White: Korea/Maya
Solution: reload 1635

Including ignoring the difficult history of the rule-setup of this game, including the fact that these problems have nothing to do with the DM anymore.

Black/White: that's easy and simple! We can understand that! No, no explanations, noooooow, no difficult circumstances. Noooooo, we must just blame one person, he did not follow he rule so he's wrong. Done.

I'm a honest man, pulled into this situation, first called a cheater, then got a gigantic-never-before-seen knife in my back, then dm-exploited, followed by two guys who posted about 100 posts in which I've been called all names, from cheater to pig, dick, totally untrustable, etc.
And you know what, next time it can be you! You never know. You can playing a game, try your best to be honest, make a mistake, and suddenly *poof*, it's all there. First of course the haters, and then the black-white thinkers who just want a simple solution.

It can happen to you! And the simple-minded guys always win.
It's so much easier to present a black/white situation. Nuance and difficulty is always hard to explain.
People don't like long posts with screenshots and fact. Nooooo, it should be easy.

This is not black an white. This is a very complex situation.
It's simplistic to ignore all the difficluties of the rule setup history and the borderline circumstances of ie. the dm-exploit and the on or over the edge backstabbing which may very well be against all rules of diplogaming (unless diplogaming is nothing more then MP-playing with stories)

Anyway, I can't continue this game.
Not because I can't accept a loss. No, I have lost all games so far, and enjoyed that, wrote good stories about that, etc.
No, I can't because I'm not willing to cooperate with people who can't look further then black/white and aren't willing to help 'friends' when hell breaks lose over them.

It's this black/white attitude I really disgust. Simplicity. No understanding for the posibility of more difficult situations where not player A is wrong and player B is right.

I'll attach the save and wish you all good luck.

[Pitboss Maya]

Perhaps the term "noob" was a bad word choice considering the negative connotation that comes with it. I should have stuck with "new players".

One cannot however deny how close my post back in July has come to be.

Truth be told, this whole ordeal give me a headache, and I fear even if we do come to some sort of "solution" there will be hard feelings that will affect the game moving forward.

If only the game had been reloaded when it should have been.

Personally I had no problems back then to reload, which I also expressed.

Is this a typo? Or are you making an attempt at comedy?

You see, we were contiueing this game!

No, YOU were continuing the game. I kept playing knowing full well that you being host, it may never get reloaded so I might as well deal with it and keep making my turns, rather then loose turns like Capo did. (I think he was completely justified in not playing his turns however)

these arguements do not just effect the three of you, all Vet's as described, but another fifteen of us.

I for the record consider myself a pro according to that assessment. I learned early on how things go down, and was trying to bring other new players up to speed with that post. I would, even given the authority, not stoop to the tactics described of certain "vets". Overall, the post was intended to bring light to the problems that arise out of not having solid rules.

And yes Ozzy... at least you tried.

Yeah, tried to sweep this under the carpet and throw a smokescreen by calling for a judges rule, but leaving out a critical part of the briefing. I don't know what is more insulting, that he ignored Capo and my request to see the briefing BEFORE it was presented to the judges, or that he actually thought we wouldn't notice the cleaver choices of words.

Well said Ming!!! I am one of those players and I am getting tired of this boyish fight. Can't we just reload the game and resume playing. A reload will solve the crisis and fix the issue!

There's some clear thinking. Seems to be in short supply lately.

Cheers and enjoy the rest of this game,

Sorry to see you go. You may not be the only one.