History 101 - The Moral High-Ground

Beta · April 9, 2003, 22:56

History 101 - A message to GS

OK. This moral high-ground that GS is claiming is just getting to be a bit too much. If it wasn't so self-righteous, it would be humorous. (Well, actually, most of it is kind of humorous.) So, take off your rose-colored glasses my friends, and let's look at some history.

Back to the early days. You, GS, were in somewhat of pickle and we both knew it. We had bronze and iron working, and contact with the continent. You had none of these. In the spirit of co-operation - and I acknowledge the other tensions which existed at the time - we made the early trade which gave parity to the military situation. And don't tell us that chariots could still have made a difference, as with mountains and jungles from coast to coast - we both knew you could not get at us.

We then signed "the trade pact", and we shared technology - by whatever means we obtained it. And we, Vox, provided contact with the continental civs. We did not hold our early advantage over you; we saw it as an investment in the future. Maybe we should have thought twice about this.

So let's review this trade arrangement, and who got what out of it. Here are the facts.
---------------------
Vox to GS:
---------------------

bronze working
iron working
warrior code
mysticism
mathematics
horseback riding
philosophy
monotheism

total - 71 research points

other -

75 gold - Lux situation
contact with GoW
contact with NeuD
contact with RP

--------------------
GS to Vox
--------------------

the wheel
alphabet
writing
literature
code of laws
republic

total - 65 research points

other-

8 gold - part of previous trade (HB Riding)
20 gold - Vox map making (still owing)

I have excluded the recent currency and construction trade - because as you will recall, we had indicated to you that we would provide these. And in fact we could have if necessary.

And you still owe us the 20 for the map-making deal - as you gave in to GoW's demand for a no-trade clause over our trade agreement, forcing us to pay for it, and then not sharing in the costs. We have asked for these funds on three separate occasions. If you would care to forward them to a neutral 3rd party, I am sure they would pass them on to us.

So, now that our starting position advantage of contact with the continent is gone, and your starting position advantage of terrain has taken hold, this treaty no longer works for you. And please spare us the talk about cancelling it with advance notice . You have already modified it once to your advantage without notice - I recall that we had little choice about it. And we have heard the snippets back from various sources about how we are no longer much of a research and trading partner - and therefore no longer needed. You were planning on dropping us soon altogether from the trade deal. And spare us the denials on this one as well. Yes - we broke the treaty, but simply before you dropped us from it.

And there was the land situation. This was a treaty reached early on, when tensions were still high. You more or less acknowledged that the split of land was not fair - but that this was the way it was going to be. You will recall the chat, Nathan. Your advantage of geographic starting position gave you the right, in your view, to claim the majority share of the land on Estonia. As we do not have a map of your land - yet - only you can tell us how fair this 'split' really is.

And there are the observers. Most of the observers, including our two, are situated near the border areas. However, GS claimed the right to have one 6 tiles inside our territory, on a mountain, and with the ability to oversee everything which moved between North and South Estonia. We have a city south of this observer. Vox was not given any reciprocal advantage of this nature. You can imagine how insulting this was to have 'big brother' watching over you.

Then there was the Lux situation. Yes - 150 gold from the Luxian treasury was provided to Vox as part of the initial city swap. And yes - you guessed it - Gathering Storm - so worried about the upset of balance of power on our continent from a barely breathing civ- demanded and was given 75 of it. You did nothing; nor contributed anything to Lux's survival. You did insist, however, that Lux could not keep any troops in the city and kept an observer to make sure that didn't happen.

I admit - from my own personal perspective - that the one strategic and moral error that Vox has made was in eliminating Lux. That is a long complex story which will come out in due time. The blood of Lux is clearly on our hands.

Then there was our attempt to settle Bob. And GS members have mentioned in the other thread how they were so supportive of our efforts and how could we forget that. Well guys, writing about it is fine - its a bit like a strat forum post. But you see when NeuD and GoW support each other - they show up with swordsmen and horsemen. At no time did you, GS, ever offer any substantive support of any kind - either militarily or monetary. Even when it was suggested that if we could obtain sufficient land - we could turn over some of our Estonian land to you.

