Spite and Malice....

[UnOrthOdOx]

I have to laugh here.

I don't know about this chat or how it was handled by either side. I would be interested in a transcript, though.

Anyway, I have to laugh because, yes, we thought there was a GS/Vox Alliance. I was one of the biggest proponents of such. Given the situation again, I would be a proponent of it again.

Vox and GS both refusing to trade maps with us. Both acting along very similar diplomatic paths. Vox sitting there with Immortals. What had to be ALLOT of Immortals for Iron Working was not exactly a new tech. GS playing with Egypt, likely ammassing chariots. Both claiming to have small homelands.

The fact that you guys were at peace and needed to expand just smelled of a planned joint naval assault. We were sure we would see 20 immortals and 40 chariots riding down on us at any time.

Our mistake.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by Shiber
Thanks for your honesty Ghengis.
I definitely see the problem here. As a team that decides out of consensus most of the time, we were slow on diplomacy. I hope that this post will serve as a real wake-up call for my team.

YES! This is exactly what I am attempting to in these posts! I'm not intending to piss off people, I am trying to show how we reacted to specific events so that people can see what the reactions were and hopefully keep that in mind for future games.

The comments I made in those specific chats were supposed to be disruptive. I had no authority whatsoever and was trying to prevent my team any deal at all. Of course you were just as bad on your side as I was on mine. Most of my more insulting comments were direct reaction to comments from you. At this point I was simply trying to get GS to declare war as we had already been hired to attack you, we just needed and excuse so that we could blame it on you.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by Shiber
I understand H_E.
One thing though: what made you think that there was any trust between GoW and GS? Perhaps you could trust our word (except when you were obviously trying to manipulate us to fall into your plans for eventually winning the game, as it became apparent to GS during the GS-GoW-ND chat), but what made you think that we could trust yours? After breaking every single deal and even crossing the red line of showing us fake screenshots (which we actually paid for)... well, some of us were angry at GoW, but we had plenty of rational reasons why not to trust your team.
Or maybe I just misunderstood you?

I have two comments here. Well, maybe three.

I put in allot of work, and made some mistakes with GS, I freely admit. During that time I was as open as possible, though. I didn't know of all the history at the time either, such as faked screens. I honestly thought we were just playing both sides during that arrangement like good little mercenaries. If you must know, I actually advocated we contact you for some amount of cash as well, then land and attack BOTH sides. Play both ends against the other, that is how bad I was there, since the Vox contract never FORBID us from declaring war on them but apparantly the team was only supporting one side...not my choice. We also bought Feudalism from you when the rest of the world refused to do so, I will remind you. And yes, the NTA there. Well, we just plain see that one differently.

I was not there for that final chat which ended up killing the relations.

I am also not happy with how that final chat was handled, and would have likely done so very differently.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Shiber
... well, some of us were angry at GoW, but we had plenty of rational reasons why not to trust your team.

I'm still waiting for Trip opening the box of Pandora after the game and quoting, what I would rather do than to trust GoW.

[DeepO]

H_E, trust is a 2-way street. We signed the NAP because we trusted you to see our side of the story as well, which basically meant us getting involved in Bobian wars if there was the risk of having to deal with 2 Bobian civs both larger then ourselves. We assumed you would take this into account when attacking civs, we were prepared to enter military (instead of hidden with only economical help), if our needs were also met. And those needs were very clear: no 2-team Bob. By keeping us out, we were further pushed to do the 'right' thing, defending the underdog.

I can see that you might think we violated the NAP in your PoV, even if I still don't agree in the slightest from our Pov. Indeed, a considerable effort was made diplomatically to get us to sign it (and frankly, if you hadn't pushed it to do it so fast, circumventing a large part of our decision making process, it would perhaps never gotten signed), after which the real reason was admitted: so that the two most powerful unit nations could gangrape a third. We didn't know this before signing the NAP, or we would never have done it. And once we knew, we gave you every opportunity to meet our needs, but you didn't even blink (okay, UnO made an effort, but it didn't came close to what we wanted, and was too late anyway).

Oh, and I strongly object the 'sluggish diplo from GS'. Sure, we're not fast, but we simply can't be given our geographic diversion, and our chosen government model. But when important things have to be decided fast, we always get the decisions out in less then 2 days.

