Tales from the Diplomatic Front II (in 3D-Dolby Stereo)

[Sparrowhawk]

I've been reading for several weeks now and been content to do that without commenting but this recent discussion on seriousness has propted me to put my opinion forth.

I also think of the CivII game as just ("just" lol) that, "a game" and role play it as such. Some of the comments on this (and other) posts seem to indicate that players will treat you differently in future games depending on how you play in a current game. Is it not possible for a player to play as a bloodthirsty treacherous individual in one game and a leader in diplomatic non-aggression in another? I would hope that the actions of different games would have no bearing on how a player is treated.

On another thread someone points out how MWHC plays in two different "styles" with two different handles. The fact that he feels the need is disappointing to me and backs up SF's post above. A civilization should be judged on it's actions since 4000bc and not on the actions of an entirely different timeline (IMO).

(On rereading this it seems a pretty serious post for someone who doesn't want the game to get to serious plus it likely should have a thread of it's own. Sorry for interupting I may be thrown out of Canada for being so rude

<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by Sparrowhawk (edited May 31, 1999).]</font>

<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by Sparrowhawk (edited June 06, 1999).]</font>

[SmartFart]

croatian foreign office,offical document #020327AC,degree of secrecy: none

greetings to you,respected king gideon.
am very dissapointed about some actions,preformed by your temporary successor. let me explain what happened in your absence.
1. english fortified their forces in cairo's city radius.
2. english brutally attacked cairo
3. english completely IGNORED all our requests to stop that agression
4. croats warned english: if they take cairo,our state will immediatelly declare a war with them
5. english still ignoring all our calls
6. english take cairo
7. english finally spoked and asked us to stay out of this matter
8. croats declared war to english

now,we're not going to ask you who provided you with necessary forces to take well defended city of cairo,but we're going to remind you on our previous agreement about cairo. this is going to cost you very much.
our state will solve cairo problem very soon and we're affraid you not going to like it.
as soon as we take cairo,we will give it back to its rightfull owner. furthermore,our goverment is concerned about its future safety and will build some of our cities around cairo to solve this problem once and for all.
croatians are very upset about persistently pressure from japanese/english alliance and now is time to take some serious action to compensate all that time,gold and resources spended to increase our military power. if your goal was to put our state into full war production,you have done it well, but we warn you: this is going to slow down our progress,both in financial and in research,so we have no choice but compensate it in adequating way. our state will decide about way and a rate of our inevitable military action at the time comes.
sincerely,croatian foreign office.

year 380ad.
i have to express some doubts. as you've already concluded from my letter adressed to english,croats and english are in war.
i was very naive when i thought that cairo problem is solved once and for all. all my attacking units was heading back to their home cities when english captured cairo. my ally,sioux,had enough units to protect it from english,but obviously they get some help from outside (who could that be?) . whoever did that,i would like to ask him a question: what do you think i will do next?
put my state into full war production,suffer some delay in my further progress,take cairo and give it back to my ally and thats it?
no. am going to compensate my losses in a way i found most acceptable to me.
what's more,with hanging gardens and now with michelangelo's chapel i have no worries about civil unrest caused by units away from home.
to our friend and ally sioux: am very sorry but i can't give gunpowder to you,because english ally japanese have great library. if i give it to you,he'll give it to english and i'll have a bigger troubles to protect our interest. as soon as japanese have it,you'll have it too for free. thats a promise.
see you all in next session

sf

[Grau Geist]

From Shogun Grau Geist, Japanese Trade Federation 400 A.D.

Another rousing session complete and a bit of intrigue to go along. The Japanese were able to accomplish much in our peaceful situation. We were proud to build the Great Library and accomplish King Richard's Crusade this session. Though the Great Library has not rendered any fruits as of yet, because we were able to locate many Ancient Scrolls of Wisdom in our Trade exploration.

