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**Hot_Enamel** · April 16, 2004, 02:19

>>H_E> 2. The Dirty Little Lie>

> I hope I was not too harsh in my reactions (just reread them

.
>
> Leo can confirm that when I posted about your lie and backstab attack
> in the Lego forum (it prompted me to elaborate a bit on the security
> policies of Lego), I made it clear I held no grudges with you because
> of what you did. You did what you had to do in that situation and it
> was our fault to fool ourselves into believing you (talking mostly
> about myself here, about believing what you said about the border
> treaty and such).
>
> What made me upset was the... dunno... "personal" dimension. After you
> talked to us about the uranium problem, I talked to Leo about how to
> handle it, even PMed Tiberius asking his advice on how to handle the
> situation... because I felt you more or less deserved to win the game.
> More than Tibi (because you got him with a pretty clean, even if nasty
> blow, AFAIK) and more than Leo (because basically, his "achievement"
> was more or less you getting screwed on uranium). I spent time with
> both Leo and Tibi, discussing a solution "fair" to you (not that we
> were able to find one)... imagine my feelings seeing Leo wiped out
> with an attack you said was not to happen. There was little chance I
> would not have been pissed off.

>
> As I already wrote to you, it was the fact that the only way to
> prevent you from carrying your backstab was to actually backstab you
> first (when I noticed you were preparing the attack) that made me so
> frustrated about the whole affair.
>
> I haven't been as unfortunate as you in my PBEMs... but then, I only
> played one of my own (Misfits) - and did not suffer from a backstab
> there (just the contrary, Tibi was an extremely loyal ally)... only
> from a gangup...

>
>>H_E> Now, as I already explained, my original stance that I was not
>>H_E> looking for a military solution. This was true.
>
> And THIS was the rather unfortunate thing that started it all. I still
> cannot understand why you hoped to win peacefully. Me and Leo, we were
> both lightyears behind you, tech- and economy-wise. Giving you uranium
> was the same as giving the game up. Why would we do that??? You could
> have directly asked us whether we were ok to let you win...

OK -
Tibi said he was studying Fission as fast as he could.
He said he expected to research it faster once his libraries were completed.
I thought that he might have been lieing here, and he was doing a 40-turn research to build up gold for rushing nukes, but I could not be sure.
Anyway, I thought I would study it myself as I had nothing left to do, and I was on the home stretch to victory.

As soon as I saw I had no uranium, I realised I had a huge problem.

I had refused to connect our territories by road...so if I did that now, you would know I was going to attack.
And it would take a few rounds to generate an army of Modern Armor.
My biggest fear, was that you would finish fission at any moment, and then it would become obvious that I was building an army and connecting our roads for an invasion.

In addition, I also had no experience in modern age warfare. (Single player or PBEM). I doubted I had the skill to pull any offensive off.

My only hope was to appeal to Leo (Leo only at that stage) and hope he underestimated how far ahead I was in tech.

So...thats it in a nutshell.
It would have taken a few turns to prepare for the war.
And I feared you would finish Fission at any moment and I would be caught with my pants down...trying to explain why I was building roads or my military strength suddenly jumped to strong.

I had been very sly with what information I had been giving Leo with regards to my tech lead.
I was hoping he thought I was 1 maybe 2 up....when it was more like 3 up with most of the SS complete. Leo seemed not too concerned about getting the Space Flight tech and starting his Apollo Program...so I was hoping that he had totally miscalculated how far ahead I was.

I was rushed into deciding what to do... I hoped that Leo underestimated me.
When Leo declined, I knew asking for Uranium from you was a huge longshot. But I had given up on winning at that stage, so I was grasping at straws.

>
> If you simply attacked, took that uranium, and won, I would have
> applauded. The whole negotiation thing seemed unnecessary and only
> made us (ok, me, to be precise) feel somewhat bitter about it. Just my
> 2 cents, which I already told you.
>

Like I said... it was only after I exhausted all peaceful attempts at trying to trade for uranium, and after you told me my only option was military, did I then plan for an invasion.

>>H_E> But both of you seemed to consider that I crossed the line by lying
>>H_E> to you. To me...this is a normal part of PBEM.
>
> To be honest, I don't see why there should be different standards for
> CivPBEM and for the RL. I dislike lies in the RL. If someone lies to
> me in this virtual world, I do not feel I should judge him any more
> favourable, just because it's "only a CivPBEM". I am all for "clever"
> diplomacy, keeping stuff to oneself, (ab)using ambiguous statements,
> playing word poker, and such... but a bold faced lie is a bold faced
> lie.
>
> But from what you described (your PBEMs) and from I witnessed myself
> (PtWDG, ISDG, Misfits), I sadly realize it really is a normal part of
> PBEM. Which is one of the major reasons I came to a point I no longer
> enjoy Civ PBEM too much (though our DON modern war did raise my
> interest).

