[SPOILERS] - scooter's thread

[scooter]

Ugh, not a big fan of how long the save is being held for this... Makes me nervous that they might actually be hammering out a solution... Last thing I want is SleepingMoogle handed a bunch of cities for free... Not like Twinkletoes has ever done that before or anything.

[scooter]

Well well well. This was not the best of days for me... My fortunes have reversed somewhat, and SleepingMoogle is now in a commanding position because Twinkletoes plays this game like an absolute moron sometimes. It's so predictable... He KNEW war was coming, so he spent the next 15 turns doing... I'm not sure what, since his power graph flatlined during that time. Like seriously?? He has access to cats and horse archers, he could've put together a deadlly defense force during that time. Instead he twiddled his thumbs, and now he's most likely vassalized himself away to SleepingMoogle. I wish I had the good luck to start next to Twinkletoes, it's like being next to a Noble AI - free goodies!

Twinkletoes, when you eventually read this, sorry for the above rant - it's not meant personally, you're a good guy... But seriously man, you gave up in PBEM3 and you apparently gave up again in this one before the war even started. Shoot you didn't even TRY in this one. At least in this one you didn't sell out any allies who all came to your rescue (yes I know, mild spoilers from PBEM3 but I don't even care), but it throws the game so much out of whack when one of the players gives up so easily and everyone knows he'll do it. Next time when you have a war coming from a player in a better position than you, whip the living tar out of your cities instead of screwing around with Statue of Zeus and Great Library like you told Serdoa you were doing. All that is is free goodies for whoever you give away your cities to. And if you don't know how to whip out an army, well I might just have to do it here pretty soon, so stay tuned for a demonstration.


Oooooookay, time for the diplo update to help make some sense out of two paragraphs of ranting. To start off, the save was being held really long, which made me think they were coming to a peace agreement, which I didn't want. I sent a chase-up to SleepingMoogle earlier this afternoon:

SleepingMoogle,

As an aside, how's the talks going with Twinkletoes? Twinkletoes mentioned to me (before holding the save) that he was extremely confident that you would be attacking him on T90... So I'm guessing the hold-up is on peace talks. How's that coming?

scooter

Basically this is a nervous message, hoping for a slight chance of me shooting down whatever idea was forming for peace. It was a mega longshot, but it was worth a try. Got this back:

Greetings scooter,

Twinkletoes did indeed contact me, and deliberations are ongoing. Unfortunately our current schedules are rather incompatible with each other (he is working regular office hours whereas I'm on a night shift schedule) so the progress is rather slow. I am confident that the game will resume again soon though.

I was nervous after that message... Then a few hours later:

Scooter,

I am pleased to announce that the turns have resumed. Unfortunately the exact outcome of the discussions has to remain confidential, but suffice it to say, the Malazan and Ottoman empires have come to an agreement not to engage in hostilities towards one another.

Regards,
-Emperor SleepingMoogle I

I forwarded that message on to Serdoa:

Got this from Moogle... So you got sold out - there will be no war. Ugh. This kinda ticks me off.

Why does it make me upset? Besides what I said above, it shouldn't right? I mean it's not like I was betrayed (except for the part where Twinkletoes screws with the fairness of the game by giving away freebies Civ5-AI style), but think about it for a second. My NAP with Moogle only runs til T100, which is 10 more turns. We then have the option of cancelling. If neither cancels, it's renewed 5 turns. If someone cancels, there's a 5 turn cooldown.

Short version: I could have war on my hands in 15 turns.

Why would he declare on me? It's the same reason he'd declare on Twinkletoes... My military is low, and now he's got a huge army sitting around, AND he probably got some good spoils... I'm guessing 3-5 cities is the draw he got, but it's anyones guess really.

So I gathered my thoughts a little better, and sent a longer message off to Serdoa... It's more jumbled, but here it is:

Serdoa,

Okay, I've had some time to think over the peace between SleepingMoogle and Twinkletoes. I'm trying to think of why on earth SleepingMoogle would accept peace... Doesn't make sense, even if Twinkletoes offers 2-4 cities, SleepingMoogle could still easily take that. There has to be more to it...

Here's the thing. My NAP with SleepingMoogle goes until T100, with a 5 turn cool-down. It's auto-renewing for every five turn (so if he doesn't cancel on T100, it goes til T105, and so on)... What I fear is this - SleepingMoogle still has his whole army, and I'm assuming he got a couple free cities out of the deal. My guess is he turns around and sends that army at me.

I'm going to offer a longer NAP to SleepingMoogle now (say, T120), and if he rejects it, it's safe to say war is coming for me. If he accepts it, then he intends to remain peaceful.

Keep a very close eye on the power graphs in case SleepingMoogle gifts TT some of his army to defend against you... Are you going to go ahead and go through with the attack?

I'm going to get cats and horse archers rolling across everywhere... I can get Machinery quite quickly, and since I already have Civil Service, that'll unlock Xbows and Maces for me. Hopefully I can press towards Guilds and get Knights online too. If war happens, my economy will likely go in the tank as soon as it's declared, since I'm VERY dependent on the Lighthouse right now haha.

Alright that's the state of things. Going to try to get a longer NAP out of SleepingMoogle, though I'm expecting a firm no.

scooter

If you skipped over what I wrote, I'd recommend going back and reading it this time. It basically outlines all my thoughts and plans. I then sent this off to SleepingMoogle:

SleepingMoogle,

Ahh, so Twinkletoes decided to vassalize himself away again. Typical.

