What is the status of the game??

[Mart]

Talking about single faction DG, will AI alone be good opponents? I think if all opposite factions gonna be AI diplomacy in the game will be of very low quality

[Nubclear]

Obviously you've never played a single faction DG

[GeneralTacticus]

Originally posted by mart7x5
Talking about single faction DG, will AI alone be good opponents? I think if all opposite factions gonna be AI diplomacy in the game will be of very low quality

Well, the last DG was quite good; I mean, the only reason we didn't steam-roller all the AIs that opposed us was that we couldn't be bothered, but the internal discussion could be quite interesting when they weren't flame-wars, and there was some fun in planning and winning the one war we did fight.

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Vev

Problem with this is that it gives the Data Angels a head start. If that is the AI, well they need all the help they can get.

The Data Angels had everyone infiltrated from year 1 (I set this up in the Scenario - diplomacy rules)

The Believers were disappointing, as due to some quirk I hadn't appreciated, all their subsequent bases were set to "governor build" (I must have activated a template somehow) and they produced oodles of colony pods. From around 2130 until the current turn they have had 18 CP's just stationary - had they been converted into bases - or population - the B's might have been more of a force to be reckoned with

G.

[Kody]

From my viewpoint here's how it went.

We had an informal agreement to permi-pact with the cycon right as the start of the game. However, Googlie ruled the further communication was illegal.

We met the drones with colony pod only 1 square away from the drone scout and the scout was sitting on the base site we had planned. This was important as we only had about 3 bases at the time.

There was some discussion and it was decided to immediately pact to ensure the safety of our homeland as a single scout might be able to set us back a few years. The drones seemed to cooperate and removed the scout and but they pacted later with us.

During this time analysis of the situation was performed. We had this data.
* Drones across the narrow channel.
* They have a unity foil, hive does not have a unity foil.
* Drones are supposed to be the verterans in this game, eg strongest players.
* They have more of an industry advantage than us.

We discussed it further and decided these things.
* Optimal time to attack for a war would be 20-25 years after our meeting.
* It would be difficult getting Foils within 20 years.
* The hive had no experience in the SMAX worth talking about
* Due to having no foil, finding and getting assistance from the cycon was unlikely.
* After the 20-25 year mark drones would slowly outstrip us due to being able to pop boom.
* Drones have +2 armor while hive had permi-defences
* Hive had +2 armor
* An early war with drones would result to a fairly shattered victor and even at the optimial attack time chances of winning would be sketchy at best.
* We hated university and the university or perhaps another faction would roll over us before we could rebuild.
* We could get an extra forum to spam in as buster was an forum administrator.

We discussed it and it was decided that we didn't have a good enough chance of beating the drones. Firstly, it was decided we probably wouldn't be able to find any allies that would be able to help us in time. In a cold war the drones would eventually win. An early war would be difficult as we didn't have the transportation.

So the conclusion was from a game standpoint pacting with the drones and actually having them as a real ally would be a far better option. However, we believed the drones would eventually outstrip us, so we started considering permi-pact.

This was when I presented the arguements for and against pacting with the drones in an unbiased way. Mainly the arguement was tilted towards pacting with the drones as it would give us the most game advantge. Personally, I would have choosen the cycon. However, I felt it was the job of the faction to decide whether they wanted to take the suboptimal route.

This was when the main discussion started occurring on whether to ditch the cycon or not. That that stage there was strong cycon support, but we didn't know when we would get in contact with the cycon. There was alot of repeating arguments, and mostly it was about people's opinions.

There was three main groups.
1. Stick with cycon as our permi-pact target, cross fingers and hope for the best.
2. Decide what to do later, just keep drones happy in mean time
3. Permi-Pact with Drones.

I argued strongly against option 2 due to the whole issue of needing to prepare for an early war straight away while we had a chance. Later on we wouldn't have anything to decide.

The group was strongly leaning towards option 1 until someone pointed out we could permi-pact with the drones and still pact with the cycon later. Forgot who suggested it, but that basically decided the arguement as the roleplayers and the ... (actually we were all roleplayers at that stage)... well the roleplayers could have fun interacting with the cycon later even if we didn't have a permi-pact.

