Destiny of Empires [Diplo Game] [Organization Thread]

[England (DoE)]

Good commentary Dubhghlas.

My only commentary about all this is:

2) Static alliances in long-term MP strategy games will kill a game off quicker than anything. The feeling that you cannot accomplish anything because A and B are in lock-step 'til the end of time leaves people frustrated. I've played any number of Europa Universalis 2 games that fell victim to this problem, and recall one duo of players who no one would initiate a game with because they were good and always teamed up together. This game would have survived if the alliances hadn't lasted so long, which, btw, they never do in real life, so it's important in a good diplo-game to be certain to change things up. I would have loved seeing a sudden, devastating attack on Russia from the Ottomans, with everyone in Europe and Asia scrambling to see which side of the fight they were going to join (do we take on the Russians who we have grievances against, even though they might survive the attack and come after us? Or do we flip our position and attack our former allies in the rear when they go to join the dog pile?). Or the Axis could have split apart and it would have been interesting to see if the Russians and the Turks would have remained monolithic, or perhaps the Turks and the damn-Anglais could have teamed up and then found that Catherine had other ideas...

Generally I am the type to try and spice things up. I also don't like big, static alliances. Generally what I hate about these games is that someone (generally Toni) spends the whole game being friendly with everyone and quietly building up a massive army, so that by the end of the game when people become afraid of his wealth/power, it is too late to do anything about it.

So I played the first half of the game with this in mind. I had a very good strategy to get astronomy before anyone else and build a massive global empire (which I did, yay!), but I didn't want to take the Toni route. I specifically went ahead and made enemies. I knew that my North African cities would piss people off, but I did it because it seemed like something in character for me to do. It certainly drove some diplomacy, didn't it! Made the game interesting!

Another thing people do is they are just friendly with everyone, sign open borders with everyone, trade resources with everyone. I didn't play that way for in character purposes. Universal free trade at 500 AD didn't seem terribly realistic. I had the Great Lighthouse and a lot of trade routes, so I opened borders selectively. I assumed that trade with my cities was pretty valuable, so I tried to limit my trade to less developed nations, not European super powers. I knew this pissed off a lot of people who wanted to trade with me, or wanted to get through my borders, but I thought it was right and proper that I wasn't friends with all nations.

When I first started talking about a defensive pact with Russia & Ottomans there was talk about including the Vikings too. I said no because I felt it'd be too powerful. We were all very scared of the Neandor (and with good reason!) but I cared about the balance of the game so said no. Of course this totally bit me in the ass later! I sure wasn't happy about how that turned out! But I still think it was the right thing to do.

After the war, I certainly had brief moments when I considered altering the alliance, or betraying Russia & Ottomans. And perhaps under other circumstances I might have, but wow, they really had my back. I was totally screwed and they put everything on the line to stand by me. After everything they did for me there is no way I could give them anything but eternal loyalty and friendship. I owed them a great deal. Plus, the Axis never stopped scheming. I always felt threatened.

[England (DoE)]

The real reason I quit here is because the only challenge to your alliance was Neander, and he left because he, saw the futility of the situation, as do France and Vikings. We honestly believe that the diplomatic deadlock has caused the game to end with you as the winner. None of us see any other potential outcome. So why should we keep playing? It is like chess, if you are check mate in 3 moves, why move the last 3 moves? All your challengers saw checkmate in 3. Just because you didn't see it, didn't mean it wasn't there.

Everyone seems to forget that the only reason this alliance existed in the first place was to defend ourselves from an aggressive Neandor alliance. They were the ones who invaded me, they were the ones trying to take territory. We never took anything. If you don't like what our alliance became, you only have to blame the people who created it: the Axis. Their aggression and greed angered the world. Which made it easy for our side to find allies. I'm sure if the Axis weren't all ganging up on me so severely, the Arabs, Mali & Zulu would have been much harder to convince. No doubt they were afraid they'd be attacked next.

The Inca were separate from all of that. They were allies with me directly. We had some tense moments early on when I started settling there and had our colonial "war" (psst, it was all for role playing purposes, we never actually fought), but we agreed on borders and co-existed quite peacefully. Keep in mind of course they were near the bottom in terms of tech and population. We were always friendly, but like he said, he saw the world start to become unbalanced when the Axis attacked me so only really got involved directly as an ally in response to that. And throughout everything it was well understood that he was his own thing. I had my alliance with Inca, and I had my alliance with Russia & Turkey. Inca was never a full partner with the European Allies, he was always independent.

