Destiny of Empires [Diplo Game] [Organization Thread]

[LzPrst]

look, I have played a lot of diplogames and I have taken over as a perm-sub several times for sucky nations that have been totally screwed and made them into fun civs to play. I took over Russia in the previous game after the Persians had (much like you did against Mongolia here) screwed them over by taking their 2nd city early in the game, making Persia a superpower and squeazing the Russian empire into nothing. I did not whine about that, I took over that civ, played them up in the score, made great stories and had great fun, even after losing badly in a war against the same Persian player later. Did I quit then? No, I remodelled my civ into a regional power and with great diplomacy split up and fought my other neighbours rather than fight the local superpower and still had great fun.But the game was never decided and the other contender for the top position never quit because he felt there was no point in going on. In the game previous to that I also took over as a sub for a crappy Russia and played them to the end. In another game, I also played Russia, but quit because the map was ridiculously unbalanced and when my crappy civ was attacked by one of the top dogs in the game I felt the fair play and fun for other civs had been violated far beyond what I could accept. I usually find room to have some fun, but in this game it has been practically impossible. The selfishness of major powers has made that certain.

In this game there was never any possibility of being anything but a puppet to the major powers, you, China and Inca made sure of that. There is no room to manouver, no activity I could take that would allow me to have fun, except sitting in my blocked off subcontinent and hitting end turn. What diplomacy could I make? A third of the players were inactive and played by your alliance as subs. all other civs were part of your alliance making them too domesticated to have any ambition outside of your plans. The other alliance was inactive for large parts of the game, and had I joined them the result would have been equal to joining you.

India was in fact destroyed when Japan sneak attacked me (considered extremely bad form btw in diplogames) with YOUR riflemen. How the hell did you think that playing on after losing everything but SIX cities and squeazed between a superpower that hated me and your Arabian puppet was a likelyhood? What would I be doing for the rest of the game? Developing? Join an alliance as another puppet? Sorry, that is not what I consider fun.

When I finally did something drastic to change that, everything changed. Great fun, but in reality it was not a move towards making the game more fun for me, that train had already left the station. I did what I did because I promised China in the earliest game, that if they blocked me in they would regret it. Had the Chinese player not quit without telling anyone, India would now have been wiped out as the Inca and other major powers came to the aid of a superpower just attacked by a micro-nation. China was still after my attack in a far better position than most other civs and as such there was nothing unfair about my attack.

Here is why I am quitting:
1. The game is over, you have won.
2. You have won in part because of actions I consider poor sportsmanship and by creating a diplomatic deadlock.
3. You have shown poor sportsmanship by making the game unfun to play for several nations, Mongolia, India, Aztecs. Other civs have dropped off as well because they saw no fun in going on.
4. The diplomatic deadlock you have created, in part by your puppets' lack of independent thought has created an alliance that is dominant. As such your alliance does what it pleases, breaks all diplo rules regarding fair play and makes the game unfun for other civs. Attacking America is one such action, putting the Aztecs in a situation where the player would rather suicide than go on is another. Giving Japan two dozen rifleman upgrades to attack me is another. Supporting your allies when they are clearly breaking conduct for good sportsmanship just reinforces the bad atmosphere in this game. That several top civs band together is just ridiculous, top civs should be competing!

Several players have seen that the situation is so deadlocked that there is no point in going on. Those who remain can do little to change that. I agree with them and feel it is time to cut my losses, I have no further interest in this game as it is over.

[Russia (DoE)]

I have to go out, but will come back, read all and answer to all.

And still I will try to make you back in the game and the game going.

The game is not over yet.

[LzPrst]

I am unable to see where the propaganda ends and where the facts begin.

1. Why would you ask for land? You have the biggest empire in the world.
2. Why would you ask for money? You had allies supplying you with tons of it.
3. Oh wait, you DID ask for money, or rather you extorted it from one of the weakest civs, me.
4. Yes, Mongolia was perhaps not a brillant player, but with the lands they had, how could they have developed? They had no choice but make war against either you or China. Or what would you have done in their position?
5. The same was true for me, what could I do in my position blocked between China and Arabia? I tried several diplomatic ventures to make friends with different civs, but nothing was possible as the set alliances already determined all loyalties.


Edit: Also, I am not quitting becuase I am losing, I am quitting because I have lost. My civ is gone. I have lost everything, I am now completely insignificant even with China. Partly because of your actions supplying Japan with a huge amount of Rifles.

Aslo, I do not see how this game could end in any other way than you winning. I have full espionage on you and I see the amount of troops you are churning out. There is no one that can match that. (I have a very strong spy network). You may not realize that you have won, but you have. Your opponents and challengers all know it.

[England (DoE)]

First of all, awesome work Russia/Ottomans.

Second, RELAX everyone.

