Spite and Malice.... - Page 8

UnOrthOdOx · August 28, 2003, 12:48

Oh RP and GoW was the most Logical conclusion, I agree whole heartedly.

Logic doesn't mean much when facing human opponents, though, as is painfully obvious by now.

Harovan · August 28, 2003, 12:59

Quote:

Originally posted by GhengisFarb
Fine then let their be a feud between us. Whenever one my kin sees one of your kin blood with flow!

Yea, sure, whatever.

Panzer32 · August 28, 2003, 13:30

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian
That's the other part I couldn't figure out. I couldn't figure out why they caved. EDIT: to clarify - I didn't understand going through the effort of putting together then landing force, complete with settler (settlers still being a pretty big deal at that time), and then leave w/o a fight. There was some compensation involved, IIRC, for Port Isolation, but it still doesn't make sense to me.
-Arrian

You mean a couple of horsemen to land on GS shores right beside an undefended city?

Shiber · August 28, 2003, 13:30

Take it easy Sir Ralph, it's good ol' GiggisFart.

GhengisFarb™ · August 28, 2003, 13:32

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian
I know, Ghengis. DAR = During Action Report.

We aren't in the middle of 3000 BC, it as already happened so its an AFTER Action Review.

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian
Well, we looked at the map and saw GoW & RP hitting ND. Didn't happen, did it?

That's what we saw, but the whole breakdown and generation of hostilities over that scouting/trade deal caused to make a decision on who we felt was the more reliable ally.

Shiber · August 28, 2003, 13:33

I thought they paid for that.
And it didn't turn out to be so undefended, did it?

Arrian · August 28, 2003, 13:37

Quote:

You mean a couple of horsemen to land on GS shores right beside an undefended city?

It only looked undefended. I have some artifacts from those two horse regiments lying around somewhere in Arashi...

-Arrian

Theseus · August 28, 2003, 14:44

Hilarious interview, Vondrack.

Donegeal · August 28, 2003, 14:45

[Roleplay voice] (hmm... kinda ironic as I type that...)
So now you keep the dead corpse of my son as a "sideshow" in one of your cities?!?!?! I SPIT in your general direction! Give these "artifacts" back at once!!!
[/Roleplay voice]

Did you guys really get a GL from attacking Mad King Donegeal?

Arrian · August 28, 2003, 14:48

No, I think that was some poetic license on my part a while back. It just seemed to fit, given that we used the GL on Sun Tzu and ST is Chinese. The GL came from the death of a Voxian unit.

Vondrack! That was good. Nathan isn't that much like Spock, though

-Arrian

notyoueither · August 28, 2003, 14:59

I don't see an interview by vondrack.

UnOrthOdOx · August 28, 2003, 15:02

SPIN, nye.

vondrack · August 28, 2003, 15:05

Guys... I posted an interview made by someone else... praise Crystal Clear, whoever it is, not me...

I wish I had this much talent to make things funny...

Donegeal · August 28, 2003, 15:43

we wish you did too...

Arnelos · August 28, 2003, 17:02

For the record...

I have found negotiations with Gathering Storm incredibly easy. There are typically multiple GS people online and in chat much of the time and it has been a breeze over the past month to conduct negotiations with them about getting invovled in the Bobian War and all of the joint work done since then.

All this mess about Gathering Storm being hard to negotiate is hogwash. Yes they operate on the basis of consenses and I had to wait around while they approved each stage of negotiations sometimes, but being patient doesn't hurt THAT much.

The team that's been hard to negotiate with because they are infrequently online in chat is Legoland. I really like Legoland and I was the RP ambassador to them for much of our early history when we had spectacular relations (with the two leaders of the DIA in the SPDG doing the talking between the teams, it helped relations), but I have to admit it's been much harder since I got back from several months absense.

The main reason why GS was given such a signficant presence on Bob, aside from the fact that Legoland wouldn't accept our cities regardless, was that it's just been harder to conduct negotiations with Legoland when the saves are going by at one every 2-3 days with major changes in events and it's been difficult to find someone from Lego in chat during that timespan. If Legoland had pursued more of a supportive role with us, we certainly wouldn't have been in such a corner where we felt so forced to give Gathering Storm anything and everything they wanted in return for aid.

We got lucky that Gathering Storm decided to be so incredibly gracious for having the upper hand, but teams other than Gathering Storm could certainly have taken advantage of us being backed into a corner with nowhere else to turn, a position which GoW and ND put us in to the potential advantage of non-Bobian civs.

