PBEM3 Spoilers - timmy827 of Khmer

[Gold Ergo Sum]

If you're serious about going down that route - "give in to my diplomatic demands or I will gift away my cities to another civ" - then I would be completely disgusted. I mean no offense, but that's incredibly poor sportsmanship, and would turn the game into a mockery. Just because something isn't explicitly written as against the rules doesn't mean that you should do it. "Bad precedent" is an understatement: what's the incentive to play well and take a lead, if artificial gifting is going to hand someone else the game?

Well, I hope that you take a different approach.

I can see your point of view on this. I dedlurked your PB2 game and I found the actions of Jowy and Kathlete to be extremely frustrating. As I said in one of my first posts in thread, I didn't really dig the idea of attacking of Sandover just because he was the leader. It didn't seem like a good enough reason. But if you are supposed to be playing to win, shouldn't you use what leverage you have available to you? If the bluff gets called, what is the worse that happens? I will do pretty much the same thing either way: draft my cities along the lake, see if I can make further gains in Rome, and try to put pressure on Sandover in the west, while preventing an attack on Moogle in the east. So again, is the general opinion of the community that it is unethical to bluff legal but unethical maneuvers? The answer seems to be a resounding yes based on the responses here.

I really may let scooter resettle any further city sites that Sandover might raze along the lake, but much of that land fits his territory better than mine anyway.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

BTW, I sent this to scooter earlier today:

I am considering sending a message to Sandover along these lines. I think it would certainly give him some food for thought. Thoughts?

Sandover,

Given that your actions have given me a window into your play style and temperament, allow me to respond to you in terms that you may understand:

You have shoved your nose into business that was not yours. If you continue to do so, I will hit you where it hurts: your desire for victory.

Any future city you raze, I will allow scooter to rebuild in its place.

Any continued action taken against my civilization, be it choking a city, propping up Amelia in our war, or continued open aggression, will result in me beginning to gift the large, productive cities from my empire to scooter.

You are the prohibitive favorite because you annexed TT. If I allow my civilization to be united with scooter's, your main advantage will be nullified. You are not the tech leader. And your GNP is not the best. Imagine the disparity that could develop if the tech leader received a large swath of tasty, developed land. And then could defend it with troops more advanced than your own. What would that do, exactly, for your visions of world domination?

Just some food for thought, from one vindictive leader to a ruthless tyrant.

Bad things happen in war, including strengthening bonds between your mutual enemies, so let this serve as a reminder of the potential consequences of your arrogance and opportunism.

GES

[Gaspar]

FWIW, and I'll try to respond here with as little actual strategy advise as possible since I'm beyond spoiled, I think its a little over-the-top for everyone to jump down your throat for anything you say in diplomacy. Some ridiculously bad behavior has occurred in diplomacy on these forums, and throwing a threat at someone to get them off your back doesn't seem to me to be any worse than anything else. I'm not sure your plan will work (and I wouldn't say even if it did,) but I think the idea of getting a little creative with your diplomacy is interesting. Also, I'd let the threats on your reputation slide, as both Jowy who did this in PB2 and TT who did this in this very game still regularly play in MP games here at RB. People get over stuff.

The greater point I'd make is to echo TT: You're understandably angry right now, but I'd hold off on making any huge decisions on the rest of your game before you've cooled down. I can't make any statement on whether or not I believe your situation assessment is true or not, because of my spoiled status, but I think situations like this are where you can prove your mettle as a player, and at this point, any significant impact you can make on the game from your current position would be impressive.

Lastly, as far as actually doing it, I think city gifting in any fashion is unbelievably cheesy, and the only time city's should change hands outside of war/culture flips are as a part of a peace treaty.

[novice]

I'd say that threatening to do something unsporting is in itself unsporting.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Just to quickly respond to Gaspar, I'm not angry. These are just games to me, and this is one I've only been invested in for less than a week. I play games for fun. I want to prevent Sandover from winning if possible because I think there should be some detriment to rank opportunism.

When it first happened, I figured I would bluster some threat in Sandover's direction, emphasizing my flippant regard for the game since I had recently taken over. I decided that was unlikely to work. He just has too much strength and attacking is too difficult against his soldier advantage.