Third... sadly, with everyone being cry babies and quitting, this amazing game may very well be over...

You guys accuse our side of "abusing game mechanics"? Give me a break. If you think sinking ships at port is "abusing game mechanics" then surely giving away a fully developed city in order to take its oil is as well. So is upgrading 30 frigates to destroyers in a small 1 population city on the coast of Africa in one turn. Could that happen in the real world? Hell no. But it is part of the game, and you guys surely take advantage of everything you can to help your situation in the game. So do we. The only reason you guys are upset is that this time you are on the losing side of it.

Sorry to break the news, but yes, often in diplogames there are winners and losers. If you are comfortable winning, you have to be comfortable losing as well. And heck, the Axis hasn't even lost any cities. You complain about losing ships? ****, do you guys want to see how many ships I've lost in this game? Gimmie a break.

No one has lost more in this game then me. You didn't see anything wrong when the Vikings, French & Neandor were ganging up on me. When they took my capitol city, destroyed more than half my economy, took five of my six most important cities, did I quit? Did I pout and throw a tantrum about abuse of game mechanics? I was pretty damn upset and distraught. I put a lot of work into building up my civ and it was heart breaking to see it all destroyed by a surprise attack by someone I had never had any real contact with. Someone with advanced technology that I was absolutely powerless to resist.

Plus I was going through some crazy stuff in the real world and it was too much to lose my entire empire, lose the girl I thought I would marry, and very nearly lose the job I've held for 12 years all at the exact same time. I doubt ANYONE in this game went through what I've gone through over the last few months. So I took some time off.

But I didn't give up. I didn't throw a tantrum in the forum. That's the beauty of diplogames. True to the name, diplomacy is the most important part of these games. When I was fearing an attack by the Vikings, Russia & the Ottomans both reached out to me about their fears about being attacked by the Neandor. I arranged a three-way alliance between us to defend ourselves from the Axis. It was a natural fit.

Russia proved to be a master at diplomacy and assembled an amazing coalition to defend ourselves. Yet in spite of that, the Axis kicked our ass. I was crippled by the surprise attack on my homeland and was limited in my ability to contribute. The Ottomans found themselves stripped of all their African territory. The Neandor took half my Australian cities. They convinced the Japanese to go after more of my Asian cities. Israel betrayed us and destroyed the Russian/Ottoman army in Africa. Holy **** things looked grim. Did we throw a fit? No. We played on.

After a great deal of planning we won. Whether we out strategized you, out bluffed you, out built you, or out negotiated you, the fact remains is that after losing almost everything, we ended up winning the war. But what did that great victory mean? After being set back a hundred turns by slavery and losing all my most important cities (and all their infrastructure) and neglecting tech for the whole war, did I demand a crippling peace? No. Hell, I STILL lost territory in the war. The Axis still got to keep two of my cities in Australia. After all I went through, was this an unfair peace? Yea. I should have made you guys pay. But I didn't. France didn't lose a single city. Neandor GAINED cities. Vikings didn't lose a single city. After all the damage you caused, you got an incredibly generous peace.

Then you spend the whole 50 turns trying to get revenge. Trying to start a proxy war in Africa, trying to get oil out of the Aztecs, trying to destroy China, putting in a puppet for Arabia, etc. You guys whine that the game is settled, but it isn't close. All your moves had all of us terrified that we'd see a replay of the Great War and you'd do even more damage to us this time around. At no point was the outcome decided. It took a lot of frantic planning, scheming and discussions on our end to try and counter all your various moves. At no point did we think we had anything in the bag. It always looked like you guys had the upper hand and we were scrambling to catch up and counter you.

In spite of all you were doing, you kept whining OOC and threatening to quit. So even though it looked to us like you were about to crush us, we felt hamstrung by your OOC complaining. I wanted to sink your entire fleet the moment the peace treaty ended and blockade the entire continent. If this game continues I very well may do that. And IC I'd be 100% justified. My only fear is that you guys would throw another tantrum and quit. Of course you were one turn away from having a fleet as large and advanced as me. I'm sure you wouldn't have felt any hesitation to using that against me. You sure didn't hesitate to destroy my entire homeland at the start of the Great War when you had a technological advantage. Maybe I should have complained and threatened to quit at the time. So even though I very much wanted to attack & blockade you guys, I was on vacation and my subs failed to act... with their inaction you guys got oil. Then the Vikings upgraded their iron clads to destroyers. Then the French were able to upgrade their fleet to destroyers.

Thankfully you guys are dumb enough to keep leaving massive fleets docked in port where we can destroy them.

I know how frustrating that must be to have a loss like that, but come on, everyone here knows that is how the game works. You can blame no one but yourselves. Your OOC complaining and quitting is nothing but poor sportsmanship. You guys are more than willing to defeat us, but not willing to be defeated. That's not fair. I experienced defeat in this game. Crushing defeat. But I kept at it. If what happened to me had happened to any of you guys, you would have quit in a big huff then and there.