Shiber has also mentioned these 'errors' that our team has made. Well - yes - we are a small team - none of us are builder/infrastructure specialists. But we have learned quickly. That was one of the purposes of the game, was it not. And we did not start with the expertise that GS did. That is clear to all. But if we had not put our efforts into building the road that we did, or putting a city in the far south to claim the land - I suspect we wouldn't even have that territory to work with. So, unless you were playing this game from our perspective, you might want to hold your comments about what was right or wrong for Vox to have done.

As I wrap up, I admit that the GS observer warrior did not move to our road. He was taken out where he has stood - in Voxian territory - for all these years. But heh, do you really believe everything you read in the newspaper or see on CNN?

In conclusion, if you want to know why this war is occurring, read the history from someone else's book, not just your own. And get off the moral high-ground. You have no right to be there either.

Saying that, I fully acknowledge that we will all have different perspectives on what has transpired. What is key - as Churchill said - is that history is written by the victors.

Or I guess, in this case, Trip.

And three final points.

This is a game. Let's remember that.

And our team ... We are a small, but tight team. Our members are honorable and decent folks. We are in this game, as I'm sure are all of you, to learn, yes, to try to win, but mostly to have fun. So cut the personal stuff. To insinuate that all members of Vox are dishonorable, and cannot be trusted in the future because of what we have done so far in this game is absolute nonsense. Each team is made up of individuals, all who bring different perspectives, ideas, and strengths. And each team has to play the game as they think best, given the situation they are in. If we were on Lego all by ourselves, happily building away, everyone would think we were a fine upstanding nation. But that is not the hand we were dealt. Our team decided to attack GS because we feel it is our best course of action. Pure and simple. And with all due respect - we weren't going to give you 20 turns notice.

And finally - if you have any comments on any of this - please talk to an Immortal. There is one coming soon to a neighborhood near you.

Hot_Enamel · April 9, 2003, 23:24

Mental note to self -

Never get into a war of words with Betahound in our misfits PBEM.

Dominae · April 10, 2003, 00:02

Thoughtful, poignant and well-written post, tainted slightly by the last sentence (if you're going to write a 300-word commentary, it is bad form to tell your audience to "talk to the Immortal", so to speak). I'm also not sure about all the claims concerning tech deals and such, so I'll just leave the bickering to others.

I agree that both teams have their own perspectives, yet these are entirely irrelevant now that we're at war. Frankly I'm glad war broke out (for whatever reason), as this spices up the game considerably.

And now to silence those Voices once and for all...

Dominae

Beta · April 10, 2003, 00:16

Quote:

Originally posted by Dominae
Thoughtful, poignant and well-written post, tainted slightly by the last sentence (if you're going to write a 300-word commentary, it is bad form to tell your audience to "talk to the Immortal", so to speak).

Thank-you, sir.

Yes - the last line. Well, 'bad form' was not my intent. I was trying to end on a somewhat light-hearted note. Then again - we are at war.

Dominae · April 10, 2003, 00:18

Quote:

Originally posted by BetaHound
Yes - the last line. Well, 'bad form' was not my intent. I was trying to end on a somewhat light-hearted note. Then again - we are at war.

Oh, my mistake.

nbarclay · April 10, 2003, 00:52

Frankly, I am less than impressed at grievances over a tech trade imbalance when it is unclear what accommodation might have been reached had you not declared war on us. The fact that we were unwilling to maintain a highly asymmetric relationship indefinitely in no way implies that we would have refused to take your concerns into consideration at all. Now we'll never be sure what might have happened under other circumstances.

Bringing Lux onto our continent was done without our consent, and we regarded it both as a diplomatic risk and as at least a small potential military risk. Had Lux pop rushed a defender and tried to dig in, we could have incurred some expense in dislodging them. Having risks imposed on us without compensation would have been unacceptable, and the obvious solution would have been to eliminate the risk by eliminating Lux.

Regarding where the borders were drawn, our two teams' expansion has borne out our contention that the treaty was a fair representation of the two teams' REXing power. Indeed, we are closer to finished settling our side of the border than you are to finished settling your side (and not just because you used a settler on Bob). And I might add that your lands that we had not seen at the time of the negotiations seem to be both significantly larger and more fertile than you led us to believe.

