Destiny of Empires [Diplo Game] [Organization Thread]

[America (DoE)]

I am unable to connect to the game. Is anyone else having this problem?

I'm more than willing to play on guys; JFK broke up with Marilyn, so he is like, totally wanting to kill stuff and take part in parades.

[Russia (DoE)]

+1 for the spirit, America. Always liked your stories and your attitude btw. Too bad you post not so much lately.
OTOH, at least this cant be denied to the Ottomans - where they set foot, the stories immediately thrive!

[America (DoE)]

+1 for the spirit, America. Always liked your stories and your attitude btw. Too bad you post not so much lately.
OTOH, at least this cant be denied to the Ottomans - where they set foot, the stories immediately thrive!

Thanks Russia, and yeah, sorry about that, just got back from a month and a half of traveling, which was awesome, but it sucked that I couldn't contribute much... Haha, and agreed about the Ottomans; their attack totally spiced things up

[LzPrst]

Hahahah... I dont know if you truly believe all you say, or you continue to write excuses why you quit (more to yourself, as you cant get my sympathy for quitting without a RL reason), but if this is your real thinking, let me say something to you: you dont understand fundamental concepts about the politics: The "Russian" block would have stayed solid as long as there was a "Neander" block. How you can imagine we simply start fighting among ourselves if just outside our borders there are 3 armed to the teeth nations, who ever since the end of the Great War was arming and preparing for the next one? Because, contrary to the popular belief, we did not crushed the Axis in the Great War. When the war ended, the Axis had MORE units and BETTER military techs than us and those armies were not going to disappear magically.

Do I really believe that? Are you accusing me of lying or rationalizing? I guarantee you that my thoughts as I present them are my thoughts as I perceived the game.

Here is what I saw: There were 5 top civs in the game, Russia, China, England, Neandor and later the Inca. You say I don't understand politics, but I saw the axis aggression as an attempt to stop you and England from winning the game early on. I was sitting as an insignificant in India hoping someone would do something about your out of control lead. While your alliance seemed strong as iron, the axis alliance was wavering constantly, with participation in the story thread being low or non-existant. You can blame them for that, and I agree that it is partly their fault, but IRL stuff does take precedence and sometimes the game requires more than a person has time for.

I then saw the Russian army smash into Neandor and concluded that the situation was lost. Why would Neandor surrender if they had a lead? Keep in mind that I saw your military strength (spies everywhere, even your production I see), and concluded that with that kind of force, being supplied with troops from Arabia, Ottoman and finances from Inca and Arabia along with England as another top civ supplying its own forces on the western front, the axis were doomed, and they surrendered and I figured that they knew what they were doing. Maybe they were wrong, but they are not stupid, if they believed they had lost then they had lost. How is India in its isolated corner supposed to know things that the axis do not?

Yet that was not important for me, what was important for me was the Indian-Pacific, which you and Japan then took away from me. Seriously, that move caused such fury with me, not just because I was sneak attacked by a civ I had helped and tried to befriend in every way (yeah, that's right Japan, f you), but because it was supported by every major power, Russia, Inca, England, China. The question I pose to you is, what on earth would you have done in my position? Really? Surrounded by enemies, hamstrung and reduced to one of the smallest civs in the game by 3 top civs. With every civ in the world cheering the Japanese for turning my pathetic empire into a bottom level civ. The fun I had in the game disappeared then and was replaced by a desire for revenge.

After the great wars in Europe I suspected that the winners would be poor winners and start dominating other small civs through proxy as they had done with me. The Ottoman activities in America and the silence of the axis while it happened only seemed to confirm that suspicion. As the Ottoman player said, he had nothing, yet with nothing he managed to field a strong army to invade America with? Really what happened was that you gave him a huge army after the war, am I right? His actions may have been his own, but his armies came from you. It certainly seemed as if you were behind it, just as you were behind Japan's attack on me.

But I kept on playing as I had my own regional goals to accomplish, and perhaps with time the allies would break apart. But they never did.

