[SPOILERS] Scooticator and Pindooter give a sporting try

[Gavagai]

Am I the only person who remembers that Zulu team pillaged its own territory into the ground before evacuating to a certain island in PB8?

That's a pretty big difference, isn't it? One situation the team is surviving and hence gains advantage by setting back their enemy, the other is just pure spite.

Does that mean that you are better gift all your cities and units to an attacker if you have no chances to win? Because fighting back in desperate situation is "pure spite"? I think that we are supposed to aim to cause maximum damage to youe rival in a desperate situation. Spite whipping and pillaging your own territory is certainly in the spirit of this idea.

[Gaspar]

Am I the only person who remembers that Zulu team pillaged its own territory into the ground before evacuating to a certain island in PB8?

That's a pretty big difference, isn't it? One situation the team is surviving and hence gains advantage by setting back their enemy, the other is just pure spite.

Does that mean that you are better gift all your cities and units to an attacker if you have no chances to win? Because fighting back in desperate situation is "pure spite"? I think that we are supposed to aim to cause maximum damage to youe rival in a desperate situation. Spite whipping and pillaging your own territory is certainly in the spirit of this idea.

I think you just pick a side in an argument based on how much you like the person involved and then fit the facts to suit your argument, so I'm absolutely not going to waste any virtual ink pointing out the obvious inconsistencies in this position as opposed to your PB16 position, or even the fact that clearly doing extra whips for units you'll never see on the turn you're eliminated serves no purpose whatsoever.

[Gavagai]

I think you just pick a side in an argument based on how much you like the person involved and then fit the facts to suit your argument, so I'm absolutely not going to waste any virtual ink pointing out the obvious inconsistencies in this position as opposed to your PB16 position, or even the fact that clearly doing extra whips for units you'll never see on the turn you're eliminated serves no purpose whatsoever.

If Bacchus in his last turn would have an opening to raze a backline city of Plako - would it be right for him to do it? I don't see any difference between this act and whipping his last city to size one. Or let's take improvements. it's not OK to pillage them while they Iare in your own culture; but I think it would be OK to land a pillaging party in Plako's core and do some pillaging there? Or wouldn't it? You can think what you want of my motives but I think you are better still answer the argument. Where is the line between the ban on spite-whipping and an obligation to just stop fighting if the situation is desperate?

[scooter]

Am I the only person who remembers that Zulu team pillaged its own territory into the ground before evacuating to a certain island in PB8?

That's a pretty big difference, isn't it? One situation the team is surviving and hence gains advantage by setting back their enemy, the other is just pure spite.

Gaspar pretty much hit the nail here. Also, remember that we were basically giving Commodore our cities by not defending them. We actually felt half-guilty about this, and from reading other spoiler threads, other players were (understandably) not too happy about us choosing not to defend our last cities. In that case, it was almost a fairness balance to pillage things behind us. I believe Commodore was happy to walk into undefended pillaged cities rather than have to fight tooth-and-nail for unmolested cities. We whipped those cities to the bone, but they were for units that were used entirely for our survival, not against Commodore.

Also, since we were surviving and there was always the chance Commodore tracked us down and attacked us later (which he did!), we did derive benefit for ourselves by pillaging that land - in that if we hadn't done it, maybe he would have been able to attack us even sooner.

Does that mean that you are better gift all your cities and units to an attacker if you have no chances to win? Because fighting back in desperate situation is "pure spite"?

That's an awful nice straw man you just defeated . There's no way you could be serious when you said this, surely.

I think that we are supposed to aim to cause maximum damage to youe rival in a desperate situation. Spite whipping and pillaging your own territory is certainly in the spirit of this idea.

No, I think you're supposed to do whatever's best for you. You're welcome to have this opinion I guess, but this just makes me not want to play in a game with you.