Regarding Grog, the only reason he was on the "wrong" side of one of your cities is that you founded a city ridiculously far from your core. Even today, a unit would have to cross four tiles not in anyone's cultural borders to get from your nearest other city to Dissidentville. Further, Grog was ten tiles from your capital, while you had your closest picket within seven tiles of ours. And Dissidentville itself is a mere nine tiles from our capital, but thirteen from yours, which would have been a highly advantageous military situation for you if we did not have a picket watching the road to it. As far as I'm concerned, the idea that we should have given up our ability to see an invasion in advance just because you settled a city far beyond the rest of your empire and closer to our capital than to yours was ridiculous. And I think your current invasion provides proof positive of the wisdom of our wanting an advance picket there to provide warning of impending attack. (And here I'd thought for all these centuries that we were probably being a bit paranoid.)

And finally, regarding your efforts to settle on Bob, both GoW and ND have cities twice as close to where you settled as any of ours are, and they don't have to cross water to get there. Even if we had decided that the rewards were worth a game of brinksmanship with civilizations we were trying to build positive relationships with, about all our units could have accomplished in the current time frame if it came down to war would have been to get themselves killed.

I won't claim that Gathering Storm has always been the nicest neighbor that could be asked for. We've known from the time our two civs met that we had more economic power than Vox, and thus more latent military power should we need it, and that has caused or allowed us to act in a bit more high-handed manner than we might have otherwise at times. But we did try to take Vox's needs and feelings into consideration as well and to come up with solutions we felt were fair to both sides rather than trying to insist on getting everything completely our way. Indeed, the fact that we don't have the forces to crush Vox like a bug right now is testimony to our early hopes for peace and mutal prosperity, and to our choice to focus on economic rather than military priorities.

Nathan

Aeson · April 10, 2003, 01:49

Betahound,

I just want to know.. Were you posting this in reference to anything I have said? Your post wasn't very clear in it's targetting. I dearly want to get into an argument here, but I don't know if I'm invited. It's troubling to say the least.

Harovan · April 10, 2003, 02:04

Ah screw it. This discussion is useless. Wipe them out and get over it.

nbarclay · April 10, 2003, 02:05

Oh, a couple other things for the record: we could have gotten Iron Working through our own research at very close to the same time we got it from Vox had we not reached an agreement to research other things and trade to Vox for Bronze Working and Iron working. The only real "pickle" involved would have been if Vox would (and, as it turned out, could) have betrayed us and invaded with immortals instead of carrying through on their end of the deal. As it was, the arrangement was mutually profitable for both teams, hardly a case of Vox doing us any special favor as BetaHound attempts to portray it.

And the only reason we didn't have contact with Lux was that Vox deliberately blocked us - after asserting their belief in freedom of exploration. They kept exploring for several turns while blocking us before finally deciding that their behavior was too provocative and pulling back.

Nathan

notyoueither · April 10, 2003, 02:07

nm.

Togas · April 10, 2003, 02:46

I find it interesting to hear about the history and close (and tense) relationship between these two teams. We finally get to see the skeletons in the closet of the seemingly inseperable Vox-GS tandum, and finally get to see the full scope of the relationship that had developed out of necessity ... or otherwise.

I'm glad it's out, I just hope that it's settled. I don't particularly care to read pages and pages of justifications and excuses and complaints and rants about who's guilty of what and who's at fault for what. I don't care. I don't think most of us do. There is no moral highground. This is a game where warfare is a critical and necessary aspect of attaining victory, and a good war will really make this game exciting.

I'm very excited to see how the Gathering Storm team fares in this conflict. I'm also excited to see how the upstart and unpredictable Vox conducts their battle. I just hope this doesn't turn out anything like the ND vs Lux debacle.

And maybe ... hopefully ... I'm begging you guys, can we get some news flashes from reporters who are imbedded with the troops about battles, victories, defeats, captures, etc? Maybe each side can bring forward an Information Minister who can give us their version of the story and post images, answer questions, and give "official" death counts and so forth.