There was a major problem in the game that the core of the axis was so inactive for so long. With Neandor away, France and Vikings seemed to stay quiet. If you read the story thread for the last months it really reads as: Russia-Turkey-Inca propaganda line vs Aztecs and America. It really seemed to me that the major players were out of it, uninterested or uninvolved, that the allies were using their position to screw over the remaining independents. The real challengers to the top tier civ alliance Russia-Inca-England, were silent, even China was out of it after I had been defeated.

You say you enjoyed the game immensely, but I did not. When I was fighting Japan, who were supported by you, China, Inca and even England, I made complaints. I expended every resource I had to get back my colonies and in the end I failed. Having failed that, being reduced to 6 cities, having enemies on all fronts, the fun had been sucked out of the game for me. Not for losing, but losing through such unsportsmanslike behaviour that the 4 top civs supplied a proxy to kill me and reduce me to a near unplayable civ.

So I decided to suicide against China. You applauded that move, but keep in mind, a civ suicide-attacking is not a healthy situation for the game. And I was not the only one, the Aztecs did the same. You created a situation where 2 mid-level civs lost interest in the game and decided to go out with a bang, in other words, both me and Azteca decided to quit ingame by being destroyed. I was going to have fun by fighting an impossible battle against the Chinese player, then be eradicated from the game. Then Inca said they were sending airships and a fleet to fight me. How could I know that the Inca only meant to have a symbolic involvement? ****, you guys seem to expect us to be mindreaders, I read the political situation, not even fighting alone vs a superpower would I be allowed. So I threw a tantrum because I saw it as another example of rotten sportsmanship of the strong ganging up on the weak, which I had seen several times in this, game, against myself in particular. Why should a civ bother to play on when it is constantly ganked by several top civs? It is like when kids are playing in the sandbox and 4 big kids are sitting on one small kid and then call him a coward for deciding to not play anymore. "Come on little guy, fight us all at the same time, it's great fun! For us!". Consider other people's perspective for a second why don't you, and don't expect them to know things they can not possibly know. When a major civ that has been hostile to you the entire game declares war on you, why should you expect them to show restraint? Fair play? I haven't seen a shred of that before!

I honestly believed that all sense of fair play had left this game, as the gangup on me, and the allied activity in America showed. That the Chinese player had disappeared simply shocked me, and winning the war with help from the Arabs was even more surprising. Suddenly I was back in the game at astronomical odds! But then I looked to Europe and I saw you building infantries in all your cities. And at a rate of which is simply mindboggling. And you have more than 20 infantry. And in 2-3 turns you would have had an additional 20. So don't try to put yourself in a vulnerable position. Then Neandor quit after the ship sinking debacle. I suspect he felt as I did that all sense of fair play had left the game. Without Neandor the rest of the axis saw inevitable defeat. Game over.

Keep in mind, here is what I saw: Your vast military production, an attack on Neandor, they left and the rest of the alliance left with them. How is anyone supposed to not conclude that you had won by sheer numerical superiority?

This tends to happen in diplogames, people misjudge the situation based on their perspectives and make decisions based on it. Maybe I should have kept on playing, maybe Neandor should have kept on playing, but I experienced first hand that fair play was not something that was considered in this game, and as such, playing on would be futile. Perhaps I misjudged you guys, but based on the observations and experiences I made, I could make no other conclusion.

[Toni]

Hi guys,
I felt strongly that being the original Viking player and a major part in the first half of this game I needed to share some thoughts as well.

First of all I do want to share my sympathy to all the RL issues many of you have and still are experiencing. *

I really missed not playing for the last 5 months, many did not pay much attention when I come forward to say that I was leaving the game due to having issues with my wife. Sadly by leaving the game and sacrificing my hobby for the past 6 years did little to satisfy the mrs lol. At least my baby boy Little Tony has given me much joy and happiness during this time.

I do not have a perfect finishing diplo games record lol as Robert would say. I have played out most games that I had a significant impact on the end game, leaving a game in the past was due to being backstabbed badly or a fight with someone. Many people are quick to blame people who leave/quit that they do that just because they can’t win. Actually the most often reason for leaving is that a fight between two players grows out of proportion and one just gets to angry over it. All of us are different, thus we all act differently.