So please. Give me a break and relax.

[Ottoman Empire (DoE)]

The trick is that all of us should actively work on to make the game fun-even if that means that we do "illogical" things in character, just for ooc reasons.

Like using a Great General to sunk the Azteca fleet (when any Archer would have done the trick), knowing he would be killed , and thus killing one of my main characters... for the SOLE purposes of giving the Aztecs some opportunity for a moral victory and creating a good storyline to amuse my fellow gamers?

But nobody says "Oh good story" or "Wow! Clever tactic, you got me good!" Or maybe "wow brilliant move! I did not even realize you could do that! Thanks for teaching me some good CIV tactics!" Nope... All I ever hear is "Turkey is abusing mechanics, Turkey is poor sportsmanship, Turkey is a puppet, Turkey this, Turkey that..."

I get it, Turkey is seen as the villain of the game despite the fact that we are nowhere near a top-ranked superpower, not even top 5, barely even top 10, and we were once ranked 2nd to last after France and Israel outplayed us (great play you guys on that again BTW) and kicked the living s#!t out of Turkey in the Great War, all this time using diplomacy and strategy and close relationships with allies and Micro and great people etc to crawl back up the ladder, and still the whole world hates us, fine...

But to say I did something wrong or poor sportsmanship is just flat out untrue and unfair. I supported India every step of the way when no one else, not even Indias so called allies would, and still India hates and accuses me. India was BEGGING for a mediator and NO ONE stepped up except me. I supported Indias war on China snd defended their actions as fair, but I still get accused of abuses?

Whatevers

[LzPrst]

England, even after losing your core territories you were in a better position than many other civs.

Besides, I dont know who you are talking to, because I am not a part of the Neander alliance, I have tried this entire game to play as an independent. the reason I am quitting is because I realize that is impossible and joining one of the established alliances that routinely act like asses against other players does not appeal to me.

Finally it was actually me (India) that persuaded Japan to attack you, we were gonna take your cities and split them between us. It had nothing to do with Neandor.

[Arabia2 (doe)]

..putting in a puppet for Arabia..

I refuse this.. actually they were my puppet, as the rest of the world. I declare that I had won, or would had if we continued, so we can make a vote: who thinks Arabia has won, 1 so far.

Anyway I don't know why do you protest against when I say "abusing game mechanics", is it because maybe I have used a wrong word? Does exploiting game mechanics sounds better? Yes city gifting for upgrade troops is an exploit too, but even just upgrading troops for a civ while it ignores her own research completely. These exploits are not forbidden in the game though (there are some which are). I called Ottomans the masters of these exploits though the first time it was a plain error by Azteca/vikings, the second time it was the intentional or unintentional exploit of the defensive pact mechanism, but still the Ottmans did the biggest impact on the game using tricks like this.

[Vikings (DoE)]

Since Neandor was the only reason I was still playing the game...I'm out. I imagine France is too, but I can't contact him to tell him Neandor quit. He felt the same way as I have for the past few months too, he just didn't post about it. That is why he stopped writing stories.

BTW, I believe that the Ottomans made some bones a little while back about not attacking Civs that were smaller than they were...so then they attacked me. Make of that what you will.

[Ottoman Empire (DoE)]

Oh and what was going on in my RL when I was getting backstabed by Israel and crushed by France? What have I gone through in the last 12 months? Both my parents died of cancer, I lost a job and failed a licensing exam... but this game has been great, and so through all that I did not quit or give up or say "It's not fun anymore because I'm losing"

So yea I can sympathize with England and say, this whining and quitting is the poor sportsmanship, not anything we did.

[England (DoE)]

Sorry to hear about your parents.

[England (DoE)]

England, even after losing your core territories you were in a better position than many other civs.

So losing a stack of ships is more crippling than losing your capitol, your best cities, and most of your economy? Good to know.

[Ottoman Empire (DoE)]

I don't know why do you protest against when I say "abusing game mechanics", is it because maybe I have used a wrong word? Does exploiting game mechanics sounds better? Yes city gifting for upgrade troops is an exploit too... but still the Ottmans did the biggest impact on the game using tricks like this.

This is a great question Arabia and perfectly illustrates my point... There IS NO "abusing", there IS NO "exploiting", there is only PLAYING the game according to the rules and according to the way the game works. You say "abuse" and "exploit" because you want to use a negative word to describe what I did, as if it was unfair somehow.

