Destiny of Empires [Diplo Game] [Organization Thread]

[Israel (DoE)]

going gold for the benefit of your own civ can't be compared to going gold for the benefit of another civ.
It's ridiculous to compare that.

Investing in a possible victory can't be compared to paying everything after a defeat.
The money invested by England/France is not gone. It's still there in the form of armies.

I do not understand why people feel the need to argue what I am saying.
The facts are there, Israel is totally cripled (anybody wants to argue that?)
And Israel has shown to be willing to give in to demands (Ekron, Sidon, Bethlehem, huge ammount of money).
Does anybody want to claim that being willing to give up Bethlehem is not a terribly huge sacrifice for peace? (especially if you consider how much Israel had already lost at that very moment)

[France (DoE)]

but in order to defend our remaining cities we have gone mostly gold for at least 20 turns.

For me it is probably closer to 3x that.

And we still don't have peace

...me neither

England has suffered greatly from the lash as well.

Me too.

At least you were made an offer...

I made you one. And a reasonably fair one. And one that I would have been in doo-doo with my allies had we gone ahead with it, but I was willing to pursue it.

You never responded.

That's a choice you made.

[Israel (DoE)]

England, you are still a sub-top civ. That doesn't compare to Israel.
20 turns of being complete idle (including building nothing!) hurts a behind civ like Israel even more.
Add to that that we had already suffered from our betrayal. We lost Ekron (razed) and Hebron had lost most of it's buildings, including all cultural buildings, which was terrible for our cultural war with the Arabians.

Add to that that the Turks really can't be trusted. twice they have broken a just signed peace agreement. (first with Jerusalem's razing, which happened 3 turns after signing peace, then this current time, when peace was broken 12 turns after signing it). Add to that that the demand made first (give up Ekron) wasn't good enough enymore when I accepted it.
The Turks have proven to me that it's hard to trust them. (despite that they claim it the other way around).
The Russiand increased their demands as well overnight. Suddenly another 100gpt was added without nothing happening.

So the offers were both outragious and untrustworthy.
Yes, what happened to England was outragious as well. But England is still an important nation. If I hear the numbers of armies you can bring up, your ships. You're still a power to deal with. Israel is now most probably at 10% of what England is.
Cutting 50% from a #1 nation doesn't compare to cutting 70% from a #12 nation.
You simply can't compare the English situation to the Israelian situation.

I was making deals. I gave up Sidon to the Mali and was willing to give up Bethlehem to the Russians. Ekron to the Turks.
Not a single moment did the Russians/Turks negotiate. It was always exactly what they wanted, or nothing.
I doubt that ever before a civ in diplogaming gave up so much for peace as Israel did offer this time.

[France (DoE)]

Finished my turn, but did not paused for France. 4 hours on the clock. Can you please confirm you can get it in 4 hours or if not - say when you will be able to play and I will pause (and most probably unpause when you need it) for you.

Yep - good timing for me. I can play. Thx!

[Israel (DoE)]

chat of the turn before Israel's betrayal.

[England (DoE)]

No need for cold turkey time. Like I said, I'm completely accepting the situation as it is and I'm willing to continue and hope that the game will just continue like it is being played right now.

You ask what choice you have if I do not accept your last offer.
Your last offer was outragious, it's a bummer that you don't see that. And that's maybe where the problem is. Neither Turkey nor Russia is able to place yourself into my shoes. Paying 100% of my full economy (all cities on commerce) to Turkey and then 100gpt to Russia for 20 turns effectively means that my economy is totally idle for 20 turns. After 20 turns I'm completely behind everything.

That doesn't sound too unreasonable to me. Considering the pain this war has brought so far, that doesn't sound bad at all. England has not only lost half our economy with the loss of London, Glasgow, York & Plymouth, but in order to defend our remaining cities we have gone mostly gold for at least 20 turns. And we still don't have peace (or our capitol) At least you'd have peace and the opportunity to rebuild after their gold demands expire. Heck, the Ottomans, as they said, slaved all their cities down to 1-2 population. England has suffered greatly from the lash as well.