BUT I TOO STRONGLY BELIEVE that if you enroll to play a diplo game you have the responsibility to finish the game. I feel bad that I am not a good example for a reliable player here, even being one of the old diplo players here.

Quickly: Russia well played, what you did, how you did it and the much hard work you invested behind the scenes took you to the top!! Your top power reflects your supirior Diplomacy.

Now to the game, well there is a lot that could be said here. First of all Ozzy (My love for you and respect is great!!!!) still *you keep on blaming my game style over the years about my willingness to surround myself with allies/puppets and thus ensure myself a victory. I really dislike people using my name to portray a bad and not diplo healthy game strategy.

AGAIN I think many of you fail to understand that we all are different, we all see things different through our eyes. Let me share with you my point of view here, I dislike wars, I am not a warmonger, I do like micro managing my civ and building a strong nation. I just enjoy building up a beautiful civ. Making allies comes natural to me I just enjoy befriending people, this is my game style (my nature as a person) BUT NOT GOAL (STARTEGY) just in order to win the game as many of you blame me. To sum it up it becomes organic as the game progresses I guess and it adds up and too many of you it seems at the end that I do all of this just to win it and that is why you are wrong.

I can’t remember a game in the past years were I have attacked a friend or backstabbed someone, I guess what more clear evidence you want for a peaceful civ builder. But that is my style, maybe not the best Diplo healthy one, but again you need to respect it at least.

NOW TO THIS LATEST DIPLO GAME:

This was and still for the ones playing was/is a great game. We as players have to play with whatever we are dealt.

Now for the Vikings:

I was really discouraged in the beginning when I saw my starting lands. Capital had a strong spot to grow from and my holy city was ok, but everything else was well s…hit. I know that I was in the tier 1 group but seriously come on, after seeing England, Germany and France lands, Vikings were destined to be a small actor here. I know that the whole purpose of the tier system is to weaken better players, but at least those 4 better players in the same tier group need to be put at equal positions. It seemed and it felt that there was a tier system within the Tier 1 group as well.

There was no balance in Europe. I had almost no to none production capabilities except my cap to some extend. Sadly there is not such statistics in CIV to check the amount of civ slaving, but boy I bet that no one else comes close to the amount of slaving the Vikings did as a civ. Just to get the simplest of buildings and units I had to slave heavily 5 out of my total of 6 cities.

I did really try to work hard to make something out of my civ and have an impact over the game.

I had 4 very strong civs surrounding me, England, France, Germany and Russia. And at that time before China rose I was actually surrounded by four superpowers. Contesting these civs would have be very difficult, the Franco/German alliance come to be very early. Then you had England expanding overseas and growing stronger by the turns. Russia with its vast lands had its future locked. In the middle of all of this you had us the Vikings, Germany by the way was very tough on us in the early stages of the game, England ignored us, France was even not answering our pms. Only Russia showed more interest in us.

Anyway a decision needed to be made at one point and that was early in the game, that we needed to do something in these world. So I started concentrating on technology, as many of you remember Vikings did very well there . Technology advancement was my answer to being heard around the world.

Funny thing was that I had no clear enemies, just natural relations with the four strongest civs in the world at that time. So I started to think who should I make my target. France/Germany were immediately taken out of the equation because they were allies. I was seriously thinking of attacking France, but Germany would have never allowed me to keep French cities, thus all would have been in vain. Also it seems England was too busy at that time settling the world, they would not risk giving me a hand into attacking France, thus Vikings would have been alone in this.

The thing was that with the capabilities I had I knew that I would have only one shot at this. Vikings were too small to sustain a large war, my cities where just not able to build anything on their own if it was not for slaving. Thus in order the attack to have a lasting effect I had to look elsewhere.

Now this is INTERESTING:

England and Russia as targets were 50/50 chance wise. I was just split between both who to attack.

At the time I was making my plans Russia seemed big but weak, they seemed to have no capabilities to match our researching and would have made for a good target. The moment the Vikings were ready to attack, Russia had a large army but mostly obsolete thus very little to defend against Vikings Riffles/Cats. My problem was that there was German lands between Russia and the Vikings, thus I disliked the idea having territories not joined together.