In fact, in recent years when we were talking about end game scenarios and he said, like you guys are, that it looked like the game was pretty much settled, that Russia would have it won easily, we both were talking about doing our own thing to try and win. Either me helping him, or him helping me in a race against Russia.

But of course you whiners had to ruin all that by bowing out now. Lame.

[Russia (DoE)]

I was trying to create a pacific alliance to balance China

Ah, so it comes that you also wanted alliance, but because yours did not succeeded, you start to demonize the allying?

I was moving troops to defend myself against the Russians who threatened to invade! The greatest superpower, threatening to invade a 3rd rate civ unless I pay what would have been for me 12-13 turns of money.

I asked for 2000 gold initially knowing very well that you will bargain, as you showed to me till then as such. At the moment, India was making like 300 GPT, so this is far from 12-13 turns of all your income. At the end you payed me 500 gold, which is 1 1/2 up to 2 turns your income. I dont know in which diplo game you can get away for betraying a NAP with less than two turns income, but at the time, I considered it quite generous and soft-hearted.

I was trying to create a pacific alliance to balance China, with you and Japan, the latter which I supplied with ships and weapons so that we could take some colonies from England. And the result was that they completely backstabbed and betrayed me when I was moving troops to defend myself against the Russians who threatened to invade! The greatest superpower, threatening to invade a 3rd rate civ unless I pay what would have been for me 12-13 turns of money. And it turns out it was all a ploy for while Russia threatened to invade a minor crappy civ, they were arming Japan to invade me and take my colonies

Funny thing this is. I am sure you will appreciate the irony and the moral of the story. Actually you, by persuading Japan to attack England sealed your own fate. Japan did attacked England and was about to take all their collonies, but then I came and started negotiating with Japan. After much and hard negotiations, I promised to upgrade for them all their samurais if they leave England alone and instead attack Neandor and India in the pacific. It was meant to happen in the time of the Great War, but the Chinese never helped the Japanese with the money, and I was at short with the money (yeah - one chariot to Cossack costs 590 gold to those who are not aware), so Japan took a lot of time to actually collect those money. At one point I was so scared that Japan inted to actually attack my cities in the Far East. I still dont know if this was the case or I was paranoid, but I did wrote such a message to the Japanese, with such a hidden threats, so I think this made their mind. Let Japan say if they actually intended to attack me at some point.

So, it turns out that your actions came back to you just as the love comes back to you, and the aggression came back to you in the form of Japanese rifles. If you never ever have sent the Japanese after the English, they would have never ended with Russian rifles and English Ships of the Line at your door.

Nice story, eh?

[England (DoE)]

And again, there was no guaranteed check mate. The Axis was very well armed, had a massive fleet, advanced technology and a growing list of allies. At no point did we ever have things wrapped up.

If they were just a bit more careful with their fleets and didn't keep losing massive amounts of ships at port, things would be much different now.

[Russia (DoE)]

Interestingly enough, you did suggest that. But with what was it, 5 rifles. Or six. You were going to send 6 rifles to me, then have me attack China, but wait, those rifles were supposed to go not to me, but to Mongolia. Yes, Mongolia and India would go against China, with their pathetic armies against the Chinese advanced superpower with 6 rifles.

I dont remember details, but even if I did offered you only 6 rifles, this WAS a helping hand. This could have been the start of something. Something big. Why you think someone would have came and offer you 50 rifles? Why? With what you deserved this? Ypu say 6 rifles is not much. Do you think Inca came and offered me 30000 gold, so I can instantly win the Great War? Nope. we started with 500 gold or 1000 or something. If Inca have came to you and have offered you 500 or 1000 or even 2000 gold and have said you those money can help you fight the Axis, would you still laugh just as you laugh when I offered you 6 rifles? Nothing comes easy, nor at once. Not in such a complex game as Civ.

And allow me to ask you, after your successful war against the Neandor, did I ask for you to invade and destroy China with my help? Did I say that I would do anything, pay any cost to have them destroyed? Did I make it abundantly clear that I had no real quarrel with you, but with China?

You have already pissed me off with betraying the NAP YOU proposed at first place back in the time. When you proposed me all of this, I was asking you what you want only to test you. And you fell for it - you wanted China destroyed at any cost. You called me a "destroyer of nations" but back then it sounded as a compliment from your mouth, when you were confident you can use me against your arch-enemy China. You had no problem with me being overpowered if I would have gave you the head of the Chinese Emperor and allow you to raze Beijing, eh?

