Hi guys,

For the time being, and I don't know for exactly how long, I'm leaving Guild Wars. This has been a really hard decision for me to make, but it's something I feel has to be done. I'm very burned out right now, and I feel that if I stay around any longer then I'm not going to be contributing to the guild, at least, not in a positive way or in the way I want to.

During GvG this past Friday, Roland said I was bipolar - in that I kept changing my mind about casual and competative, and he's right. When I look over or think about my posts and in-game behavior over the past few weeks a lot of it's contradictory and some of it is so far from what I was trying to say that they are completely different messages; I'm having trouble articulating what I want to say and it's only getting worse.

This next part is a small rant.

Right now I sign on out of habit, not because I have any real desire to do so. While I'd like to say that the drama within the guild and alliance aren't real contributors, I can't. Roland and Jude are constantly at each others' throats, people won't stop swearing on vent no matter how many times I've asked (note: I don't care about occassional swearing, but when more than half of what's said would be blocked by the in-game censor that's just not appropriate language), and I'm really frustrated because I want to be competeting in top level GvG but know that won't happen and it's all my own fault. I'm not going to say anything about the alliance because, at this point, that's pretty much a null issue from my point of view.

OK, that's enough of a rant.

I've been playing GW too much. There are so many other things I would like to do, but won't, because GW is convenient and suits the slothful lifestyle I've adapted to. I tried reducing the amount of time I play, but it didn't work. I need to make a clean break and get away from the game for a while. Call it a sabbatical if you want.

Well, there you have it. I don't know when I'll be back. I'll probably still be lurking around the forums though I probably won't be posting.

It's no secret that our involvement with the Zealots of Shiverpeak alliance has been a rocky association from time to time. We've had our ups and our downs along the way and frankly the "downs" have often been fairly pointless for the most part. This is a game. We play the game for enjoyment, for recreation, for competition, and yet all too often we also find ourselves playing the game for nothing better than as a medium to convey a dispute.

Based on chatter from within the guild and from without it is now very clear that enough people want a change that there's no option left but to put the word out there and see which way the general concensus swings. So the time has come to decide:

Do you wish to stay with the Zealots of Shiverpeak Alliance?

Do you wish to leave the Zealots of Shiverpeak Alliance?

Thanks to everyone who played and double thanks to all of those that reported. We had 12 people reporting (including my shadow) and there was a fairly obvious pattern between the 5 people that scored the maximum diplo-bonus (voting for the opposition). Some of us had some troubling times with managing the relationships while some of us didn't give 2c for relationships.

I also appreciate the feedback about the game and the design. I'll take this into account for any future events (sullla willing).

Congrats to Compromise ...


PS: let me know if I got any of the scores wrong or mis-spelt your names

I was surprised to get a message from Frost saying that a member of RB could be making problems fro the alliance. Now I do understand that this is not the first time that there has been something going on with RB in the alliance. I then went immediately to the ZoS forums to check out what he was referring to. I come upon 2 posts by one of our members essentially raging on the way that something was done about the way that an election was handled.

It is nothing to do with the guild wanting to join but the way that the vote was handled. Now I will freely admit to being the one to put up a poll and the one that pushed to get them into the alliance. If an apology from me is what it takes to put things in the right then I will do it for the good of RB.

I do not like however being come to with someone saying that if someone doesn't chill that we are going to be kicked from the alliance. RB has become my home. It should have been my home ages ago but I was to blind to see it. If I make a mistake I will happily admit it and go on with my life, but I don't want the acts of one (I could very well be that one) to take down the happiness of the many.

We are (as dysfunctional as it may be) a kind of family. We look out for each other and share things with each other. Including burdens that are put on us by other members of a different sort of family.

I am not pointing fingers or lay blame; that would be stupid. There is enough drama in this game to add to it. Is there a way to just play the game and have a good time anymore?

Do we still want to be in this alliance? Do we want get along with as many ppl in the alliance as we can? My vote is yes.