So it was decided to permi-pact with the drones and pact with the Cycon later. After that decision was made I raised the issue of what happens if there's a conflict of interest between the Cycon and the Drones and suggested that we might want to discuss it again with that in mind, but everyone so sick of talking about that issue that I was ignored.

Several years passed and the drones won my admiration and my trust as I observed them in my position of diplomat. Around that stage I liked the drones and the Cycon equally (I liked the Cycon because of that whole encryption thingy).

During my time as diplomat and pushed strongly for always tell the truth and openness with anyone we considered an ally. So we kept the drones fully informed and when we met the pirates we carefully specified that it was a non-aggression and research pact so they wouldn’t get false impressions of any strong alliance.

University, well we had already made it clear we hated them….

Anyway we met the Cycon the hive was in a bit of a bind, everyone pretty much wanted to pact with them straight away, but there was the issue of the permi-pact with the drones.

I tried to figure out a solution that the hive would accept involving long term pacting, but gave myself a headache instead. People called my solution too “peaceful”. Honghu tried to push the same thing later only without a full vote, but I stopped her because I had a feeling that there would be too much team dissent (which incidentally happened shortly afterwards anyway).

There were three reasons why the pact with the Cycon didn’t work out.
1. While the hive was willing to share all and any information with the Cycon, I got orders to hide the drone-hive permi-pact. That was the only thing I held back from the Cycon. That one point made it really difficult for me to deal with the Cycon and consequently I passed the Cycon ambassador job to someone else.

I think one or two of the other ambassadors added a few other secrets during the later stages.

2. The cycon was holding back from the hive, and from the way they acted it seemed they believed we were hold back ourselves (we were about that drone-hive permi-pact). This lead to general distrust between our two factions. Also we didn’t actually want anything from the Cycon so I was constantly trying squeeze gifts past the rest of hive team to keep relations alive. What I didn’t realise at the time was this lead to a negative effect on the Hive side as people saw gifts going towards the Cycon, but nothing coming back.

3. Finally there was that nastiness where the Cycon tried to influence the Hive not as a whole, but as individuals. Nobody in the hive had the full picture of what was going on and that was what really killed the relations as it seemed that the Cycon were trying to subvert the Hive members and were being successful too. For the record I have nothing against Impaler and I see that incident as my mistake. It was other PMs/chating that made me hate the Cycon (mostly after I was no longer a hive member). I can deal with jabs at my faction to gain advantage, but deal poorly at ones that get personal…

Anyway vote had swung against the cycon when the dust settled as it was felt that the Cycon had been screwing the Hive over throughout the whole private PM/chating period (thankfully I was on my way out the door at this time so I didn’t have to deal with diplomacy anymore).

The hive actually had very little of a plan as most of the members preferred to deal with things as they came up. Most long term planning was making sure the hive wouldn’t get knocked out of the game. The war against the university was really just “lets kill the university” without too much thought on any specifics. The drones fortunately dealt with the long term planning on that invasion, otherwise the hive would have come up with a plan the turn before it launched an attack.

[Nubclear]

Summary please

[Mart]

So what is the status? Game is played? There is a winner now or a new game starts soon?

[Minute Mirage]

Could someone please summarize what was the whole deal with the Hive hating the University right from the start? People taking things too personally in the first ACDG I presume? It would be nice to get a who-hates-whom chart for the next game so everyone can know which factions will be fighting each other.

[Impaler[WrG]]

I response to Kody:

I'm gald your not mad about that insident we had, I must admit I helped start it by being a bit too bold in our chats. I think this was out of a desire to measure up to the high standard you had set with regard to managing the Hive and pulling off some realy amazing feats that we couldn't even comprehend.