If Bacchus in his last turn would have an opening to raze a backline city of Plako - would it be right for him to do it? I don't see any difference between this act and whipping his last city to size one. Or let's take improvements. it's not OK to pillage them while they Iare in your own culture; but I think it would be OK to land a pillaging party in Plako's core and do some pillaging there? Or wouldn't it? You can think what you want of my motives but I think you are better still answer the argument. Where is the line between the ban on spite-whipping and an obligation to just stop fighting if the situation is desperate?

Pretty easy distinction here. I'll just take two of your examples to make this less convoluted.

1) Hypothetically razing a backline city of Plako is razing a producing, valuable city of a player who is trying to kill you. Equivalent to Lewwyn razing Timbers and attempting to raze my capital. It's an attempt to prolong how long you live by damaging the production and/or morale of the player attacking you. You are deriving benefit from it, and conquering cities is a standard game mechanic. Whether you're about to die or not doesn't have a whole lot of relevance IMO.

2) You don't derive any benefit out of spite-whipping a city. That city was never going to be a production base in the war, it's not going to be any use until 20-25T after Bacchus is dead (now). It's also a borderline mechanic abuse - slavery civic certainly wasn't intended to be used that way at no benefit to yourself.

If you can say with a straight face those two situations are the same, then I don't know what to tell you. I wish this didn't have to be a rule laywer-y thing like you're taking it to. I think the "not being a jerk" rule should be enough for someone to look at what Bacchus is doing and say "hey, that looks like something a jerk would do!" But whatever, maybe that's too idealistic of me.

[Bacchus]

I responded in detail in the lurker thread just to be safe.

I'd say jerkishness here is borderline and a matter of expectations, which is why I didn't do it to every city. OTOH, one player in my thread said that I did just the right thing. Myself, as an attacker, I certainly wouldn't expect the defender to just hand over the economy to me, I would expect him to go and do whatever it takes to make my prize sour and difficult to seize. I do agree, though, that multiple whips per turn look very much like an exploit, I'd rather they did not exist. But as they do, and we haven't ruled on them, I felt that not using an available means to weaken your attacker's ultimate position is unfair to all the other players and is on the same path as just rolling over completely, as one is too bored to play out defense.

[Gavagai]

No, I think you're supposed to do whatever's best for you.

And what I'm supposed to do if nothing will make a difference for me, if I'll be eliminated next turn whatever I do? Can I do just about anything? But, I think, we would frown upon a player who would just delete all his units in his last stand city. Why, if the city is going to fall anyway? Because, yes, we expect him to try to make an attacker pay. And if we don't want him to delete all his units, why we also don't want him to whip the city down to a size one and cause his enemy even more pain?
I may actually agree to ban this but not because this is a poor sportsmanship but because this is an exploit - usage of game mechanichs for a different purpose than it is intended to be used. For the same reason I would be confortable with the ban on building wonders for failgold but I think I'm in a huge minority on this one (and it would be much harder to define than spite-whipping).

1) Hypothetically razing a backline city of Plako is razing a producing, valuable city of a player who is trying to kill you. Equivalent to Lewwyn razing Timbers and attempting to raze my capital. It's an attempt to prolong how long you live by damaging the production and/or morale of the player attacking you. You are deriving benefit from it, and conquering cities is a standard game mechanic. Whether you're about to die or not doesn't have a whole lot of relevance IMO.

2) You don't derive any benefit out of spite-whipping a city. That city was never going to be a production base in the war, it's not going to be any use until 20-25T after Bacchus is dead (now). It's also a borderline mechanic abuse - slavery civic certainly wasn't intended to be used that way at no benefit to yourself.

If you can say with a straight face those two situations are the same, then I don't know what to tell you. I wish this didn't have to be a rule laywer-y thing like you're taking it to. I think the "not being a jerk" rule should be enough for someone to look at what Bacchus is doing and say "hey, that looks like something a jerk would do!" But whatever, maybe that's too idealistic of me.

