[SPOILERS] scooter's thread: The Honorable French

[scooter]

Gaspar - would like your opinion here. I'm mostly just curious if I'm too biased to see this or if I have sufficient cause to be pretty unhappy with Rowain. Am I wrong or is this disband not a blatant spite move?



I mean, look how wide open he is to Mattimeo:



That is blatantly helping Mattimeo solo to spite me. I don't see how else it could be interpreted. I sent this message to Rowain:

Glad to see you're more interested in playing out of spite than playing for yourself.

Got this back:

Scooter

Are you complete nuts?

I helped you to gain 2 centers in Germany and your answer was a stabattack meaning that instead of building 2 new Units I stayed down.

And now you are runnig around crying about a situation you brought upon yourself with your greed.

Since your attack and my public announcement I have waited for an offer from you.

You prefered to stay silent instead of trying to come to terms.

And to top it off your single post since then is one with insults. If you have somehow missed it this game is called Diplomacy for a reason.

So my question to those less biased than me - does he have a point at all? In my mind, he is the one who's nuts here. He obviously could defend far better if he had disbanded something close to me, but he disbanded a unit that means Mattimeo has a really strong chance at solo'ing now. This just seems like a blatant spite move with no benefit to him whatsoever.

[scooter]

In case you had any doubts about Rowain's intentions:

I give you one more chance.

But understand I get DEN this fall or you can kiss my behind and I will hand over my centers to turkey.

-Rowain

CLASSY.

[scooter]

Well then. Not the orders I expected from Rowain. I received more than just the above email, but I'll have to do a full recap tomorrow when I have a better idea of what in the world just happened. I even had a big plan whipped up in my head for dealing with Rowain but I'm going to have to rethink it now. We'll see.

[scooter]

Also, for those of you wondering why I didn't use Lyo to support myself into Piedmont... I have no earthly clue.

Bad mistake. Hope I don't come to regret that one.

[scooter]

Ok, what in the world is going on with Rowain? No idea. So let's back up. The new phase started in which Rowain presented us a board that looked like this:



Translation: "I'm mad at you for not continuing to do everything I want and I'm upset that you don't want to keep signing deals with me despite the fact that I never follow through on any of my deals. So because I'm mad, I'm giving the win to Mattimeo."

Oooookay. So I sent this:

Glad to see you're more interested in playing out of spite than playing for yourself.

His response:

Scooter

Are you complete nuts?

I helped you to gain 2 centers in Germany and your answer was a stabattack meaning that instead of building 2 new Units I stayed down.

And now you are runnig around crying about a situation you brought upon yourself with your greed.

Since your attack and my public announcement I have waited for an offer from you.

You prefered to stay silent instead of trying to come to terms.

And to top it off your single post since then is one with insults. If you have somehow missed it this game is called Diplomacy for a reason.

Here's the thing. He complains that I never tried to offer him a deal. However, why would I do that when he never keeps his word?? I didn't offer him anything because I didn't trust he'd actually keep his word since he has screwed me repeatedly this game. So what's the point in trying to cut a deal if I know I'll never trust him to actually keep that deal? I sent this back:

I'm not sure what you expected exactly. You stabbed/lied to me several times. I didn't want to offer you a deal because honestly, your actions have not proven to be trustworthy enough to count on them. I even warned you when you backed out on your deals that you were asking for my reaction. As you once said to me "this is a market constantly in flux"... So what would have been the point of me offering you some sort of deal when I don't trust you to keep it?

So I'd expect you to act in best interest and make at least some attempt at defending yourself. You've made no attempt to do so, rather you're going to hand Mattimeo a solo as a spite because I got pissed at you screwing with me in Germany. Saying you "helped me gain 2 centers in Germany" is nonsense. I HAD those centers until you helped Bigger keep them despite promising not to do so. No need to pretend like you gave them to me out of overwhelming generosity.

So what's your gameplan? You know you have no real chance of surviving, so what, you're going to throw the game to Mattimeo because you're mad at me? My expectation is that you'd at least attempt to defend yourself but nope, you have no interest in that. So I have no choice but to just sit and defend while Mattimeo eats up your centers.

He sent this:

-scooter

I think you do suffer a misread of reality.

After your attack on Germany you did not have many friends leftl. I had no need to hand you those 2 centers in germany. Bigger was absolute willing to let me take them as long as I kept you out of his centers.

My helping you into them was an act of interest to get a nice interesting endplay.

You OTOH decided to botch it and you made sure that I could not build the units I needed to defend me in the south. Concerning trust and deals let me remind you about your stabattack on Norway.

Did you really expect I let you run over me in the north and keep turkey at bay so that you can get a win? Even without DEn you would have been the one wih the most centers and an easy defense in the MED. Had you for once kept your word you could have won this game.