Yet my considerable suffering was foisted upon me. Your suffering is a product of your own choosing. You choose to enter this war and got beat, yet you seem to refuse to accept the reasonable consequences that come from that. Especially after inflicting considerable consequences on your foes (betraying them and killing a large number of troops). I suggest you go ahead with the peace treaty so you can rebuild. At least you were made an offer...

[Israel (DoE)]

I don't blame them at all for being hesitant to trust a back stabber.

The backstabber thing makes sense IC, but it doesn't ooc.
Israel isn't a backstabbing nation. It has always had an eternal vendetta with the Turks since the razing of Jerusalem. Most of my story posts were about how we hate the Turks and how we long for Jerusalem. I was surprised when the Turks approached me to allie with them. I was like: WTF? do you not know how much we hate you? Then I ended many of my messages to Turkey and Russia with "For Jerusalem!" and then they still did not get it.

Israel did not backstab the turks, we just continued our eternal vendetta against them trying to get Jerusalem. Which would only be a response to the terrible betrayal of the Turks in the early game. If we backstabbed then we only counter-backstabbed.
We were completely trustworthy towards the French (We got an offer from the Russians to get Jerusalem if we would backstab the French, which I did not accept b/c of not willing to betray the French).

Of course what we did to the Turks was a very very evil action. But it was not unepected and it was not out of the blue. The Israelian hate to the Turks was the core of my story. Even the turn before I talked with Russia and ended with: "For Jerusalem", Russia then answered with: "for Jerusalem, hehe". I'm sure that they didn't got it.

The most terrible backstab in this game came from Mali, btw.
No offense, civs are allowed to backstab.
But I get the idea that many players ooc think: "Israel deserves this b/c they are terrible backstabbers"
Those players do not really understand what's going on and believe the IC propaganda (good work Turkey) too much in an ooc way.

[Israel (DoE)]

No need for cold turkey time. Like I said, I'm completely accepting the situation as it is and I'm willing to continue and hope that the game will just continue like it is being played right now.

You ask what choice you have if I do not accept your last offer.
Your last offer was outragious, it's a bummer that you don't see that. And that's maybe where the problem is. Neither Turkey nor Russia is able to place yourself into my shoes. Paying 100% of my full economy (all cities on commerce) to Turkey and then 100gpt to Russia for 20 turns effectively means that my economy is totally idle for 20 turns. After 20 turns I'm completely behind everything.

You could also have accepted my offer to hand over Bethlehem.
It was quite a huge thing I offered. The holy city of a huge world religion which shrine alone generates 70gpt, on the border of my empire so that it wouldn't be culturally destroyed.
But taking my capital is so terrible, especially if you consider that Israel doesn't really have any other good city.

The problem is that you ask terribly much and do not want to accept anything else.
It is not Israel that wasn't willing to compromise. I seriously thought that my offer was good enough.
It made sense IC as well, why would Russia not want to get the holy city of christianity.

I can use the measured war rule but I don't want to.
I prefer to continue to play this way now. I dislike it to force my enemies by ooc votes. I can handle it very well, though I do have a need to express this though. I may find some fun in trying to destroy your stack now.

[England (DoE)]

I certainly had considered calling in the measured war rule myself. Half my economy evaporated when England was taken. Losing London was quite crippling. The enemy never made reasonable peace offers so the war continues. Of course this war has continued to spiral out of control and now Israel is suffering from it.

I have been out of commission for a while, but I do urge my allies to make a reasonable peace with Israel and return their capitol to them. Of course Israel has to agree to some deal that gives Russia/Ottomans/Mali true peace of mind and security. I don't blame them at all for being hesitant to trust a back stabber.

[Russia (DoE)]

Finished my turn, but did not paused for France. 4 hours on the clock. Can you please confirm you can get it in 4 hours or if not - say when you will be able to play and I will pause (and most probably unpause when you need it) for you.