So it came to England, they seemed the most natural target for us, being the largest and richest civ at that time, I said let invest all we can in bringing them down a notch or two, lets have an impact in this game. At that time I was really disappointed that no one else was willing to do anything about the growing English Empire, other strong civs France, Germany, Russia etc.

Seeing that Vikings will just not be able to compete in the future with such growing powers and most possibly would have become just a pawn, a plan was made to work towards the future and hit the English when ready.

So a decision was made, I worked hard to reach some superior military techs to try and get some advantage against England in order to a have an impact. There was no other means of building an army other than to slave the heck out of my civ to get a strong enough force.

The rest is history, we all know what happened after that….

Of course diplomatically I failed to win over some world support, I wonder was that because I was also part of the Tier 1 system and people looked at it as equals fighting. For the record just before the war England had more than 20 cities against mine 6, just to clear up the equals Tier thingy, I wonder what would have people said if I was a civ from the Americas or Asia would they have praised me then bias haha ?

Anyway one major mistake that I did was that I asked the French to attack also, which militarily contributed very little almost nothing in the beginning. All the fighting was done by the Vikings then. Of course it did not look good 2vs1 thus the negative press . And again if you think about it both of our civs had 12-13 cities total against England 20+. All well it all about it how you sell it right Russia *(And that is a compliment by the way )

But for the record, the German player did hand the win to the Russians. Aussies are just too nice *you know and maybe a bit too overconfident. You guys have no idea how many times I suggested him to attack the ottomans when they were for the taking. There was a window of maybe 10-20 turns during the great war that Germany could have just walked in and taken half of Otto lands. But no Germany insisted that that would not be right and that Ottos have to be befriended LOL. Yeah right I told him you wait and see lol.

Russia you too had a moment of weakness (Other then the one me just attacking you instead of England, then we would have had a great war again, but in the east not west and maybe the winner could have been England now). There was a perfectly good tactical moment to attack you during the early stages of the great war, but germany decided that he will need to stay put and be as a wall between me/France and you. Sadly that in turn gave you the time and research to catch up militarily and equal germany in the east.

I am still very mystified about the Inca’s yes I do agree that things did work for them out anyway the way it went. Things always work out when you do not risk anything and play nice with all parties, of course not without the heavy funding they provided during the great war to the Other alliance) Still early when I made my decision to target England, I did talk with them about a possible joint operation Vikings/Inca vs England. A two mid ranked civ vs the top dog should have looked ok and cheered by the world. Inca declined and wanted to stay natural. And that comes from a civ that has lost almost half its expansion lands to a foreign superpower. I think that would have brought much to the game if such an alliance Inca/Vikings was made and worked together into bringing down England. I would had been healthy for the game, sadly one didn’t want to risk its sweet spot.

I am still trying to come to grasp how we lost that Great War, maybe I will ask Robert for some saves from those years to see what took place after when I left. When I left things were going well, I was a few turns from MGs and already building steam ships. Britain Vikings cities were untakable and soon with secured seas. I regret not playing on very very much and helping my allies.

Sad that China left the game, I was really hoping for a Russia vs China showdown.

For the record, France and Germany great teamwork!!!

So yes this is history, many crossroads, mistakes, CAUSE AND EFFECT….

P.S India/Lz sorry for not following on the Riffle/Great Sci deal we had. Glad to see my sub did it.

[Robert]

@Russia: well, it's not possible for me to see who actually is the evil brain behind all those holocausts everywhere in this game

@mzprox: cool that you're in this game! Did I know this? If so, then I have forgotten about it again

Anyway, who's up to continue this game AFTER dropping all current alliances immediately?
So everybody takes his own civ, but all past relations are gone.

- Israel
- Russia
- ....

I'm having the weekend off! No kids, no wife, just 2 appointments and that's all!
So I'm going to update the vote thing and setup a new vote!
Shall I combine the past 3 months in one super-vote, and then triple the outcome? (so avoid that we all have to vote for 3 different months?)

Let's finish the game guys.
I do not think that anybody of the now argueing parties played an ooc flawless game (I certainly did not). We all made mistakes.
Let's just try to pull this off!

I'm PM'ing this to Germany as well.