So then I got creative. And I decided given some of the recent city gifiting shenanigans here, that that threat would be the most leverage I could muster. If everyone in the game is right about Sandover being a cutthroat opportunist, then that would very much get his attention. I never actually had any real intent to gift cities to scooter, although I had thought it might be funny to gift one to him to show Sandover I was "serious," and then have him gift it back to me after peace. But I honestly don't know enough about what kinds of effects city gifts have on the established culture and buildings within the city to have even seriously contemplated that. Wouldn't want to wreck a good city on a gambit.

I still think my best chance for peace, which I feel would let me take A LOT of Rome if Sandover doesn't gift troops, without giving up concessions or selling out scooter and SM is by, what can only be described as, extortion.

Now I expected a bit of outrage over it, but if I had been more clear in letting it be known that I didn't intend to actually follow through, I wonder if the reaction around here would've been the same. Nevertheless, I am one of the people around here who thinks that fewer rules are better than more, and the general tenet of acting in the spirit of the community should be enough without massive legislation (weird for a lawyer right ), so if even threatening unethical action is deemed out of bounds, then I won't do it. I am kind of disappointed, though, because I very much wanted to know how Sandover would've responded.

I fell asleep on the couch at like 6:30 playing Trials HD last night, so I didn't get a chance to play the turns. And I have to leave for work about fifteen minutes ago, so feel free to take a look at the save StM. If you want to move our sentry knight and some ships to get better visibility and send me that save after you make those moves, feel free.

So I don't think it is out of bounds at all to suggest to Sandover that any future cities of mine that he razes, I might let scooter resettle. The two cities east of Loon Lake really are isolated from the rest of my territory and fit smoothly into his lands. That alone might make him think twice.

My goal will be to draft the lake cities, and continue pushing into Rome, perhaps towards the north even though those cities are crap, just to get a border with Sandover. I need to get a new settler for Loon Lake and a settler for Victory Mines, because if Amelia doesn't want peace, I am certainly going to try to hold what I razed.

[Shoot the Moon]

Couple thoughts on the turn:

We'll probably want to resettle the city that was razed, perhaps 1E, which looks like a stronger city spot anyway.

Rome moved 6 pikes onto a hill. I might actually say attack them (moving NW-W to do so) as it should at the worst cost us 5-6 knights to kill 6 pikes and a medic chariot. If we then move the rest of our knight onto that hill. Assuming it looks like the knights could hold the hill, we could safely move our rifles and cata's out of the city without the threat of them attacking the city if we move them 1NW (obviously leave some rifles in the city). One caveat there: have the knight NE of Overwatch raze that road.

One last small thing: I might move the galley in Ankor Wat 1NW, as it isn't really doing much but costing us maintenance. Other than that, there's not much we can do against galleons at this point.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Turn played. I will post more at some point. StM will get the save tomorrow. I didn't move all our units to the hill because our sentry showed that he could hit us with 14 cats on that tile. I did kill off all the pikes and the medic chariot.

[Shoot the Moon]

Turn played. I will post more at some point. StM will get the save tomorrow. I didn't move all our units to the hill because our sentry showed that he could hit us with 14 cats on that tile. I did kill off all the pikes and the medic chariot.

Does that mean you didn't move out of Overwatch then?

[Gold Ergo Sum]

I moved them out to the NW. That tile is safe from the cats.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

I am considering sending this to Sandover:

Sandover,

Given that your actions have given me a window into your play style and temperament, allow me to respond to you in terms that you may understand:

You have shoved your nose into business that was not yours. If you continue to do so, I will hit you where it hurts: your desire for victory.

Any future city you raze, I will allow scooter to rebuild in its place.

You are not the tech leader. And your GNP is not the best. Imagine the disparity that could develop if the tech leader settled swaths of tasty, developed land. And then could defend it with troops more advanced than your own. What would that do, exactly, for your visions of world domination?

Just some food for thought, from one vindictive leader to a ruthless tyrant.

Bad things happen in war, including strengthening bonds between your mutual enemies, so let this serve as a reminder of the potential consequences of your arrogance and opportunism.

GES

I got this from scooter:

GES,

I'm not sure that threatening to gift me cities is all that appropriate - in all brutal honesty. I have been a vocal opponent of most forms of city gifting, and as much as it'd be nice to get a few more cities to win the game, it would be a farce of a win. It might be better off to leave him in the dark at the moment, but to be honest I don't know for sure what the best route to go is.

But yeah, not nuts about threatening to hand me cities for free. Threatening to let me refound cities he razes doesn't seem like a cheap/cheese threat (since he could actually prevent that), but I'm not sure he'll be able to do any more of that given that I don't think you have many other coastal cities.

scooter