RBP2 Lurker Discussion Thread - No Players!

[Serdoa]

Without knowing athlete I do think that he is not dishonourable. His actions in game might be, but I think that is more due to him taking the "best" action for his civ - unfortunately often shortsighted. And that he also trys to win the game whereas many people here rather would lose then to act dishonourable. And when you try to win but (especially diplomatically) act shortsighted you might often be "forced" into dishonourable actions.

I do not think I would have acted that way myself but I can understand why he does.

[darrelljs]

I still don't think India's diplomacy has been that bad. In light of recent events, I'll go so far as to say its been better than average .

I think if we had lived, we'd have done a pretty good job getting to Guilds and then it would be a matter of seeing what sunrise089 could do against Speaker with Cataphracts .

Darrell

[darrelljs]

Well there that is.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say there are 0 unspoiled people willing to take over the Incan position in the known universe.

Darrell

[Twinkletoes89]

I agree darrell, the problem is that what next? I would suggest AI Takeover but I think Spulla would have something to say about that!

[sunrise089]

If I can just add another thought quickly:

I think Athlete is much more a bad player than a bad person.

I think he's much more a bad person than a bad player actually. In as much as everyone in the non-India side is a bad player at this point in the game it's because they fail to recognize just how dominant India's position is. Other than that, they seem to be playing roughly equally well. To me, the type of action Athlete did is something I wouldn't do under any circumstances. Even if the alternative was elimination from the game, even if by backstabbing I could easily win the game. I believe most members of this community feel the same way, and others feel such a backstab would be OK under certain circumstances. But I don't think anyone else was as willing to backstab to gain so little. Even if that doesn't make Athlete a bad person, it does mean he sets the curve for shady diplo.

[T-hawk]

I agree darrell, the problem is that what next? I would suggest AI Takeover but I think Spulla would have something to say about that!

AI takeover may just have to be the least of the evils here. What are the other options? Have somebody log in just once to give away Slaze's units and cities? Let the civ sit idle? Pause the game for weeks until we beg a substitute player from somewhere?

[Twinkletoes89]

How can you say what kind of person he is from a game?

Its very bad and dishonourable play but it doesn't mean he would do it in real life or anything close. Also I do think he thinks it is his only play as he does recognise just how powerful India is, the only way to beat high quality, well managed land is to have twice as much half-good land.

I am not defending his play, but I am prepared to defend him from some of the character assassination starting to creep up.

Serdoa is right in that Athlete (along with pretty much everyone else outside Spulla) have played very shortsighted diplomacy. He has gone from giving slaze a two front war which *was* the right decision short-term, to then trying to make peace when his attack totally floundered and try another target (which was (in theory) the right move, short-term), to then ending up with a hugely powerful neighbour with better and much more troops and having to appease them (also correct - short-term).

His glaring error was tying himself up to both ends at a time and then thinking he *had* to betray one or the other. Would betraying Spulla's NAP have been portrayed as heinous as this? No. But doing that is just committing suicide.

I still think with another player helping out, whether they took over diplo, economy, military or just acted as a sounding board/conscience, Athlete would not get into these diplomatic dead ends, and would have been seriously made to consider his actions in remedying them.

Its a new low in terms of shady diplo, but please lets not blow this even more out of all proportion and give him a *little* bit of slack

[m4gill4]

utterly scandalous, but if it werent possible to do so, the game would be less interesting

[regoarrarr]

AI takeover may just have to be the least of the evils here. What are the other options? Have somebody log in just once to give away Slaze's units and cities? Let the civ sit idle? Pause the game for weeks until we beg a substitute player from somewhere?

Well one thought I had is that one of us or a committee of us take over and play AI-style (no diplo). Obviously we're all spoiled to the hilt, but it seems like that would be better than AI takeover as well as idle or multi-week pause.

But if we came up with a decent framework (no diplo for starters) it might work.

Dunno - probably a bad idea on a lot of levels and I'm sure athlete would protest, but just thought I'd throw it out there

[Twinkletoes89]

Its impossible for any spoiled lurkers to take over - everyone knows that athlete is attacking, that Whosit is gassed but Korea likely will finish off most of it, and so Nakor and Athlete gain territory/gold/workers.

We know much too much now