RBPB4 Lurker Thread

[Jowy]

Frankly you deserved it. You came on with an attitude of "f**k the begrudgers", just because you wanted something to go to your concept of good play, and then attacked TT personally, with an issue outside this game, just because he dared to disagree with you.

Consider your post reported as well. I'm going to be the bigger man here as well and not bite on that. If you really believe that someone deserves to get flamed, then perhaps you should try discussing games on some other sites more appropriate for your taste, like GameFAQS or 4chan /v/

[novice]

Looks like Mackoti's counterattack has arrived. His stack looks decent. Luddite's been obsessing about the galley down south, it will be interesting to see if his northern defenses are prepared.

[scooter]

I really don't understand Mackoti's strategy at all, right now. I offered him peace, and he didn't say anything. Fair enough, I can understand why he'd want to keep fighting. But... he's not really fighting either. He's still got his 4 core cities, and I've been really skimping on unit production lately, so I would have expected him to produce a lot more units than he has right now (his power is still well below mine, and a lot of his is just the construction, HBR, and archery techs). So what on earth is he doing? It seems like he's not fully comitting to either economy or warfare, which is probably the worst thing he could do right now. In the long term, I'll easily outtech and outbuild him.

Luddite might be in for a little bit of a surprise. I think the power graph for mackoti is just artificially low due to lack of techs and population, but the stack mackoti is going to move in is certainly big enough to cause problems for Luddite I think.

[Twinkletoes89]

On the game - credit to mackoti - the counter-attacking force looks pretty good and he is a good enough player to perhaps make some real gains.

In response to Jowy, you were taking a pop at me and when someone calls you on it you go completely defensive as if you are the innocent party. You have had a personal grudge against me pretty much since I took over in PBEM 4 & you are incapable (it seems) of putting it to one side despite the fact that you aren't playing in it any more & have no idea of the circumstances behind my vassalage in that game. You are just pissed that things didn't go your way - which is considerably your fault. I have had personal attacks by you before which are considerably worse than the stuff you are crying about in this thread so give it a break.

bob & scooter have a genuine beef with me. As I have said before, I cocked up PBEM 3 massively and I do regret how I played the whole game. I let them down & my vassalage in that game was wrong.

Anyway, lets leave this issue be for now - its going to come up again in the post-game thread and I have little doubt that it will be twice as bad then.

I must say that this game has been really intriguing so far and I am really interested in how the WK war turns out. If WK can make it painful for plako, the first dogpile could move towards LP instead.

[Ilios]

What's all this "reporting" stuff?

Jowy, honestly, I don't think what has been said so far could be considered flaming.

Why don't we just let it rest, mkay?

[scooter]

bob & scooter have a genuine beef with me. As I have said before, I cocked up PBEM 3 massively and I do regret how I played the whole game. I let them down & my vassalage in that game was wrong.

FWIW - I don't really. I wish things had gone different, but I'm long since over that, it's a silly game. I do pretty strongly disagree with your reasoning from a few posts ago, but it's nothing personal.

[zakalwe]

I was looking for the Pitboss4 lurker thread but it seems I stumbled into the WW4 thread instead.

Anyway, I still think that Scooter and GES are really suspicious and all, but I'm going to have to side with them on this one. I could be wrong though - I'm really torn. It's just so hard to get a read on anyone in here. It is all very confusing.

[Twinkletoes89]

FWIW - I don't really. I wish things had gone different, but I'm long since over that, it's a silly game. I do pretty strongly disagree with your reasoning from a few posts ago, but it's nothing personal.

Fair enough. What I meant was basically that given how I played, its fair enough for you & bob to have a beef with me - I deserved it for that.

I don't think we are that far apart on my reasoning however. I do believe that vassalage is 9 times out of 10 the wrong move and can mess up a game.

However, like I said, I think there are some circumstances where it is right, which is what my post was defending.

In a certain PBEM, a player comes into a game finding himself with poorly placed & weak cities, a low power rating after being crippled in a pointless war & next to a neighbour who can nearly field rifles before the player can field maces. Now, do you take your civ even further behind building a mediocre stack of massively useless units & basically attack the neighbour & be killed & taken over and come last without hurting the neighbour 1 iota, or do you cosy up to the neighbour & try and use their support to finish as high as possible - only then vassalising when your attempt at that fails?

[Bobchillingworth]

FWIW - I don't really. I wish things had gone different, but I'm long since over that, it's a silly game. I do pretty strongly disagree with your reasoning from a few posts ago, but it's nothing personal.

Yeah same here. I just couldn't resist taking another jab before I got on with making my actual point =) . I stopped caring about PBEM 3 long before I had even turned everything over to Amelia.


Edit- to address your question, what I would do in that situation depends on what my goal is in the game. If I'm just trying to survive as best as I can, then yes vassalage is a likely course of action, and probably the optimal one. But again it's not fair to everyone else if I'm acting as the puppet for the top dog, and it throws the game away, even if it keeps my civ alive. It's essentially a selfish choice- you guarantee that you won't be the first to die or will finish second in score or whatever, but at the same time you ruin everyone else's chances. Which is why vassalization makes other players so upset- it's like saying "hey guys, I'm going to screw all of you over by throwing the game, just to score a little bit higher with my already doomed civ". It doesn't show any respect for the effort that other players have invested into the game- which in the situation you describe could be even more galling by the fact that the vassal player hasn't even been in the game very long before they definitively toss it to the lead.

[Krill]

In a certain PBEM, a player comes into a game finding himself with poorly placed & weak cities, a low power rating after being crippled in a pointless war & next to a neighbour who can nearly field rifles before the player can field maces. Now, do you take your civ even further behind building a mediocre stack of massively useless units & basically attack the neighbour & be killed & taken over and come last without hurting the neighbour 1 iota, or do you cosy up to the neighbour & try and use their support to finish as high as possible - only then vassalising when your attempt at that fails

Attacking with obsolete units, not kill a thing and gift several GG to the player already in the front? Would that actually be helpful?