Destiny of Empires [Diplo Game] [Organization Thread]

[Vikings (DoE)]

The uploader for PYT appears to be down.

Edit: not anymore.

[France (DoE)]

France has voted. Difficult month for voting. Many great stories and a ton of RP! Again, I congratulate Israel, Russia and Turkey on a civil and thoughtful debate over events. IMO it is very important to the health and future of diplo gaming to have such discussions. And it could have easily descended into a personal battle, and it did not. Kudos!

"Apolyton" is not hosting diplogames, we're just a platform and anybody can host diplogames here.
I personally am not hosting (and playing in) two full diplogames at one time.

I wonder if it's a good idea to spread the diplo community out over two sites (since it's quite a small community)
On the other hand, maybe it'll generate some new fans for the genre.

My original reaction was similar to your first thought above, Robert. Given the difficult in getting 17 or 18 dedicated players for a game such as this is a challenge, as is finding permanent or temporary subs when someone leaves. But then I progressed to your second thought as well. Maybe we need to 'mine' for a new group of players, including some who would play at both sites.

Spread the gospel! Let diplo gaming into your lives!

[Russia (DoE)]

Difficult month for voting. Many great stories and a ton of RP!

Could not say it better. France, you have a soul of a poet.

[France (DoE)]

Could not say it better. France, you have a soul of a poet.

And the heart of a warrior!

I am leaving today for close to two weeks. A temporary sub will be playing for France. He is the same player who subbed for me earlier this year. Good player, not much into story-telling. His character was General Maray, but he was killed by an Incan mercenary outside of Plymouth. Working on a new story line now. I have a couple hours left.

[Robert]

Please all cast your votes today.

[Vikings (DoE)]

I'm still unsure if my votes took or not. I tried it twice and both times it said that I hadn't voted.

Edit: never mind. I just went into the voting link again and it said I had voted.

[The Priest]

Just thought I would look in here from old time's sake (I was Ottoman before rl became too much).

Sorry to see an argument over Damascus/Jerusalem.

But I can confirm that from an Ottoman point of view there certainly was no back-stabbing of Israel. At one point we accept the existance of Jerusalem. Didn't like it, didn't wish it, but accepted it. Then it became the holy city. We tried to live with that for a good many years wanting peace with our neighbours, but it became clear that the culture from the holy city would destroy us - it was already stripping off cultivated land and luxuries from existing Ottoman cities. So we attacked it and destroyed it.

This left a sore which I knew would come back at some point. From the Israeli point of view, the Ottomans had accepted the existance of Israeli Jersualem, and then a while later changed their minds. From the Ottoman point of view, they had accepted the existance of Israeli Jerusalem as a city living within its borders, but Israeli action - turning it into a holy city and a cultural powerhouse - meant it became a huge threat to existing Ottoman cities and action was needed. Israeli's say, "you broke the peace when you attacked Jersualem". Ottoman's say "you broke the peace when you turned Jerusalem into a cultural powerhouse stripping away Ottoman land". Such are the things which give birth to millenia-lasting hatred.

But I (knowing nothing about what is happening now) still believe that the Ottomans were right then. Its the oldest trick in the book to launch non-military attacks on your neighbours - cultural war for example - leave your neighbours with no viable option other than a military response - and then call them aggressors. I've used the tactic many times! In BtP I seem to remember being involved in more wars than any other nations, winning them of course :-) and meanwhile trying to argue i was the most peaceful of nations because I had never declared war on anyone!

Mores seriously I remember the whole Jerusalem thing being a mess. Egypt/Israel has put a huge amount of effort into establishing Jersualem as a city and engineering it as the holy city, with a whole game plan, plan for stories etc. on the basis of it. Huge effort. So by seizing Jersualem I was destroying somethign really important IG and OOC for Egypt/Israel. But, IG, it felt like the only thing Ottomans could do, and IG a perfectly reasonable thing to do. But if someone has staked a lot of human effort and inginuity on a strategy, it seemed really bad - and maybe it was - to torpedo it. But it seemed that accepting it meant really bad outcomes for the Ottomans (even though that wasn't Egypt/Israel's intention). A real mess, and sorry to see it still has ramifications.

[Robert]

I'm still unsure if my votes took or not. I tried it twice and both times it said that I hadn't voted.

Edit: never mind. I just went into the voting link again and it said I had voted.

You have voted!

[Israel (DoE)]

@The Priest: Your razing of Jerusalem was never a problem ooc, neither was it the reason for the more recent 'ramifications'.
I never considered to be a real ooc mess. It had a big impact on my game, but like I said before, I gambled and lost. If I would have been you I would have done the same.

More recent Israel has counter-backstabbed the Ottomans, who then razed one and occupied one city. After peace was signed they attacked again together with Russia. That 2nd war was what the ramifications were about b/c moi (Isreal) thought that the Ottomans/Russians/mali took way too many cities then measured war would allow. (6 out of 9, including the capital). The Russians/Ottomans believed that Israel should just have accepted their peace proposal (10 turns of 100% gold output to Russia, including cities going full wealth, and then about 50% of all commercial output for 20 more turns, and some IC stuff).

Well, that was what the argument was about.
Your original razing of Jerusalem was only brought in to explain the counter-backstabbing of Israel in character, and to explain why Israel (imho) could not affort the huge price the Russians/Ottomans demanded for peace, b/c we had been 'behind' since the beginning of the game. (ie. we are a backwards civ, not a strong going civ, and that's why we can't affort another 20 turns of no progress).

That was the argument. So nothing you did was wrong or caused any problems.

[Russia (DoE)]

I am sorry to have been so late to play my turn leaving 4.5 hours for France to play. I paused the game, so please, anyone after me pause it too for France.

[Vikings (DoE)]

France has played.

[Russia (DoE)]

Good then , I am going to write a story, spending the whole day sleeping.

[Vikings (DoE)]

Can't wait to read it.

[Russia (DoE)]

Aaahhhh... You are only pretending to be mad at Natasha, arent you? And who can judge you - she is extraordinary woman and a such a fabulous combination.

But wait to meet Catherine in person

[The Priest]

@Israel. Thanks, but I did feel bad spoiling what was such a clever and well designed story line, but sounds like it has spawned its own ongoing story anyways. That initial Israeli back-stab by building a holy city in right on its friend's border, runs and runs. :-)