We did manage to assemble a complete map of PEACE territory and deduce much of the general outline of the map and this proved quite usefull. In the last few years leading up to the war we were planning our military movments almost 3 turns in the future and keept that up untill most of PEACE had fallen, realy some great work their my fellow Cyborgs

With regards to Hive/Cycon relations overall, Cycon did sense that the Hive was concealing its relation with the Drones as the Hive would always say "no coment" when we asked about their relationship with the Drones. The Drones themselves were not very talkative and we eventaly abandoned atempts to comunicate with them. With the Univeristy we were trying to negotiate tec deals but felt that they asked too high a price (they also responeded slowly). Our hope initialy was to invade them after we finished our war with PEACE and steal yet more tecnologies. We also were afraid that the Hive would get them first and grow so powerfull in the process that they would just run away with a solo victory.

The main gift I remember was the Hive giving us the Uni Com link, in hind sight we probly should have done something to repay that but as we later sailed right up to a Uni base 2 turns later we felt the value of the gift was a bit muted. The issue of Inflitration on PEACE was also one sided from our perspective. We told the Hive about our plans as we were begining a preciscly planned 10 year build up of forces. We worked out an agreement of Infiltration Info on the Pirates in exchange for Supporting the Hive as Planetary Govenor after which the Hive would supply us with info on other factions as well. But the Hive took a number of years to deliver the nessary screen shots, it was practicaly the eve of the war and well past the point ware we had comited our resorces. Durring the wait we were forced to make acomidations to Infiltrate PEACE ourselves incase the Hive never delivered. So when the information did come we felt it was far less valuable then what had been agreed upon. That having been said it did reveal 2 PEACE probe foils aka "Party Boats" under construction just in time for us to accelerate the war by 2 turns and catch these Foils before they could infiltrate us. We then infiltrated PEACE with our initial attack on Alexandria (know known as Athena Anchorage) and from this point on no additional info from the Hive was needed.

Despite feeling we had the short end of the stick on that deal and our inability to agree on any tec trading (mainly because the Hive didn't want its tec costs raised and didnt need any of our tecs for their B-Lines). We still desided to hold up our end of the Govenorship vote in fear that it would other wise sink the relationship if we asked for some additional compensation for the vote. Up to that point it had been Hive vs Angels and most of us feared that a Hive Govenor wouls again become so powerfull as to simply run away with the game (not an unreasonable fear considering how the powergraph looked back then). Once we realized it was a Hive/Drone vote and that Uni had supported the Drones I realized that Cycon voting for the Hive would almost certanly cause the Pirates to vote for the Drones and this would put the Drones in position to take the Govenorship themselves. I tried to point this out the the Hive and ask if they might want us to Abstain in hopes of getting PEACE to support them and making it mathimaticaly impossible for the Drones to win by voting for themselves. The Hive turned that plan down though and everything else turned out as I predicted. At the time that seemed a good thing to many Cycons myself included as we came out having fufilled our bargan with the Hive yet they failed to win the Govenorship, this was our general disposition towards the Hive for most of the game, untill such time as we are their out and out favorite alie and they atleast TELL us what their relation with the Drones is, dont do anything to help them grow more powerfull without some comenserate reward in return and if we see it making a mistake let it do it as long we we will still look good. That and trying to drive a wedge between them and the Drones.


I am still wondering was the loss of the Govenorship a mix up on the Hives part or a prearanged plan you had with the Drones and all an elaborate ruse to conceal the Perma-Pact? Can PEACE, Drones and UNI tell us their sides of the Govenor Election and what if any deals they had going on?

[jtsisyoda]

We planned to have the Hive and the Drones up for election as a no-lose situation. We mostly trusted the pact at that point, so as long as one of us got the governship, we'd both have infiltration data. We didn't lobby for anyone's votes as far as I know-- they just fell in our lap.

[Jamski]

Well, some of us were quite pissed that the Hive didn't get the Governership

-Jam

[foolish_icarus]

PEACE was unable to contact either the Hive or the Drones so we just voted Drones

[Snowflake]

At the start of the game, most active players are from the ACDGI I think, that may have more or less predetermined the Hive's attitude toward PUT and CyCon. And that was how the interactions between teams in the public forum went.