I am not posting this to piss anyone off or to stir up shit, but to make it aware that we could lose a place that apparently you all have been in for a year. I am all for backing and supporting our members first. We chose to be here in RB. We chose to be in the alliance. Discussion seems to be something that RB is quite big on and I like that aspect.

I just want a place to play with my friends and hang out to relax and have a good time. I can't speak for anyone but myself but that's the reason that I play games.

I know that we are never going to be able to please everyone but it doesn't hurt to see that it's an enjoyable place to play. I also know that we aren't all always going to get along but trying to keep the peace won't hurt us either.

These are my feelings and I could be completely in the wrong is some peoples eyes. I am sorry.

Jude

I'm in the midst of a war of attrition that neither whipping nor drafting will get me out of - with my roommate for the Civ play (errr, install) disc!! :mad:

Here's the situation - one of my roommates from last year borrowed my Civ4 disc after I had stopped playing, and "neglected" to return it to me after he moved out. Demands for its return have not been fruitful.

Fortunately, one of my roommates this year has become a good friend, and he happens to have the game. So I borrowed his play disc when I got back into it this month. The downside to this is that it led to a situation like that Simpsons episode where Bart wants to play Milhouse's game Bonestorm, until Milhouse is caught up in a plastic cup in ball game, which leads Bart to want to play that instead...."Don't be a cup in ball hog!!". My rekindling of interest in the game has proven contagious.

Anyways, this means I only have sporadic access to the cd. While this might be good for my productivity, it is not expediting my Epic11 progress. So I'm trying to decide if I should buy another copy of the game used or something. The alternative would be to get Warlords now or wait for BtS, but only if I can still play vanilla Civ4 using the expansion cd (this I don't know).

So thus I come to my questions (blame my longwindness on being uber-bored at work):

1. I know that all you need in the disc drive to play the expansion is the expansion cd, but does that allow you to play the vanilla game as well? Or do you need to swap to that?

2. From what I've heard BtS will contain all of the gameplay changes that Warlords has, with the exception of the scenarios. How fun are the scenarios? Worth getting Warlords for? Or should I just wait for July?

thanks

The report can be found here. Thanks Ruff for a fun event .

Darrell

I have to make sure to post Sunday night. After seeing the other reports, it really made it hard to post this lame game.

www.kendter.com

Section 1, the BC years:

4000BC- I take a look around and see where I find myself in this beginning of time. I decide move the starting warrior 1NW. I then move the settle 1N and settle the great capital city of Seoul. My initial research goes into Polytheism, hoping to grab Hinduism.

3880BC- I pop a hut for maps revealing the first of my opponents: Russia.


3840BC- By now, I have picked out my first city site. Grabbing gems, two gold, corn, and plenty of grassland, it will be an economic powerhouse.


In 3800BC, I finally get to actually meet my Russian brothers to the west. Their leader is Stalin, as I offer peace. I wish them the greatest luck and happiness- unless they are the population leader come time for the diplo vote. Hehe. Note what he says, "MINIONS!"


Yay, I have completed my first goal of this game in 3560, founding a religion that will take over the world. With its founding in Seoul, Hinduism will soon branch out to all corners of the globe and dominate the world!


It appears that my second neighbor has decided to appear as I meet an envoy of the Americans in 2760BC.


2280BC- My plan comes together with the founding of my first city, P’yongyang, on the site I had indicated earlier. At this point I pull back a bit and capture a snapshot of the immediate vicinity of my civ at this point. You can see the location of my two cities as well as the borders of my Russian friends. This city will help my civ later as well by providing two early happiness resources. It is also apparent that the Russians have quite a few resources in Moscow.


The next big event in this game occured with my conversion to Hinduism in 2160BC.


Then, the project that you can see Seoul working on in the above picture is complete: Stonehenge

This wonder will help with my borders early, allowing me to use missionaries on other people instead of my own cities. Also, it would get me a great Prophet to build my shrine.

Then, in 1040, the next big thing happens, with my Hinduism naturally spreading to the capitals of two opponents on the same turn!


