Teach me!

[Blake]

In summary, I did not have a prearrangement, but rushed through with advice, given no chance to talk with Blake... I recall begging for time to get acclimated.

If you'd asked me directly and promised to remain neutral I would of course had consented, even AFTER the ultimation - that just meant I was as serious as hell. Remember, you'd made no previous diplomatic contact with me either, I'm usually diplomatic, but sometimes the strongman approach is called for - like when there's only a single turn left to make a decision and act. I went out on a limb to even make an ultimation rather than just declare war immediately, that's how quickly I had to try and react.

But I also admit, I found it hard to believe you'd be equally favorable to letting me send my troops through Japan, as you'd be letting Vondracks troops through and also that you'd remain neutral AFTER you'd finished building up, and if that was to be, it was war I wanted.

[Blake]

Btw, I would be interested to know why the Japanese unit gifts happened... did solver give a reason for that?

They didn't provide any utility to me, I just used them for mascots.

The cynical side of me said; even as they were gifted, that they were to confuse me, certainly, receiving such useless gifts put me on guard. And I don't mean useless as an insult - but truthfully, samurai in the age of infantry are useless, they aren't worth the gold to upgrade. If you ever logged back in, you'd see that I sent the still-alive Samurai back to the Japanese borders, hah.

[Wittlich]

Andydog, for being a small cat and not taking a chance at revenge over being denied an england-kill.

And Andydog would have killed me within 3-4 turns - of that, I am sure of. At the time that I realized this, I could have just as easily thown-in-the-towel...but then I realized: What would an actual country do in this case? Basically give up? Of course not!

So I decided to play what I had left in the game as if this was my actual life...I requested that Alexman accept me as his loyal vessal. This move basically insured my survival. I know, I know - it's not much of a survival - but survival just the same.

Andydog could have still taken me out, but I didn't think that he wanted Alexman unleashing his forces on him. Thank goodness I was correct on that assumption.

Quite frankly, this was the first time that I pulled a tactic like this in a game and I have no regrets about doing it. At least I was not eliminated - for what that is worth.

[Andydog]

What fascinating reading.

Originally posted by Blake

I did of course have a plan to win, I'm not sure if it would have worked or not, these things are always contigent on enemies making some mistakes.

-----------------

I do not play to win. I play to play well. My objective throughout most of the game, was to play so well, that everyone would be forced to declare war on me.

-----------------

I'm not bitter, but I am kind of saddened that not one player chose to side with me, when I dared them to / not to.

Blake, clearly you're a bright chap and clearly you know the game inside out, as one would expect from someone who was involved with writing the AI. But sadly you are letting yourself down with your AAR comments, which, to be frank, are contradictory, self-congratulatory, and in many cases insulting. I admire your contribution to the world of civ, but this appears to have gone to your head a bit. It seems that you need to be told a few home truths my friend.

Firstly, the way you decided to end the game was grubby. If you had had enough of fighting in the modern era, the decent thing to do would be to inform us of that fact and ask us how we would all like to proceed from that point, rather than to disband your entire army and announce the game over. Ending the game in that fashion demonstrated disregard for your fellow players, and it also suggested that you were no longer confident of being able to achieve victory; ending things before the actual winner could be ascertained.

Secondly, congratulating yourself and suggesting that you planned everything to your liking by manipulating your opposition players is poor form. We had all congratulated you on your achievements, why call us fools? Why call Gyathaar stupid? Why drop suggestions here and there that the way in which alliances were conducted were dishonourable? A good winner would politely accept congratulations and talk constructively about their view of the key events of the game.

Now for a word on your perception of 'dishonourable play'. I personally have never seen a cleaner game to be honest. Everything that went on was allowed via the game’s mechanics, and this included the gifting of units, which should be considered and planned for, not sneered at. Other aspects of the game were played by ourselves with nothing but honour - we were all very careful to allow you make your moves before we made ours, and we even avoided disbanding cities after Vondrack reasoned that it wasn’t in the spirit of the game. Had we disbanded your cities, I believe the outcome of this game would have been very very different. But in any case, close cooperation between allies on a strategic AND tactical level does happen, should happen, and will continue to happen. If you had more experience in MP you would understand this. The game is designed to allow high levels of cooperation, its fun to do, and I personally don't consider close cooperation dishonourable in the slightest.