So I'm faced with a scenario right now as a result. I'm not stupid ya know . You obviously got something pretty good out of the deal, since you were probably going to steamroll Twinkletoes (I see the power graphs)...

But the thing is, now you made some sort of gains (I'm guessing 3-5 cities, otherwise accepting peace would be silly), AND you've got a good sized army sitting around. So in light of that, I'd like to request a longer NAP - extending our NAP until T120. Would this be acceptable for the Malazan Empire?

Surely this is an understandable request - it's not meant to be mistrusting, but I'm sure you can see how I'd like a NAP given the outcome of your war that never was.

Thanks,
scooter

I'm putting him in a really tought situation, and this message is the best play I have. Unfortunately he'll probably stall a few days, so in the mean-time I plan to expect a war until proven otherwise.

So what can I do. I actually will be able to do better than you'd think... I don't have horseback riding, but that can and will be researched in one turn. I have Civil Service, and Machinery will be quite quick, so maces and xbows will be available shortly. In addition to that, I should be able to get to Guilds on time, and there's a high chance I'll get a Merchant soon sooo... Plan would be to build horse archers and then upgrade to Knights once Guilds comes in. Get a bunch of cats out of my cities, and Knights + cats will shred anything that comes my way. He might have superior numbers, but defensive advantages should make up the difference.

If SleepingMoogle turns down the NAP, I actually plan to tell him all this. He'll realize I'm researching quite fast (fastest out of everyone), and maybe that will talk him into the NAP...

There's also the distinct possibility he simply wants peace and to leverage his even greater lead now into expansion, which would be okay-ish because I could keep up with the Great Lighthouse helping out. Speaking of Great Lighthouse, war would seriously hurt my economy because I am SO depenent on the Lighthouse right now for my economy that it's not even funny. It's the weakness of the Lighthouse... This is also the reason why I think he's going to come at me - he could capture the Lighthouse.

One last thought - if I believe war is coming, I plan to heavily try to sway Twinkletoes. I'll approach him with comments like "are you seriously going to turn around and help the guy who declared war on you?" and try to sway him... Though since he already did that in PBEM3, I'm guessing he'll be just fine with helping out the guy who ruined his game since... Well I'm not sure why. But apparently he doesn't mind. Sigh.

Apologies for the wall of text, hopefully it was at least remotely interesting. I'm still a little annoyed at holding the save for almost 3 days for diplo, that just doesn't seem right... That wouldn't happen in a Pitboss game so why do it here? Whatever. Twinkletoes should've been begging 10 turns earlier instead of being lazy and waiting until the turn of the attacks.

[scooter]

scooter,

To be honest, I will take a look at the game, but if TT really gifted some cities to SleepingMoogle for nothing, only to prevent war (and if one of it is the holy hindu city what I would assume) then I am not sure that I will ever again play a game with TT. That was completely unnecessary - he had not only enough time to prepare for a war, he also could have at least tried to hold off and inflict loses.

I certainly can understand why Sullla and Speaker got pissed in PB2 on that city gifting.

But I had already waited for something like that. So, I'll take a look and then will see how to react to it and if it makes sense to play on.

Kind regards,
Serdoa

Yeah... I was pretty mad about it... That all that time he knew the attack was coming but he did nothing, and then as soon as the war comes he surrenders. So typical. It skews the game so badly...

I asked SleepingMoogle for a NAP, and I fully expect him to stall for quite some time on the answer.

scooter

[scooter]

More diplomacy drama, with me sending a few semi-biting messages, which isn't all that typical for my style. Let's get right into it. First, Serdoa sent me this:

Hi scooter,

I intend to send the below message to TT. What do you think of that plan? I would hope that you can - at the same time - attack SleepingMoogle from the other side.

Also I am not as sure as my message implies that I can crush SleepingMoogle. He should easily be able to tech to Pikes pretty quickly and then those Knights will have a hard time. Sure, there will be Cats with them, but only around 15-20 I would think. And I am also not sure if TT can produce enough gold that I really can upgrade all HAs to knights.

Btw: How long will it take you to get to Knights?

Kind regards,
Serdoa

--------------

Hi TT,

I have now looked up what happened. And I have brought as well 2 stacks right up your borders and if SleepingMoogle has not more units then what my warrior can see, I have easily more units then SleepingMoogle had... so, we probably should discuss now if you want to have peace with me and help in crushing SleepingMoogle or if you rather would want me as enemy and hand over the game to SleepingMoogle.

Don't get me wrong TT, normally I would not be so blunt but instead we would talk now about me gifting you units and stuff. But plain simple, I am not sure if you would really use them all that well and additionally you told me several turns ago that SleepingMoogle will attack you and still you have not got much more military. Look at the demos - I started building up my military after you told me that SleepingMoogle will attack you and still I am not only clearly in front of you but also I produced much more units in the same timeframe. If I would let you go on with this, trusting that you would now produce finally more units, we probably would talk in 10 turns about your 3 Horse Archers you have produced and what to do with them. So, I don't want to offend you or anything but I rather would be sure that SleepingMoogle will be crushed and not run away with the game (what he is now doing with your additional cities which he had NO costs to aquire).

My proposal therefore is:

- You gift me Silarus River as well as the city north of it (I think thats Alesia) on your next turn
- You will produce in Pharsalus and Zama what I tell you to produce for the next 15 turns to come and will use the configuration I tell you for it
- You will build roads with your workers where I tell you to build them
- You will run 100% gold for now and gift me what you have each turn, so that I can run to Knights and upgrade my HAs
- In around 15-20 turns, I will crush SleepingMoogle with probably 30+ Knights and some other stuff and return you the cities you have ceded to SleepingMoogle as well as the cities I conquer from him on the main continent which are not right next to scooters border.

