The Whore of Babylon Speaks - GoW Official Statement

[alva]

nm

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by alva
nm

/me wonders what that acronym stands for...

[Krill]

Never Mind.

[alva]

Yep.

Originally it was something 'bout cheese...

[Theseus]

Civ4

From Locutus' summary:

"Update 2005-05-17: There is one other type of victory: an Alliance victory, in which you can share the win with a partner."

You guys were just a wee bit prescient.

[Master Zen]

GoW/ND: SIX MONTHS AHEAD OF THEIR TIME

[notyoueither]

It would have been a very different game with alliance victories from the start.

My money would be that Lego would be half of the win.

[Aeson]

We could try it in PTWDG III.

Teams are allowed to make shared victory pacts with other teams. Victory pacts work indirectly as well, if team A has a victory pact with team B, and team B has a victory pact with team C, then if any of them trigger victory, A, B, and C all win.

If at any point in time, all remaining civs have a victory pact with each other (directly or indirectly), the game is declared over and all remaining teams are declared the victors. Otherwise it is played out until someone triggers an in-game victory.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Alright, I have to say something.

First of all, speeking for myself alone, I do not like this whole shared victory thing. I do think it is a rather cheep way out.

I have spoken quite vocally more than once within the GoW forum that we should be done with the yellow plague. Going back to before the Lego campaign. Basically, them refusing to assist, I considered too great a threat to leave on Bob while doing a naval invasion.

I fully supported a plan to ally with ND and kill off GS after Lego, though. For many reasons, but most prominently because it has always bugged me how we really fubared that whole landing 2 ponies bullsh!t, and I thought we owed Vox the Stormian island.

With that said, though, I am not the one playing the game. An interesting part of the team dynamic, I don't have the time to take over, and I have no real right to tell MZ that he has to continue playing. Turns take several hours now. A massive war with ND would prolong that.

With that understanding, if the only two teams with a chance of winning left in the game decide to call it a draw, I'll live with that. I am not in a position to tell the teams or the turn players that they must continue for months spending hours per turn to trigger an IN GAME victory.

I don't have to like it, I wish we would fight to declare a victor, but I fully understand it, and support the decision.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
I have spoken quite vocally more than once within the GoW forum that we should be done with the yellow plague. Going back to before the Lego campaign. Basically, them refusing to assist, I considered too great a threat to leave on Bob while doing a naval invasion.

For the record and to set things straight, ND never said that they wouldn't help us out with lego. The problem with ND was that they were only finishing industrializing while we were already mobilizing our shiny new tanks and destroyers. ND did pledge support but only various turns later. Had we not gotten lucky with Lego we might have seen an ND landing a few turns later.

Regarding an invasion of ND before the Lego war, it could have happened as we were more powerful than them and would likely have been succcessful even without a RoP rape. However, a GoW takeover would have likely changed the entire strategic outlook of the game. Lego would no longer have been the prime threat, it would be GoW and I do not find it inconceivable that GS and Lego would have arranged a hastingly-prepared invasion plan against US. Given all the territory we would have had to defend, it would have been impossible to successfully hold on to Bob even if just one of the two invaded.

This was the main reason why we made the pact to win the game together with ND. It was ND's guarantee that we wouldn't attack them instead of Lego, and it was our guarantee that ND wouldn't march north when our army was in Lego. I recall from the start saying that geopolitics dictated that GoW had no chance in hell of winning this game alone, only GS and Lego would have the honor of that. In my mind therefore it became a question of sharing our victory (which would be somewhat of a poetic justice since we never really accomplished militariliy anything alone) or having no victory at all. I chose the first.

Last but not least, a GoW vs ND war at this stage would not really "prove" who is the better team. Even without a RoP rape, the issue pretty much reduces itself to dropping a few nukes on the border cities and swarming to conquer the rest. The winner would not be decided on skill but on who struck first. Neither of us would survive a first strike of the other. Call it a twisted version of détente.

And to those who say a shared victory is cheesy, well, in demo games we frequently do things which are impossible in SP. Multiple-team exchanges, artillery trading, even city trading, info sharing etc. Why is sharing victory any different? There's no rule that says it can't be done. There's also no rule that says a game can't be over without an in-game victory. Both the PTW and C3C ISDG ended without an in-game victory being met. No one complained so why are they complaining now?