I have not responded to this or any messages he's sent since then because I see no point. The above message is honestly laughable. I'll step through it just so I have my response on record since I have no real interest in sending it to him.

After your attack on Germany you did not have many friends leftl. I had no need to hand you those 2 centers in germany. Bigger was absolute willing to let me take them as long as I kept you out of his centers.

I think this part is funny - talking about how I have no friends left, when right now he has 3 enemies and 0 friends . Molach helped me despite me promising him nothing except outliving Germany. He even just now told me he won't attempt to take a third center until I kill Germany, which was nice of him to honor the spirit of the agreement. I stabbed Germany and I'm going to finish Germany and despite that, Germany would rather help me than Russia. Wrap your head around that . Rowain pissed off Germany that much - that they'd rather help the guy who ruined their chance at a win than help Rowain. Mattimeo told me he'd rather stab Russia than me, and a big part of that was that Rowain kept being borderline dishonest with him. Not lying like he did to me, but conveniently leaving out details and deceiving, which is the same in my book. So who is the person with no friends exactly?

My helping you into them was an act of interest to get a nice interesting endplay.

Nope, not true. I guilted him and basically told him all the times he backed out on me was dishonorable, yadda yadda. I played on his guilt. And the thing is, he did NOT help me into Germany. I actually did it myself. He quit supporting Germany, but he refused to actually help me (once again, contrary to what he promised). So this is actually objectively false. I do think it's funny that he actually refused to help me and then still expected me to help him .

I helped you to gain 2 centers in Germany and your answer was a stabattack meaning that instead of building 2 new Units I stayed down.

Whaaat?? The whole point of that was because I asked him to promise he'd build in Sev instead of in the north and he refused. He was going to build Warsaw + Stp. He had no intention of using those units against Turkey. Just look at what the board looked like last phase for proof. Again, another lie.

The rest of it I pretty much talked about already. Anyways yeah, just crazy. Then he followed it up with this email which I posted already:

I give you one more chance.

But understand I get DEN this fall or you can kiss my behind and I will hand over my centers to turkey.

Great stuff. Then for whatever reason he ordered movements against Turkey while Turkey semi-stabbed me?? I'm SO confused right now honestly. I had a plan cooked up where I was going to offer Molach a share of a draw and his third center if he'd help me take down Rowain - idea being to force an FTE draw and ensure Rowain got no share of a win. Molach would surely agree to that, and it would allow me to 1) prevent losing to a solo and 2) ensure Rowain gets punished for his actions.

Now I'm not sure what to do. Do I need to suck it up and talk to Rowain again? I'm more inclined to just continue radio silence since that seemed to have worked more than anything else. I need to talk to Mattimeo that's for sure. I had sent him this last night ~5 hours before the turn rolled:

Apparently moves are due today. I thought we'd have an extra day with the late builds but I just noticed we don't. Sorry for not getting to you sooner then.

Anyways, not much to say other than I'm confirming that I'm pulling out of Tys and setting up a stalemate as agreed. I'm also moving into Piedmont. This is for the purpose of neutralizing Tyrolia and if you let it in, it will never pose a threat to you.

Also, If you could cut/dislodge Tyrolia, I'd be greatly appreciative of that.

He didn't respond, ordered into Piedmont (and moved a F up to be able to cut Lyo) which I view as a semi-stab. Then he sent this:

Sorry, had left for uni when this came through.

Wishing I'd stuck around at home a little longer now, given what Rowain's done this season :/

My response:

Yeah... So I don't quite understand why you would try to move into Piedmont or push yet another fleet in the south or have two armies in Italy..? It doesn't feel like you're interested in locking down a stalemate in the south as agreed. Am I misreading things?

Also, why did Rowain do what he did?? He pretty much told me he was going to give you the solo win just to spite me (pretty classy), so needless to say I was pretty surprised when he apparently moved back to defend against you.

We'll see. He just poked me on chat so I'll talk with him and see where things go.

[scooter]

Talked with Mattimeo. Short version is that something really strange is happening. I feel as if this T/R stunt was staged or something, because there's no plausible explanation for why Rowain moved against T like that.

Also, Mattimeo claims he was gone for the day when I sent my message to him requesting Pie be empty. That was 4 hours before the deadline. Rowain's threat came an hour later - 2 hours before the deadline. That implies Rowain changed his mind in the last 2 hours, during which Mattimeo claims he was never at his computer. I think that's a lie, it has to be. I'm just not sure what piece of the puzzle I'm missing.