That said, this situation is certainly far from over. It's still entirely possible for various civs to gain some level of advantage over the other Bobian civs from our open willingness to provide it.

GhengisFarb™ · August 28, 2003, 17:07

Really? I can't think of anytime I haven't gotten a reply back from Lego or ND in less than 45 minutes.

BigFree · August 28, 2003, 17:41

Quote:

Originally posted by Shiber
I understand H_E.
One thing though: what made you think that there was any trust between GoW and GS? Perhaps you could trust our word (except when you were obviously trying to manipulate us to fall into your plans for eventually winning the game, as it became apparent to GS during the GS-GoW-ND chat), but what made you think that we could trust yours? After breaking every single deal and even crossing the red line of showing us fake screenshots (which we actually paid for)... well, some of us were angry at GoW, but we had plenty of rational reasons why not to trust your team.
Or maybe I just misunderstood you?

I don't like this part; it seems to go against the general fairness of the game. Not allowing doctored screens shots should have been one of the first rules established.

Panzer32 · August 28, 2003, 18:03

why? IRL, people give others false information all the time!

Harovan · August 28, 2003, 18:10

True, and if they get busted, nobody trusts them anymore. But oh well, your shots were actually so dilettantish doctored, that it wasn't hard to see.

DeepO · August 28, 2003, 18:15

Actually, they were better then I could have doctored them... still not good enough though

Oh, and we only got 4 doctored screenshots, while we paid for 5. I guess they became too hard to make

DeepO

Theseus · August 28, 2003, 18:19

Actually, I've always wondered whose idea the doctored screenshots were... Trip?

DeepO · August 28, 2003, 18:25

what I found at least as entertaining at the time was the comment from RP(?) that they were shown a screenshot of a stack of 43 immortals, when our analysis showed a maximum of 25 immortals for Vox (and in reality it was closer to 20). I still don't know if it was RP bending the thruth, or if they too were victims of photopainted screenshots

DeepO

GhengisFarb™ · August 28, 2003, 18:35

Quote:

Originally posted by DeepO
what I found at least as entertaining at the time was the comment from RP(?) that they were shown a screenshot of a stack of 43 immortals, when our analysis showed a maximum of 25 immortals for Vox (and in reality it was closer to 20). I still don't know if it was RP bending the thruth, or if they too were victims of photopainted screenshots

43? It started out as 3 but they appear to have used some algorithim to increase the number every time they discussed it amongst their team.

DeepO · August 28, 2003, 18:38

well, don't quote me on that, I'm not certain of either the number or the team. I thought it was 43, it could also have been 47. And I thought someone from RP mentioned it, but it could also have been someone from GoW. It still left us puzzled, though

Actually, I thought at the time you lended your services to Vox as well, it sounded something for you to make a stack of 3 into 43

DeepO

GhengisFarb™ · August 28, 2003, 19:10

Quote:

Originally posted by DeepO
Actually, I thought at the time you lended your services to Vox as well, it sounded something for you to make a stack of 3 into 43

DeepO

That would have been a HUGE stack O names.........

Beta · August 28, 2003, 22:51

*Beta sits in his lawn chair, drinking beer and watching the show. He reaches down for a new beer. Pop. Then he starts to count on his fingers ...*

" one, two , three, ......thirty-four, thirty-five. Yup, thirty-five immortals. All of you were wrong."

Beta · August 28, 2003, 23:35

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian
Hmm, methinks we need a Voxian in here!

I don't think they intended to hit us all along. I guess the Bobian adventure was a probe - to see how you guys would respond. The response was vehement (in words, anyway), and so they backed off, and picked an easier target.

-Arrian

A Voxian has arrived.

You are right. We did not intend all along to hit you. the GS plan - Immortal Beloved - grew out of our calculations (fears) that going 1 against 3 on Bob would not end well for Vox. In retrospect - who knows. (If everyone wants to go back and restart the game from that point - that would be fine by us.

)

GOW and Vox had some discussions. Some other ideas were put on the table. And, we at Vox had some decisions to make. In revisiting the key thread which discussed it, HarryH had the best summary (as usual).

Quote:

I think our situation comes down to this:

1.We pull back from Bob and stay in our half of Estonia while keeping our tech agreement in place with GS. This will leave us as a last rate power. Assuming someone doesn't think we are an easy target and that we last to the end of the game, we would need all the other civs to make some serious mistakes for us to win the game.

2. We fortify on Bob and fight it out. This will be very costly. We will continue to be the bottom civ looking for a lucky chance to win.