Do you agree? Or do I have to take the cities needed from you by force, therefore delay the attack on SleepingMoogle and risk that he will have so much of a technological edge that we can as well cede the game to him?

Kind regards,
Serdoa

-------------------

Kind of an arrogant-ish message from Serdoa, but it's an interesting proposal. I get the feeling Twinkletoes will say no, but if he does, then this works really nicely. I sent him two quick messages:

Serdoa,

I'm really short on time so this is a short response, but I say go for it on the message.

Knights I will have to check on later when I get a chance to open the old save.

scooter

Hang on, let me wait on the second one. Now that I write up this report, I kind of wish I had made some edits to Serdoa's message... He could've spun it better and been less confrontational... This is a weakness of his, but if the message fails I consider it to be on my head, as the reason he sent it to me is he knows I'm better at making messages "softer" and more friendly. Hopefully he'll let me know soon what Twinkletoes had to say.
Now for what SleepingMoogle sent to me:

Greetings scooter,

The gains for the Malazan empire were sufficient to call off the attack, though probably not on the level you fear. I have been on the wrong side of it in PBEM3, and it was not something I'm particularly keen on perpetuating in other games.

While I certainly see your reasoning behind a NAP extension, at this point I feel our recently extended agreement should be sufficient for a good while. Our dealings thus far have been fair and cordial, and I would rather consolidate the new Malazan holdings that continue expanding the military and bear its maintenance cost.

Sincerely,
-Emperor SleepingMoogle I

SleepingMoogle dude, you screwed up. This is why NAPs suck. If you lock yourself into an unending NAP with someone, you totally telegraph war, because as soon as you "no longer need" your NAP, the whole world knows you are going to war, and now I get 15 turns to prepare for it, and unlike Twinkletoes, I'll actually use it. NAPs suck, and this one is going to bite him good. Fired off a shot one to Serdoa:

Serdoa,

Just another quick and short note - SleepingMoogle rejected my NAP as expected... I will plan for war.

scooter

I was going to paste my email back to SleepingMoogle now, but I'm going to wait and do that at the end since that one's the most fun . First, a message from Twinkletoes:

Hey scooter,

Just so you are on the same page as everyone else, I have ceded two cities to Moogle as my price to avoid war with him. I was a few turns too late on mobilizing and would have lost more cities than I have given away here and been pillaged out of the game.

I now have a NAP with him which is not long, but I ensured that it would be enough for me to get ready to get those cities back. I will not rest until they are.

If there is anything else you need to know, please get in touch.

TT

Kind of an odd message, and I address that in my response:

Twinkletoes,

Thanks for the update!

How exactly do you expect to get those back now? I guess this is what I'm seeing... You knew war was coming just like SleepingMoogle did, but you apparently didn't really prepare judging by the power graphs... Now the situation is the same, except he gets two cities for free, so he is up two cities (with all the buildings AND with no turns of revolt) and you are down two cities, and you expect to be able to out-produce him and take them back?

Hopefully that doesn't sound confrontational, it's more just confusion on my part... This whole thing is confusing and I'm trying to make sense of it... I'm never nuts about someone handing over free cities to another player, so I admit I'm mildly agitated, as the fairness of the game is badly screwed with when that happens.

Thanks,
scooter

I really don't understand how he expects to get it back. Either he's dumber than I thought, or he's hiding something from me. There's really only those two options... Something I'll be thinking about for sure... I'll probably throw together a few half-baked theories later, since that's what I like to do . Okay, now for my message to SleepingMoogle

SleepingMoogle,

So what you're telling me is I should prepare for war then? That's what it sounds like... That's kinda disappointing...

If that's what it comes to - you should know something.. I have no intention of being Twinkletoes part 2 - in other words I'll be more competent that a Noble AI who gives away cities quicker than the Civ5 AI. When I expect a war to come my way, I actually prepare, rather than sitting around for 10 turns building the freaking Statue of Zeus and not much else. I'll whip my cities ruthlessly, and by the time our NAP runs out, I'll be fielding cats, horse archers, maces, crossbows, and Knights. Yeah good luck with that . You might have had tech superiority to Twinkletoes (I honestly don't know), but you won't for me - I have the Lighthouse and I believe I'm teching faster than anyone else.

If I'm misunderstanding the situation, then hopefully this message doesn't sound too hostile, though I'm not very happy about Twinkletoes screwing with the game fairness by handing over cities for free. That aside, maybe you have no hostile intentions and didn't quite realize the gravity of refusing a NAP... Though given the stakes I kinda doubt that . I urge you to reconsider our NAP...

If you refuse the NAP again, I'm afraid I'll have to start planning for war... I have no intention of declaring war as I think peaceful relations between us has worked quite nicely, and it would be a shame for this map if the game gets decided in a war 15 turns from now with so much potential game left to play. Sure, war is probably unavoidable before the game is over (unless we cut a deal to move towards a peaceful victory condition), but why have that showdown now with so much left to play and so much land out there? If I win, the game is mine... If you win, the game is yours... If it's a stalemate (we both know this will happen), Serdoa wins.