My opinion, is that it is widespread in PBEM.
I personally try to avoid it.
Although I know others who intentionally use it to set up the ultimate backstab.

In the Misfits PBEM... our construction deal was done in good faith.
It was not until afterwards, when Beta asked for an alliance against you did I finally agree to backstab you and not trade it.
Beta will confirm, that I was not happy about it, and I suggested a variety of options..
Including trading it and letting you have a 1 in 3 chance of not getting Feudalism
In my mind, I rationalised it, by doing 40 turn research and then calculating that we would be at war on turn 39 or 40 making it impossible to trade.
But Beta knew I was not happy about doing it.

In the DON PBEM.
I was constantly sending emails to Flandrien about the need of protecting ourselves from Egypt (being played by jshelr) who I knew enjoyed an early chariot rush. I never spoke about a MPP or a NAP...but just kept reminding him to watch out for Egypt.
When my forces were ready, I attacked him.
I know he felt I backstabbed him... but really, I considered it "clever diplomacy" because all I was doing was focussing his attention elsewhere.

Also in the DON PBEM,
When Tibi's & Leo's embargo put me 7 techs behind, I knew it was the beginning of the end for me.
My only chance was to sneak in a Great Library build.
I became absolutely erratic with my emails. Accusing them of everything under the sun. Sending scouts into their territory, and dropping military units within their borders.
Threatened a war, and did everything to make them believe I was preparing for war.
When really, all I was doing was trying to divert their attention from my Great Library build.
Once that was in, and I caught up in tech, I was happy to go back to friendly relations.

Anyway... for me... I have a very clear line between my RL & my gaming.
I take nothing said within the game to heart.
And take anything said to me with a pinch of salt.
In RL... obviously that¡¦s not me.
But in the game world...I can be as evil as hell.

I can list many lies & backstabs that I have received in PBEM's.
Like it or not, I consider it normal gameplay now. Anything anyone sends me, I always try to consider ulterior motives. And I assume everyone will eventually want to attack me. Friend or foe. Ally or Enemy.

>
>>H_E> Certainly, after reading your complaints, I definitely did not feel
>>H_E> like playing on with this game.
>
> Was it really that bad?

I know I only wanted to tell you that you
> pissed me off by using a bold faced lie on me. That was all...
>

To be honest... I could not rationalise why you were so upset.
I first thought it was because the Onion Ring invasion was a success, and you were just pissed that I destroyed your ally.
But then I thought there must have been some other reason... perhaps you thought that extreme combat settling was an exploit, but you could not bring yourself to just call me an outright cheat.

But it is obvious to me now, its simply that we have two very different understandings on how PBEM¡¦s are/should be played.

You thought my emails to you about not attacking were personal, and outside of the game. Part of our regular AAR discussions.
To me.. they were always part of the game.
Honest at the start. And then when that failed, a little diplomatic manipulation in an attempt to catch you or Leo offguard and pray I had given you enough doubt, that you would not attack me.

>>H_E> I no longer spent 3-4 hours on each turn.
>>H_E> And just played the turns with little care.
>
> Well, yes, I was amazed by how little you were able to send against me
> - I remember investigating a city of yours and it was building some
> totally idiotic stuff... can't recall what it was, but I thought you
> were simply too self-confident.

>

I can tell you, I totally misjudged how much military you could build.
I totally miscalculated how quickly you could get into my territory.
I had no idea what you could (and did) steal off me with your spy. (Eg even if you did invade, you did not know where my aluminium was, because I never traded my world map.) .. but you obviously used your spy to steal my map.
And I made no attempt in mounting a proper defence, because I miscalculated how fast you could reach my aluminium.

Is this too self confident ??
Maybe.
I just miscalculated.
I thought the only thing that could hurt me was nukes raining down on my cities. If you wanted to spend your cash on tanks in a hopeless attempt at a last minute invasion, then be my guest. I preferred tanks to nukes, because I thought you didn¡¦t have enough turns left to reach my aluminium, and I could not retaliate against your nukes because of my lack of Uranium. But as we now know.. you went faster than I calculated, because you had my map, knew where my aluminium was, and could drop workers off along my coast.

You only beat me by one turn you know !!
The turn I needed aluminium for the last SS part, was the turn you reached it.