--Togas

Hot_Enamel · April 10, 2003, 03:04

Is it too soon to create a

"If Gathering Storm gets wiped out, do the other teams get to peek at their forum? " thread ?

GoW wants first draft picks when GS gets wiped out.

j/k

Thrumble · April 10, 2003, 03:07

Quote:

Originally posted by BetaHound
And get off the moral high-ground. You have no right to be there either.

Is that the name of the mountain Grog "fell" off of?

redstar1 · April 10, 2003, 04:20

Quote:

while you had your closest picket within seven tiles of ours. And Dissidentville itself is a mere nine tiles from our capital, but thirteen from yours, which would have been a highly advantageous military situation for you if we did not have a picket watching the road to it.

So now they know where your capital is?

Harovan · April 10, 2003, 04:24

They know it anyway, since they opened an embassy. Which btw also revealed to us their far superior start position.

FrustratedPoet · April 10, 2003, 05:07

@ this whole thread.

Get a grip guys, for god's sake.

Tiberius · April 10, 2003, 05:39

but ... but... I don't want to get a grippe

Beta · April 10, 2003, 08:35

Quote:

Originally posted by notyoueither
nm.

??? never mind??

Beta · April 10, 2003, 08:39

Quote:

Originally posted by nbarclay
The fact that we were unwilling to maintain a highly asymmetric relationship

as we did in the early game???

Quote:

I won't claim that Gathering Storm has always been the nicest neighbor that could be asked for. We've known from the time our two civs met that we had more economic power than Vox, and thus more latent military power should we need it, and that has caused or allowed us to act in a bit more high-handed manner than we might have otherwise at times.

exactly.

Beta · April 10, 2003, 08:39

Quote:

Originally posted by FrustratedPoet

@ this whole thread.

Get a grip guys, for god's sake.

I agree with Tiberius - that would be no fun.

FrustratedPoet · April 10, 2003, 09:04

Quote:

Originally posted by BetaHound
??? never mind??

Yeah, NYE obviously posted something, and then thought better of it and edited out the text.

Shiber · April 10, 2003, 09:19

A question to BetaHound: what were you hoping to achieve by posting straight lies (e.g. Grog blocking a road) and obvious misinterpretations of the truth (us building a "military road" that's leading to a city site that we've agreed on more than a thousand years ago)?
A question to all of Vox: why did you keep lying to us, saying that much of the land that you have had north of the isthmus was desert, when in fact there's only one tile of desert there, and about half of the rest is grasslands, hills and a mountain? Weren't you also trying to achieve an advantage during the distribution of land, pretending to be the underdog, while you actually had a better start location than ours?
Do you think it was "moral" to completely neglect your research (not founding new cities nor investing in workers but instead putting most or all of your efforts into military), while you had a "share all techs" agreement with Gathering Storm? And would you really expect Gathering Storm to continue such an agreement with the civilization that is ranked at last place in GNP?

Do you think it was "moral" to lie to Gathering Storm from the start about almost every issue? What is "moral" in your eyes, anyway?

Thrumble · April 10, 2003, 09:27

Quote:

Originally posted by Shiber
, while you actually had a better start location than ours?

I notice that your team members alway state that "they had a better start postion" not that they have better land area. It appears painfully obvious that your team currently has far superior territory as you yourself have stated that Vox can no longer match even a fraction of your production or research ability.

Why do you continue to attack them for their start position which they had no control over while you appear to horde the choice land in the game and allow no one to glimpse or come near it?

Shiber · April 10, 2003, 09:39

I'd like to add to the GS POV by commenting on an issue that was neglected by some respected teammates of mine.

Quote:

Originally posted by BetaHound
I have excluded the recent currency and construction trade - because as you will recall, we had indicated to you that we would provide these.

Correction: you did not indicate to us that you would provide those techs. We found a deal for those two techs, and at the time when it appeared that our deal for Currency and Construction was nearing finalization, I contacted Jon Miller, which happened to be logged on to the 'Poly IRC server the same time I was, and informally mentioned to him that we have found means to provide these techs. Jon said, and I quote, "that's very generous of you", and then mentioned that Vox also had means of acquiring these techs. IIRC, it was later decided that we would provide these techs.