3. We take fate into our own hands, pay our homage to The One, attack GS and hope for the best. If we fail we will be the second civ to leave the game. If we succeed, and also help to take out RP, we will have removed two of the top contenders from the game and put us into position to be a contender.

4. We find another option for expansion. At this time I don't see one, unless GS and Lego are suddenly willing to help us against the Bob civs. They have given no indication of that yet.

Possible 4:
We leave our friendship with GS in tack. We agree to help GoW against RP in exchange for the land to settle the 5 cities on Bob. The five city sites would be Ost south of the cow plus B1, B2, B4, and B5 from the pic I sent last night. This still leaves GS in a leadership position and a future obstacle to our winning.

So, I hope Harry and my fellow Voxians don't mind me sharing a bit of our archives for the AAR. I don't think this reveals any deep, dark secrets that someone hasn't figured out yet.

Subsequent to choosing Option 3, we still had considerable debate over whether it was the right way to go. Again in retrospect, we should have made a qucik decision and gone with what we had - well before the middle ages and feudalism. We waited for more warriors and Immortals, where I think fewer, but sooner, would have had more impact.

Ah, history. Ain't it great!

Master Zen · August 29, 2003, 01:45

Ok, I think it's time for a little intevention on my part to dispell some of the myths and misunderstandings (and dare I say lies) that some of you have made.

first at foremost,

@Vel

I can't help but notice how your sudden return has been dipped a little in propaganda sauce which of course, is not surprising. However, twisting the truth using analogies claiming that GS came to the rescue of RP almost in a valiant and disinterested way is far too naive to expect anyone outside of GS or RP to believe. Let's face it. GS went with whoever offered the biggest pie of Bob to you and the survival of RP only interests GS insofar as 1) it allows GS to carve a niche on the continent 2) preserves the balance of power on Bob. All are of course perfectly rational excuses since this is after all a game we all expect to win. However, to go off claiming all this was done for some ulterior benevolent reason is hogwash. GS like any other teams cares little if we and our buddies vandalized another's home as long as you get to keep part of the garden.

Second, on the topic of gifting of cities was perfectly normal and should not have pissed us off, what would you have thought if Vox suddenly gifted all its cities right after the Incon/off landings? Would you not consider that a blatant act of aggression and deceit by the nation who would have pulled it off? So, you expect GoW's reaction to accepting Spain's proposal to be any different? It should be more than obvious that GoW and ND decided to carve out Bob for ourselves. Why? Because neither of us trusted Roleplay enough to have allied with them. What some of the RPers like Togas and Arnelos fail completely to understand to this day is why we allied with those who seemed to be our natural enemies. The reason is simple: we never felt cheated nor betrayed, nor sensed distrust by ND. Both of our teams have been in positions to massively betray and backstab each other, ND by physically possesing our source of iron could have had our head on a silver platter more than once. We could have wiped them off the face of the earth after getting Chivalry first. Would we have trusted Roleplay under those circumstances? Hell no.

Finally in response to our claims that we would rather die than see GS win, it is true. We felt betrayed by GS more than by any other team and we understood that GS had a higher chance of winning this game along with Lego. So, if you can't win, you try and get your enemy not to. RP has not acted much differently. Their hatred of GoW is just as great, and FYI, they were not too fond at the thought of GS winning either. Yet they also gave in simply for the sake of us not getting what we wanted. I understand you and some of your teammates feel there was a great deal of animosity towards GS by this attitude and that somehow that translates to animostiy towards GS members as individuals. I have said time and again that most of us don't feel that way. Some of you still don't believe it. Frankly, I'm at the point where I don't really care about that since for what I've seen a great deal of GSers understood the difference between team and person just as I have never felt offended at all the crap that's been dished out at GoW.

@Arnelos

The "miscalculation" that you claim is nothing more than losing a simple bet. We bet on GS not invervening, we lost that bet. Why a bet? Because frankly we were NEVER in the position to offer a piece of the pie as big as RP in their desperation would. RP would have (and probably did) sell all but their souls for not being destroyed. Could we or ND have offered anything even remotely comparable? Hell no. Sure, it was good negotiation on behalf of RP since being on Bob is ultimately what GS always wanted, but no matter how well we could have negotiated, ultimately, RP would have won for the simple reason that they had more to offer, since they had much less to lose (sounds ironic...)

As for your two principal aspects that "define GoW":

1. If we seem to assume someone on our shitlist is so strongly disliked by everyone else, you seem rather confident in also assuming that they aren't. Oh and don't forget that the public animosity between RP and GS goes waaaaaaaay back. You really want me to hunt down the old Togas vs. nye discussions in this very public forum, claiming the same arrogance on their behalf that now is put in our mouths?