Now, this image shows a lot of new things happening. First, the birth of my Great Prophet, and the building of the shrine in Seoul. Also, with the conversion of Roosevelt, all AIs but two have turned to the true faith. Additionally, you can see the iron to the east of the capital, and my third city, founded in the north 1S of the rice.


And then my fourth city is secured, as a chariot takes down 2 warriors guarding the barb city, Alemanni, in the south. I keep this city as it is well positioned to take advantage of the resources and terrain on that peninsula.


And, to finish off the first section of this report, I snap a pic of the capital when the dates roll over to AD. GL in one turn, and 17 Hindu cities already! I am researching at 100% with +7 gpt. Philo is due in 6


End of Part I

Howdy!

There's a report somewhere.... Yeah, i found it! Here, take a look if you want to.

If you don't want to, the summary is:

Retired on 1940 AD after so many frustrated attempts of Diplo victory!

EDIT: For scoring purposes, count me as a -16 net total!

The report may have something weird, as I just finished it. Please, if you find something that needs fixing, let me know.

C'ya!
FBelintani

i realllllllly didn't know what to expect as far as AI trade opportunities and how much i'd need to rush for stuff. i did want to beeline MM ASAP. i've only ever done that on cheiftain (non-OCC) and deity (only OCC) levels. of those two, one i haven't yet won (usually they sign DPs too early, and i can't sign them right away, i have to sign them in a careful order so that the -s i earn don't make others not want to sign them), and one i got down to 10 BC and figured cool, beating 1 AD is enough! you can likely guess which result applies to which difficulty level. obviously the tech pace at prince isn't going to be the same as either of those, and i haven't done a prince game of any sort in a while. that was rather interesting.

i acted kind of more philo/ind than financial, and definitely more than protective. pictorial evidence of included below. i went wonder happy, etc. but it was hilarious fun.

i started with myst and checked F12 for the other nations. didn't know which leaders, but that doesn't matter - none of them start knowing myst. so i founded buddhism (for a change, since i always go poly), conf, and taoism. i didn't want to go hydra since i wanted a bit of tension out there. liz got hindu and judaism (yeehaw, do an isabella imitation liz, that works for me!). more people were hindu at first but then changed over to conf gradually. yay conf, i wanted that to be their choice, not buddhism, since my conf holy city wanted the culture points more. i made the conf shrine in 600 BC (instant 11 gpt). i probably would have popped him for christianity if i'd known mono, but i didn't, and liz didn't want to trade it. in 425 the world was finally all conf (altho i had not sent them a single missionary) except hindu liz and NSR candyland, so i went conf too. gaining holy vision was really cool, i saw cities i hadn't known existed. in 400 BC liz changed her mind and went jewish, i guess she felt left out ... she never did get conf in any of her cities, too bad for her. i did not send my first conf missionary to an AI until 1060 AD! so obviously i got very lucky there.

i made my capital at the blue circle suggestion (according to my notes). figured save the floodplains and 2nd corn for later, not too much unimproveable water but i can still get a harbor, and hills for production. popped a hut (i think by placing the city) for a map that showed i probably had too many hills, but, win some, lose some, quit some (more on that later).

my 2nd city is exactly sooooo's *giggle* and settled in the same year, 2400 BC. mine's called Seoul but is actually city #2 since the capital of the Candyland Empire is named Peepsville, obviously. don't give me that look, those marshmallow treats are awesome! i tend to almost always aggressively settle towards the AI but trust diplomacy to smooth things over, and don't usually start wars myself. and for me, "early war" is basically pre-rifles/pre-steel. for this game i definitely planned to be peaceful. but there were gems there right by the gold, settle towards the AI mode full-speed-ahead. how could i not? i oracled CoL in 1240 to made Seoul the holy city. i later arranged things to make it the taoist holy city too, but never did learn corporation for wall street.