How situational ...

[Russia (DoE)]

the reason I got fed up with this game is because I saw top players keep stepping on mid-range players. Russia, England, Ottoman, Arabia, Inca vs Neandor, France and Vikings. Russia via proxy Ottomans against America? Russia via proxy Japan against me. Russia against Aztecs!?

You judge me sooo wrong. Not as you do it for the first time, but I will answer when the game ends.

[Russia (DoE)]

England is right - nothing is wrapped up with this game, but you, few quitters almost destroyed the game.

We will still wait to see what the majority of the people think about ending the game.

[Ottoman Empire (DoE)]

The war against America and Azteca had nothing to do with any Russian proxy war. That was all my idea as I had gotten wind of Azteca wanting to expand into Africa, and I'm pretty sure it gave my friends and allies fits , especially Inca. More on that later.

Remember, I joined the game to permasub for the original Ottoman player who quit, and I joined into a pretty bad situation. I was a mid rate to low rate civ who was sandwiched between the Neandor and Russian Superpowers. There was no where to expand to. So I had always been looking for somewhere to expand to since the beginning and since all the good land was taken I knew I was going to have to fight, and after reading the historical threads and PMs for the old Ottoman player it seemed that my character role was a warlike one, which suited me fine. As much as everybody whines about how small and weak they were, everyone forgets that when I joined Ottomans had only 5 core cities (one of which Israel was claiming as their Holy City) and like 3 miserable POP1 desert cities in north Africa. And even there, France had a GIGANTIC garrison, poised to invade. Russia and Neandor had similar large garrisons on my border. So I thought I would die soon after I joined...

I will say more when I get home... typing on a cellphone su

[LzPrst]

This is very interesting, because many perspectives come forth now that have been hidden.

Russia: You say I judge you wrong, but the fact is, there was never any reason why I should not judge you like that, aside from your own ingame propaganda, which I came to feel was as trustworthy as a 3 dollar bill. Based on what happened in the game I judged you as making a play for world domination, with the willing support of several major powers, Inca and England specifically. As for attacking china with 6 rifles, (come to think of it, it might have been 3), I really felt you were actually trying to trick me into starting a war that I would definitely have lost, and you seemed to ignore the fact that China had Japan as a puppet, sorry "ally". Maybe you didn't know how much power China had, but the combined Indian and Mongolian armies and hammer production would probably be smaller than China's. Add to that Japan and a suggestion of two below-average civs taking on one of the top dogs it made so little sense that I had to dismiss it.

Add to that the futility of the diplomatic situation as no one else would support us. Inca wanted China's friendship, Japan was China's "ally" the whole game, Russia would only send token help, the Europeans were too far away and too afraid of you to send any meaningful help, the whole thing would have been a disaster. I have seen 5 midsized nations take on 1 superpower and be crushed. For two below midsized powers to move against China and its midsized ally was in no possible universe a viable option. We would have lost economically, militarily, tech-wise and the propaganda war. It would have been a complete and utter fiasco. The reason I managed to kill China now was because I stopped caring about the end result, I just wanted to hurt them as much as I could, and I had been brewing this plan since my spies reported them not having defences in their coast cities. Again a result of the Japanese puppet, I mean "ally". It is actually a bit disappointing that China disappeared of the face of the earth 4 turns before my plan went into action.

Also, getting you to start a war with China would have worked miracles in reducing your strength in the world. I really wanted to see the two of you kill each other off to a more manageable level. It had nothing to do with me liking your strength, I was trying both to reduce two out of control superpowers by having them behave naturally, i.e. challenging each other instead of smaller civs, and to be able to expand out of a crappy situation I was stuck in since I took over India.

England: You are upset because many civs now consider the game to be over and are leaving, but you should keep in mind that the fact that at no point did you or any other member of the Russian alliance ever even indicate in the slightest to the rest of the world that they were not unthinking puppets. I have seen too many puppet players in diplogames to put my trust in you guys ever changing sides. If there had been hints towards it, PM's, tentative outreaches, clues in diplo posts, anything at all to signalize that the Russian bloc was not a borg hive collective, things may well have kept on running. The unified front was simply too much. A lot of things are decided not by the actual things themselves, but by the perception of things. If there had ever been any doubt in the minds of the axis of the unity of the Russian alliance they would undoubtedly have continued. I believe the frustration leading to quitting came not from a poor situation, but frustration in a deadlock. How could any of those players not believe that a deadlock was the case, and if a deadlock was the case, how could they hope to win when your alliance was bigger and stronger? It is just logic.