Blake sorry if all that sounds strong. You’re a good player and I enjoyed the humour in your posts as the game progressed, even if it was a tad on the cocky side. One of the aspects of MP is that you never want to be the one who gets too big too quickly, otherwise everyone gangs up on you. I've seen this time and time again, and this game was no exception. The only reason the Eastern Bloc didn’t enter into the conflict against you sooner was our hope you would attack the Zulus. We wanted you and Alex to bleed off troops against each other, after which Snoopy, Beta and myself would have moved on in to clean up the mess. But that didn't happen until much later so the game took a different path. I personally think that had we carried on with the game from when it ended, we all would have continued talking little bites out of you and niggling you such that Alex would beat you to space. But now we'll never know for sure.

You should try giving another few MP games a go. Perhaps with less players on a smaller world so that micromanaging units doesn't become such a big issue. I've learnt a huge amount from this game and think I'd be able to do much better against the game's masters next time for sure. In that respect this game has been a success for me and it sounds like it has for us all.

I'm definitely keen for the next one lads!

[Andydog]

Originally posted by Wittlich

Andydog could have still taken me out, but I didn't think that he wanted Alexman unleashing his forces on him. Thank goodness I was correct on that assumption.

Yup, you were correct in this. I very nearly went for it anyway, but calculated my odds at taking the city in which Alex had place a few units as being about 50-50, so decided against it. It was also too early to tell if I needed Alex as an ally, and I wasn't confident about being able to beat him off.

[Beta]

First of all - I second Andy's post above.

Originally posted by Blake
The two players I want to take a stab at in particular:

Beta, who has expressed sentiment that dogpiling sucks.

Andydog, for being a small cat and not taking a chance at revenge over being denied an england-kill.


I would have LOVED to get a chance to test the Japanese Maginot line (test = smash, of course) and I offered that possibility to Beta, Andydog and Snoopy. Sadly, they refused.

It WOULD have been more interesting for everyone if I got to invade Vonolan and the others could fight it out on a relatively fair battle field. I don't think anyone could deny that.

Ok - stab away. Not sure where my dog-piling comment came from. You did approach Andy and I , basically saying you had won the game and would we join you in finishing it off. Read conmcb's sig if you want my attitude towards this. It reads:

Winning is still the goal, and we cannot win if we lose (gawd, that was brilliant - you can quote me on that if you want. And con - I don't want to see that in your sig."- Beta

So - some honesty from me. Yes, I play civ for fun and the challenge, etc, etc - but I also play to win. That is the objective of the game. (btw - it is also the reason I detested the end of the civ3 demo game and that silly shared victory.) The game has to be played, IMHO, with the objective of winning. That doesn't mean I overly mind losing. Gawd knows I've done that enough.

But if the objective is to win, you cannot lose, as the quote above says. So, if I accepted that you were the winner, and supported you, I would essentially be saying that I could not win. Now you may be thinking that I am way off-base in thinking a third-rate power like Russia could have won this. Probably right. But I still would have tried. (And that does not mean I would have let the allies down, as the first objective was and had to be, destroying Celtia)

So - the scenarios, and how they may have played out ...

1. Andy mentioned it above - you and Alex knock each other senseless and then the east and west close in and we see where things go from there. With snoop still alive, that would have left 5 civs in the hunt. The time for this came and passed - so we move to #2,

2. The alliance wear's Celtia down, and then we see where we stand. (and I for one believe this would have happened, despite your claims to the contrary. We handled our early attempts badly - I admit - LEARNED our lessons - and were rearminf for the next round.)

The next objective in this scenario would have been to tackle Alex - and the trick there would be convincing Nols and Vondrack to join us in that.

The question of course is whether the game would have lasted that long, or whether you or Alex could have launched during the mayhem of war. Guess we will never know.

As a side note - my approach to the game is also one reason I still struggle a bit in Friday's diplomacy games. The premise is a bit different there, as are the established victory conditions. But it is still civ, and still fun.

Blake, hope this clarifies my thinking, and why I did not accept your offer.

