[NO PLAYERS] The Kibitzer Klub: PB13 Map & Lurkers

[Fintourist]

I would have whipped everything if I'd gotten to Feudalism (just a few turns more) and had units (LB's) that could defend a bit against Knights.

It's just that some players are simply this bad. That is still a different matter from

Would it be okay for you if I would now say that I'm not interested in playing the game anymore and just gift all my cities to another civ?

This is obviously not OK.

Hmm.. I would not call Nakor bad, he just simplified the situation and said that he lacked the defensive tech he wanted. Let's say that I'm attacked and I would like to have Rilfing in order to defend myself better. Not having Rifling is not a justification for me to stop playing.

Just leaving cities when attacked on infra/wealth/worker builds and hitting end turn is of course technically not the same thing as gifting all the cities via trade screen, but the end result is really far away from actually defending.

As you said, other players actions and geopolitical position will always affect your winning chances beyond your control, but we should still avoid the most obvious game-ruining practices.

[mackoti]

Ha, I had forgotten about the avatar bet after a year. I think we'd have to call it a no result since the game wasn't conceded to Mackoti and he isn't being proclaimed the "winner".

I needed just more 20 turns to win , but game was moving so slow that i even forget to play aturn and i seen just last 3 minutes of it.If was me from 2-3 years ago i would argued to continue to get my well 'deserved' win ,but simply i dont care this days.And the tech bonus was the killer, then was the time when i decided i dont care, but scooter decided to dont care as well, and the turn got very slow and people coulnt play theyr turns so why to continue just to show i could win?I feel i have nothing to prove, but a space race win would have been sweet if wasnt all this problems with turn taking so long.

About Nakor situatian i think i was even more vehement then fintourist, I seen him finishing a forge in city for scooter to take instead dry whip a spear or something, this is pure i dont know how to call it.I even stated i will never play with nakor and later azza , they dont defend theyr chanses how should and i dont like that.Before starting to say MH didnt defended as well bear in your mind all cities i took from MH were size 1-2-3 and he whiped loads of units he had 12 units or more in his capitol and a killed some more, so he realy tryed.And my atack was way earlie the scooter and i think scooter killed less units then i killed from mh which had just 6 cities.

On the sutree situation, well finhary you know so few, i almost got eliminated by the guy we had a long war ,first i was realy mad at sutree but ater his play was an allin if he would managed would had a huge contunent for himself and a not very carefull MH to conquer later, and i find he defended very well and took the best decision for him.What you dont know for example is that when he fighted against you he left near all cities in border with me mnera empty but i didnt tacked becasue i was afraid how he would react.

[Commodore]

It is pretty funny reading my turn 2 heartbreak a year removed; I was ready to vomit blood at the time, though. In the end...I think we both just recognized the Commodore Doctrine: Competent Land Neighbors Should Look Elsewhere. Heh, and, well, maybe the fact that I can be peaceful to at least some of my neighbors?

I'm going to be writing up a few capstone reports in-thread, but regarding the "giving it away" stuff...I don't think I mind, for this kind of game. 18 players (or 33 players!) isn't ever ever ever going to be balanced. It is a fool's errand to try. I'd like for my rivals to get tough victims and all, but stuff (skill, RNG luck, geography, mood) just happens. I started having an insane amount of fun once I realized that winning wasn't in my cards (neighbors/land/etc).

There is a place for balanced, bleeding-edge competitive civ MP; look at PB19 and mind the ulcers. But sprawling "let's have fun" has its place too. 18 player game; some people are bears, some are killer whales, some are tapirs, and some are pygmy shrews (no offense meant to anyone here by this kind of post, btw). I really do appreciate the generally excellent attitudes of everyone involved here, this was one hell of a game all.

[Fintourist]

On the sutree situation, well finhary you know so few, i almost got eliminated by the guy we had a long war ,first i was realy mad at sutree but ater his play was an allin if he would managed would had a huge contunent for himself and a not very carefull MH to conquer later, and i find he defended very well and took the best decision for him.What you dont know for example is that when he fighted against you he left near all cities in border with me mnera empty but i didnt tacked becasue i was afraid how he would react.

Yeah, I checked quickly your threads and read about the early war. In his post in our thread he kind of stated that he felt sorry for attacking you early and that maybe played a part on why he focused on the grudge war against us and considered you as an ally (e.g. signing OBs immediately after you had attacked and took couple of cities). You may have been wise to not attack his cities, but I believe that you could have taken those cities dozens of turns earlier and suttree would have kept all his units in the north. That's of course something we will never know and I guess you got them early enough. However, when you attacked m_h, suttree had a big army that kept our units in the eastern side of our civ so that we did not really have chance to contest m_h's lands. At that point you were surely vulnerable and attacking suttree at the same time would have been a big risk.