I'll eagerly await your thoughts... Hopefully this is all a misunderstanding, or if it's not, hopefully you'll reconsider... If not, don't expect me to sit around for the time being and then give away my cities once you are about to declare . I don't play wimpy like that. Sorry .

scooter

Okay, here's the objectives in that message:

1. Scare him away from war, because he won't roll over me. He might raze one city at the most if I have trouble defending multiple fronts, but I should be able to slaughter just about everything he sends at me. If I convince him that I won't sit and do nothing like TT did, I might be able to scare him out of war.
2. Take a few shots at Twinkletoes, mostly because I'm mad at him right now
3. Take a few shots at the idea of city gifting... I remember how he felt about it in PBEM3, so I'm trying to appeal to those feelings in this message... Trying to make him feel like he screwed up and became the bad guy, and he can fix that now.
4. Appeal to the "fun-ness" of the game. It's a fun game, and so far I think this is the best map out of all these games. It would be a huge shame if this game gets decided in less than 30 turns.
5. Convince him that Serdoa wins if myself and SleepingMoogle go to war, which is 100% true. If I'm warring SleepingMoogle, it's a stalemate, and simultaneously Serdoa will be taking Twinkletoes land like the bully steals the nerds lunch money.

SleepingMoogle really managed to telegraph his intentions here... A trend I notice in some of these games is some people totally underestimate how transparent their intentions are. I mean think about it. Why on earth would SleepingMoogle take peace from TT for only two(!!!) cities, unless he had another alternative? If I were him, knowing TT would get carved up on the other side too, I'd want 5 cities minimum, and that aside, I wouldn't accept the five cities because I think it's massively unfair. But if I was ok with it, I'd want 5. I still can't figure out why he accepted it for so little though... Odd.

Whatever, time to prepare... Been an interesting couple days for sure.

[scooter]

Okay, diplo has been at a drama level that doesn't quite rival PB2 (nothing ever will), but there's been shades of it. Time for an email dump. Apologies for yet another wall of text (I haven't gotten a save in like 4 days), but trust me, it'll be interesting. I think. Y'okay, here we go. So first I'll give the conversation with SleepingMoogle. You saw the messsage I sent yesterday, here's his response:

Greetings scooter,

I would hope that preparations for war are not the only way in which my previous message was interpreted. If you were to do so, then I would be forced to reinforce my borders in response and as you already noted, this would only benefit Serdoa. I am honest when I say I wasn't looking for a repeat of PBEM3, but you may now want to look to Serdoa as its chief architect. While I hoped that my agreement with Twinkletoes would allow for the game to continue on normally, in response Serdoa has made a number of demands of the Ottoman empire in such a base manner that Twinkletoes has made overtures to repeat PBEM3's event for denial purposes. And unfortunate though it may be, I would be forced to take him up on that offer as the only other alternative is to allow the Indian empire to become the undisputed runaway power.

It is too early at this point to say with certainty what will happen, but I will make the promise to reconsider your NAP proposal once there is a little more clarity. All I know at this point is that I will seriously consider a CTON or Always War style game if I am to commit to another PBEM or Pitboss game in the future. No offense intended, but diplomacy has proven the most irksome aspect in all my games thus far.

Regards,
-Emperor SleepingMoogle I

This message ticked me off... TT was going to throw the game to SleepingMoogle, and SleepingMoogle was "forced to accept"?? That's ridiculous:

SleepingMoogle,

Wait a second. This is garbage. You make demands of Twinkletoes and he says "oh sure here take my cities for free"... And Serdoa does the same thing and Twinkletoes is going to throw the game to you? This is insane. Twinkletoes is out of his mind. He might have ruined PBEM3 (remains to be seen), and he's trying to do it again here. Ridiculous.

I'm confused as to how you would be "forced" to do something like that? Because you screwed up maybe? You let TT go on in peace for just two cities, and now Serdoa is about to take a whole lot more than 2 cities? Well at least he'll be taking them legitimately - aka capturing them. There'll actually be a cost involved - he'll lose units, he'll have cities in revolt, he'll have cities in unhappinness, and he'll have slow teching. You just got them handed to you, and now you "have" to accept more handed to you because you screwed up and only got two cities from Twinkletoes? Sorry, I don't buy it . I'm not condemning you yet since you haven't done it, but think of this paragraph as me pointing out how insane this all is, and trying to talk you to your senses . Don't pin this all on Serdoa when you accepted freebie cities. No one made you do that.

As an aside, I actually like the diplomacy, though a CTON would be fun. Drama like this is actually interesting to me, though these stunts from Twinkletoes makes me quite unhappy. Apologies if I seem mad at you - the word for you at the moment is more like "mildly annoyed," but I can get over it. Twinkletoes - yeah okay that's a little bit "mad"

Thanks,
scooter

So you're saying I should have forced Twinkletoes to capitulate PBEM3 style the first time around? And that it is now my fault for choosing not to do just that? In that case I'm sorry for trying to keep the game going instead of setting up myself for an easy win that I would never value.

I'm currently at work, but I'll try to write something during my lunch break. But if this situation cannot be resolved to everyone's satisfaction, I will most likely resign. These games are meant to be fun, but this is quickly turning into something else entirely.

-SleepingMoogle

I've cooled off a bit by this point (several hours have passed), but here's what I wrote. Amazingly enough, this is only the second-longest message of the night for me:

SleepingMoogle,

I'm referring to this comment that you made:


"While I hoped that my agreement with Twinkletoes would allow for the game to continue on normally, in response Serdoa has made a number of demands of the Ottoman empire in such a base manner that Twinkletoes has made overtures to repeat PBEM3's event for denial purposes. And unfortunate though it may be, I would be forced to take him up on that offer as the only other alternative is to allow the Indian empire to become the undisputed runaway power."