And it is funny how you see the axis as the aggressors. How I see it, and I suspect the axis sees it as well, they saw you and Russia running away with the game taking a very strong and clear lead. India was never a part of the axis, honest to god, I had no formal dealings with them that I did not have with other nations. I constantly tried to play the role of opportunistic schemer and dealing with anyone and anything if it could get me an advantage. But I saw the scores and the strength of Russia and Englandn and China sky-rocket around midgame. I had spy networks in those 3 civs and I saw everything you had and did. You were very clearly winning, and what was worse, you were all friendly with each other.

The only way to stop the top 3 civs that were allied (China and Russia had joined against Mongolia, I assumed that alliance was still in effect, England and Russia was also allied) from winning was to weaken you through war, so the marginal Vikings bet everything on doing what the Vikings are supposed to do and invade England, and the Neander did what the Germans are supposed to do and invaded Russia. Maybe I am wrong, but I saw them attacking you as an attempt to stop you from winning the game at a very early stage as England, Russia and China were getting an insurmountable lead. I made a post about the map being screwed up as I saw some serious balance issues in the game because of it. Of course the real balance issue was the great powers' allying together. IIRC when Vikings attacked England, they were attacking the top civ.

The fact that so many civs banded together to fight you clearly indicates that many people saw you as a threat. As for losing your core lands, that was pretty harsh, but based on the position you were in, relative to most other civs you were still far ahead. After losing Britain, England still had more cities than India at its 10 city height, or Mongolia with its 7. Had the axis not done anything you and Russia would now proabably be in the space race. Instead your victory was postponed for two great wars until the axis finally conceded that it had been too late to stop you and you had already won the game, especially as you were allied the whole time. I honestly believe the axis grew forth as a countermeasure to you guys taking the lead so strongly.

That is my perception of the game. Now you can call me an ass and a quitter for seeing this, but from where I was sitting on my stinking subcontinent, this was what I saw. It seems that it is what many other players saw as well.

[LzPrst]

Russia: Really, it would have taken India 10-13 turns to get together 2000 gold, I had very few markets, no banks, no Wall street, very little commerce. All my GNP was put towards teching. It is the reason I played pacifist, I could not afford to have a standing army.
We can ask Robert to reload an autosave, you can log in and take a look. Really, the Indian economy sucked, I had no production to make markets or other important structures with. For a small civ trying to catch up, a 12 turn delay is 1 - 1.5 important techs, it would be quite devastating.


As for Ottomans, it really seemed to me that your actions in the Americas were if not planned by Russia at least made possible by Russia. Your soldiers came from Russia did they not? As such, you seemed to be the puppet. Once again, whether you were or not is not necessarily the point, the perception that you were so tied up to Russia made it seem like they were behind it. Them finally joining in to kill off the Aztecs only proved that all teh more.

[Calanthian]

Well I guess it's about time I put my 2 cents in..

First of all: I played Azteca, as a late game sub..

What I tried to do is play an independent game, and stay away from the two big static alliances which where firmly in position at that point.

My position was in terrible shape, and I had to do a big economic program first to try to recover. Then teching crucial military tech. Resulting in a position which was not too far behind, while in a crappy position.

I tried to get things going with mainly the Incans, they kept me stringing allong for a while.. in the end resulting in nothing. Was in good, but little frequent relation with the players around me..

Was contemplating where it would be possible to find an eight city (which was needed for some national wonders). (the plan was for one brief moment africa, but that was dropped within one turn).

Then the attack of the Ottomans on America happened. As I had a fleet (which I would need in all instances to get that eight city) and I found this a case to finally do something within the game I decided to attack and managed brilliantly, with crippling results.

As I was new curious about the results of the Ottoman counter move, and wasn't aware of the Pittboss double move rule being in place while not moving at all, simply looking around (this was my first pittboss)..
the whole thing got cancelled, the whole surprise effect was lost and the chance to win against superior forces was also down the drain..

And at that moment I still tried to get an Pan-American alliance going, while being in good relations with France, Neandor and Vikings..

Then the game developed into a cold war between the two big alliances (in my opinion a bit boring).. I got massive help from my allies..

After it became clear that Inca was upgrading destroyers for the Ottomans, with NO oil in sight for the entire alliance, except in Azteca > so it was clear that the sea was lost if no oil was made available soon to the alliance. And without the seas Azteca would die anyway (being so far from the bulk of the alliance).