Do not understand me wrong, I'm not claiming that suttree somehow gifted you a win or you got undeserved benefits. I'm mostly looking the suttree conflict from our perspective. That was a 90-turn episode, which did not cause us too many dead units, but tied so much resources that should have been spent fro something more productive.

And yeah, I agree, suttree defended well and I respect him for that. What I keep repeating is the question: Was our razing of his size 1 city that much different from plako razing Dhal city/cities and dtay razing TBS/Jowy city/cities that we should have known that suttree goes immediately into full military mode? I mean TBS and Dhal tried to recover economically even though I think TBS was in an extremely hopeless situation (after that fight, which was also reported in the lurker thread). Obviously angering a neighbor is always a risk and this time it cost us, but does anyone have a clear opinion why it lead here into full military build-up while in aforementioned other cases military levels were kept lower?

[Fintourist]

some people are bears, some are killer whales, some are tapirs, and some are pygmy shrews (no offense meant to anyone here by this kind of post, btw).

[Thoth]

Ha, I had forgotten about the avatar bet after a year. I think we'd have to call it a no result since the game wasn't conceded to Mackoti and he isn't being proclaimed the "winner".

Agreed.

[Azza]

About Nakor situatian i think i was even more vehement then fintourist, I seen him finishing a forge in city for scooter to take instead dry whip a spear or something, this is pure i dont know how to call it.I even stated i will never play with nakor and later azza , they dont defend theyr chanses how should and i dont like that.Before starting to say MH didnt defended as well bear in your mind all cities i took from MH were size 1-2-3 and he whiped loads of units he had 12 units or more in his capitol and a killed some more, so he realy tryed.And my atack was way earlie the scooter and i think scooter killed less units then i killed from mh which had just 6 cities.

On the sutree situation, well finhary you know so few, i almost got eliminated by the guy we had a long war ,first i was realy mad at sutree but ater his play was an allin if he would managed would had a huge contunent for himself and a not very carefull MH to conquer later, and i find he defended very well and took the best decision for him.What you dont know for example is that when he fighted against you he left near all cities in border with me mnera empty but i didnt tacked becasue i was afraid how he would react.

Wait what? I did everything I could to prolong my death, to the point that I outlasted the person who attacked me for 100 turns or so. You can comfortably accuse me of being terrible, no doubt about it, but I don't make it easy for the person who attacks me, not by a long shot.

[Gaspar]

The point I made re: Nakor, and that I still stand by, is the only difference between him and several other players on this forum who I have watched perform equally poorly in a losing military situation is that his every move was well-documented by his conquerors. I can mention countless examples by players on this forum of sloppy, lazy or bad play. But because Nakor did this in a high profile game, he got an unnecessary amount of crap in this thread. If you want a hardcore game, ask for one at the outset and gate the player pool. If you make a large game and let anyone join, then you're going to get some less-skilled players unbalancing the game. That's just a fact.

Do I wish everyone exhibited a basic level of civ competence and in the face of overwhelming odds could be untilted enough to perform their defensive duties admirably? Sure. But that's just not realistic. And given the nature of the community - or at least the nature this community used to have - I don't think its appropriate to shit all over people in a public forum because they don't meet a skill test when you knew what their skill level was like before they entered the game. That's true of any of a dozen players here who have performed similarly in games here.

And honest to god, the biggest factor for me:

Nakor asked politely for people to lay off AFTER large amount of criticism had been stated already. And then immediately after someone jumped on him. The Realms Beyond I want to be a part of respects someone asking specifically for people to lay off them. Period.

Anyway, I won't check this forum again, so if you have a response to me specifically, sorry. But since I was pointed to being addressed specifically, I decided I would respond.

[Ceiliazul]

Nakor asked politely for people to lay off AFTER large amount of criticism had been stated already. And then immediately after someone jumped on him. The Realms Beyond I want to be a part of respects someone asking specifically for people to lay off them. Period.

agreed with everything in that post, especially the quoted part.

[WilliamLP]

Interesting thread, and I still know much less about this game than most of the lurkers! I only skimmed the 50+ pages about spite whipping and city gifting and AI diplo though.

Was Versailles really any kind of big deal? Everyone in the game but me was running SP, where it's a dead wonder, right?

The regret I have is not getting to see what defending a modern invasion (especially a successful one) would look like. My empire was extremely landlocked, by design, sacrificing better city sites to make sure this was so. Everything on the coast was expendable and even my Moai city kind of sucked. I was 1T from flight at the game end, and I was going to upgrade all airships and mass fighters and run intercept missions forever. I was scouting the borders every turn and my ground force and production were not insignificant, and tech rate not even that bad. Could Commodore or Plako have pierced it? I'd actually be really interested to see that.