[SPOILERS - PBEM17] novice and spaceman - Suryavarman of India

[spacemanmf]

Original tech thread post from Dave, which he subsequently deleted:

So, let me get this straight.

You play the save The *replay it* with different moves. All to prevent a victory that neither of you can confirm I actually won....

So far, neither of you can confirm Shoot voted for me, and I haven't spoke to him to confirm it myself.

Email from Dave:

We need to talk regarding PBEM17.

Dave

My reply:

Hi Dave

Darrell had an end of turn save after he had done all the warring. I
would not have asked him to replay the whole turn, but I suggested he
could finish the save by gifting Russia (instead of not doing so as he
had originally done), to avoid the AP cheese victory. You even
suggested yourself we could reload or play on which suggested that you
wouldn't overly object to that.

We did not replay any moves. Novice opened the original save but
moved nothing. I only opened the second save and I played the entire
turn without input from novice. There was no foul play in the war
arena, I can assure you. The only dubious tactic was me asking
darrell to send a second save with a city gifted being the only
difference.

I don't regard it possible to record a diplomatic victory in an MP
game (although the game mechanics do allow it) so I don't concede that
you've "won" the game and we're playing a shadow game. This way we
have sidestepped the dubious AP "victory" mechanic and we can play on.

These are my words, not those of novice...

Cheers

space

[novice]

Novice was against playing the second save. He preferred to NAP-stab Shoot in order to capture Jewish cities. We did the maths and it would be very close if we took the cities we could take, but we probably could do it. But that would be completely changing the game-state. Shoot might be sufficiently riled by our actions to quit, although novice felt that voting for Dave would contravene the NAP.

Yeah, if you kick someone in the nuts with cheesy game mechanics, don't expect your NAPs to hold. Anyway, we don't even know if Shoot voted for Dave, and when asked directly he denied it. So we didn't have a case for NAP-stabbing.

[spacemanmf]

Yeah, if you kick someone in the nuts with cheesy game mechanics, don't expect your NAPs to hold. Anyway, we don't even know if Shoot voted for Dave, and when asked directly he denied it. So we didn't have a case for NAP-stabbing.

Hmm, yes, that was part of the problem with not "correcting" the game - we didn't know enough to take the "right" actions.

Are you going to post your email?

[novice]

Yeah, my reply to Spaceman's email, to all the players:

Well my 2 cents: I don't mind formally conceding to you, you outplayed us
with regards to AP mechanics, since Darrell neglected to take any
measures when he first played the save. From what I gather, Space does
mind conceding though. And Shoot might too, since we don't know if he
voted for you. Truth be told it's irrelevant to me who is
crowned winner by the game engine, we just wanted to play out this
war. The save we sent on was obviously a shadow as far as I'm
concerned.

Posting "let's cheat" in the tech thread is tantamount to conceding in
my mind - we thought it was hilarious at the time, but in hindsight
and without context, maybe it's not. My apologies.

I guess we might as well include all the players in this email chain.

novice

P.S: Spaceman uses the joint account, I use this one.

[spacemanmf]

Dave's reply:

Hey,

I didn't mind the possibility of playing the game on as a shadow game, as I already expressed in my chat with Spaceman. However, you guys went about this by first sitting on and refusing to play the save, and then by asking Darrell for an altered save. A victory on my part would not have ended our possibility to play a shadow game. We could have seen the results of the election, and then proceeded from there - playing ' just a few more turns' or reloading before I called the vote so that no city-gifting would be required to keep the game going. You did all this without asking myself or Shoot if we even wanted to continue playing a shadow game in which you sandbox with your massive military. Lastly, you went to all these lengths when you didn't even know if Shoot had voted for me or not. For what it's worth, I emailed him last night and he did.

I just don't know what you guys expected me to do. The AP mechanic is cheesy, yes, should it be banned, yes, but it wasn't banned and in this game easily and was easily preventable. At RB, players are always encouraged to play to their own victory so as not to skew the game or give another player an advantage. So you expected me not to take the opportunity when presented to me and just continue toodling along, getting eviscerated by you and Darrell?

I suggest we call this game. Darrell and Shoot have both expressed interest in ending it. If one of the primary players in the war does not want to fight it anymore, the whole conflict becomes a bit of a farce anyway.

Dave

[spacemanmf]

And my reply:

Dave

Thanks for your reply.

I spoke to Darrell about playing on after the vote (or indeed
replaying) and he had no interest in doing that, so they weren't
really options. You had indicated you would be willing to play on so
I don't think it's quite true to say I didn't ask you. I wasn't too
fussed what Shoot thought since for all I could gather he was just
hitting end-turn anyway (and due apologies Shoot if that doesn't
accurately reflect the true situation!).

We did ask Shoot about the vote and he gave a coy reply which
suggested he did vote for you, despite him trying to give the
impression he didn't.

"At RB, players are always encouraged to play to their own victory so
as not to skew the game or give another player an advantage."

This comment highlights the problem really. In order for you to win,
Shoot had to vote for you. How does that fit in with your comment
above? If the AP win was possible solely from your actions alone then
fine, but it wasn't, so it isn't.

Darrell could have stopped the AP result by playing the save better
the first time but to me that's irrelevant. We should never have been
put in that situation. I was fairly certain that if we didn't invoke
city gifting then you would win the AP election. And I point blank
refused to let that happen.

If you didn't want to carry on with the game then you should just have
said so. Shoot too. If you genuinely felt the game was going
nowhere, we could have debated it in the tech thread and we probably
would have finished it.

You declared war on the two of us when we could have finished the game
off painlessly. You did an honourable thing by doing that as it was
the only way of stopping us (your move was definitely in the RB
spirit). (If Shoot had joined in it would have been very interesting,
albeit with even longer, more complicated turns.)

You've done a good job of fending us off against the odds and you had
indicated that you were enjoying yourself. I understand losing heart
when losing a war (particularly after that last turn) and the timing
is perhaps unfortunate in that respect.

I have no desire to continue playing if no-one else wants to so I
agree we should call it. It's unfortunate that you have prompted this
turn of events with your actions (not that I'm blaming you - you have
defended your point of view - it's just unfortunate that we've got
here).

As far as I'm concerned, the result of the game is a draw.

I won't be playing any more RB MP games so it's a shame it's ended
like this, but hey ho. That's life.

space

[spacemanmf]

The thread that no-one posts in, eh? I think that is mainly due to it being so damn long. Full marks to anyone who actually gets all the way through it. I could do a highlights post but I really can't be bothered.

But I just wanted to say to novice: it was a pleasure playing with you, just like in PBEM13. I learnt a lot.

And I'm sorry it turned out the way it did, but at least this way you get to concentrate on the other two games you are playing in!

[oledavy]

The thread that no-one posts in, eh?

Working my way through it :neenernee Still trying to condense my own thoughts in my thread before finishing though. Great thread guys, the reporting is phenomenal and I'm learning a lot.

[spacemanmf]

Working my way through it :neenernee Still trying to condense my own thoughts in my thread before finishing though. Great thread guys, the reporting is phenomenal and I'm learning a lot.

Thanks man. If there's one thing I prided myself on, it's a thorough turn post. If only so novice knew what the hell I'd done and could comment accordingly.