In your math, you chose to neglect Currency and Construction, which are worth 36 tech points, and found that GS contributed 6 less tech points than Vox did. You conveniently removed Currency and Construction from the list, which are worth half of every tech that Vox has ever passed to GS through our tech agreement. 36 tech points is also 6 times the gap between what GS has given and what Vox has given, according to your "creative math". This means that even if Currency and Construction were worth as little as one sixth of their regular worth to Vox (which is a great understatement), we are even.

Harovan · April 10, 2003, 09:43

Quote:

Originally posted by Thrumble
I notice that your team members alway state that "they had a better start postion" not that they have better land area. It appears painfully obvious that your team currently has far superior territory as you yourself have stated that Vox can no longer match even a fraction of your production or research ability.

Why do you continue to attack them for their start position which they had no control over while you appear to horde the choice land in the game and allow no one to glimpse or come near it?

1 - there's a thing called terrain improvement. It can be done right (favoring growth where it's possible) or onesided (just mining everything, not chopping game forest, not irrigating where it makes sense, etc.). The latter case will make more shields in the moment, the former case both more shields and gold on the long run, because you will have more and bigger cities

2 - the terrain around the capital is crucial. The capital is mostly the only settler producer for at least the first 50 turns, often even more. The faster it grows, the more settlers and workers it can build, because settlers and workers need lots of food to be horded. More settlers = more cities. More workers = better terrain. Less of both = more shields in the moment, but much less on the long run.

Shiber · April 10, 2003, 09:52

Quote:

Originally posted by Thrumble
It appears painfully obvious that your team currently has far superior territory as you yourself have stated that Vox can no longer match even a fraction of your production or research ability.

The unmistakable advantage that GS has over Vox in all aspects of production results from Vox's neglect of development. Instead of building new cities, they built units; instead of using their workers to improve their lands, they used them for colonies and long roads that stretch throughout areas outside their cultural borders. Add to that some devastating mistakes, such as wasting settlers on corrupt cities or on founding West Wittlich, which they had to turn away to GoW, and Vox's weakness compared to us comes as no surprise.

Edit: Sir Ralph's post better stresses the main reasons for Vox's disparity.

Arrian · April 10, 2003, 09:59

Beta reminds me of the Iraqi Minister of Information.

-Arrian

HarryH · April 10, 2003, 10:06

Quote:

Bringing Lux onto our continent was done without our consent, and we regarded it both as a diplomatic risk and as at least a small potential military risk. Had Lux pop rushed a defender and tried to dig in, we could have incurred some expense in dislodging them. Having risks imposed on us without compensation would have been unacceptable, and the obvious solution would have been to eliminate the risk by eliminating Lux.

The Lux situation happened very fast. We barely had any time to discuss it amoungst ourselves. What we provided to Lux was entirely within our territory and used our resources. Once the risk was gone, why didn't you give some of the compensation back?

Quote:

But we did try to take Vox's needs and feelings into consideration as well and to come up with solutions we felt were fair to both sides rather than trying to insist on getting everything completely our way.

You mean the suggestion that Vox send gold to GS so Vox would be like, how did I read it in the early chat log, a "free Forbidden Palace" for GS was considering our needs and feelings?

It's history now. The deed has been done based on perceptions (whether right or wrong.). Now its time to get back to planning our two front war.

Jon Shafer · April 10, 2003, 10:09

You guys are worse than Lux and ND.

At least our sparring in the forums was all for jest. Everyone knows war in one form or another is only a matter of time, and the only thing to be determined is under what circumstances.

So let's just settle this on the battlefield.

Arrian · April 10, 2003, 10:14

Again, says the guy whose team folded like a house of cards.

Anyway, the only reason I've been arguing at all is Vox's attempt (by Beta) to place blame for this war on GS by flat out lying (the initial claims of cutting roads and such).

I don't have a problem with warfare. Vox attacked us, hoping to conquer us. That's fine, no big deal. But doing that and trying to convince the rest of the teams that GS actually picked the fight? That's a charge I feel we have to counter.

After all, if a lie is repeated enough, somebody may start to believe it, particularly if nobody else speaks up about the truth.

-Arrian