> Your first (and probably most important) mistake was to carelessly
> annihilate that "fake" stack I sent to "attack" Doughnut King through
> the jungle. It's sole purpose was to draw your fire, exhausting your
> MAs, so that when I did the real move, you would not have forces enough to counterattack immediately.

Like I said, I was just trying to slow you up. I did not have any major strategic defensive plan, because your thought invasion was too late. All I wanted to do was to slow you down.

>
>>H_E> I recall knowing that Arabian border was going to fall.
>>H_E> I knew..as I was doing it... that I should not be bombing Vondracks
stack, because
>>H_E> a) I did not have enough tanks to follow up and destroy the stack
anyway.
>>H_E> b) Egyptian tanks were in position to attack Arabian Border next turn
>>H_E> c) I did not have enough tanks to hold Arabian Border.
>>H_E> But I still kept bombing...and not caring.
>>H_E> And then sent then turn on... telling myself that it was a stupid move.
>
> Yes, it was a very stupid move.

You basically gift-wrapped all that
> artillery for me, leaving it conveniently within the reach. Not only
> you lost Arabian Border, but you lost all your arty, which prevented
> you from even thinking about attacking my MI-stacks in the following
> turns - attacking MIs with MAs w/o arty support was too risky.
>
> You probably underestimated how much I would throw at Arabian Border.
> It was 40+ arty (I took Leo's arty on that turn), 6 cruise missiles, 4
> bombers and 1 jet fighter, 29 MAs, and then there were those 50 MIs...
>
> I do not feel like writing the same stuff again, so here is part of an
> email I sent to Tibi (it deals with the attack on Arabian Border):
>
> > Opening the 1575AD save, my heart was beating twice or thrice the
> > normal pace.

But my stack was there, apparently bombarded by all
> > the arty H_E had - that was good, as the arty must have been within
> > reach. The bad news was than H_E did see the two-edged blade and
> > abandoned Doughnut King, withdrawing bulk of his forces to Arabian
> > Border (I investigated the city). Fortunately, he underestimated my
> > strength. He had 18 MIs, few (4?) MAs, and all his arty (~40 pieces)
> > there.
>
> > Later, replaying this memorable turn to recreate the battlefield
> > situation to plan ahead, I found out I made a big mistake, not
> > plopping a radar tower where the stack originally was... my losses
> > could have been lower.

Anyway, I took Leo's arty, moved it into the
> > position (the captured workers laid the necessary RR) and opened the
> > barrage. I took the city down to a pretty reasonable level - pop 5, I
> > think, no civil defense, no walls (not sure about barracks, but that
> > did not matter anyway). I then wasted most of my airforce (got shot
> > down by the Arabian Border SAM) and threw all six cruise missiles at
> > the city before launching the MA attack.
>
> > At first, it was hopeless. I was losing MA after MA - I actually lost
> > about 15 of them before killing the first defender. But the defenders
> > were losing hps. After running out of MAs, the defenses were wavering
> > - the best defender had 2hps, I think. I sent in MIs... After losing
> > about 10 of them, I saw the last 1hp cavalry. I killed it and totally
> > lost control over myself. I was running around my flat, screaming like
> > mad.

)) (btw, Leo later told me he did the same after getting my
> > message...

))
>
> > I lost 23 out of my 29 MAs (the remaining ones were half-dead) and
> > about 10 MIs, but I took Arabian Border and all Arabian artillery.
>
> > Moved my remaining MIs into the city, used the captured arty to create
> > a "bumper zone" around the city, moved workers to allow connecting the
> > city next turn, mobilized the economy, and started to pray... I did
> > not know how many MAs H_E would be able to muster in a counterattack.
>
> > Next turn, I burst in anger - that fvcking game put almost all my
> > cities into disorder! And I spent so much time fine-tuning them on the
> > turn before... going into the city screens, THERE WAS NO REASON FOR
> > THEM TO RIOT (as Leo resent me the luxuries again). I had no idea what
> > kind of a fvcking glitch caused that... trying to understand, I found
> > out that simply taking a worker off a tile and immediately placing him
> > there back again (before the city was checked for unhappiness) made
> > the game to recalculate something - and solved the bloody problem! So
> > I eventually had only one city riot... the first one - all the others
> > stayed fine because of this trick (I hope it was no cheating, despite
> > cycling through the cities after opening the save... I did not really
> > change any WF placement). Unfortunately, this was not the only problem
> > - the stupid game took Leo accepting my peace proposal (after taking
> > his arty) as a reason to end mobilization. Many carefully planned
> > builds did not work out... oh, well.
>
> So, that was The Great Battle of Arabian Border.

