[spoilers] Regoarrarr teams up with your mom

[Cyneheard]

Correction: the victory vote should be banned. The AP as a wonder is genuinely interesting. But no one should win a game purely out of one player's spite.

[scooter]

So I finally read your whole thread (I hadn't followed this game at all until very recently), and the diplo is fascinating. Your attempts to "avoid diplo shenanigans" were pretty obvious, and... It was like it didn't matter. By that I mean - seemed like Pindicator took advantage of it. Maybe I just have a shorter fuse, but Pindicator seems to have made several moves here that an ally wouldn't/shouldn't do. The Berserkers being used against you is probably a strong enough act to void an alliance by itself - I'm pretty surprised you weren't furious at him for that (maybe you were and you didn't share as much in your thread). Misleading you on the gold gift for Taj was pretty bad too.

If you had to do it over again, would you have ditched Pindicator by giving Gaspar a better offer that involved you working with them long-term? Do you regret the notion of a game-long alliance or do you think it just should've been more specific?

Feel free to wait until you've cooled off a bit to answer. Just curious what your take is on this stuff in retrospect.

[regoarrarr]

I dunno. The thing is I was having fun. I enjoyed working with Pindicator and was happy to continue it, even when he was obviously winning. I mean sure I still wanted to win and was making plans to do that (like trying to get Cristo). But even as of ~10-15 turns ago, I mentioned that Gaspadore was trying to get me to swap sides and Pindicator asked if I'd rather just call our alliance off and I said no.

And it wasn't that I thought that would give me my best chance of winning necessarily - it was just that I was enjoying our alliance and wanted to continue it. Plus, as I said, I was trying to be a "good" ally.

I guess the lesson everyone should take from this game is

* Regoarrarr is awesome
* You should always look to ally with him in any and all future games.

[regoarrarr]

Well I guess each game I play in I figure out another thing that I don't want to have in any future games I play in

PB1: Nukes
PBEM8: Blockades
PBEM26: AP (or UN I guess) victory.

As regarding AP victory, I can see trying for it in cases where you've got no to little chance of winning (myself in PB1, dave in PBEM 17). I mean sure it's cheesy but I at least get the idea of going for it. But I don't understand going for it where you're actually WINNING by a fair amount.

[spacemanmf]

As regarding AP victory, I can see trying for it in cases where you've got no to little chance of winning (myself in PB1, dave in PBEM 17). I mean sure it's cheesy but I at least get the idea of going for it. But I don't understand going for it where you're actually WINNING by a fair amount.

Can't you? Surely it just cements what you deserve rather than stealing it from someone else? (My views on the diplo victory have already been made clear but I don't see how it was more justified in PBEM17.)

It's an annoying way to end the game if at least one party was still enjoying it, which you seem to have been.

In both cases that I have seen, the diplo victory has ended the game because at least one party would rather not have carried on hitting end turn whilst not enjoying the game. Fundamentally that is why it occurred. I don't think that's fair to those who are enjoying the game.

[regoarrarr]

I don't think I'm saying it's more justified. Just that I feel like I can better understand where the person proposing the victory is coming from. In situations like PB1 and PBEM17 where you feel like this is your only chance, vs. when you're already winning.

But I think I agree with you that it stems from some players not wanting to continue playing.

[pindicator]

Okay, I finally finished the thread. I do feel like an ass for mis-reading you on diplomacy. I thought I was getting the rego of repute, so it is definitely possible I was reading into things more than I should have been, and creating illusions of deception when there weren't any. But i hope we get to play in a game together again, as allies or adversaries. I enjoyed a lot of the chatting and conniving

Looking at your game I think I see how I overtook your tech lead at the end. Seeing your military and navy numbers at the beginning of the war it looks like you went into heavy military mode after Gaspadore's attack, and I used those turns to build mostly infrastructure. That with the extra trade routes and the fantastic shrine I had seemed to do the trick.

If you could do your starting pick all over again, would you pick the same leader/civ combination? Obviously the starting techs gave you a great bonus early on, so I don't think it was a bad choice. I'm just curious what you think, especially after your brainstorming chat with Krill.

So obviously Sian is dreaming if he thinks that he can out-regoarrarr me in post count.

You guys saw what happened in PBEM17, where nospace and krilljs out-posted me. Not coincidentally, that game went in the complete crapper

I think we just found how I was able to overtake your beaker lead! I think it was right around the same time I overtook your post count. Or maybe it was the view count...

Yo mama is so fat when she sits around the house, she REALLY sits around the house.

I gotta tell you though I can't say your mom jokes out loud without trying to channel my inner Gene Rayburn

I'm going to show my age / maturity level and admit I was always hearing Chris Rock when I would go over your city names.


Ok, let's get into the meat of the game:

Okay so weirdness on the Pindicator front. I don't know if he's mentioned it in his spoiler thread, but a few days ago he asked for a 200g loan. I thought maybe he was going to use it to take Taoism, so I told him that I was going to finish it at the end of my turn, and asked if that would change his mind. That led to this exchange

<Now-infamous chat came here>

So I don't know if it was a misunderstanding, or if he was trying to pull one over on me or what, but I already feel like I'm kind of bending over backwards to treat him right, so I didn't feel like it was fair to have him potentially beat me to the Taj, researching on MY dime. I did request the 200g back. Hopefully this doesn't put a permanent damper on our relationship, which so far has been quite nice.

I think we really crossed wires on this exchange. I came out of it feeling like you were trying to bully me and feeling a bit resentful: that led to me thinking of other ways i could raise gold and we all know what came next. Now that I am reading your thread I can see you were just trying to touch base and keep good relations, but it didn't come across that way at all at the time. I hate to mention it, but I think if you would have just kept quiet about the Taj then I would have continued on DR and you would have won the race. But after that who can say?

Nice trick by offering to trade maps and then using that against me to EP scrying which city I was building Taj in. I need to start using those formulas in my games, or at least checking the EP screen more to be wary of big builds. More tricks to learn from the pros

I like what you're trying to do. It may seem like the experiment isnt going very well, but keep in mind that misleading people about your intentions has been an integral part of those "shenanigans". That might make it hard to convince people in this game that you mean what you're saying...

This experiment is one that will bear more fruit in your NEXT game, even if it feels like you're unfairly targeted in this one.

Don't give up!

Definitely this. I was going off your past games, but if we play as opponents again in a diplo game I will definitely take this game into consideration, and I'm sure other people will as well.

I guess the lesson everyone should take from this game is

* Regoarrarr is awesome
* You should always look to ally with him in any and all future games.

Absolutely agree with these! I just may not ask for the next alliance to be game-long...

I hereby request that the Pindicator Award for Cheesiest Game Move be created for PB7. Even if Pindicator has an award already.

I will admit that the berserker trade was underhanded, though i remember being more nervous about Yuris125 being upset at me because I thought it was more likely that Gaspadore would go that way. But I'm (stubbornly?) still of the mind that you gave me 200g without stipulation, and you gave it without asking what it was intended for... Although I did nothing to change your mind when you assumed it was for DR so i did deceive you there, and I know I deceived you at other points in the game. I think it would have made for a far more interesting game if you had teamed up with Gaspar against me.

I'll do my best to reign this in for future games (except in places where it's encouraged, of course!). You should see how my brother's play when we get together for board games and the like if you think this was cheesy. Not an excuse, as I'll get to reap what I've sewn here. But if someone pulls anything like what I did on me in the future, I hope I'll be the first to applaud them for it. Turnabout is fair play and all that.