History 101 - The Moral High-Ground

[FrustratedPoet]

@ this whole thread.

Get a grip guys, for god's sake.

[Tiberius]

but ... but... I don't want to get a grippe

[Beta]

Originally posted by notyoueither
nm.

??? never mind??

[Beta]

Originally posted by nbarclay
The fact that we were unwilling to maintain a highly asymmetric relationship

as we did in the early game???

I won't claim that Gathering Storm has always been the nicest neighbor that could be asked for. We've known from the time our two civs met that we had more economic power than Vox, and thus more latent military power should we need it, and that has caused or allowed us to act in a bit more high-handed manner than we might have otherwise at times.

exactly.

[Beta]

Originally posted by FrustratedPoet
@ this whole thread.

Get a grip guys, for god's sake.

I agree with Tiberius - that would be no fun.

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by BetaHound
??? never mind??

Yeah, NYE obviously posted something, and then thought better of it and edited out the text.

[Shiber]

A question to BetaHound: what were you hoping to achieve by posting straight lies (e.g. Grog blocking a road) and obvious misinterpretations of the truth (us building a "military road" that's leading to a city site that we've agreed on more than a thousand years ago)?
A question to all of Vox: why did you keep lying to us, saying that much of the land that you have had north of the isthmus was desert, when in fact there's only one tile of desert there, and about half of the rest is grasslands, hills and a mountain? Weren't you also trying to achieve an advantage during the distribution of land, pretending to be the underdog, while you actually had a better start location than ours?
Do you think it was "moral" to completely neglect your research (not founding new cities nor investing in workers but instead putting most or all of your efforts into military), while you had a "share all techs" agreement with Gathering Storm? And would you really expect Gathering Storm to continue such an agreement with the civilization that is ranked at last place in GNP?

Do you think it was "moral" to lie to Gathering Storm from the start about almost every issue? What is "moral" in your eyes, anyway?

[Thrumble]

Originally posted by Shiber
, while you actually had a better start location than ours?

I notice that your team members alway state that "they had a better start postion" not that they have better land area. It appears painfully obvious that your team currently has far superior territory as you yourself have stated that Vox can no longer match even a fraction of your production or research ability.

Why do you continue to attack them for their start position which they had no control over while you appear to horde the choice land in the game and allow no one to glimpse or come near it?

[Shiber]

Re: History 101 - The Moral High-Ground

I'd like to add to the GS POV by commenting on an issue that was neglected by some respected teammates of mine.

Originally posted by BetaHound
I have excluded the recent currency and construction trade - because as you will recall, we had indicated to you that we would provide these.

Correction: you did not indicate to us that you would provide those techs. We found a deal for those two techs, and at the time when it appeared that our deal for Currency and Construction was nearing finalization, I contacted Jon Miller, which happened to be logged on to the 'Poly IRC server the same time I was, and informally mentioned to him that we have found means to provide these techs. Jon said, and I quote, "that's very generous of you", and then mentioned that Vox also had means of acquiring these techs. IIRC, it was later decided that we would provide these techs.

In your math, you chose to neglect Currency and Construction, which are worth 36 tech points, and found that GS contributed 6 less tech points than Vox did. You conveniently removed Currency and Construction from the list, which are worth half of every tech that Vox has ever passed to GS through our tech agreement. 36 tech points is also 6 times the gap between what GS has given and what Vox has given, according to your "creative math". This means that even if Currency and Construction were worth as little as one sixth of their regular worth to Vox (which is a great understatement), we are even.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Thrumble
I notice that your team members alway state that "they had a better start postion" not that they have better land area. It appears painfully obvious that your team currently has far superior territory as you yourself have stated that Vox can no longer match even a fraction of your production or research ability.

Why do you continue to attack them for their start position which they had no control over while you appear to horde the choice land in the game and allow no one to glimpse or come near it?

1 - there's a thing called terrain improvement. It can be done right (favoring growth where it's possible) or onesided (just mining everything, not chopping game forest, not irrigating where it makes sense, etc.). The latter case will make more shields in the moment, the former case both more shields and gold on the long run, because you will have more and bigger cities

2 - the terrain around the capital is crucial. The capital is mostly the only settler producer for at least the first 50 turns, often even more. The faster it grows, the more settlers and workers it can build, because settlers and workers need lots of food to be horded. More settlers = more cities. More workers = better terrain. Less of both = more shields in the moment, but much less on the long run.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by Thrumble
It appears painfully obvious that your team currently has far superior territory as you yourself have stated that Vox can no longer match even a fraction of your production or research ability.

The unmistakable advantage that GS has over Vox in all aspects of production results from Vox's neglect of development. Instead of building new cities, they built units; instead of using their workers to improve their lands, they used them for colonies and long roads that stretch throughout areas outside their cultural borders. Add to that some devastating mistakes, such as wasting settlers on corrupt cities or on founding West Wittlich, which they had to turn away to GoW, and Vox's weakness compared to us comes as no surprise.

Edit: Sir Ralph's post better stresses the main reasons for Vox's disparity.

[Arrian]

Beta reminds me of the Iraqi Minister of Information.

-Arrian

[HarryH]

Bringing Lux onto our continent was done without our consent, and we regarded it both as a diplomatic risk and as at least a small potential military risk. Had Lux pop rushed a defender and tried to dig in, we could have incurred some expense in dislodging them. Having risks imposed on us without compensation would have been unacceptable, and the obvious solution would have been to eliminate the risk by eliminating Lux.

The Lux situation happened very fast. We barely had any time to discuss it amoungst ourselves. What we provided to Lux was entirely within our territory and used our resources. Once the risk was gone, why didn't you give some of the compensation back?

But we did try to take Vox's needs and feelings into consideration as well and to come up with solutions we felt were fair to both sides rather than trying to insist on getting everything completely our way.

You mean the suggestion that Vox send gold to GS so Vox would be like, how did I read it in the early chat log, a "free Forbidden Palace" for GS was considering our needs and feelings?

It's history now. The deed has been done based on perceptions (whether right or wrong.). Now its time to get back to planning our two front war.

[Jon Shafer]

You guys are worse than Lux and ND.

At least our sparring in the forums was all for jest. Everyone knows war in one form or another is only a matter of time, and the only thing to be determined is under what circumstances.

So let's just settle this on the battlefield.

[Arrian]

Again, says the guy whose team folded like a house of cards.

Anyway, the only reason I've been arguing at all is Vox's attempt (by Beta) to place blame for this war on GS by flat out lying (the initial claims of cutting roads and such).

I don't have a problem with warfare. Vox attacked us, hoping to conquer us. That's fine, no big deal. But doing that and trying to convince the rest of the teams that GS actually picked the fight? That's a charge I feel we have to counter.

After all, if a lie is repeated enough, somebody may start to believe it, particularly if nobody else speaks up about the truth.

-Arrian