The plan was to disband all cities that you advanced on.
I was stupid to leave the city there.
Care factor when I played that turn was next to zero.
I was averaging 3-4 hours per turn.
I did that turn in about half an hour.

But yes, I miscalculated your forces. I knew you would take Leos arty.
But reading above, I did not think you had that many MA¡¦s to soften up the city.

>
>>H_E> Until I realised I miscalculated how quickly Vondrack could get
>>H_E> into my territory, and he would beat me to my aluminium before I
>>H_E> could get the last SS part built.
>
> Here is another excerpt from what I wrote to Tibi:
>
> > Examining the map, I thought - wtf??? A war raging on and H_E has time
> > to mine the battlefield area??? (note the tile S-S of Arabian Border).
> > Right-clicked on it and found out it was generating gold! There were
> > RRs (or at least a road) on that tile - just that no adjacent tile had
> > road, nor RR and so it looked like the tile was only mined. I moved
> > most of the full health MIs & some workers S of Arabian Border, hoping
> > H_E would not notice that tile - the plan was to build RRs S of
> > Arabian Border, move arty to N-NW of Said-theSpider-2the-Fly (formerly
> > Dude), shell the hell out of its defenders and take it. Once it would
> > be mine, I would use two transports anchored in El-Ashmunein to bring
> > up to 16 MAs into the city - those would attack the aluminium position
> > E-E immediately, hopefully taking it (I assumed it would not be
> > heavily defended yet).
>
> > If that tile S-S of Arabian Border was pillaged, I would simply attack
> > Backup. I had one more theoretical option - to attack Border... I made
> > it look like it was an option for me but did not really consider it as
> > that would have drawn me away from the aluminium.
>
> > Next turn, H_E made one good thing and one mistake. He correctly
> > realized he was unable to properly garrison cities threatened by my
> > forces (Border, Backup, Dude/Spider) and disbanded them, denying me
> > targets I could attack. However, he oversaw the (rail)roaded tile,
> > which allowed me to carry my plan out, just without the immediate
> > attack on his aluminium position. I moved an extremely strong stack
> > (~2/3 of all I had, 40+ units) into the ruins of Dude/Spider (even
> > brought some arty and one native worker in, using the transports from
> > El-Ashmunein) and put the remaining 1/3 of my forces onto the tile N
> > of the first one. I moved Arabian Border 1 tile S (preventing H_E from
> > attacking it, interrupting my coastal railway link + allowed me to
> > plop a radar tower S of the newly found Egyptian Border, supporting
> > both stacks) and used all my explorers and even 1 captured one (+ my
> > only bomber stationed in Arabian Border) to pillage every road
> > allowing H_E to attack tiles I did not cover with my units, leaving
> > only the two heavily protected ones as possible targets (the ruin tile
> > was within the striking range of both MIs and MAs, the tile N of it
> > was only within the MA range).
>
> So... I guess that the reason why you miscalculated was a display
> glitch. There was a tile that was seemingly mined only - while it actually had RRs...

{edit] - I have looked at the saves...
That mined tile does have a railroad underneath it.
I pillaged every tile around it, but not that one.
I dont recall intentionally deciding to leave it. In fact, it would be a bad move to let it remain. The graphic only shows a mine. So I must of just decided it not worthy to pillage.
This allowed Vondrack 1 extra move into my territory.
Given that he only just reached my aluminium by 1 tile on the last turn..it was a mistake that almost lost me the game.

**Hot_Enamel** · April 16, 2004, 02:32

I will post more of the email a little later where we discussed other issues.

"Extreme Combat Settling" & "Transport Chaining"

**Jon Shafer** · April 16, 2004, 02:38

It's rather hard to tell who is saying what in there...

**Hot_Enamel** · April 16, 2004, 02:57

>H is me
> is Vondrack

>> is a post that Vondrack inserted from another email

And where there is no ">" is my reply

I will color co-ordinate them later when I get home from work

{edit}
Done -
Blue is my original email
Red is his reponse
Black is my response to his response

**Master Zen** · April 18, 2004, 00:54

seems to me they just got bitter because you backstabbed someone.

Backstabbing is part of Civ, plain and simple. Every treaty written regarding a game situation can be broken at any time. Will your reputation get soiled because of it? Yes, those people will likely treat you different in other PBEMs, but that's life. I see nothing inherently "wrong" with doing it.

Just my 2 cents.

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DON PBEM – The Dirty Little Lie

DON PBEM – The Dirty Little Lie

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