While when we were discussing our stay on Bob, we were told by GoW: oh, never mind, we'll discuss this next week again, and possibly the week after that too. This will take long to finalize. This was the turn before you would have attacked Bilbao. You were stalling us, which was double clear given your normally 'explosive' diplomatic speed. AFAIK, we never stalled anyone on purpose. Right at that moment, in chat, it was decided to help RP, who at least would welcome us as a friend instead of trying to only gain from us, keeping us from any profits we might make.

And would we have helped ND if you and RP would have ganged together? Can't say for sure, but there is a big chance for that, yes. If they would have agreed to our requests, why not? But there is one big difference in such a war: ND has a powerful UU which can be used. Their downfall in a 2 vs 1 war would not have been so fast as RP's was. At least they would have had the hope of defending, RP had not.

Oh, and we would have helped you against ND-RP too, which was the primary reason to sign the NAP. We would never have attacked you, like we promised to. We would never have dealt the first blow. In case RP and ND would have attacked you, there was only one option for us to keep a 3-team Bob: attack RP and ND, to defend you. Our NAP would have meant so much... but it is clear our two teams found different meanings in the NAP. We thought we were protecting you in case of a gangrape, you thought it was an approval from us to start a gangrape of your own. Of course we violated that spirit by accepting the RP cities, but was it ever the spirit of the deal like we saw it? It was called a Non Aggression Pact for something, it was not called a Allow Us To Gangrape The Underdog Pact.

DeepO

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Thanks, I already knew your state of mind before and there was no need to give an explicit demonstration like this. Actually, I was trying to help you out. Your troll was so poor and such obviously based on the lack of information what's going on in your own team, that I felt pity for you and tried to find an explanation.

Which part of the "Just Kidding" were you not able to translate?

WARNING! This may really cause some diplomatic backlash....

This is my personal attitude towards the various teams to the best of my knowledge. Mind you, it only reflects my personal attitude at a particular point in the game, but I did my best to convince my team to agree with me. Funny enough, I started out anti ND and pro Roleplay.

4000 BC
Neutral for the most part. But, I felt if we made early contact with GS we should whack em, since I assumed that's what they would do.

Not sure of date
Started trading Minimaps. Very pro-Roleplay at this point. Felt we should ally with Roleplay to wipe out ND and then Lux.

Contact with ND and Lux
Lux fortifies in the radius of our capital. Definitely starts up the anti-Lux feelings.
Contact with ND, they seem likeable not to personable. Looks like they might be a pushover for us and Roleplay.

MadKing Doneagle Incident
What the f? Who told you to attack ND? Why are we charging their capital? Feel really guilty about the instigation with ND

Not sure of dates
Lux plants city on top of ND. Fairly indifferent towards this although we were planning on a city near there. Figure we'll take it from them later. ND and Lux are talking about some settler hunting incident but I don't really care and am not sure who was the aggressor.

Lux plants city right next to our capital.
Screw Lux, start becoming more friendly to ND and feel best plan is to ally with ND against Lux, then ally with Roleplay against ND.

Warrior Incident
What the? We can't explore neutral wilderness we a conscript Warrior. Am very irritated but agree with moving back because we need the tech.

Saragossa founded.
ND starts sending me all kinds of emails - not very nice ones but their pissed at Togas and Roleplay not us.

Togas decides not to honor their end until we pass Saragossa. Really mad now. Start agreeing with ND. ND is by far the most rational and stable potential trading partner on Bob. Start discussing and formulating tech paths and troop construction for the destruction of Roleplay.

The Vox Connection
Make contact with Vox across the sea. That's it, they appear to be uninterested in trade or tech coordination. Not very commercial oriented. GS doesn't want contact with us or anyone else.

ND Lux War - "The Great Lux Hunt"
ND decides to purge Lux out of existence. Want to help but we have no units. Start producing Horsemen to help ND but just get their in time to help with the cleanup.

GS Contact.
Finally brokered contact deals all around GS not interested in trades or anything else it seems.

[b]Contact with Lego[b]
Have been concerned that Lego will be far behind and offer a deal to catch them up in tech if they make contact with us first. Lego not nearly as behind as thought.

WILL CONTINUE LATER

[UnOrthOdOx]

oh, never mind, we'll discuss this next week again, and possibly the week after that too. This will take long to finalize. This was the turn before you would have attacked Bilbao. You were stalling us, which was double clear given your normally 'explosive' diplomatic speed.

I assure you that was not a stall, it was an attempt to get me involved in that discussion since I wasn't there for that chat. It was a difficult discussion process, you must admit. My team just wanted me in on it.