And besides, had the game played out with us as your allies - it would have been just another game of civ - albeit a good one. The way the game was playing out - with you taking on 6 civs made it much more legendary.

[Solver]

Blake, stop taking stabs at me

One interesting thing here. When I agreed to attack CarBorga with you, you said that Vondrack was off the table for possible attacks. If you hadn't said that, I would probably be content to just let you wipe out Japan instead. But despite that, you did end up betraying the alliance with Vondrack later.

It's been extremely interesting following this game. Your performance here was astounding

[Blake]

Originally posted by Solver
Blake, stop taking stabs at me

I've got to be me.

One interesting thing here. When I agreed to attack CarBorga with you, you said that Vondrack was off the table for possible attacks. If you hadn't said that, I would probably be content to just let you wipe out Japan instead. But despite that, you did end up betraying the alliance with Vondrack later.

I betrayed Vondrack?

I offered Vondrack oil, for free :P.

A few turns later, he declared war on me.

I declared war on Japan, but the writing was on the wall - I had no reason to believe that diplomacy could work.

What do you mean by "If you hadn't said that, I would probably be content to just let you wipe out Japan instead"? I really don't get it. So if I admit to wanting to kill my allies, it's then okay?

It's been extremely interesting following this game. Your performance here was astounding

Thanks .

[Solver]

I believe you declared war on Japan and after that Vondrack declared war on you, right? If I remember that correctly, then you pretty much knew that Vondrack would declare on you because Japan and Egypt were allies, and that counts as a betrayal of an alliance then.

What I meant is that, if you hadn't said attacking Egypt was off the table, when you asked me to declare CarBorga, I would have refused. Which, I guess, would be followed by you invading Japan as soon as you were done with the Vikings, no?

[Blake]

Originally posted by Solver
I believe you declared war on Japan and after that Vondrack declared war on you, right? If I remember that correctly, then you pretty much knew that Vondrack would declare on you because Japan and Egypt were allies, and that counts as a betrayal of an alliance then.

Vondrack declared war on me.

The next turn, I declared war on Japan.

What I meant is that, if you hadn't said attacking Egypt was off the table, when you asked me to declare CarBorga, I would have refused. Which, I guess, would be followed by you invading Japan as soon as you were done with the Vikings, no?

Depends whether your refusal was based on staunch neutrality or not. If I suspected that you intended to not remain neutral, then I would have had to seriously consider stomping japan.

I did not ever seriously consider stomping Japan, up until the turn when Vondrack declared war on me. Japan was safe until the end of the game.

edit:
Vondrack would probably argue that through my actions I forced him to declare war on me, and thus it was my betrayal not his.
However Vondrack did not accurately communicate this to me, he may have thought he did, but he didn't. What I got, was brinkmanship. "If you continue invading people, I MAY be forced to do something. It might be declaring war on your ally Japan, it might be cutting off trade ties with you, it might even be declaring war on you." That is what I read into his communication - brinkmanship, not a clear cut "You declare war on another person and I declare war on you".
As I said, Vondrack may have thought he accurately and lucidly communicated that ultimation to me, but it was not accurately or lucidly communicated. He might have said something like "I'll be forced to act", which to him meant "Declare war", while to me meant "Do something, maybe, but not necessarily, war".

[Blake]

Originally posted by Andydog
What fascinating reading.



Blake, clearly you're a bright chap and clearly you know the game inside out, as one would expect from someone who was involved with writing the AI. But sadly you are letting yourself down with your AAR comments, which, to be frank, are contradictory, self-congratulatory, and in many cases insulting.

But you don't have to be insulted. That's up to you.

Until every person on the planet recognizes the simple truth, that it's up to them whether are are insulted or not, I shall continue to knowingly do things which do no harm but some people will find insulting.

Firstly, the way you decided to end the game was grubby.

I wouldn't deny that. But I was in an unusual position. It's a rare thing when one player can decide to end the game for everyone...

If you had had enough of fighting in the modern era, the decent thing to do would be to inform us of that fact and ask us how we would all like to proceed from that point

Regardless of what you decided, I was still not going to continue. So there's really no difference between that and just reloading the last turn.

rather than to disband your entire army and announce the game over. Ending the game in that fashion demonstrated disregard for your fellow players, and it also suggested that you were no longer confident of being able to achieve victory; ending things before the actual winner could be ascertained.