[UnOrthOdOx]

I'm not going to bicker with you out here.

You have presented this to other teams as if it were a unanimous decision by the entire team. It was not.

You state correctly that

I chose the first.

Yes, you did. And yes, I'll support your decision because that is how our team functioned. That does not mean that I liked it or agreed with it. I attempted to voice such at times, but was quickly shot down by you and others, being told that it was ok and this or that would happen. Some was do to my ignorance in what was going on, afterall, I couldn't make the ND chats and you can only gain so much from a synopsis. And some was due to my desire to stick far stricter to the ideals we were founded on. I had no time to really put much effort into changing things, however, and so I will support it. It don't mean I like it.

Overall, we beat the builders, we kept the promise, if belated, to Vox. We survived a start with no Iron. I am quite pleased with all of that.

As for the ISDG's, well, I was never a part of them and cannot comment.

[Master Zen]

Another issue which I forgot to mention was economic. Assuming a GoW takeover of ND that would pretty much render much of the Bobian continent economically worthless due to corruption and possible ND city razings. Yet turning into the prime threat we'd have to deal with Lego and GS with an economy only marginally superior to that of Lego's (1/4-1/3 more at the most), and a scientific capacity still inferior to that of GS which means in the tech race, we'd get swamped. We wouldn't be remembering the nukings of Elipolis and Monsoon, we'd be remembering Yellowknife and Port Isolation. How could we be pursuing our victory objectives with the odds so stacked against us?

On the other hand, allying with ND means we can pursue a shared victory objective (taking out Lego and GS) with twice the economic capacity of our nation alone and with a scientific power to match or exceed GS. Moreso, being that neither GoW or ND alone appeared as a threat we could affort to take out our rivals one after the other. I don't know if people have stopped to notice just how simple GoW's strategy of world conquest ever since the Bobian War was. It involved identifying the most immediate threat (GS/RP then Lego), convincing everyone else about that threat, eliminating that threat, identifying a new one, convincing everonye else about the new one, etc etc etc.

This would not have worked if we were the threat, since that same strategy would have been likely used against us. So that, my friends, is why we chose the route we chose. Not everyone in my team agreed but I believed it was the best strategy we could hope for, and since no-one stepped up to overthrow me...

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
You have presented this to other teams as if it were a unanimous decision by the entire team. It was not.

It did not have to be unanimous, it only had to have a simple majority. When the treaty was presented to the team, no-one said anything against it. In fact, that was when there was the least activity in the team (our hippie builder phase, even some of the turnthreads had 0 replies) and the only ones to post in that thread was Hot_Enamel and Panzer32 both of which were very much in favor of it. So actually, yes, it was unanimous because of the three of us who said something, neither of us said no. Various turns later I made another thread with a summary of our diplomatic status with the other teams, in it was posted the treaty with ND. No replies at all to that thread.

Almost a year later now you say you've been against it all along?

The moral of the story: speak up, or shut up

[UnOrthOdOx]

Yes, the hippie builder phase after it had became abundantly clear that anything I said would have little to no impact. I believe I even said that if you ever decided to go to war PM me so I might get interested again.

I admit I was not around at that point much if at all. Were it not for sheer boredom over Xmas vacation, I probably would have never come back to this game. This is why I have said I support the decision at all. You made it according to how the team opperated, and I cannot take that away.

Even had I been around to post, as you say, you had majority anyway. It would have done nothing. I didn't read the thing till it was already in place. There was no point in arguing it at that point. However, I don't wish to be lumped in with the decision by association that it was a 'unanimous team decision'. It was a team decision, yes.

If you go back and read, I asked to attack ND when they were dragging their feet on giving us the agreed to cities post RP. And again when they refused to help, or at least wanted to delay that help, with reguards to Lego. My position has never changed, and I did speak up. It just fell on deaf ears. And, as such, my interest waned. I think that is a natural reaction, frankly.

I came back to write nice little stories and songs now that you stopped being a little buildering sissy and decided to bonk some heads.

That's what I do best anyway.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
I came back to write nice little stories and songs now that you stopped being a little buildering sissy and decided to bonk some heads.

That's what I do best anyway.

Hey, If I hadn't been a little buildering sissy, our head bonking now would have been far less effective