So here's the chain of events:

1. You move in to attack Twinkletoes.
2. He asks what you want for peace, you then make your initial demands, and then I'm sure you guys negotiated from there.
3. You end up getting two cities from him, and likely something else too, but who knows what that is (gold? military support? resources? island settling rights? no clue)
4. Serdoa is about to attack Twinkletoes too apparently, so he makes his demands just like you did. Knowing Serdoa, I'm sure his tone was slightly more abrasive, but he did the same thing
5. Twinkletoes gets all offended for reasons that remain unclear. Now he says just to spite Serdoa he'll hand cities over to you

At this point, I would hope that you'd stop and realize TT is being ridiculous and is on the verge of ruining the game by doing something like that. I'd hope you'd either say:

a. "pfff, you're on your own
b. "Okay, I'll help defend you
c. Get Serdoa to back off by some sort of negotiation
d. Something creative I haven't thought of

Any of those would make sense to me. Saying you might "have to accept" though? That doesn't make sense. Especially when you say it's because Serdoa might become a runaway? I don't get it. That implies that you think Serdoa will take many more than two cities.. Keep in mind that being gifted two cities and capturing two cities are two TOTALLY different animals, the cost for capturing them is MUCH higher. So you're assuming Serdoa might flat-out eliminate TT. If that's the case, then why did you let him live for just two cities?

If that's your reasoning, then yeah, you messed up by letting him live, but accepting a bunch of cheese gifts isn't the right thing to do to correct it. That's messing up the fairness of the game... Make sense? Be more creative - find a way to balance things. You've got a huge army - sign the NAP with me and make sure TT lives. That works right? You were already quite a ways ahead of Serdoa from a growth curve standpoint, and now gaining two free cities further accentuates that. Sign the NAP with me and prevent India from becoming a runaway the legitimate way. That's reasonable right?

And obviously that's not your only option. You could let TT fend for yourself and attack me as well. Keep him from becoming the runaway by becoming one yourself (you're awfully close to it already). I can live with that, that totally makes sense for your civ. I would argue that you have better options , but you know what I mean.

Apologies for a slightly "testy" vibe from my messages earlier... It happens . I just don't want to see the validity of this game go up in smoke... In my opinion, the city gifts (well mostly TT's incompetent play) was like goofing around with matches around a bucket of kerosene, but if he throws the game to you by gifting MORE cities just to spite a guy who's doing the same thing you did to him... Well that'll kill the game for all of us probably, so that's why I was so fervently trying to prevent that.

Hope that helps clear things up a bit. Thanks for reading a long-ish message.

scooter

Haven't heard back yet (was sent 13 hours ago, for perspective). Well that was fun wasn't it? Oh it gets better . Moving on to the conversation with Twinkletoes... Okay you saw this first message from me yesterday, but I'm going to post it again so you don't have to scroll up. You'll remember I sent him this:

Twinkletoes,

Thanks for the update!

How exactly do you expect to get those back now? I guess this is what I'm seeing... You knew war was coming just like SleepingMoogle did, but you apparently didn't really prepare judging by the power graphs... Now the situation is the same, except he gets two cities for free, so he is up two cities (with all the buildings AND with no turns of revolt) and you are down two cities, and you expect to be able to out-produce him and take them back?

Hopefully that doesn't sound confrontational, it's more just confusion on my part... This whole thing is confusing and I'm trying to make sense of it... I'm never nuts about someone handing over free cities to another player, so I admit I'm mildly agitated, as the fairness of the game is badly screwed with when that happens.

Thanks,
scooter

I thought this was pretty reasonable. By this point I didn't know about TT potentially throwing more cities at SleepingMoogle just to spite Serdoa, and I was willing to live with what was going on. I was mostly confused as to how TT seemed to think he could get his cities back, because there's no way he can get them in a 1v1 war, and he's never approached me to help him, and apparently he had no plans to have Serdoa help him, so I was fishing to figure out what he had planned, because I hate not knowing what's going on, especially when I already believe Moogle will be attacking me. But I got this back:

scooter,

What is it with you and Serdoa today? Both of you have suddenly changed your tones in diplomacy from friendly to (especially in Serdoa's case) outright rude.

I did have a plan to take them back, but alas it will never come to fruition as now Serdoa has decided to get in on the act and attack me instead. His rudeness will cost him extremely dearly which I am sure he will pass on to you.

I did my best to prepare, but alas he was producing units long before I did, and through my own mistakes I was not in a position I would like to be in to defend. In my estimation, even if I took out his stack I would have lost at least the two cities I gifted plus at least one more. I would also have been heavily pillaged and I would have been a lot worse off.

You both are throwing a strop because he got two cities for free - but I have to do what is best for my nation and nobody else's now. A war would hurt me a lot more than him, and signing those two cities away gave me a chance of survival and reaching Janissaries at a time where my military may do something. In the position I was in on the eve of war, I am sure you would have swallowed that up for the chance of recovery rather than the certainty of mediocrity that a painful war would bring.

I am also insulted by the suggestion that this gifting has in any way tarnished the fairness of the game. I played what I deemed to be the best move I had to get out of the position my own mistakes had led me to. I did not gift to screw either of you, so do not imply that I may have done so.

You, I believe are bringing in the history of PBEM3 into your implications and I find that disappointing. I made mistakes in that game too, a huge one which I am hopeful I will never repeat - but mistakes happen and in both cases I had to make the best deal I could and in both cases I have done so. Were they to your detriment? Yes. But were they unfair? Certainly not.

