[NO PLAYERS] PB25 Lurker Thread - Then Happy I, That Lurk and am Belurked

[Old Harry]

Sorry, put an edit in before reading your reply.

I couldn't make the post 2 months ago because back then I thought you were a dick.

[GermanJoey]

Sorry, put an edit in before reading your reply.

I couldn't make the post 2 months ago because back then I thought you were a dick.

I didn't see your edit before I posted either. I addressed these two points in my thread, but since you don't want to read it I'll try rephrasing here without too much emotion.

1.) The capitals were nicely balanced resource-wise, I agree. The land around it was not. I did not get 3 ancient happies. I saw you mention that at least once before - jungle gems is not an ancient happy, as it requires Iron Working to hook. Looking at the first version of the map, I *did* have 3 ancient happies, it seems, as I had another gems that was not covered in jungle. You might be remembering that, but by the time you sent out the final version to Caledorn, you removed this tile, as well as added a lot more jungle for some reason, so I was stuck with just 2 ancient happies, the ivory and the silver.

2.) Commodore was my neighbor before I attacked Elkad. Our borders were adjacent to each other for about the last 50 turns. In addition, his capital was 13 tiles from mine. He landed his galleys on first-ring tiles to Black Seminoles. By any definition of neighbor, he was my neighbor, and I don't know why you're so insistent that he wasn't. For what it's worth, I'd have much rather started in Grimace's spot than mine, although this is comparing whether I'd rather eat ash or dirt - both middle players were completely screwed. Grimace was on a smaller continent, yes, but his continent only had 4 civs, not 5. So, he managed to gain just as much land as I did on his mainland, if not more, despite expanding at less than half of my rate. Grimace also didn't have to fight anyone for the land directly around his capital, as Gavagai was completely sealed off by mountains from the north. He at least had "true" backfill. Finally, he only had 4 neighbors to contend with, although if he had expanded faster he should have had to contend with Donovan as well. Borsche, on the other hand, although I didn't think his starting spot was very good at all, had more space than I did (he was able to expand up to 12 cities before he started to lose them and still had space for two more fillers) and only had 3 neighbors to contend with. In contrast, I was locked in at 10 cities on three (!) different continents, despite hitting 10 before anyone else even got to 8. HAK was eventually able to get to what, 14 on his single continent before attacking Borsche? While Commodore got to 13, with his dedicated island backfill?

My borders were not safe from Gav or Borsche. The map was too tight for that; the tightness exacerbated every imbalance. You might not have known Borsche before the game, but it should be clear now that he's a fairly aggressive player and a tough figher. I had to fight him for culture over a fish tile in my silver city's (my 4th city, the Moai) BFC, as that was the only food near that happy resource, and so I had to always be wary of him boating that spot as well as Burning Spears. I wasn't safe from Gav, either; Gav and Borsche had locked horns by this point, but I don't think it was a coincidence that he picked a tile within striking distance of my city of Harrapan for the staging point of his 25+ Numidian stacks. That threat was always hanging over my head. Rationally, I did not expect him to attack me as I would have been his only chance to fence in Commodore, but I didn't expect him to attack Borsche so early either, so I thought perhaps he was on tilt and simply didn't care anymore. (he was also taking sub-10 minute turns around this time, atypical for him)

I definitely do not think the map imbalance was smaller than the player skill levels, nor even that map imbalance was smaller than skill levels + picks (if we think of a proper leader/civ pick as adding to a player's skill at the actual game). If the players were shuffled around some, e.g. Commodore/dtay getting swapped with Grimace, maybe you're right and it would have worked out. However, them getting the start the best start on the map made it impossible to catch up to them. Commodore is Commodore but dtay was with him too, and he is an extremely skilled and careful player, especially in the early game... perhaps second to none at that stage of the game. How much better can I play to compete with that when they're working 3 more cottages per city or using 3 more whips, on top of having 3 more cities? 3 more cities is +30%, and 3 more stacked whips is +150% of what my cities could handle. It's absurd.

I also don't know how you make a cylindrical map that's balanced for 9 players, and I certainly don't think I'll play one again in my life, if I ever even join a new PB again. I'd have hoped you'd have seen PB19 to know that having just one or two players in the middle, with the rest of the field surrounding them on every side, does not work out. But, I guess I should have mentioned something like that, and the cylindrical part was also my own fault for giving in to Commodore and can't blame you for that.

At any rate, the map balance made me upset, yes, but what made me truly incensed was that you refused to say anything to me for months despite my struggles to play out your map as best I could. What I found so insulting was the way you acted like I completely beneath your notice and my concerns were nothing but nonsense, as if I were just some puppet that's supposed to be dancing for y'alls amusement. That's just bullying in a different form. These games are way too much effort to justify that, and I'd have thought you of all people would understand that. The game is "only" on T132, but I've spent probably in the range of 150-200 hours on this game, between simming, playing, and reporting. Thus, when the balance combined with your stonewalling lead me to believe that the map, and most especially my position, was designed to maximize drama and entertainment for the lurkers rather than the enjoyment for the players (and it seems my suspicions weren't too far off based on what I read in the early pages of this thread), that's when I started to get more and more and more infuriated every single day.