What bugs me to no end, is that when people try to say something is an "abuse of mechanics" or an "exploit", what they almost ALWAYS mean, is that the player did something THAT THE AI WOULDN'T DO. When you really analyze their complaint, it always boils down to that. The AI is predictable, humans are not. Humans use innovative and imaginative tactics that the AI does not, and when people do something you weren't ready for, you call it an "exploit." But thats BS, because that is the WHOLE POINT of playing humans. If you want your opponent to play like a stupid AI, then play the AI.

If you want to say Turkey is the "Master" of something, say "Turkey is the Master of brilliant strategy or tactics" or you could just say "Turkey is the Master of owning peoples @$$es in cIV". See the difference? What you said is horses#!t, sore loser crap. Give credit where it is due, and don't blame your losses on "game mechanics." Blaming "game mechanics"is like blaming the referee, or the umpire, or the sun, or the weather. When you get outplayed, its because you got outplayed not because of "the way civ works."

BTW, I believe that the Ottomans made some bones a little while back about not attacking Civs that were smaller than they were...so then they attacked me. Make of that what you will.

Yes, Vikings you are absolutely right about this, and if you stick around to see it, there is a very well developed storyline that will address exactly that issue you raised. I'm impressed that you caught it first, since no one ever comments on my stories, everyone just complains about my in game action

Which brings up another thing... France has pointed out time and time again that nothing fuels discussion and story telling like War. Look how much talking is going on right Now! So why doesn't anybody say "Thanks Turkey for keeping the game interesting and giving us something to talk about", instead of all this whining and weeping?

And why don't you use all that energy to write good stories instead of Doing all this OOC weeping?

[Vikings (DoE)]

And why don't you use all that energy to write good stories instead of Doing all this OOC weeping?

How many times do I have to say it? I...HAVE....NO...INTEREST...IN...THIS...GAME...ANY MORE! The Russian alliance has won the game. You guys won the game a while back. From the moment the English threatened to raze my cities the Russian alliance won the game, we just didn't realize it at the time. I went back down to only 6 cities, the smallest nation in the world, and because of world politics after the cease-fire I had no shot of ever expanding again (except for gifted cities which the Russian alliance has made sure to hold against me and the Aztecs). All I had left was trying to help Neandor win.

So let me say it again: The Russian alliance has won. You guys are better than we are. Satisifed?

Russia has proven they are the best at diplomatic relations by gathering so many allies together. You guys have also proven you are better players with the little things like sinking the Aztec fleet in my harbor. None of us realized that could happen. Neandor and I also didn't think about what would happen if the English declared war on us first, and honestly I didn't think you would declare on me because of your stated in-game declaration about not attacking smaller nations. Yeah, so much for that. Edit: Oops, never mind about the double move thing I was just talking about. I thought you had logged in after we did the upgrade.

The only reason I continued playing was because Neandor asked me to keep playing. Frankly, I don't really care if you guys continue to badmouth us and call us poor sports. I don't see how continuing to play when I have no desire to play and no desire to write stories about it is anything but an exercise in futility. The game is done, and the only reason you want us to continue is so you can keep writing your stories.

When I took over the Vikings back in June it was to try a new experience. I've since learned that this type of game is not for me. I will never play in a diplogame again.

[America (DoE)]

Well then, since everybody seems to be quitting, why not declare war on each other and see what happens I'm up for it, anyone? Yeeeeeehaw!

@ottoman empire: sorry about your parents man, my condolences

[Ottoman Empire (DoE)]

I find it amusing that you are stating that what you did in logging in after we did last turn and then starting off the new turn by declaring war on me isn't a double move when you argued that the same maneuver was a double move when you lost a bunch of units when the Aztecs did the exact same thing a while back. You were quite adamant that was a double move when the Aztecs did it to the point that we reloaded and you were able to get your units back. But now it isn't a double move because you are the one that did it? Yeah, whatever. That amuses me no end. .

What?!? That is baloney! The Aztecs logged in at the end of the turn, after I had played, and then the next turn they logged in before me and attacked. That WAS a Doublemove, and as the host explained, that is why the game was reloaded.

In the current situation, I logged in at the end of the turn, after you played, and stayed logged in through the turn roll... new turn... I then finished my turn before you. We were not at war and I DID NOT declare war, so there was no Doublemove... Then you logged in AFTER me and finished your turn... THEN, the turn ended... new turn (this current turn). THEN on this current turn, I logged in before you and declared war and attacked you. That IS NOT a Doublemove!

So What are you talking about? I played before you last turn, and You played AFTER me last turn and then I played before you this turn. Plus even if I had logged in AFTER you last turn (which I did not, because I was already logged in when the turn rolled) it wouldn't matter one bit, because AFTER I finished my turn and logged out. You logged in and did your moves (like upgrading the ships to Destroyers). So the bottom line is YOU MOVED LAST in the last turn, which means I can move first in this one.

There is no comparison, there is no Doublemove. You just got outmaneuvered... period.