Pitboss 18 Lurker Thread of Infinite Wisdom

[GermanJoey]

Yeah, you could argue that I kingmade some, but I tried not to be too abusive with it (only gifting a few units per turn, and never gifting gold outright, just letting loan repayments linger a bit, and even made TBS pay for an artist that was completely useless to me). But, I mean, its a 34 player game and after a certain point I no longer had any chance to win. I needed to conquer Bacchus faster in order to snowball into AT and Molach to have a real chance. However, I still had about 5 months left to play, and as one of the game-leading civs. What do you think players should do at this point? I could either try to help a player to win or I could sit back and do nothing, which isn't something I'm inclined to do. Some players (me, dtay, krill) did the former, while others (AT, Molach, William) did more of the latter. At least I never outright moved a stack into NA lands, something I could have done once BGN moved his own megastack away from threatening my HAK-holdings. My main stack was one of the single strongest stacks in the game, containing something like 250 units and 8M soldiers, and I could have easily killed off what the Aztecs and Russians had brought to invade NA with, at least combined with what TBS and dtay had on hand as well. But, I felt that would have been over the line.

To me, especially because my civ was fairly powerful, or at least powerful enough to make a difference, any action I took would have helped one of the three leading civs somehow. I could have tried attacking BGN but that indirectly helps TBS and OH. If I attack TBS, then that helps OH and BGN. If I attack AT, then that helps OH and BGN because it lowers my defenses in the west and lets BGN rip through my HAK holdings and/or plako. In fact, because the map wasn't toroidal, I had no way at all of interacting with the Aztec team except through a diplo window! Really, no matter what I do, its kingmaking. I guess I could have attacked plako? But then, if I controlled the French territory, it would have been my decision whether or not to let OH keep their bombers there! So, no non-impact action there either. *shrugs*

[MJW (ya that one)]

I didn't notice GJ's diplo-trade-screen move being illegal through otherwise I would have said something but GJ would have been able to walk over the artist to TBS's territory and eventually TBS would offer gold for it anyway. And non-city gifting isn't even hinted at in the rules anyway so GJ would technically be able to give the artist anyway. That would make it not flagrantly against the rules and without the ability to talk it would be very difficult to stop and not possible to stop without the game being tainted by massive banter which always results in diplomacy.

Edit: Not worth bumping a dead thread but I noticed that it was TBS who made the illeagal offer. However, this doesn't matter because ether GJ threw the game to TBS for that bad map or he didn't. If he did he would have resorted to walking over the artist anyway. If he didn't TBS just messed up and misunderstood the rule (thinking the rule just stops you from communiting arbitray things by using the cities not that you cannot use them at all). But if that happened then the justifaction of going back is too weak even without admiting that the lurkers were the de facto mods and were okay with it. If you could go back for that you should go back for everything and the whole game would have to be replayed; starting at the latest where LP took over half the civs and at the earliest turn 0 because "BL" was making a deliberate mockery of the game. So ether TBS wins or there is no winner.

Edit 2: A simpler way of putting the above: The real reason that Fintourist is pissed off and insisted on a reload so much is because GJ was mad at him for PB#25 and wanted revenge. But if that's the case GJ would have just walked over the artist and gave it just like any other unit. So Fintourist loses ether way.

Edit 3: Another way; LP taking over half the civs was worse so it's nonsensical to order a reload for TBS messing up (I'm just giving Fintourist the "messing up" to make my point). The fact that a blind eye had to be turned otherwise there's no way the game was going to finish and the fact that it would be possible to not follow the rules on purpose knowing that a reload won't happen-- doesn't matter, it's still nonsensical. It's like saying that you should be okay being found guilty by a jury because your still innocent.

[Mardoc]

So, what makes selling an artist worse than, say, my invasion of Azza way back when? I could have made FinHarry pay a good deal more to own a continent if I weren't more focused on making Azza lose. I bet I could have delayed their eventual spaceship by two turns. Am I a kingmaker too?