Correct, as I said, the outcome was in doubt. And if you'd all shamelessly spy-raped me, not even in much doubt. Alexman would have won a space race.

In any case my "in character" story was very accurate. That's exactly what I would do in command of a powerful empire, if facing mass death.

Secondly, congratulating yourself and suggesting that you planned everything to your liking by manipulating your opposition players is poor form. We had all congratulated you on your achievements, why call us fools? Why call Gyathaar stupid?

His behavior was stupid. You don't place your entire army where it's visible, in enemy culture, and then not move it out of harms way when it's been bombed into rubble.

There's no other word for it, but stupid. I don't mean it as an insult, it's just true :P.

Excuse me for being Zen, but there's a difference between calling someone stupid, and saying their actions were stupid.

In any case, when a player who is clearly more knowledge calls someone a fool, that someone should seriously consider that they are actually a fool and have something to learn. When the player saying they are a fool, is furthermore a skilled teacher of the subject, they could consider that asking how they could be less foolish, may be more useful than taking offense.


Unless of course Gyathaar wanted to exit the game. In that case the action was not foolish but instead spiteful to the other players, because it rewarded Celtia a lot of easy exp. However there's a saying which goes "Never attribute to malice...." .

Why drop suggestions here and there that the way in which alliances were conducted were dishonourable?

I did no such thing!

I do consider that there is always an element of unfairness in the case of a large alliance vs a single player, as in there are things a large alliance can do which a single player simply cannot do. This is things like making use of multiple traits, for example pooling gold to a player with the most optimal trait. Then there are the unit caps, as I mentioned, the large alliance can have 20 spies, while the single player can only have 4.

I did not however make any accusations of dishonorable play, HOWEVER, gifting spies WAS dishonorable, if done to circumvent the spy-cap which I suspect it was (ie a spy was gifted and a new one trained). That is clearly not intended behavior and is exploiting a loophole - a national unit should not be giftable to someone who lacks the national wonder required to train it (IMHO).

A good winner would politely accept congratulations and talk constructively about their view of the key events of the game.

I did not win, but other than that, I have done so.

Now for a word on your perception of 'dishonourable play'. I personally have never seen a cleaner game to be honest. Everything that went on was allowed via the game’s mechanics, and this included the gifting of units, which should be considered and planned for, not sneered at.

Other aspects of the game were played by ourselves with nothing but honour - we were all very careful to allow you make your moves before we made ours

That was nice, but I'd have outright quit if you didn't. I'd also have quit if I got double-moved. I'd have expected the same of anyone else if I did such things to them.

we even avoided disbanding cities after Vondrack reasoned that it wasn’t in the spirit of the game. Had we disbanded your cities, I believe the outcome of this game would have been very very different.

Truthfully, it would have been easier for me. I could have very easily taken out Alexman's top cities, he couldn't really afford to lose "Gold City" (the one with the shrines). I would have quite liked to just lose Bastion of Hope at the end, because by playing my turn first, if it came down to a city switching the owner every turn, it would never have ended in my hands and instead given the Pentagon benefit to someone else (altough the Kremlin benefit would have gone to multiple players). If I could have tricked someone into razing it, I could have been happily landlocked and freed up all my army for some good old fashioned invading.

But in any case, close cooperation between allies on a strategic AND tactical level does happen, should happen, and will continue to happen. If you had more experience in MP you would understand this. The game is designed to allow high levels of cooperation, its fun to do, and I personally don't consider close cooperation dishonourable in the slightest.

I didn't say it was dishonorable, you just read that into it. I said that "People do what they feel they need to do".

Here's what I think.

Games should be a measure of skill, the "quality of play".

Lets take a simple example, a 2 player head to head game.

Say that one player spends 30 minutes on their turn, and the other player spends 2 hours on their turn. While the second players actions are not dishonorable, they clearly gain an "unfair" advantage by spending more real time playing, they are entitled to decide that the 90 minutes of real time which could be used for something else, are best spent winning this game. It is not dishonorable to make that decision.