I also pressured T via chat about all the units he has on my front. I've negotiated a DMZ on Tus, Pie, and Tyr. Given that I believe he lied to me about not receiving my email (and thus intentionally bounced me in Pie) and that Rom-Tus is an obvious attempt to crack my defenses, my amount of trust for him is a bit thin right now. We'll see. He's got time to pull back. I'm debating on whether or not to get a bit more forward with him and try to guarantee this front or not.

[scooter]

Ok, I have a tiny bit of clarity and a bit more confusion. I finally broke my silence to Rowain. He sent this after the deadline:

Grats you activly helping Turkey to get MOS .

I just took this as a taunt of some sort. I didn't totally understand it. I finally broke my silence a couple hours ago to see if I could make sense of his moves:

Go figure, I can't say I was expecting that set of moves from you. Here I was thinking I was being clever by sneaking into Lvn, and I end up helping Turkey tremendously by accident. Crazy game.

So, do you mind me asking why you chose to make those moves? 4 hours before the deadline you were giving me ultimatums that you would hand the game over, and then you moved back into a position to defend against both me and Turkey, which was surprising. It obviously wasn't me that convinced you since I did not respond. Mattimeo indirectly claimed he wasn't around in the last few hours to talk to you, but I'm finding that unlikely since if it wasn't me that convinced you to back off, it had to have been Turkey somehow.

He just sent this to me a half hour ago:

Turkey catched me before I sent in my moves (and those would have been different from what happened later) and what he said or better hinted at was a bit differently to what was agreed before.

In short it was a last minute change of plan by me hence my email above in the hope you read it (before you sent in your turns) and act accordingly .

First paragraph: Wow this is really vague but it's better than the non-answer that I expected to receive. So Mattimeo said something via chat that annoyed Rowain so Rowain changed his orders to flip him off? I think?

Second paragraph: I didn't parse this paragraph correctly at first but now I see (I think??) what he's saying..?? He sent that last email and assumed I would understand it and understand he was backing off? So it was written to directly prevent my kind of Kiel-Livonia nonsense that backfired? But seriously, how do I get that from this:

I give you one more chance.

But understand I get DEN this fall or you can kiss my behind and I will hand over my centers to turkey.

I guess I can see it in retrospect with the info I have now, but at the time, I'm not sure how this was supposed to communicate what he said. Crazy game.

Anyways, I sent this to him:

I'm not sure I understand. Was I supposed to conclude from your "I give you one last chance" email that you were moving away and I was supposed to adjust my moves accordingly? I read it as an only half-serious ultimatum. I got your email before the deadline (on my phone anyways) and yet I was still shocked to see the Gamestate update at the deadline as I had no idea you were going to back off and actually defend yourself.

So I guess I'm still confused. Care to clarify?

Diplomacy everybody! FWIW, despite some recent drama, this game has been quite a bit of fun.

[Gaspar]

So I read that three times with the intent to give you useful advice and all I have now is a headache.

[scooter]

So I read that three times with the intent to give you useful advice and all I have now is a headache.

You and me both. It's such a confusing mess.

[scooter]

Sent this to Rowain to try to figure out what's going on:

What exactly is your aim? Are you aiming for a share of a draw? Aiming for highest position possible? Aiming to outlive somebody?

That's what I'm not quite understanding. You appearing to hand everything to T looked like you intended to give him the solo while finishing 3rd or surviving to the end or something like that. Insisting I give you Denmark sounds more like angling for a 3-way draw, which I'm not sure how realistic that is. So what is your desired end-game result? Knowing that helps me a lot in responding to these messages.

He responded:

Before your stab: My plan was you get 14 - I & Matt get 10 and we will see what happens once the small ones are gone. Interesting and fascinating.

After your stab my plan was: T gets RUM, BUD, SEV from me and then marches westward. He gets the solo. I get second place, you get f******.

Now my plan is : well it looks like I get f*** from 2 sides so I have to see how long I can survive. What deals might appear or not. In short there is currently no long term plan for me.

Hmmmm. I'm really suspicious right now. It sounds that indeed, Rowain struck a deal with Matt. So this confirms Matt was working behind my back. I have serious suspicions though that it might not actually be over. This seems like a big con to get me to hand over Denmark and weaken me for a turn while Matt sets himself up to stab me next year. Matt stabs me and that's all the opening Rowain needs to make a couple gains against me and then things will go down. I think I know what I need to do. Matt can only really stab me (as far as I can tell) by getting a F into Tuscany. He agreed not to, but if he ever did it, I'd be screwed. I'd be in better shape this turn as I could build Mar in response, but after that I'm pretty wide open there. I think I need to send him a message and insist that he orders Nap-Ion and Rom-Nap. He understandably wants a fleet in Ion, but there's no reason for that to be Aeg-Ion instead of Nap-Ion unless he intends to stab me. So logically he should agree. If he breaks it, I'll build Mar, take Pie with my army, and be done with it. We'll see.