Edit: Is it that important who is the actual 'winner', anyway? I know my impression is that it was an epic game, and all of TBS, FinHarry, and Boldly have earned a lot of respect from me. Well, all the survivors, really, but those three in particular.

[spacetyrantxenu]

mjw, I think I'd have a hard time debating a general rule like "don't be a jerk" with you, since you always seek to explore possibilities and find loopholes, which is precisely the kinds of things that rule seeks to avoid.

Joey, there's way too much in your last post to reply to it on my phone, but, briefly, saying you didn't play kingmaker simply because you refrained from doing other things that would have been even more egregious doesn't change that you played kingmaker in the first place. Also, one can't argue that you played kingmaker "some". It's like being pregnant, either you are or you aren't. I've never seen a woman who was only a little bit pregnant. :P

[Ceiliazul]

Before anyone else posts about the artist or rulesets:

Please consider the phenomenal game that just ended, and how many great storylines developed along the way. What a great game by all who finished it, and most of those who didnt make it to the end!

Dtay nearly had a concession victory around t100, a rare successful dogpile brought him back while BGN went pac man on his nearby opponents. Soon it looked like Boldly's game to lose... Then FinHarry's economic seeds grew to harvest, while Krill alpha stuck the wrong shrimp. Said shrimp put the brakes on Boldly whole team Aztec roared ahead. Joey roared, wailed, railed, racked, struggled against competent PRO opponents one after another, eventually prevailing but slowed enough to prevent victory.

And lets not forget Pin's last charge. Or Pirate Xenu! Or Mardoc's lockdown on buddha from t0, or the amazing attrition of WilliamLP....

DO NOT LET AN ARTIST GIFT DEFINE THIS GAME.

[GermanJoey]

mjw, I think I'd have a hard time debating a general rule like "don't be a jerk" with you, since you always seek to explore possibilities and find loopholes, which is precisely the kinds of things that rule seeks to avoid.

Joey, there's way too much in your last post to reply to it on my phone, but, briefly, saying you didn't play kingmaker simply because you refrained from doing other things that would have been even more egregious doesn't change that you played kingmaker in the first place. Also, one can't argue that you played kingmaker "some". It's like being pregnant, either you are or you aren't. I've never seen a woman who was only a little bit pregnant. :P

I didn't say I didn't play kingmaker. I'm saying that no matter what I did, I was playing kingmaker to somebody since it was essentially impossible for me to win. Since I can't affect my own victory chances, actions I take only affect the others'. Even pretending that TBS/OH+FT/BGN weren't in the game and attacking AT or plako would make an actual difference to somebody. It was a similar case for Krill and dtay. If you think that I don't have a right to do whatever I wanted with my own civ, well, its not like I was secretive about any of this. (or any other player) You had like 6 months to say something about it. Q said something when he thought I went over the line, and Ceil also told me where he thought the line was too. (he thought unit gifts were OK but actively jumping in was over the line, so I didn't). If you had brought up the issue, I would have talked about it. I also don't think I was the biggest kingmaker or whatever you want to call it; dtay and Krill were certainly more active than I was. If you have a big game like this, it's just part of the game.

By the way, even considering that, I still did play to win, because a hail-mary shot to be handed a diplo victory via the UN was better than not doing anything at all. It was the highest % victory chance I had and I went for it.

[spacetyrantxenu]

That's unfortunate, as you actually had a zero percent chance of winning a diplomatic victory via the UN. Even if everyone voted for you that victory option is ineffective in the mod. On the next turn after your victory vote the game would have gone right on anyway.