We expect great things to come from King Richard's Crusade. The Japanese Trade Federation was also able to make contact with the Viking Empire in these centuries. However this proved fatal for the Evil King AI had preceeded us and established his reign. We were eventually able to convince him of peace, but alas, we were not pleased enough with him to trade the knowledge we had learned.
The Japanese Trade Federation was able to share this knowledge with peaceful societies around it, sometimes for a very cheap price to help pay for the maintenance costs of such an expedition. We also regret that our attempt to circumnavigate the world was cut short by the Viking Barbarian attack on our peaceful tireme. As our technology improves we shall continue in our attempts. When the Evil King AI is finally usurped we hope the new Viking king will be a more rational and peace loving individual, and will repay us for our loss. We of course would return to that leader 10 fold. Ask the Russians, we have fostered a great trading relationship half a world away, I expect the next centuries, we shall both reap the rewards.

Now the intrigue: The Japanese rightfully remained neutral as the new King of England asserted his African rights over his Sioux neighbor. The city of Cairo was retaken and renamed Liverpool much to the pleasure of the English citizens and displeasure of the ethnic sioux. As our Trade caravans were not disturbed in their travels through this zone we remained nuetral. Greatfully to world trade the Sioux relinguished claim on the territory and peace was established. The Japanese have looked kindly upon this gesture and have begun to trade our superior technologies with the sioux. The Trade fostering Banking was given for a modest price, the profit of course will go to building caravans to trade with the sioux.

These technologies will no doubt help to improve the sioux infrastructure for the days when our caravans arrive.

Unfortunately the Aztec/Croatians, I'm confused because he refered to himself as both, decided that he would not accept the situation and declared war against the English, the sioux have remained neutral, wisely. More details will come later

[Grau Geist]

From: Shogun Japanese Trade Federation

Unfortunately the Japanese have been mourning the loss of one of their beloved Zaibatz. We have missed out on the propaganda and accusations of the Croatian "Consul".

The Japanese are outraged that they have been accused of breaking our self proclaimed nuetrality in the 2nd Cairo Affair. Our peaceloving people have been involved in Trade and exploration. While we have our own opinion on the matter, we have not taken actions to militarily support the English claim. We have in fact removed our vocal opinion on the English claim. Finally the only financial support or technological support we have given to the English was no other than we would in any other situation, of course to increase the trade benefits of the Japanese cities.

As far as the Japanese are concerned the matter is closed. The Sioux and the English have reached an agreement of peace, and the Croatians have no rights or interests in any of the territory with the absence of thier Ally's concern. The inevitable attack on the English is dumbfounding and any placement of cities surrounding Cairo will most likely result in failure, logistically it is ridiculous and we all know it. It is 400 AD for ---'s sake!! If the Croatian nation is a true Republic it would never accept such a strategic blunder from any of its leaders.

As for the Threat on the Japanese for suspected involvment, which of course is absolutely false. We understand the Croatian concern for world peace and are sure their gut reaction was not really a threat on the Japanese people. The Japanese Trade Federation does not need to dabble in threats for we exist peacefully with all nations and have yearned to help our fellow civilizations grow with us rather than us grow at their expense. A technologically equal civilization is more adept for mutually profitable trade than a struggling one. We are sure that the Sioux are starting to find our generous nature more appealing than their Allies', the Croatians, with their selfish demands and holdouts on technology.
If I understand the situation correctly if the Croatians had been as generous with the Sioux with their Musketeer technology as we were with our banking technology, the Sioux would have held onto Cairo and the English would have been forced to give up their pursuit? As it was the Croatians held out for fear the Japanese would aquire a "defensive" unit. The Sioux were the ones in need of this defensive unit. The benefits to the Japanese would have been nonexistant as long as no one had future designs on Japanese cities!

We recommend an understanding be achieved and world peace and trade continue. We call on the Croatians to honor the "Treaty of the British Isles" for we honored it. To break this treaty for no apparent reason or unfounded suspicions would show the world that NO Treaty with the Croatians will be honored. This would mean the Chinese/Croatian Border Treaty would be null and void. And I'm sure your Alliance with the Chinese and Sioux wouldn't be worth the paper it was written on.