I don't really understand why you are hostile. And, anyway, your distinction doesn't stand. If I'm to be eliminated next turn, killing enemy production doesn't make any difference for me. Does it mean that razing cities in such situation should be forbidden? I would really like to know, would you consider me a jerk if you are going to eliminate me and I raze your city. And if not, why whipping down your own city in this situation is a jerk-move because the result is almost precisely the same: an attacker is one good city down with no benefit for a defender.

[scooter]

Gavagi - apologies for the perception of hostility in tone. Not intended, but upon re-reading I can see that. I stick to the content of what I said, though.

I'd say jerkishness here is borderline and a matter of expectations, which is why I didn't do it to every city. OTOH, one player in my thread said that I did just the right thing. Myself, as an attacker, I certainly wouldn't expect the defender to just hand over the economy to me, I would expect him to go and do whatever it takes to make my prize sour and difficult to seize. I do agree, though, that multiple whips per turn look very much like an exploit, I'd rather they did not exist. But as they do, and we haven't ruled on them, I felt that not using an available means to weaken your attacker's ultimate position is unfair to all the other players and is on the same path as just rolling over completely, as one is too bored to play out defense.

I don't like that we have to talk about "rulings" and such. I'd think a simple "if I would be upset if the other person did this to me, don't do it." That was the principle behind PB5 - the first RB pitboss game that didn't have significant rules-related animosity in it. I would be very unhappy if someone did these things to me. If someone was attacking me and I was going to die, I'd whip my cities into the ground for units and try to be a massive pain, absolutely. No way I'd pillage my tiles, though.

However, from reading your explanation here, the problem seems to be that you wouldn't be bothered if someone did this while you were attempting to conquer them. If you really think that, and there was really someone cheering you on in your thread, then I'm not sure what to say. Your mass forting was odd (and I'm really curious if it was worth it or not), but I don't see anything wrong with that since it was a defensive measure. Who knows, if I'm wrong that there's not a community consensus against this sort of thing (really thought there was by now), maybe this is a discussion that needs to move somewhere more visible.

[Zed-F]

The person cheering Bacchus on was not a vet, FWIW.

[Gavagai]

IIRC Xenu was doing spite-whipping in PB8 during his war with Brick, no protest was voiced.

[Gaspar]

Gavagi - apologies for the perception of hostility in tone. Not intended, but upon re-reading I can see that. I stick to the content of what I said, though.

I'd say jerkishness here is borderline and a matter of expectations, which is why I didn't do it to every city. OTOH, one player in my thread said that I did just the right thing. Myself, as an attacker, I certainly wouldn't expect the defender to just hand over the economy to me, I would expect him to go and do whatever it takes to make my prize sour and difficult to seize. I do agree, though, that multiple whips per turn look very much like an exploit, I'd rather they did not exist. But as they do, and we haven't ruled on them, I felt that not using an available means to weaken your attacker's ultimate position is unfair to all the other players and is on the same path as just rolling over completely, as one is too bored to play out defense.

I don't like that we have to talk about "rulings" and such. I'd think a simple "if I would be upset if the other person did this to me, don't do it." That was the principle behind PB5 - the first RB pitboss game that didn't have significant rules-related animosity in it. I would be very unhappy if someone did these things to me. If someone was attacking me and I was going to die, I'd whip my cities into the ground for units and try to be a massive pain, absolutely. No way I'd pillage my tiles, though.

However, from reading your explanation here, the problem seems to be that you wouldn't be bothered if someone did this while you were attempting to conquer them. If you really think that, and there was really someone cheering you on in your thread, then I'm not sure what to say. Your mass forting was odd (and I'm really curious if it was worth it or not), but I don't see anything wrong with that since it was a defensive measure. Who knows, if I'm wrong that there's not a community consensus against this sort of thing (really thought there was by now), maybe this is a discussion that needs to move somewhere more visible.

I think once upon a time this was popular opinion, scooter. There's a much more... Machiavellian bent to the MP crowd these days, IMO. I personally agree with you but I think we're in the minority.