I warn you now, as I have warned Serdoa - that sending me emails which seek to imply that I am being unfair, tarnishing the game or making insulting criticisms about my play (as Serdoa has) will only result in a situation to both of your detriment - which is my full assistance to Moogle and whatever that entails.

As you can tell, I am angry. My tone may be a little harsh in this email, but I have always tried my best in these games and have never sort to undermine the integrity of the games I have been in and I do not like to hear otherwise. Also, as it is my birthday today, I am a little disappointed to have to deal with two 'disappointing' emails which could have been phrased a lot better if the feelings of the receiver had been taken into account.

Yours sincerely,

TT

Whoa there. I've been somewhat harsh in my thread, but I didn't think I was that upset in my message? Maybe I'm just not seeing it, but at this point I got the feeling it was spill-over from Serdoa's message earlier. So I write back a small novel to sort things out:

Twinkletoes,

I actually was in the process of writing another message when you sent that, though I hadn't gotten very far yet.

First things first, happy birthday! Please don't let diplo in a silly game spill over into real life - I'm not real happy about the current chain of events, but in a few minutes I'm going to set this aside and go eat dinner with my girlfriend and spend most of the evening with her, and I won't give this game a second thought until I finish this message sometime tonight. Really it's just that - a game. Also, I'm hyper-competitive. I could lose at a game of uno and it'll bother me for an hour despite it being a silly card game that is 90% luck . Sad thing is, as those who know me personally would attest to, I'm not really kidding. So keep in mind that in the rare occasion that I get mildly heated (which isn't really my style), it's just competitiveness boiling up a bit.

Okay, now for my response:

1. Unless I'm mistaken, I've never mentioned PBEM3 so far in our discussions...? But now that you mention it, let me say one thing. I've heard through others, and now you are hinting at it, that you are considering more or less throwing the game to SleepingMoogle because Serdoa apparently insulted you somehow. In a word: don't. Please don't go *that* far. I won't go back into details of that game at all, but let's look at what we have now

2. I'm not sure how I was rude in the message I sent to you? I'm really not sure at all. It was an honest question, it seemed odd to me that you implied you had a plan to get them back, so I was fishing for details on how exactly you plan to do that, since outright 1v1 warfare with Moogle seems like a stretch. I'm not sure how you read that as me being a jerk? The only thing I can think of is the last sentence (which I'll address in a minute), but was there something more than that? If you felt I was rude, then you have my sincere apologies. I'll try to be careful as I write the rest of this message.

(had to put a pause in writing here, so bear with me if it sounds mildly disconnected)

3. Here's something that confuses me - and maybe you can enlighten me as to why things are the way they are. I'm not understanding why you are so quick to side with the guy who just was about to declare war on you. I'll spill the details that you didn't know, but SleepingMoogle and Serdoa had more or less divided up your land. They had an agreement in place as to which cities belonged to who, and planned to wipe you out completely. I just found out about this in the aftermath of all this, but SleepingMoogle basically sold out Serdoa, so keep that in mind - part of his anger or however his message rubbed you the wrong way - he's pretty unhappy with SleepingMoogle standing him up on their deal.

But that's what doesn't make sense to me, SleepingMoogle was about to attack you and ended up demanding several cities I'm assuming. I don't know how negotiations went, but I'm guessing he got 2 cities (that's been confirmed) and I'm sure other stuff too. This guy just bullied you and you are about to help him? That confuses me somewhat. On top of that, Serdoa does the same exact thing as SleepingMoogle - they literally were going to attack at the same exact time... and now you are about to gift away cities to SleepingMoogle just to spite Serdoa for doing the same thing as Moogle? That part really confuses me.

4. I should probably explain the city gifting frustration. Personally, I hate the mechanic. But part of the reason it was frustrating is it's not like you should have been totally overmatched. You knew 10+ turns in advance that the war was coming, but it seemed like you did nothing about it. Compare your power graph to SleepingMoogle's over the last 10 turns. To me this is the chain of events that I saw:

-Cooldown initiated, you knew war was coming
-Your power graph stays still
-You didn't try to buy in a war ally (as far as I know)
-You didn't try to negotiate with SleepingMoogle until the very turn he was going to attack

So the reason I was frustrated was because 1- it seemed like you didn't prepare much despite knowing it was coming, and because of that you had to give away freebies. You have cats + horse archers I'm assuming, which can defend against pretty much anything. Hit his stack(s) with barrage cats, clean up with shock horse archers, and the rout is on. Defender has huge advantages... And then the other source of frustration is purely about the well-being of my civ honestly - because SleepingMoogle got 2 cities stronger (including holy city!) AND he got to keep his army fully intact, which I believe he will be sending at me when our NAP is gone at T105. He refused a NAP extension, so I am highly confident he'll send those at me now. So yes, frustration stemmed from the fact that it puts me in a bad position as well. I'll easily be able to handle what he sends at me, but Serdoa is the big winner from that.

=============

So I saw all this to say - please reconsider. If you give SleepingMoogle freebie cities, this game is done, and that would be a shame. And don't hold it against Serdoa too much, I was pretty unhappy when this all went down, and he was even more unhappy, because he was the one who got betrayed by SleepingMoogle. Also, please reconsider siding with him. He screwed over Serdoa on this move, he demanded cities from you for free, and I am about 85% sure he's planning war on me. Not to mention he's running away with the game. He already was, and then he got two cities without firing a shot . Let's make this a real game ok?