But regardless, that game will NOT properly reflect the "quality of play" of the two players. That means, the time disparity makes the game unfair, even though the second player is not being dishonorable.

It would be a hard night's drinking to convince me otherwise, particularly hard since I don't drink.

Blake sorry if all that sounds strong. You’re a good player and I enjoyed the humour in your posts as the game progressed, even if it was a tad on the cocky side.

I like being cocky and am never going to stop :P. At least, until everyone person on earth realizes that not all which barks lacks bite. If people actually stopped reading cockiness the wrong way, it wouldn't be nearly so fun :P.

One of the aspects of MP is that you never want to be the one who gets too big too quickly, otherwise everyone gangs up on you.

I wanted this too. Or should I say, I wanted to see if it'd actually happen.

I was quite disgruntled that absolutely no-one else was "brave" enough to stir up trouble. I kept thinking "Goddamnit. Still no wars. Guess I have to start another one, someone has to fight". And so I kept fighting wars until I forced peoples hands.

You should try giving another few MP games a go.

Reading comprehension man, I said I've quit playing computer games, .

Besides in hte past I played a lot of RTS FFA games, and the principles are exactly the same. I understand it superbly. I was never once surprised that everyone declared war on me.

Final note.

What am I best known for?
Okay, that would be selflessly improving the AI for the good of the community.
But as well as, and before that, and still now. I am one of the most famous teachers and gurus of Civilization and Alpha Centuria. Nothing brings me more pleasure than to share strategy with people and teach them of the game.
So ask me; what would I have liked most? I would have LOVED an ally whom I could share strategy with, and it would be extremely difficult to deny that that would have been an invaluable experience for that player, since I am one of the greatest CIV gurus and that is not bravado anyone could tell you that . And yet, not one player considered that possibility, they all decided it was more important to make sure that I, the great teacher, did not win the game.

And since it is teaching and sharing and co-operation that i take joy in, the way to beat me is to obviously deny me that. So yes, you did win. You demolarized me. There was no prospect ever of me being able to talk to share strategy. So I did lose the motivation to play.
If it was deliberate, then it was excellent strategy and understanding of my mind, it was not however nice :P.
I'm completely willing to say I lost, because I had no reason to continue pursuing a win, there was no joy or satisfaction possible in a victory not shared.

[Solver]

It's not often I get to see someone who has levels of cockiness comparable to mine

I wonder if you're serious about quitting games though?

Oh yeah, great guru, it'd help if you could remember that the game is called Alpha Centauri, not Centauria

[Blake]

Originally posted by Solver
It's not often I get to see someone who has levels of cockiness comparable to mine

I wonder if you're serious about quitting games though?

Oh yeah, great guru, it'd help if you could remember that the game is called Alpha Centauri, not Centauria

You dare nitpick MY spelling?! You cocky bastard .

And yes, I was absolutely serious.

When I was double-moved by Gyathaar I was unusually angry (because everyone had been playing honorably and he broke that honor), and I made an ultimation.

I was indignant when I wrote the last PM. Now I'm angry too.

Maybe you were genuinely unaware that everyone else in the game is playing honorably without resorting to unstrategy tricks like double moves. I prefer to give you the benefit of the doubt.

I'm going to demand you let me move before you next turn (I'll make a best faith effort to ensure that's as early as possible in the new turn), be happy you got a city you wouldn't have without double moving.

Trust me, you're happier not knowing what the or else is - I mean this genuinely, not in a braggartly way.

Blake.

In that final line - I completely meant that I was fully prepared to be a drama queen and immediately quit playing, until begged to come back with a reload and all that hassle. I'm not ashamed of saying that.

Anyway - that's me angry. It doesn't happen very often, or anymore. In fact I think that was the last time I was ever angry, because I realized, that as always, anger is caused by miscommunication; Gyathaar genuinely did not know what rules we were playing by and had made a reasonable assumption. There was no reason for me to be angry about what he did, there was no ill intended.

[Solver]

Hmm, so you're really going Zen now? What's next for you without games - you're not even 30 yet, too early to quit

[Blake]

Originally posted by Solver
Hmm, so you're really going Zen now? What's next for you without games - you're not even 30 yet, too early to quit

Playing games != Developing games .