The Japanese seek Alliances for mutually beneficial trade, not imperial gain and dominance over territory. And our Allies are more willing to commit themselves to the defense of the principles of the International Trade Organization than yours could ever be to some far away Croatian Empire. For our Allies if we lose a city the Trade Organization loses a potentially profitable trade route with great benefits for all. For your Allies if the Croats gain or lose a city it just means more or less bullying from Consul/King SF

Might does not make right. Your planned abandonment of the Republic and abandonment of the building process and technonlogy research for your civ will only harm your ability to grow in the all important formative centuries to come. A true Republic would never sacrifice their future for a useless military conquest. It won't work, you know it, I know it and the rest of the 5 civilizations existing in this world know it.

Sincerely, Shogun Grau Geist of the Japanese Trade Federation and Protector of the International Trade Organization

[Geronimo]

The Chinese/Croat Border agreement will stand irregardless of the manner in which our allies, the Croatians, choose to treat with the English, Japanese or any other non-allied civilizations.

[SmartFart]

croatian minister of wasting time:

fellows world leaders,allow me to get straight to the point:

1st session: 5 hours,5 players
2nd session: 4 hours,4 players + some subs
3rd session: 4 hours,4 players + some subs
4th session: 4 hours,4 players + some subs

1st weeknight session: 2 hours of waiting,game postponed
2nd weeknight session: 2 hours of waiting,game postponed

i was affraid of this. when all involved players had fair chance to win,it was fun and interesting. now what? today i was late 20 minutes and i've found NOONE online and even my message box was empty. terrific.
ah...i almost missed my point:

i just wanted you guys to think twice before starting or joining a new game. ask yourselves carefully about what kind of game you want to play. civ2 multiplayer have 2 important differences compared with civ single games:
1. YOU CAN'T PLAY WHENEVER YOU LIKE
2. YOU CAN'T START A NEW GAME WHEN OLD ONE DIDN'T PROGRESSING IN A WAY YOU'VE EXPECTED

take me for example. i live in europe and it's very hard to coordinate GMT+1 with EST.
however,i was there every played and postponed session. now i want to ask some of you....do you think is funny to cancel all saturdays activities just to find out that game will not be playing at all?
why did you wanted to be part of it anyway? to win? you can do this in single player game without wasting time of other involved players. think about it.
one more thing...i was preparing my strategy for 'todays' session and guess what message i got when i retired....CHEAT MODE !!!
i have no idea how someone managed to activate cheat mode in multiplayer and frankly i don't care,but i am sure that cheat mode isn't in saved file just for fun.
face it guys...this game totally sucks.

sf

p.s. if some of you thinking about starting a brand new game of civ2 with 7 reliable players and blah blah blah,which going EVERY oneday and that sort of nonsense,please don't bother me with your plans.
me,am waiting for makeo to return. it is double production,it is bloodlust but it's played to the end and it's FUN.

[Geronimo]

Please don't get the impression that I have a habbit of missing mp civ2 games. Ask Makeo, Ive never missed a game that ive scheduled with him and we have schedualed many. The problems stemmed from the fact that I was moving and my old lease ran out 5 days before my new one began so i had nowhere to be for 5 days and moving itself has been stretched into a weeks long affair because i had to store so many things far out of town taking up lots of weekend time driving back to get them. I did warn that this would be a problem when the game first began and I apologize if it's been a bigger problem than expected.

[Grau Geist]

Don't worry there fellas, the weakened transition period of our game should be over. I feel with a permanent player in the Sioux and English rather than a revolving mix, plus Geronimo back in a stable environment and Milo and I back from the road, plus Pastie finally waking up from his birthday hang over we will have some interesting sessions to come. The problems with the Cheat appearing have been addressed and this should not present a problem in the future.
I for one have enjoyed this game immensly. SF and I have great propaganda wars with each other while so far avoiding a real one. We each have been able to immerse ourselves in our Character, and I mean our characters, as in everything we say here in these tales (except for what I'm saying now) is part of the role playing. And that is how it should be, now back to the backstabbing, cold-hearted, self-absorbed propaganda we have all gotten to know and love!