[Russia (DoE)]

Hahah!!!! I have even weirdest idea than the 30 turns universal NAP and the erasing of the memories about old alliances, but I wont tell it yet

Come on, guys, lets finish this game.

[America (DoE)]

Let's finish it, woohoo! And I don't even mind whether the alliances are still there; given the information some of you now have, you might want to break them or change direction completely or whatever, I leave that entirely up to you. Though, given the 'intel' America has now received about Russia's worldwide influence, America will of course do what must be done: say threatening things to Russia, like, all the time, for many years to come!

[Russia (DoE)]

Shall I combine the past 3 months in one super-vote, and then triple the outcome? (so avoid that we all have to vote for 3 different months?)

Sound OK to me.

[LzPrst]

If the game keeps going India will keep playing its turns at least.

[Russia (DoE)]

If the game keeps going India will keep playing its turns at least.

Great!

Viking? Are you coming as well?

[OzzyKP]

Great report Toni!

And while I certainly complained about it till I was blue in the face IC, kudos to you for attacking me. Don't forget though that of those 20 cities or so you said I had, most of them were small, undeveloped colonies. Obviously they all had potential, and certainly are developed now, but at the time you took out all the substantive parts of my civ. Plus London... jeeze, that was brutal. My whole strategy & economy was based around that city. Nearly all my colonies were built on the coast to take advantage of the Great Lighthouse. When I lost that, I lost most of my economy. Especially with the brutal maintenance costs, I was really hurting. I also had a lot of GPP in that city which worked with my Philo trait. I was absolutely crippled without it.

But good job for shaking things up and not letting me run away with things. I always complain about people not doing this in other games (i.e. when you are running away with things), but when it finally happens I'm the one who gets taken out, haha, oh well. There were certainly several times during the war I started wishing I had gone your route and made friends with everyone. But it was for the best. What an incredible war!! Despite missing a lot of time in this game I think it is probably the best game I've been a part of. So much drama! So much fun! And I LOVE the world map & tiers! They worked out PERFECTLY. The only thing that messed it up were so many people dropping out.

I had no idea who anyone was. I knew Robert/Israel, and Inca, but honestly that was it. It wasn't until this moment that I realized that Toni was the Vikings. I thought you were the Neandor! Russia did such an amazing job in this game I really can't wait to find out who he is, and why wasn't he placed in tier 1! My hat is off to him, he is a true diplogamer. I'm in awe of his diplomacy skills.

As for how the Axis lost.. credit goes to your less talented sub, Russia's amazing skill, and a very big bluff. Russia was still subbing for me when it was all set up, but I was just about to return. Russia FINALLY invaded Neandor (which I had hoped for throughout the war) and captured a few Neandor cities with considerable losses on both sides. Both sides were fairly evenly matched, so I don't know how that would have turned out. But your replacement emptied out the Viking west coast, leaving all three of those cities, including his holy city, very lightly defended. Russia moved my fleet within range of all of those cities including 3 galleons filled with troops.

They told the Axis that I was going to raze the Viking holy city unless peace was agreed to. In truth I had just returned to the game and absolutely wouldn't have razed your holy city. That'd be too much imho. I was planning to raze Jelling & Bjorgvin and then put all my troops in your holy city and see how long I could hold it. I hoped that it would hurt you temporarily (for as long as I could hold it), open up a second front (to help the Russians) and then destroy the infrastructure in Haithaliu enough to hurt your economy once you retook it. Russia insisted that even if I had no plans to raze the city, that he would TELL you guys that I would.

And it worked!

That's probably the biggest secret in the game. Your replacement and the Axis probably thought I was a monster for planning to raze a well developed holy city. But it was all a bluff! I was planning to discuss it and dramatize it when I finished my series of maps on the Great War, but I haven't gotten to it yet.

