Disputes Thread

[ChrisiusMaximus]

Indeed, remember its a game too, there should be no long term detriment to any of RB for playing the better hand, the game has at its core the mechanics of espionage and dirty tactics, and as Sooooo says,

quote
Ah well - if there's a lesson it's if you're going to be sneaky then make sure your sneakiness has a permanent effect

[T-hawk]

Ah well - if there's a lesson it's if you're going to be sneaky then make sure your sneakiness has a permanent effect

Never wound the enemy king.

- Sun Tzu

[thekaje]

OK, but that's selective quoting. That was one argument but there were more important ones that you didn't quote. They broke a NAP when they sabotaged our metal BTW. The main difference, which I assume is your point, is that when we did our backstab we anihilated their civilisation. When they broke their treaties it was only minor inconveniences (not having metal, not having gunpowder). Ah well - if there's a lesson it's if you're going to be sneaky then make sure your sneakiness has a permanent effect

lol -- well, at least they told you well in advance that either you give them Cape Town or it'd be war. They were up-front about their intentions.

[Krill]

Then they agreed to a peace treaty and sold their allies down the river, and then the proceeded to not abide by the peace treaty/techt rade.

The ultimate irony is that Naldo said that he thought out of game diplomacy was binding, yet he failed to do what he had promised, out of game. I don't quite see how anyone can claim the moral highgroundin that scenario.

[thekaje]

RB knew they couldn't trade for Gunpowder before they signed the treaty. They intended to use the Gunpowder thing as an out when it proved convenient. I think Imperio should have gifted Gunpowder, but RB should have made it clear that the treaty was void if there were no Gunpowder. Instead, they intentionally refused to do any such thing, because it would have given away their one-swoop backstab coup and led to stand-up fight. They didn't want a stand-up fight. They tried to make the case that Imperio didn't deserve one.

They sold Templar down the river, but they waited long enough for Templar to declare on them first -- hardly a backstab. (And not clearly a violation of the RB treaty, either, because they said they weren't going to declare until after Jerusalem fell.) In terms of in-game actions, they didn't do anything to actually hurt Templar except make peace with RB.

Of course, the real problem was that all the other teams were one-man and/or hugely disorganized affairs where nobody was sure if anybody else had actually sent an email to RB about what they'd decided in their forum.

Anyway, I actually think RB was clearly worse than Imperio in the fair-sport department.

[sooooo]

In terms of in-game actions, they didn't do anything to actually hurt Templar except make peace with RB.

Well, that's enough, right? That peace treaty caused the templars to be wiped out. I doubt we'd get any more cities in a quick time without the treaty and I'm pretty sure that Imperio know that when they signed it. They had an alliance with templars and they backstabbed them, no two ways about it.

Anyway, we don't actually disagree about us backstabbing so there's not much point in continuing this argument. As to who's backstab was technically worse than the others - I don't really care and I definitely don't feel any sympathy to the Imperio team as a whole.

[darrelljs]

And not to continue beating a dead horse but there is a 0% chance we would have attacked (must less backstabbed) a true ally. If Banana was going to win cultural and the only way to stop them was razing a city, well, then, they were going to win the game.

Darrell

[ruff_hi]

Anyway, I actually think RB was clearly worse than Imperio in the fair-sport department.

I think that is a bit rich.

Imperio as a team had openly broken a number of agreements and made zero moves to re-dress them. Team RB committed 1 backstab and executed it to perfection. Maybe the ramifications of the backstab make it bigger than Imperio's other mis-dealings but I don't think that quality trumps quantity in this situation. This game has seen other trade mistakes rectified by other teams - PAL gifted us a tech with they screwed up an early tech trade - Imperio should have at least talked to us about the stuff up and made some attempt to rectify.

Personally - I didn't need a reason to hang my hat on re this backstab. If they had traded us gunpowder (or gifted it), I still would have been in the camp of attacking Imperio at an opportune time as payback for the metal pillage and other dealings.