As for Drones I think Jamski initially advocated that they were the true enemy. Later Jamski was absent for about a month and that's when we met the Drones. As the active players then were newer members such as Kody and I, we didn't have much predetermined attitude. Kody worked hard and Drones coorperated well and that coorperation finally developed into a perm pact. Through all the time before and after the perm pact, there have been members in the Hive at different times that worried if the Drones are trustworthy. And the Drones has not done even one thing that would validate such worries. Time after time, they have repeatedly proved their trustfulness.

When Hive met the CCs, I volunteered as the CC ambassador. I pushed for a perm pact between us also. However it was determined that perm pact among three strong teams are unfair to the other two teams. So Drones agreed to let Hive pursue its own relationship with the CCs. We had an agreement if the Drones were to go to war with the CCs the Hive can still be friendly with the CCs. And Drones even agreed that they would not oppose a dip victory later.

While I was very happy that Drones had been very understanding, the relationship between Hive and CCs has turned sour. As the CC ambassador I have always tried to be open and truthful. Other than the one info of Hive Drone perm pact that is determined by the team that should not be told to the CCs, I've not hidden anything else from the CCs. In fact I've actually hinted to them the strength of the Hive Drones pact. I have also always tried to be honorable. Jamski had an agreement with Drogue that they would vote for Hive for the governorship and Hive in turn will provide PUT and PEACE infiltration data gained from governor position. Later when it turned out that CCs needed the info before the governor election, although Jamski is not in office any more, and there were oppositions in the team regarding providing peace info to the CCs since peace is also our pact member, I made the decision that the info should be provided, even before the election, since I believed that we needed to honor agreement made by an Hive officer, even if he is not in office any more.

One factor that Hive CC relationship turned sour is that we were not able to pull through any trades. The Hive had not been very eager for actual techs and CCs were not very enthusiastic about unit trading. However, at that time, there were still opportunities that the Hive CyCon relationship becomes stronger and deeper if not for all the little incidents that caused more and more distrusts within both teams. The misdelievered PM threatening Hive declaring vendetta against PEACE or face vendetta from the CyCons was the last straw that breaks the camel's back. While I argued that it wasn't the CCs true intent, Jamski refused to explain and the last Hive team members that were in favor of the CCs were turned angry and distrustful toward them. This incident is still a puzzle for me. I wondered and am still wondering if it was a honest mistake or if it was a deliberate sabotage of the Hive CC relationship. Anyway, I realized that my solo effort for deeper Hive CC relationship is not going to be fruitful and resigned from the ambassador position.

Still the Hive has not, till this day, planned to attack the CCs. But it was determined to carry on its plan to attack the PUT even after the PUT CC merge. Needless to say, the Hive CC relationship was nowhere to influence the Hive to act otherwise. All that I can do, was to hint the coming of a war.

Trust is such a sensitive and delicate thing. It is so easy to be spoiled. But it can also grow if it is carefully tendered. The Hive had not been very big on PEACE initially. However, the PEACE's behavior in their last stage has turned the Hive's attitude around. I have always been a firm believer of peace and love. I wonder if we really are at that stage that we must be enemies of each other? Can't we bury all the bitterness and hold hands again? Is there no other ways to play the game than to beat each other and claim victory based on others demolition? Is it true that only playing evil is fun and playing nice is boring? Is the planet too small for all of us? Can't we all unite and conqure the ones that will not unite with us and call this a better victory? Right now we still have all the five teams. This is the status of the game. We are at a point that we can still say we stand together and we are strong and we can prevail in this unhuman foreign new world.

I am asking you, all of you. Is it still possible. Is it still possible that we can say, using our own will, and our own action, to the world, that war is not the only way, that peace is not a dream, that there is still hope for the humanity.

[Jamski]

The status of this game is that firstly people are still writing very long threads saying the same history over and over, noone knows how long we can be arsed to play it out for, we need a new Rec commons because Tass has been corrupted by power, and we need to start seriously saying this game is dead, how will the next one be.

Like soon would be nice

-Jam

[Snowflake]

I have enjoyed reading the "same history" from different perspectives so far. Why are you so anxious to declare this game dead?