this is an incomplete (two in a row, the shame!). i decided to get liz's lands for myself. yeah, i was gonna go peaceful, but there were diplomacy issues. everybody hated her so i might be able to bring select ones in for MMS, and she had health resources i didn't.

i do "WHEOOHRN" checks frequently since i kinda don't like to get beat up on (see previous description of playstyle and definition of early wars). stalin suddenly had EOOH in 1515, he had not the turn before. i risked it and went through with my plans to DoW liz in 1535 anyway, i thought he was going for Liz. he'd been pleased with me for about forever (i did checks of previous saves, they show at least 68 turns), and annoyed with liz for even longer (i think 1000 BC when he went conf, since she was hindu by then. even with our shiny new "this war ruins our relationship" negative and the loss of OB/years of peace/years of resources +s, he was at cautious with me, not annoyed. so obviously he is a meanie!!! Liz had less power than Stalin did and i had more than both. but ah well.

1570 AD ... BANG "Stalin has declared war on you". fast forward 20 seconds.
2007 AD ... KMad's mood crashes to "this isn't fun". so, the Candyland world ends with a save and a whimper.

i don't know why he did that and will probably ask (on CFC to save space with spoiler boxes), but for now, just know that i took a risk, and apparently i chose unwisely. i'd like to say "lesson learned" but i can't. i honestly don't know what the lesson is, since i don't know what part of my assumption that i was not the target was wrong (maybe more than one part) *giggle*.

but there was much fun stuff before that!

i'm the queen of filler cities according to hubby. i had FFV 1 and FFV 2 (Funky Fishing Village) since i didn't want to see the clams or extra corn by PV go to waste, which made for weird placement of the fish city to the east to leave the clams legal. turns out fish city was on the uranium. that sort of thing doesn't bother me on a map like this, i was in "limited land, don't even want to gain more cuz i wanna be all hippy-peaceful and stuff, so use what i have" thinking.

my world in 1575 when i put it away. i also have copper/fish/wheat city in the south of course. oh those are 2 forts on the desert by Seoul, my workers were bored, so "if they do attack me, slow them down by providing pillaging opportunities" thinking. i did irrigation and such up north by liz on that reasoning too. yes i'm an oddball, i learned that one in OCCs and it can help quite a bit!


things that amused me:
in 1090 AD i noticed in the city build list that i get a bonus on building walls as a protective leader. oooooh yeah, forgot i'm protective. i only just bothered to trade for archery in 1010 AD!!! yup i'm really good at warlords! note the date here: i think i already knew gunpowder.


in 1030 mao learned paper, so i decided to cash in liberalism, was in a not-so-brave mood and figured i was still getting quite a prize.


although an argument could be made that i should pick guilds to catch up to nappy on the economics race, i choose physics instead. i find out that nampo is on uranium, and that maybe i should have kept the barb city i razed to earn exp since it has oil and i have none. aww shucks. if all goes to plan, i won't need either one. i then detoured from my MM beeline to win the free GM at economics! i'd built the pyramids, partly to be able to rushbuy the UN without teching to democracy.

in 1100 mao thought he was 15 points ahead of me in score. let's see in 2 turns buddy, when i suddenly get SciM, liberalism, physics, and a free GS, shall we?

score now: 1854 KMad, 1765 Mao. neener neener. ya slacked off those two turns pal.

1340 is mary j. blige on the list of great artists?

what is wrong with this picture? i can build broadway, but i don't know drama. coolness. this is great. i can build bomb shelters, but i don't know chemistry and am whole 7 techs away from flight. that just feels wrong.

perhaps my most giggle-filled moment:

725 BC i finally got around to alphabet, let's see what the AI has to offer on prince. roos will give me IW for med and writing, you betcha bro! oh i have some and i mined it already. O M G. "i got pig iron, i got pig iron, i got alllllllll pig iron." in the same city cross!!!!!! Peepsville is the best .

now i get to read the reports of the people who did finish! i read the first three that appeared, including sooooo's obviously, and therefore got to admire his excellent choice of second city spot .