Also, Lz and others keep mentioning that our alliance was too big, and too powerful, and that's not fair. I'll say this over and over again, we built that alliance out of fear and at every step it never seemed to be enough to do the job. The war with the Axis was going quite poorly for most of the game. They were having victory after victory, turning our alliance, destroying our troops, taking our cities. We were always the underdog trying to catch up. Maybe that's not how the other side perceived it. But not once did it cross our minds that "we've got a huge, unstoppable alliance, we should let up to give the other side a fair chance" NO! It was "holy ****, we're screwed! What can we do to stop this juggernaut taking all our cities?" So an alliance was built, largely by Russia's amazing diplomacy. (though I brought Inca to the table, cause we're tight).

Lz also accuses us of trying to tear down smaller civs once we won the war. No. We were trying to protect our allies ("puppets" you say) who stood by us in the Great War. What kind of ally would we be if we let the Aztecs invade the Mali or Zulu? And sure, it sucks that everyone was caught up in this alliance structure, but you should have realized that when you made your plans. In fact when I was subbing for the Aztecs a long time ago I started building up an army to attack the Native Americans. They were soft, were rich, and were close. I don't know why the Aztecs didn't do that if they just wanted to expand. Probably no one would have stopped them. In fact, if they had done that the Axis would have gotten that source of oil.

This was a hell of a game!! At this point, with all the whiners and quitters, and revelations, I don't care if it ends or continues. But if people want to play on, I'll see it through. If not, then it was probably the best game I've been a part of! We definitely need to use this map again! (though I'll take everyone's feedback on resource distribution to balance it more)

[Inca (DoE)]

I know my stance with England is a bit odd, but we struck (well, I struck mostly) a very solid alliance early on back when I was #17 and they were #2 or whatever. I think I did everything other than offer myself sexually to get that built. Anyway, England coming to my continent was the best thing that happened to me. It finally killed the barbs! I had really busted the fog busting thing (which worked well in my SP playtests but then I forgot it all after months of "enter"), and they were running wild, sacking Talcho once even and costing me just a gd ton of wasted hammers. England sorted that out, took the marginal terrain I had little interest in (and had slated for the Aztecs to take if they ever felt like it, seeing how bottled up they were, but they were MIA and England grabbed it first. Another reason I hate it when I'm blamed for "ganging up" given how much I was willing the weaker civ next door to keep territory fair, not to mention I never took advantage of his really crap situation).

Anyway, I lost maybe 1 site I really cared about and got a solid alliance with someone that easily could have walked over me if he wanted to. Once struck, it was basically a game-long necessity for both of us.

I would have gained very little taking on England, especially if you took all their core cities (many would need to be returned). I think the two of us have very similar tendencies in this building respect (I am a natural fit for Inca, although I have enjoyed a more Turkish position in past MP). It made little sense for me to attack them when I had secured a lasting ally with them. Plus, what do I need more gd coastal cities for? Take a look at my land if you can and tell me you'd want an even larger, more spread out and vulnerable civ to defend, plus keep in mind that you've made a game-long enemy in the process with a huge naval outlook...

Remember, that I had no allies until England showed up. No interest, nothing. I was alone, weak, getting overrun by (double-moving) barbs, lost in jungles. That was basically the one thing I had going for me at that time.

[England (DoE)]

And I had a lot of fun playing up my colonial super power story line. "invading" America and turning them into a protectorate, "wars" with the Inca, John Smith, Columbus, Cabot, etc. That was all lots of fun! I did want more land in South America though. I had an awesome city spot scouted out surrounded by jungle which would have been an awesome natural park city. But a strong friendship with the Inca was more important.

I tried to offer them all of Australia in exchange for more South American land. They didn't go for it. Then I offered Australia to... Ottomans? I don't remember. Oh yea, it was them. I wanted them to build me lots of settlers so I could grab up all of South America quickly before the Inca could stop me. Then I'd help them get Australia. But they didn't go for it either. So... I took Australia myself.

I loved rebuilding the British Empire.

[England (DoE)]

Oh and Toni, as for land quality, the British Isles were also very, very poor for production. Probably equal to Scandinavia. I made up for it with the Maori Statues and trying to find more productive spots elsewhere. I definitely envied France, Neandor & Russia for having lots of land tiles. I squeezed five cities into my home islands. They were all packed in very tight and were mostly sea based.

I always hated that the damn French built their capitol right next to London. I was hoping for another seafood resource for London. Their culture really choked me.