[Russia (DoE)]

On the other hand, why you dont ask for a Measured War rule? If you are still not willing to accept my last offer, what choice we have except for continue the war? After all, the rules are made just for a cases like this and there is nothing wrong in using them if you feel this way.

[Russia (DoE)]

I think it is time for some "Cold turkey time".

I will not comment the speeches of both of you too, however there are some really strong points.

[Israel (DoE)]

points are mostly techs. that will never go down by much.

I have tried a lot to accept reasonable peace deals.
I gave up Ekron, you then refused.
I offered a crap load of money, you refused.
I offered Bethlehem, you refused.

The terms you had for peace all the time were way over the top and very unreasonable.
But as shown above, I have tried to compromise a lot.

[Ottoman Empire (DoE)]

Yup.

That about sums it up. In that rule statement you cited, notice the last, most important sentence which says...

On the other hand, players must be willing to compromise when losing a war and be willing to accept terms of their enemy.

So are you at that point yet or are you still going to come back after us with"20 Cannons and 50 Muskets"... or whatever innumerable number of soldiers you claim to have? How can I make peace with an enemy who openly threatening he is amassing soldiers to attack when peace is over? How can I accept "non negotiable" peace that requires me to abandon my allies? That doesn't make sense.

It is impossible for you to simultaneously tell me "here is my non negotiable offer" and say you are accepting MY terms for peace. Sorry you are having a hard time. Felt the same when Turkey was second to last in rankings and all our cities were slaved down to POP 1 and 2 just to barely keep Damascus after your stupendous, spectacular backstabbery destroyed our army down to the last man and left us defenseless. The game wasn't fun at all for me either after that. But I did not say a word about it. I just quietly accepted defeat, focused on entertaining the other players with some nice stories and tried to rebuild as best I could to make things fun again. I am still in the bottom half of the rankings BTW.

And now that I'm having fun again you are raining on my parade complaining that its not fun for you. I did not do that to you. When you betrayed us, all I said was "well played, you got me good" and I sucked it up, kept quiet and kept playing. Why ruin the fun for others by saying its not fun anytime you are not winning? Everyone has to lose sometimes, and losing is never fun.

And BTW, when war began you had 800 pts. You have about 700 pts now. When you are down to 600 pts, only then would you have an even remotely legitimate argument that you lost 25% of your empires value.

[Israel (DoE)]

Ottoman Empire:

Israel rebuilt Ekron after I told them not to. Instead of just razing it I pmed them and told them my demands and ultimatims etc. I also asked that in consideration of me giving them advance warning, they allow me to move first... IF and only if they were rejecting my ultimatims(which would mean war, which of course I knew Russians would probably join). I asked for this consideration primarily, because I knew full well that if Israel had first move, it would create the current situation where Russians wait for Israel, and France waits for Russians, pushing France further into the bottom of the turn.

Turkey: the reason that I moved in my army was to avoid that you would raze the city before I had a chance to negotiate with Russia. I told you in advance that I would give the city to you if my negotiation attempts would fail.

And that's what I did, when negotiations failed I offered the city to you.
But you rejected the city, declared war, took Ekron, Nain and now Tel Aviv as well.

So I don't see what the problem is. You wanted to move first b/c you feared that I would bring in my entire army. I was allowed to move first anyway, and only did so to buy negotiation time. Then I gave you the city anyway.
It's not as if I did not comply to your demands.

I'm in such a terrible situation already that I can't affort to give up my first move position.
I'm already too late to save Tel Aviv and Sidon, imagine how much I would be too late if I would even have to give up my first move.

And the double move rule is there for a reason. So that I can anticipate on your moves.
When I see your armies board your ships, I have a chance to respond to that by improving the defense of my cities.
So you requesting first move order is not fair. If you want to move first, then make sure that you move first in the turn before.
You can't just PM me saying that I should let you move first while the rules let me move first.

Anyway, you got Ekron, first b/c I offered it, then because you razed it again.