So we had no other option as to donate our city to the Vikings..
sadly the culture of the nearby Natives city proved too big a problem: the culture stayed too low (even with massive culture building spending), to even get control of the oil site, 1 tile away from the city center. Meanwhile because of this same thing the entire city was starving..

Still the only option to survive was to get the oil going..

Then we got tricked by the Ottoman harbour action: there were 25+ Viking (previously Aztec) units on site, and the entire Aztec / french fleet (30+). But as the Vkings were on "open borders" with the Ottomans their troops didn't stop the single unit which simply moved into the harbour >> resulting in destruction of the entire fleet.

All was hopeless, but we struggled on..

Still we refused to be bullied around, but got attacked again by Russia, Ottomans, with Incan always looming overhead, and got the revolution / mad king act going (which I found interesting )

The last 10 turns or so there was absolutely nothing to do (1 city, a few units) so then I faded away..

[Japan (DoE)]

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

[OzzyKP]

You might want to read up.

[Inca (DoE)]

lzpriest, the problem was that Japan and China from my position were a fairly solid block (I was unaware of the local nuances, I guess), and my #1 priority in this game has been security (although it’s been overridden by other factors regularly). I figured early on that Japan wasn’t going to split from China. This had certainly hurt you in this game, and I apologize (and for whatever I’ve said in this thread).

I said that a large part of my orientation was based on PMs, and I know you put in some effort to get me to join you, but in that case it really was an issue of trying to keep on good terms with the powerful civs that could have balanced against the Europeans. I was not very concerned with your nation’s issues (other than when you helped Japan attack England), and for me China wasn’t something to be balanced against but to be used to balance other powers that I had dealings with. We came at China from two totally different sides: I was fine with the status quo and wanted to maintain solid relations with Japan, my real threat to my Pacific holdings, while helping to keep a “third bloc”; you needed someone to counter China’s land might (which I didn’t care about as they were solidly uninterested in expanding into the sea). Japan was always my primary interest, and at least keeping them on good terms was key. I also made a IC decision to make you guys a bit of an enemy for a bit when we had a chance at that and I was still wasn’t severely concerned with power balancing and more interested in story-telling.

I mean, I was interested in China as a counterweight against ACE and Russia (not that I wanted bloodshed, but just so I wasn’t perpetually stuck in the Russosphere, as nice as it was, it was quite limiting in options and enjoyability to be a perpetual support state for a couple others), but I was militarily and security-wise only interested in Japan really. China was an afterthought in that respect, and as such they never got any military support or anything from me until the end when no one was there to decline it.

Do realize our relations: you were the only nation to hint at threatening my territories (ever in the entire game) when the others made no issues of it, and you were for the longest time the only nation to keep its borders closed with me (or ask for payment for OB). Perhaps I was unaware of the switch to a new player (I was), so it’s not all your fault likely. I never did understand your issues over New Zealand, although maybe by now I’ve just forgotten them, it just seemed like a lot of saber rattling. Those territories were always in a most precarious position (I think they have 5 total defenders right now still). It was a part IC reason and part OOC for long-term stability. I didn’t need to deal with Europe’s crazy politics AND crazy Pacific politics, plus whatever spilled over into the Americas (a lot in the end).

Everyone complains about the static nature of the two-alliance game, forgetting there were actually 3, just one of them was mostly inactive outside of its region (as it hadn’t expanded further and wasn’t buying cities halfway across the world). I was committed to retaining that third bloc so the game wouldn’t be just the 2, and up until your actions China certainly was as big a threat to Russia as ACE combined (long-term at least). Yes, much of that was because you got screwed.

[Inca (DoE)]

A note on my issues: defending myself in this game is near-impossible with that 16-move destroyer crap we added for ocean tiles. I'm playing a two/three-front war in DoF right now, with like 5-6 turns of movement between them, and still find that a far less precarious situation than South America in this game. It would've taken 30+ aircraft just to give me 1 turn advanced notice on losing basically all my cities. I had 2 real cities that weren't on the coast, easily captured without warning. Plus even with railroads it still takes like 3 turns to get troops from one end of my land to the other... Simply put, I was never in a secure enough position to be aggressive. My late-game gambit at getting nukes was born of necessity, as I have no other way to defend myself without them really against oil-based navies.

On me being an unswayable puppet: ask Neandor about that conclusion. You might get an interesting response…

On me looming over the Aztecs: I never had any designs on territorial expansion or aggressive wars. I kept to that the entire game, as dull as it made it. I know, still, I was looming.