I don't buy the idea that anything you could have done was being a kingmaker to somebody. There are a million actions you can take in a game, the scope of effect isn't so limited as you say. Clearly doing things involving the players still vying for the win could have major effects. But simply playing on to improve your position, or whatever non-interfering/spoiling goal you may set for yourself need not impact the outcome. Once you're no longer able to compete for the win you should at least avoid spoiling a fair contest for those still in it. My little pirate campaign was against another also ran, not someone who could still win. Though as far as that goes I've said elsewhere that dtay's revenge was justified. It's harder for me to come to the same conclusion about your artist "trade".

[GermanJoey]

I think, if you're going to insist on saying stuff like "Once you're no longer able to compete for the win you should at least avoid spoiling a fair contest for those still in it." you need to be specific. Because IMHO it's not only completely wrong, but also very dangerous to think so. What do you think is a legitimate active action I could have taken say, past T230, that wouldn't have affected the struggles of TBS/BGN/OH+FT? What does "improve my position" even mean here? In terms of pure self-interest, if you multiply zero by any number, you still get zero. So what does self-interest mean, if literally nothing matters to my civ? I maximized my score to finish 4th place in the game, which as as high as I possibly could, I fortified my position against invasion, I think near-unassailably, and finished 3rd in pretty much every demographic. Unfortunately, in a big FFA with specific set victory conditions, there comes a certain point where you no longer have enough power to affect your own victory chances but can still affect others. It is a fact of FFA game theory. I would think you would understand that considering your own pirate adventures.

Speaking of, by the way, that funtime pirate stuff definitely had a big impact on the game. If you had equally begrudged plako instead of just CH, plako would have been even weaker than he was already, perhaps enough so that TBS, Krill, or dtay could have eaten him, especially if I joined in for a dogpile. If plako wasn't there, OH has no bomber bases and perhaps TBS gets his own coal. I also think its really silly for you to complain about my gifts to TBS considering your shenanigans with Krill's gifted Frigate was the first major unit gift in the game. And again, I don't think there's anything wrong with what you did, choosing to punish one opponent over the other. We are human beings, not AIs, and I think it's ridiculous for you to get mad that I didn't act like you think an ideal AI should have.

[Qgqqqqq]

So, what makes selling an artist worse than, say, my invasion of Azza way back when? I could have made FinHarry pay a good deal more to own a continent if I weren't more focused on making Azza lose. I bet I could have delayed their eventual spaceship by two turns. Am I a kingmaker too?

Edit: Is it that important who is the actual 'winner', anyway? I know my impression is that it was an epic game, and all of TBS, FinHarry, and Boldly have earned a lot of respect from me. Well, all the survivors, really, but those three in particular.

This, in its entirety.

...
Q said something when he thought I went over the line
...

BTW, that wasn't what I was saying. As I said at the time and since, I thought your actions were arguably justifiable, and I wasn't passing judgement on them there, but legitimately asking if you knew about it (with no small element of initiating a conversation over them in your thread).

I'll comment in more detail, but I haven't even read who won yet!

[spacetyrantxenu]

I think, if you're going to insist on saying stuff like "Once you're no longer able to compete for the win you should at least avoid spoiling a fair contest for those still in it." you need to be specific.

I think not gifting away a great artist to someone racing to complete a cultural victory should be specific enough. You can dress it up as a sale if you like, but the money meant little to you but the artist meant a great deal to TBS. Maybe it wasn't necessary to enable him to win but it certainly did a lot to help him close it out.

What do you think is a legitimate active action I could have taken say, past T230, that wouldn't have affected the struggles of TBS/BGN/OH+FT? What does "improve my position" even mean here?

I already answered that, just play your game without ruining it for the players who still have a chance to win it. If you're not willing to do that then maybe it's better to resign. A number of your fellow players were able to play out the string without tipping the outcome in favor of one rival or another.