Sincerely, the no longer threatened Shogun Grau Geist of the Japanese Trade Federation, Where our motto is "trade with us or die"

[Pastieman]

Smartfart:

Don't despair too much about people not turning up - I was just as frustrated about the fact we didn't get players together for the game this saturday but I assure you GG and myself were waiting until half an hour after the game was due to start and we were the only ones there.
But I think now we have a committed core of five players - I for one am in it to the bitter end as seems Geronimo , yourself and Grau Geist, and Milo seems to be as well . We are all in to see this one to the end and it's only just beginning to warm up! You have a good start but don't expect it to stay all your own way!.

This is the first Multi player game I have been actively involved in and I am loving it! It doesn't matter to me that I might not have the strongest Civ in the game - there are ways and means to work around that diplomatically and ensure the continued prosperity of the Russian state as I am sure you are by now well aware!

GrauGeist: Birthday hangover!? A minor hiccup! One thing I did learn that day was that it is NEVER a good idea to let the AI play in your place for a session.

looking forward to Saturday

The Pastieman

[KenThur]

Hear! Here! i know the fruastrations too. That's why in all my postings here & else where i advocate the show go on. If the 1st stingers can't be there to play, then their chosen sub's or the AI takes their turns.
Besides, think about it... how many real world civ's had the same rulers & same philosophies & adhered to the exact same foreign relations for even a 300-400 years, let alone from 4000BC to 2020AD?
I personally think it adds the dimension of uncertainty that "keeps gamers honest" by having to garrison ALL border cities & think twice about wholesale sharing of maps & tech's. Again i point to the reality of N.America, which has not had a war in over 100 years & yet we have military bases where? Near both N & S borders & on both our coasts.
It IS inevitable that this many players can't coordinate schedules & other realities pop up... but play on! That's why i suggest every1 save the game at the end of each session so the players that show up at the agreed time can play. (just PLEASE share those last saves with those that couldn't be there... like me right now).

PS: don't know what's the deal w/ the "Cheat mode" situ? Do know (or at least understand) that if at least 1 civ has a password, then the cheat mode cannot be invoked. So PUT PASSWORDS ON YOUR CIV's!! For every1's sake. Also, i have noticed that for some reason a password sometimes gets dropped, so check yours every session.

[Grau Geist]

my vote would be no, playing over would set us back even further.
Besides I thought this situation was taken care of, the host is out of the game and fresh players are in for the long haul

[SmartFart]

ok guys.

lets find a honorable gentleman who had activated that cheat mode.
here are my conclusions so far:

-whoever did that,it was our last session host....anyone care to tell me who was hosting our last session?
-i was disconnected in the middle of my turn when we decided to call it a nite and i had autosave 'on' at the time. when i tried to load 'autosave1',strange thing happened; i got some errors in it(letters and numbers was helluva mess) and whole world map was revealed. when i retired i got message 'cheat mode' on my score. first,i thot it was result of my disconnection and autosave,but geronimo send me his file and everything was fine but cheat mode was there.

what do you think? as pastieman already pointed out,5 of us are some kind of core of this game. i suggest we vote about possible replay of our last session with milo's file w/o darn cheat mode.
grau geist,milo,geronimo,pastieman and myself have right to vote.

yes-for repeat our last session with milo's file.
no -for continue with gg's file

smartfart - YES

take care everyone

sf

[Geronimo]

its seems as if only the person who loads the saved game (this would be the host obviously) would be able to have invoked cheat mode. If this person is no longer playing, i say we go ahead and play with the cheated version. of course if we have a no-cheat one that is only about 4 turns or less older, i would be happy with using that instead.

[KenThur]

cleaned, old n/a
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by KenThur (edited July 04, 1999).]</font>

[Pastieman]

My vote would be no - It would set us back too far. As far as I know the only harm done it that people have more of the mapo than they should and I think I am the one who had most to lose by this happening re Scotland!

Provided it does not mean people are free to cheat as much as they like in the future I am happy to continue.

I know nothing about how the cheat modes work but I would imagine the only person able to tyake advantager of the activated cheat mode is the host - who is likely to host next sesion - I for one am happy to trust whoever takes this responsibility.

Lets push on with the game as stands - there are a lot of issues to deal with now !

the Pastieman