I still say there was a way for us to meet everyone's needs.

But, judging from comments made in this thread, GS never had much of a plan to really work with GoW. They would prefer to war on GoW.

and 'the two strongest civs beating up on a third'?
Come now, this is a far cry from the logic of "I can't see a situation that would cause us to war on the weakest civ (meaning GoW)".

So, which were we, one of the two strongest, or the weakest?

[DeepO]

It was a difficult decision for sure, but for once the GS decision was going at full speed. About all our active members were present in that chat, so anything we could have anounimously agreed to in our room, would have been polled immediately. We could have striken (sp?) a deal in 24h.

I can appreciate your team wanted you in, but was there any other way for us to view it, if you were putting a possible deal on a time schedule of weeks, when action was required immediately? If we wanted to help RP, we needed to do it right then. And this is what happened, 2 days later, the deal with RP was signed... they knew they had no time to lose.

DeepO

[Shiber]

I like where this discussion is going. We're all acting much more maturely and making informative posts, even Ghengis.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
I assure you that was not a stall, it was an attempt to get me involved in that discussion since I wasn't there for that chat. It was a difficult discussion process, you must admit. My team just wanted me in on it.

I understand.
Well, at least you can see why it absolutely looked like a stall from GS's PoV. Misunderstanding is the #1 cause for war.

[Velociryx]

Surely you can see how the equation changed with the advent of your GA and UU?

-=Vel=-

[UnOrthOdOx]

At the speed the game was moving at the time, we were talking 2 game turns. Given the history of GS diplomacy, can you blame us for thinking it wouldn't hurt if I contacted you two days later about it?

And when I did, I would make a VERY good arguement about being stalled. Intentionally.

[DeepO]

UnO, GS never had a plan to war on GoW. We signed the NAP with you because we somehow thought you would make the best friends on Bob. We were wrong...

As to 'the 2 strongest civs': military speaking, this was and still is true. You have powerful units. There always was a (played) animosity between GoW and ND. We seriously thought you were protecting your behinds, instead of you starting a war. And you might have one of the strongest units, but if the war would have been fought on your territory, you would have crumbled nearly as fast as RP... without production possibility you would have become the smallest very fast. So... you were one of the most powerful, but still smallest civs on Bob

But as said, we did not decide to the NAP on power alone. And we certainly didn't do it on a objective analysis of our previous relations... yes, UnO, you're friendly. But your team are a bunch of back stabbers. And still we signed another deal with you... it seems GS is easily tricked into deals, who said we're a pain to deal with diplomatically

DeepO

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Surely you can see how the equation changed with the advent of your GA and UU?

-=Vel=-

Yes I can. I still say there was a way for us all to work it to our mutual advantage is all. I am a firm believer that there was a better path for everyone involved than the one on which we now all find ourselves. OK, not everyone, RP excluded. I think there was a better path for GS/ND/GoW than the one we are on. One that would have advanced us all to our ultimate goal quicker than this conflict.

[Arrian]

The fact that you guys were at peace and needed to expand just smelled of a planned joint naval assault. We were sure we would see 20 immortals and 40 chariots riding down on us at any time.

I don't blame you. That thought certainly crossed our (GSs) minds. I still don't really understand why Vox attemped to colonize Bob alone, with little military backup. If they had called us up and tried to coordinate with us, and waited for a bit (we had almost zero military at that point), we probably could have been convinced to do a joint operation. We were caught by surprise, though, and certainly weren't in any position to assist.

But their abortive Bobian adventure, coupled with the Luxian affair, kinda freaked us out. We couldn't figure out what they were thinking. We became skeptical about the value of a combined GS-Vox adventure. Immortals + WCs sounds kinda cool in theory, but in practice?

That probably meant war with Vox down the road, and we started thinking about it. If close cooperation to get off the island wasn't gonna work, there really was only 1 other option. But we hadn't gotten there yet. Most of us were content to keep building for a while, and see what happened. Sir Ralph was practically bouncing off the walls, begging us to build something resembling a military... right up to Vox's attack. But the peaceful builder mentality was in full swing. Hell, one of the Co-General of the Armies (me) was an outspoken advocate of building settlers/workers/improvements/wonders over troops! Granted, I'm one of the economists too, but come on! What the **** was I thinking? I'm still kinda annoyed at myself for that.

The rest is known history, of course. The GS-Voxian war was pretty thoroughly dissected (which I thought was great).

-Arrian