You play to win the game, as long as you can. Once that ship has sailed you find other things to do without throwing the game. I don't see why that's a contentious point, or why you seem to think playing on was so difficult for you. By all means if you prefer TBS to win since he's been a good neighbor, that's fine if it's what you want. But it isn't for you to help him to do it, this isn't a team game and you're not his vassal. You're not required to assist anyone else, either. But it's not sporting to give significant aid to one player to help them win. You could have found any number of alternative things to do if you were just bored after T230 or whatever, and they need not immediately amount to assisting OH or BGN as you so dramatically put it above. If you need specific suggestions now, you could have just kept attacking neighbors until you ran out of neighbors to attack. Getting more land and getting bigger, that's one way to improve your empire. I think you know that, since you did a fair amount of it in the game. You could have picked anything, so long as you didn't try to pick a winner.

So what does self-interest mean, if literally nothing matters to my civ?

I don't know what you're referring to. I didn't say nothing mattered to your civ. At some point, like just about everyone else, your civ was too far behind the leaders to contend for the win. At that point self-interest is defined by something other than winning. That would be for you to define, as long as it didn't throw the game.

Unfortunately, in a big FFA with specific set victory conditions, there comes a certain point where you no longer have enough power to affect your own victory chances but can still affect others. It is a fact of FFA game theory. I would think you would understand that considering your own pirate adventures.

Yes, and...? Yeah, only one player can win. And in games like Civ once you can't win you have to find something else to do, or quit (which sucks, so, no). I chose to outlive my most hated rival. You choose...well, you got to be on the winning side. Congrats?

Speaking of, by the way, that funtime pirate stuff definitely had a big impact on the game. If you had equally begrudged plako instead of just CH, plako would have been even weaker than he was already, perhaps enough so that TBS, Krill, or dtay could have eaten him, especially if I joined in for a dogpile. If plako wasn't there, OH has no bomber bases and perhaps TBS gets his own coal. I also think its really silly for you to complain about my gifts to TBS considering your shenanigans with Krill's gifted Frigate was the first major unit gift in the game. And again, I don't think there's anything wrong with what you did, choosing to punish one opponent over the other. We are human beings, not AIs, and I think it's ridiculous for you to get mad that I didn't act like you think an ideal AI should have.

Wow, you're so, wow. My pirate stuff had some impact on when Greece would be eliminated and made for a fun diversion while I waited to die, and that's about it. If plako was an actual contender to win the game I can assure you I wouldn't have helped him kill Greece, because that wouldn't be fair to the remaining players. As it was plako was already too far behind in my opinion to catch the players who had started conquering sooner. I don't remember if it was dtay or BGN or OH or someone else ahead at that point but I knew it wasn't going to be plako. And although his thread is pretty short on details of our war, mine isn't. Yes, I made sure plako got the lands and Greece paid the bill, but plako didn't get anything cheaply. I didn't kill as many of his units as I could have if I had spent most of my army breaking him down instead of CH, but plako didn't start the war so he wasn't enemy #1. I've already explained all that in enough detail in my thread and it doesn't need rehashing here. In any case, no one was going to conquer or not conquer plako based on what I did, I don't know where you're even coming from with that one. You're really reaching, and saying I didn't try fighting him off is either you speaking without information or drawing really poor conclusions from the documentation. Read my thread if you're interested, or don't. By the way, if plako closed borders with OH there wouldn't have been any Aztec bombers either. But I guess after I didn't fight plako with my entire army it was inevitable that there would eventually be Aztec air bases on that coast....?

Who said I was mad? I don't think you were a good sport and didn't play out the end as honorably as you could have. That isn't so ridiculous is it? I didn't compare you to an AI, those are your words. I'm trying to compare your actions to a better ideal of sportsmanship because I like playing in (or reading about) fair competitions. Uneven playing fields don't hold the same level of interest for me, or I assume for most people. This is one of the most epic games that have been played on this site and had a very close ending despite all the imbalances in play here (map, resources, player/neighbor skill levels, etc). It's just a sour note that the ending didn't get to play out more naturally. TBS won this game on his own merit, and I think even without your artist gift he'd still have crossed the finish line first, but I don't really know that 100% for sure. And that kind of sucks for him, doesn't it?