I don't expect you to like me or think I'm a great guy or whatever, and don't expect that most people do. Hell, I doubt many people on this site will ever think that after this meltdown. I don't know why you didn't like me *before* the game started, as I only remember one time we talked before then - last August when I was in Portugal - and you seemed happy to chat at the time. And I certainly didn't start getting hostile until it became clear you were ignoring me on purpose, even trying hard to keep my thread fun and light-hearted. But, that's done and over with now, I guess.

[The Black Sword]

Thus, when the balance combined with your stonewalling lead me to believe that the map, and most especially my position, was designed to maximize drama and entertainment for the lurkers rather than the enjoyment for the players (and it seems my suspicions weren't too far off based on what I read in the early pages of this thread), that's when I started to get more and more and more infuriated every single day.

I can't believe Harry, or anyone else at RB, would deliberately give someone a bad map position for lurker amusement. And you can see here he showed the map for feedback before players were assigned to each position.

I didn't respond to a lot of map complaints in PB22 because it's a really hard thing to do while the game is still ongoing. You can't say, well you have this advantage, or team X is weak in Y without getting into spoiler territory. So I felt the safest thing to do was not respond a lot of the time. I don't think you should immediately jump to 'the mapmaker has it in for me'.

And I don't want to speak for OH but he didn't say he didn't like you before the game started. He said two months ago, which I guess was when your map complaints started spilling over into the rest of the forum. And not in a nice way either. Mapmakers give up their time for the players enjoyment, if you have problems with the map they should be communicated constructively IMO, just trashing it doesn't help anybody. Well, you're free to rant in your thread I think to get things off your chest, but outside it should be constructive and spoiler-free.

So, I guess, to echo Brick ...

I think both of you are good people who should stop biting at each other and let it go.

[spacetyrantxenu]

So it isn't enough to disparage OH's effort at every turn , repeatedly and all over the forum. Now you're calling him a liar, too? Seriously, enough already. Let the man have a break. It's over, he has all the map feedback by now. We're well past the point of creative criticism about this map and its shortcomings. You're beating a dead horse and really helping any potential future map makers to have zero desire to ever build a map. Because what's the upside? Being subjected to extreme and persistent levels of complaints about your effort? Who would want to sign up for that? OH built a good, playable map. He didn't build a perfect map, but I haven't seen a game here where the map has been flawless. For a first time map maker I think he did a good job. Really, just stop beating him over the head already and let it go, it's over, you've subbed out, there's nothing to be gained by continuing to harass him about this.

[Old Harry]

Point 1: Well that looks like a fuck up on my part. I imagine I meant to delete the other one. Sorry.
Point 2: I disagree. And I don't think I'm likely to change your mind by arguing, so let's leave it at that.

The reason I didn't engage you while you were still playing was this:

I didn't respond to a lot of map complaints in PB22 because it's a really hard thing to do while the game is still ongoing. You can't say, well you have this advantage, or team X is weak in Y without getting into spoiler territory. So I felt the safest thing to do was not respond a lot of the time. I don't think you should immediately jump to 'the mapmaker has it in for me'.

I know you don't think spoilers are a problem (see your recent response to Mardoc's very friendly advice) but I didn't want to get into an argument where I couldn't actually say anything. I thought it was just your normal level of thread rage (the reason I didn't want to read your thread this game in spite of having mostly enjoyed your other threads) until it spilled out into the rest of the site. And at that point I just thought you were a dick, so I doubly didn't want to engage.

So yeah, sorry about the jungle gems.

Edit: And sorry Xenu for carrying on - hopefully I haven't reignited everything...

[Old Harry]

Uh oh. I decoded to check what's going on on the other side of the channel with a sentry chariot... and suddenly found a lot of stuff.
It is HAK. But even HAK can't possibly be so fucked up to seriously consider an attack across the channel. Right?

However - is Mindy dedlurking him here? Or I mixing it up with PB22?

[Dreylin]

Also, Joey, what the fuck did you do with hte Music Artist?

popped it for a MoM Golden Age

WWWWHHHHHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

[Tasunke]

Also, Joey, what the fuck did you do with hte Music Artist?

popped it for a MoM Golden Age

WWWWHHHHHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

... whyyyyy not?

[GermanJoey]

Not that an artist bomb wouldn't be great here, there's no way saving it for that it was better than a MoM GA. Without the wonders, Music wouldn't have been worth it, as the Zulu were/are still dreadfully behind in miltary tech, and without the GA I couldn't afford the wonders hammer-wise. Probably still couldn't as it was... another 200 hammers worth of units might have stopped the island invasion. Maybe not, though. Anyways, the MoM GA was worth, in total, something like 1200 production (essentially the ToZ + TGL + 2 dozen units), a swap into Bureau, an Academy in the capital, and 2000 beakers - still behind Inca though, lol.

Speaking of that, I'm really laughing that I asked dtay/Commodore specifically about how many beakers they thought they were behind/ahead, and instead Commodore shows a GNP graph and complains about being "over cultured," as if either of those is supposed to mean something (Zulu have to have more culture anyways), because he so badly wants to be seen as the underdog that he can't admit that they still have a huge tech lead.

[Borsche]