If you want your cities back, let's do it the right way. Let's take down SleepingMoogle instead of helping him. He was the one who organized this 2v1 against you anyways. You wouldn't be facing this situation with Serdoa if it wasn't for SleepingMoogle. But whatever you decide on - don't throw the game just because Serdoa came across as rude. He made demands just like SleepingMoogle did, but he was influenced by the fact that he was pretty upset about how it was handled, both by Moogle selling him out and by you putting SleepingMoogle in such a dominant position.

Hope this helps clarify things. This is the longest message I think I've ever sent for one of these games haha. Thanks for reading,

scooter

This is long, but I'm desperately trying to get him to not throw the game to SleepingMoogle. This game has been a lot of fun and I think there's tons of enjoyment to be had if we continue, but if he gifts a half dozen cities to SleepingMoogle just to spite Serdoa, then this game is a sham and it's over. I will be furious if that happens. His response:

scooter,

I apologise for my excessive anger last night. I had only received Serdoa's mail (which was a lot worse) and was not wise enough to step away (partly because today is mostly a write-off for civving). As a result I went over the top in some of my message to you and I do regret it.

I was hurt by (what I saw as) the implication that I was making the game unfair. I may not have always kept the game at a high standard of civ playing (as my mistakes point out), but I have always tried to keep it fair.

I will now answer your points.

1) I was angry last night and the thought crossed my mind and I was angry enough to tell Moogle to do it. However, I am calmer now and I will instruct him to keep to his agreement not to attack me to give Serdoa the 'spoils' he deserves really. Good job the turn wasn't with me!

2) It was mainly the last sentence which got me riled, and because of the message I had received before from Serdoa had got me into an anger where I likely saw some other things implied which weren't, and I apologise again if you bore the brunt of that.

3) & 4) I never sided with Moogle, I just took the best deal I could get to avoid war. I optimistically hoped I could get a bit more research done to get better units than just churn out the units I had, and I also lost track of the turn number for a few turns due to RL pressures. I played it poorly and in the same position I wouldn't do the same, but I got it wrong but I knew I only had one gamble left. I had to try and rush to Gunpowder for my Janns and the attack came just too early for me. I was fourth and the only strength I had was my powerful research, I had to exploit it as long as I could and it has cost me.

I can see that it would be annoying to have someone make such a critical error like that, but all I ask is that you just accept it was a mistake which can be made, as I am still learning a lot about MP (& SP for that matter). If you saw the state of my army on the eve of war you would be shocked at my noobishness, hence why I sought peace.

While he gains those two cities, I may have done you a favour by the peace agreement in a perverse way. He is tied to not fight me and so gains less than Serdoa likely will by taking my mainland. He asked for a lot more than I gave him, and lets say that now most of the future provisions in the deal won't come to fruition as I will be crippled!

I cannot side with Serdoa however, because I made a binding agreement with Moogle not to assist him. I cannot break my word and to be honest you are better off that I keep them. I keep them and he has no reason to break them and Serdoa gets my cities. My game is done, so I shall likely have to retire from my mainland to 'survive'.

Once the war is done, I can explain more - but for now just take me at my word that I cannot break my agreement to Moogle and that is in your best interests that I keep it.

TT

Much better. I'm still hazy on what happens next, and that mostly depends on SleepingMoogle, but at least he's not going to throw the game.

To wrap this up, Serdoa let me know what correspondence went with him and TT after that initial message:

Serdoa,

For someone who has actively tried to help you and has attempted to continue along this path, I am disgusted at your message. You are being blatantly opportunistic and show no respect towards myself. There are ways and means of saying what you wanted to say in a much less derogatory fashion and whether your disdain for my abilities is warranted or not, to express so in such a fashion is highly rude and uncivil.

I refuse your proposal. You can come at me with your units, you can kill and take my cities if you please, but my army will oppose you and only you. I will not be some puppet state for you to bend to your own ends like an overlord. Now either come back with a sensible mature offer or go ahead and kill me.

As you can tell, I am angry (if not furious) with yourself right now and your pal scooter for he has followed suit. I would not have even considered that I would come to this situation, but unlike yourself I will not make threats, only this single promise.

If you attack me, you will regret the sending of your last message.

Its up to you,

TT

Good morning TT,

Was it actively trying to help me when you told me

"I have researched AH now and I do not see any horses on the mainland in the land I have defogged - probably deliberate choice by the map-maker as we have copper under our capitals"

? I was pissed and am still that you have played with words to mess with me. I heard you laughing about me and my stupidity every time I read "Your friend TT". And now you have pretty much handed the game to SleepingMoogle by not even trying to fight him off (and you really had a good shot at doing so).

Anyway, I do not want you to be a puppet state. But I want to make sure that SleepingMoogle gets taken down a notch. And I think that my offer to you was generous. Think about it: You are getting revenge AND more land, for simply having to do what I tell you for some time - with your mainland cities. I basically fight your war for you. Yes, I have reasons for that and it is not simply for thinking that you are a nice guy. But I do not try to screw you over like you did it with me in regards to the horses.

So, my offer stands. I take the two cities, you produce with the other 2 on the mainland what I tell you and help me reach Knights as soon as possible and then we crush the one which opposed you and get not only back your cities you lost to him but some more.

Nonwithstanding the above, TT, I am sorry if my email made you angry. This is a game after all and I have a highly competetive nature. But I do not want that somebody is feeling bad due to the game or my messages. I feel that what I have proposed is the best course of action to give us all (except for SleepingMoogle) a chance to win - though I agree that I could have phrased it a little bit friendlier.