2. How little you know GoW, and just goes to show how twisted your own propaganda-biased vision of our team is. We are here to win just as everyone else is, and if we can't win, we're here to make our enemies lose. Is that not so much different than RP's rhetoric in it's death throes?

And now you praise ND afterwards for their cold logic. I guess in your mind GoW is the evil mastermind behind all things sinister in this game. Yes, Imperial City in your mind really looks like Mordor and you and your valliant allies are here battling the infidel orcs and Nazgul who are trouncing and looting your villages. Nice propaganda there Arnie, shame avatars are still down because frankly I'd love to see Aggie sport the Sauron avatar I just made for him the other day (among others). So suddenly RP's treachery, deciet and lies value for nothing as they are a team that is about to be wiped out, hence the victim of agression, hence "the good guys" while those offshore opportunists are the valiant allies coming to the resuce.

Please tell me honestly if you think anyone outside of RP and GS believe that.

Ultimately what was a joint attack on you for the purely logical reason that neither ND or GoW trusted RP because of past actions, whereas ND and GoW trusted each other also because of past actions. It's the past Arnelos, which has come to haunt you, in the form of Ansars and Riders. Instead of preaching our miscalculations and which team has better logic or not, just think a little about the diplomatic mistakes RP has made and how that has led to such an unlikely alliance to gang up on you for much more logical and untreacherous reasons that you and some of your teammates would like to believe.

(although I must admit, good vs evil battles make for fun propaganda battles, but taking it seriously is just a sign of naivety)

... to be continued...

Master Zen · August 29, 2003, 01:45

Finally... (and boy was this a long rant), it's a shame that RL prevents me from being as involved these weeks as I have been in the past. However, I have to admit that when I first joined GoW around March IIRC I came in with a clean slate in regards to personal and team grudges. The animosity that my teammates felt towards RP was not shared, in fact, it was and isn't shared by me since I am friends of Togas, Arnelos, BF and others from the ISDG and GhengisFarb will flinch at me saying that they are wonderful people, wonderful teammates, and wonderful opponents. To have had to plot against them hurt me dearly but I had to admit, ND was a great team to deal with and rationally I must say that even taking animosity aside, I would have gladly allied with them any day.

On the other hand, negotiating with GS was like negotiating with a brick wall. Ever since trying to get them to agree to the NAP took countless chats and had UnO and me pulling our hair more than once. That we actually got the NAP was in my eyes close to a miracle. This is not meant to be an insult to GS at all, I'm sure it was their diplomatic stance to be wary of bonding so strongly with one particular nation. A conflict of interests it was, that was overcome ultimately by patience and understading. A similar deal was being negotiated with GS in regards to them intervening on our side against RP taking advantage of certain public displayes of animosity between the two just before that. We held our first 3-way chat (ND-GoW-GS) discussing the issue of a Stormian presence on Bob. It was rough as usual, and no agreement was made yet we promisted to continue discussing. Us being the parties that had the least interested position regarding a GS presence, it was more than logical that we would have started with the MOST advantageous proposal to us, which was a limited prescence (3 cites) in exchange for a limited involvement. We promised to keep discussing this weekly until an agreement was made. Just a few days later the cities were gifted and all that planning went to hell as obviously GS was in dire need of that land for "security reasons" (so as to prevent an invasion of GS by the bobians... hahahaha... as if invasions also couldn't work both ways).

Ultimately the failure was the we were not willing and in retrospect STILL wouldn't have been willing to offer so much land as RP offered them. That was unsurprising. What did surprise us was that this came off so soon in the war, when we thought that RP really had a fighting chance at first before our GA's kicked in full gear.

Why were we so pissed at GS? Because they switched sides so easily and so without warning while we were still expecting talks to continue. Because they in spite of that refused passage to our troops knowing well that was a blatant act of agression. We were more than willing to respect the gifted cities had GS not interfered with our war. The moment they did, the NAP was moot and war started. Plus, their little message to ND was practically a declaration of war in its own right, not a very diplomatic move if you ask me, and was THE main reason why ND didn't give a hoot and took Salamanca while it was undefended. That was IMO the military turning point in the war since we though RP was going to make a stand in those two cities which seemed so well defended. Taking salamanca was like leaving the door open. ND took the opportunity knowing that GS was practically at war with them already because of that note, and GS refusing passage of our troops made us righfully ditch the NAP.

So, you expect us NOT to feel a little animosity had all this happened to you guys?

Shiber · August 29, 2003, 01:57

MZ,

Have you been reading every 5th post in the latest threads or what?