[thekaje]

The quality/quantity thing is cute and makes you look good, but it's completely dishonest. Imperio is untrustworthy, obviously. But Imperio never once attacked you without warning, and they didn't aim to anything with the copper sabotage but scare/impair you. They certainly never aimed to knock you out of the game in one fell swoop. Both the Templars and Imperio gave clear warnings before attacking.

On the other hand, you not only attacked them with troops without warning, you did it with an active NAP and you knocked them out of the game in one turn.

So if anybody is going to try to leave it as though RB won fair and square or as though Imperio somehow deserved to lose completely without warning in a single turn, I'm calling BS. Your "backstab" was a clever and well-executed cheap shot and anticlimax.

EDIT: Besides, breaking the NAP and attacking are both fine. But you should have stated that the treaty was null and void, rather than lead them into a false sense of trust.

[mostly-harmless]

The quality/quantity thing is cute and makes you look good, but it's completely dishonest. Imperio is untrustworthy, obviously. But Imperio never once attacked you without warning, and they didn't aim to anything with the copper sabotage but scare/impair you.

You totally misjudge the Copper issue. It was huge and had the potential of a turning point in the game, combined with Imperio's intentional lack of communication. Iirc, there was even talk at Imperio to attack us before our T120 NAP was over.

They certainly never aimed to knock you out of the game in one fell swoop.

Because they did not have the means to do so. Duh.

Both the Templars and Imperio gave clear warnings before attacking.

You clearly mean the clumsy way of their preparations, which we spotted miles away? Or the actual diplomatic messages? Because I fail to remember those.

On the other hand, you not only attacked them with troops without warning, you did it with an active NAP and you knocked them out of the game in one turn.

Imperio could have put up a fight after losing that first battles and make our lives very hard indeed. But like PAL they gave up too fast.

So if anybody is going to try to leave it as though RB won fair and square or as though Imperio somehow deserved to lose completely without warning in a single turn, I'm calling BS. Your "backstab" was a clever and well-executed cheap shot and anticlimax.

Well, anticlimax for everyone else. I for myself would call that particular set of turns as rather climactic for RB.

Anyway, history is written by the victors.

mh

[Zoid]

I must say that I think RB's win was well deserved. Their backstab was exquisitely well preformed. This is a game after all, you can't trust anyone...

[Sullla]

Hey thekaje, I'm totally willing to agree that our backstab of Imperio was a nasty and underhanded move. But to say it was a "well-executed cheap shot and anticlimax" is completely absurd. I don't want to rehash what the other team members have said, but I will point out that neither Imperio nor Templars in any way told us their attack was coming. Templars flat-out lied and told us they were interested in negotiating trades with us on the turn before they attacked. The difference is that their attempted sneak attacks failed, because their teams did not have good execution. Our sneak attack succeeded in awesome fashion. As sooooo and T-Hawk said, if you're going to attack someone, make sure it doesn't "wound" them. Don't hold it against us because we were simply better than their teams.

I would also like to point out that you can't really understand the atmosphere and the mood of one of these games if you weren't a part of it. You're looking at this from the perspective of "I'm disappointed that Imperio was sneak-attacked because I could have read more chapters of Demogame history and gotten a more interesting endgame if they had not been." You would feel differently if you had spent months on end watching Imperio build up their forces, and wondering if we would be able to survive when the attack inevitably came. You don't know what it was like to watch our team panic when Imperio sabotaged our copper, or the fear we suffered through when we watched both of our neighbors declar war. (And the ONLY reason we survived that initial attack is because the Templars were idiots. A competent team would have had 10 horse archers rush Pink Dot out of the fog with no warning. Then Templars would have captured the city, we would have lost the game, and you would be posting about how the Templars were so underhanded...)

In short, don't be so quick to judge events that you weren't a part of. The fact that literally every other team in the Demogame agrees that Imperio got exactly what they deserved should clue you in to how they behaved. So while I agree that Realms Beyond's backstab was "dastardly" and not the sort of thing you would teach your kids, please stop implying that it invalidates our win.

[ruff_hi]

mh said it perfectly for me.

BTW: what are the rules about trolling here at poly?

[Krill]

Do it as much as you want.

[ruff_hi]

Do it as much as you want.

oh ... ok ... when are we getting the official game history?