Kind regards,
Serdoa

Look at the part I bolded!!! Twinkletoes never lied to Serdoa! He told the truth! There was no horses on the mainland! Remember way back in my thread I made some joking comment about this - I said "would it really surprise you if Serdoa's mad at TT because he simply misunderstood him? TT doesn't seem like the type to blatantly lie, and would it really surprise you that Serdoa got upset because he just misunderstood?"



In the midst of all the drama, this made me laugh quite a bit. Twinkletoes never lied to Serdoa. I don't even see intent to deceive, although Twinkletoes could have mentioned it being on the island, but he definitely didn't owe Serdoa that much.

Anyways, this has been quite the circus... Not sure what I'll write back to Twinkletoes, but I'm mostly just waiting for a response from SleepingMoogle. Ideally he'll accept my NAP and help TT defend against Serdoa or something like that. We'll see...

[Bobchillingworth]

Thanks for the diplo updates- usually my eyes glaze over when people do email or chat dumps, but this has been fascinating for reasons which should be obvious.


I'd almost half-jokingly suggest that you go ahead and make Moogle's day by arranging everyone to agree to play the rest of the game as a CTON.


I suppose that one of the issues of having only four players left, all inhabiting within fairly close distance of each other, is that everyone gets to play "kingmaker" in diplomacy for the future of the game. On the bright side, dramatic emails are the best kind for lurkers

[scooter]

Thanks for the diplo updates- usually my eyes glaze over when people do email or chat dumps, but this has been fascinating for reasons which should be obvious.


I'd almost half-jokingly suggest that you go ahead and make Moogle's day by arranging everyone to agree to play the rest of the game as a CTON.


I suppose that one of the issues of having only four players left, all inhabiting within fairly close distance of each other, is that everyone gets to play "kingmaker" in diplomacy for the future of the game. On the bright side, dramatic emails are the best kind for lurkers

Thanks for the comment - I'm always hesitant to post big walls of text with no visual content, but in this case I felt it was worth it given the drama. Hopefully the fact that just you have commented isn't a sign that you're the only one who didn't fall asleep reading all that text .

The state of the game is so nuts right now. Further updates today:

-SleepingMoogle has extended our NAP until T120, which is what I wanted
-Moogle will now help defend Twinkletoes

Think about that last sentence for a second. 48 hours ago he was committed to a 2v1 on Twinkletoes with Serdoa. Now he's trying to ensure TT's survival against Serdoa. I'll never understand why around here, a backstab like that never gets the amount of a reputation hit as a well-provoked NAP-stab. Whatever. This game is essentially a 2v2 now. SleepingMoogle is in a dominant position, but Twinkletoes is going to be very ineffective.

I think if I play another one of these games, I may be the jerk and be a bit choosy on who I allow into the game. Sorry Twinkletoes, but I'm not nuts about playing in one of these games when you vassalize yourself to someone every time if you can't be competitive. It's nothing personal, but it's just not very much fun either when there's an obvious weak link and whoever starts next to them gets a massive advantage.

[Tatan]

Thanks for the comment - I'm always hesitant to post big walls of text with no visual content, but in this case I felt it was worth it given the drama. Hopefully the fact that just you have commented isn't a sign that you're the only one who didn't fall asleep reading all that text .

I read the whole thing and enjoyed it greatly .

I just don't want to comment to much because I don't want to influence a player at such a critical time during diplomacy.

[Sandover]

mild spoilers from PBEM3

Not really a spoiler. The Pharaoh sees everything!

(Except Khmer horse archers.)

[Sandover]

I just got to make some comments on that email dump. First of all:

Kind of an arrogant-ish message from Serdoa

My kind of guy for sure!

I also find it funny that Moogle seem to have adopted the Sandover Doctrine for his dealings with TT - i.e. forcing the highest amount of concessions you can possibly get without risking the integrity of your army so you can use it on your other neighbour. It's great tactics really - so long as you don't mind a dogpile or two.

I do think you're overestimating the amount of cheese involved in the German surrender of PBEM3. TT made an honest mistake in his deciding to pursue my army and was caught in a catapult barrage out in the open. My troops were more advanced than his so the only advantage he had on me in that war was greater numbers. He lost that advantage in the battle when I decimated his stack, pretty much purely at the cost of some easy-to-replace catapults. At that point the Khmer stack had failed its assault and the Roman dito was running back home, so I could afford to keep my army in Germany to pick off the remaining cities one by one after only a few turns of healing.

In the deal that followed TT basically bought his survival in exchange for three cities he was about to lose anyway. It was a choice between remaining in the game or being thrown out of it in short notice. Sure, you could say that he betrayed his allies. But be aware that he turned down an offer of alliance with Egypt, where he would get his lost territory back and the city of Nubian as part of the deal, just because he didn't want to betray those that helped him. He did his best to fight me and I honestly don't see anything unreasonable about those cities being part of the surrender - he had no better choice.

I can see a point in being mad at him for his incompetent army positioning in that game. But then you should be equally mad at Bob and Timmy because if their invasion hadn't failed pressure would've been off TT's back, leaving him in a great position to actually retake his lost territory. It was a joint failure on two fronts - but since TT was the one being focused he alone had to suffer all the consequences of that failure.

As for this game, maybe there was cheese about to happen - I don't know. Haven't read any other threads than yours lately and wouldn't comment on that even if I had done so.

This post got sort of long but the lack of turn updates to make in PBEM3 gives me itchy fingers.