Anyone interested in a conquests PBEM. I'm open for any suggestions as far as settings. No drop outs, only respond if you intend to play the game through and will try to play each turn w/in 24 hours.

I would be interested. No preference on settings here also. I've never dropped out of a PBEM game, (But have only completed 3).

rubberjello at Yahoo.com

I'm interested as well - I just got C3C and have never tried playing humans before, so it should be interesting :)

I'll play at least one turn per day and will stay in..

gonzo a-t newmail d-o-t dk

Perhaps a small or tiny map would be best? Some mountains too..

Any objections to including AI civs if we don't get too many more to join. I'd like to have at least 6 players, with only half at most being AI, would prefer no AI if enough players join.

I'm fine with a couple of AIs.. Is there a standard difficulty level they're set to with PBEM? The only thing I'm lobbying for is that the map is kept small :)

You can change the difficulty level, thinking of setting it to monarch or higher to keep the AI in the game, prevent it from being exploited too easily, especially since it will be competing against more than one human.

I would like a small map with 8 players.

I'd love to play in this one. I've been in a dozen and have never dropped.

If I may choose a new race to play, I'll take the Maya.

What would you guys think of each of us having a locked alliance with an AI? We could each pick our civ & the civ of the AI we are allied w/. We could go w/ either team victory or individual whichever is preferred.

If everyone wants to do this then we all need to choose civs. Then after everyone chooses their civ we choose are allied's civ in reverse order to be fair. Since playboy called Maya first, that would mean he has to wait until last to choose his partner's civ.

What do you guys think?

That would be interesting.
I would like the Dutch or the Byzantines, please.
As for 6 players - I don't know. Each player you add extends the game out another few months, and adds the probablility that the game may eventually fail.

More players could also make the game stop more often if someone is away.. either way I'll go for anything since this is my first multiplayer :D

I would like to be the Celts.

I've got to agree that more players significantly slow down the game. It looks like we have four which strikes a good balance between size and speed of the game. Personally, I don't care for the idea of locking an allaince with the AI, but I'll go along with the group vote.

Okay, this is what I have so far:

rubberjello: rubberjello@yahoo.com
Dutch
Pacific Time, evenings

ironduck: gonzo a-t newmail d-o-t dk (sorry for earlier)
Celts

playboy: Maya


This is what I need:

playboy: e-mail

I'm going to take Persia

Also need from everyone:
-timezone & time available to play
-any last minute requests for settings

If I get all the information will try to start this today or tomorrow

Hi predesad, could you edit my email so it doesn't show with the @ and . ? I try to keep my email spamfree, and robots trawl the web for mail addresses to deliver spam to.. thanks

Btw, I'm indifferent as to the locked alliance, but I do vote for starting now if there's a vote for that :D

okay, if you're indoffferent and playboy is against i'll leave it out. As soon as I get playboy's email it's a go.

until then, last chance to request any settings. As it is I'm thinking of sticking in two AI civs in to make 6 civs on a small map (prefer no tiny) with difficulty emporer & raging barbarians.

Sounds good to me :D - should we zip the files before sending?

i dont really care, i have cable internet, but if anyone is on dialup it would make it easier for them to download the attachment, guess it depends on if anyone is on dialup

DSL here, I guess if someone wants it zipped, only the person prior in the chain needs to zip it..

Bracing myself for raging barbies :eek:

true, if anyone wants / needs the file zipped let the person ahead of u know when the game starts.

i always play w/ raging barbs when i play the epic game.

Dutch then.
Zipping is just a hassle for the first 50 turns of the game. The file is so small anyways - it takes an extra two file steps to keep it in zip format when your turn only takes 20 seconds to play anyway - not worth it.

Please make note of all the game settings and publish them when you kick off the game please. :)

Evenings, Pacific Time Zone are best, but I can occasionally play from work during the day also, depending upon the workload. :D

My email is: mvmcauliffe at cox dot net

I live in Fabulous Las Vegas, in the PST. From past experience, I recommend setting the game order to move in a westward direction around the planet.

I prefer a map that is NOT archipelago, and I like offbeat worlds:
Dagobah - hot, wet, young
Hoth - cold, wet, old
Arrakis - hot, dry old
Vulcan - hot, dry, young

or for a real nightmare game:
Rura Penthe - cold, dry, young

Beyond that, I've found the best games on small maps are with large continents.

I have cable modem access.

I live in Denmark GMT +1, mostly around in the late evening and night.. since I do a lot of computer work it's easy for me to take a quick turn.. Rest assured I'll try to be quick to take my turns.

Game has started & sent to rubberjello

Game Settings:
Small World, 6 players, 2AI random, Raging Barbarians, Large Continents

Normal World

I chose a normal world to keep pace of game going, hard worlds might slow down game, IMHO

Accelerated Production

to speed up the pace obviously

Monarch difficulty

wanted emporer to benefit AI, but that difficulty has only one content citizen, combine one content citizen w/ accelerated production & we would very quickly be moving our sliders, converting citizens to specialists, etc which might slow down the pace

All victory conditions allowed except domination

in the tiny / small games I have played, if I had domination & conquest as victory conditions, it's not really possible to get the conquest victory because you automatically get the domination victory on your way to taking out the last civ, IMHO the domination victory is cheap, just because that civ is smaller isnt a given I can take him out, plus there's just something about needing to take every last city if that's the victory type I'm shooting for, maybe I'm just obsessed

cultural conversions on, preserve random seed, no culturally linked starts, no respawn

Complete Order of play:
Persia (predesad)
Dutch (rubberjello)
Hittite (AI)
Maya (playboy)
Celts (ironduck)
India (AI)

AI civs were set to random and spaced evenly between the human players

If at least two players complain that settings are not okay i will restart once provided the game is no more than 2 turns in; or if two players dont have 'acceptable' starting locations (not great, but acceptable) i will agree to restart.

Is accellerated production a doubling of the shields?

Originally posted by ironduck
Is accellerated production a doubling of the shields?
Well, technically no. But the effect is the same. The cost of all builds in terms of shield cost is halved, as well as food for pop growth. (twice as fast to produce something, twice as fast pop growth).
Many PBEM games use this option. But it kind of throws all my (your) hard-learned growth and Micro-management tricks that you have learned in single-play out the window (sorta).

We're on our way! Game sent on to Playboy. Shouldn't we have some sort of policy of acknowledging the send for each turn so the game isn't dropped by an email snarl?

Played and passed! Good luck to all. My starting position is less than ideal, but I can live with it :)

I will send acknowledgement of receipt of game to the player before me.

Played and passed! :goodjob:

Ooh the excitement of first multiplayer.. I hope I don't get wiped out within the first 10 turns :D

I think I'll just whine if I haven't received my turn for a while ;)

Don't worry. It'll probably take 50 turns to wipe you out :D

Oh I feel all better now then :D - heck, that should be several weeks of playing!

Btw, I sent round 3 to predesad two hours ago, maybe we'll make three turns the first day?

That would be great progress indeed. Maybe the nomadic Dutch will settle down and found a city one of these centuries!

Founding cities ain't all it's cracked up to be! - you just keep wandering around a bit yet, I promise I won't hurt you if I meet your nomadic tribe ;)

wow guys, i'm thoroughly impressed. i started the game late last night central time, went to bed, got up, went to dr appointment, come home abd there was turn two waiting on me. If that wasn't enough, I go out to eat with the family, do a little shopping, take oldest son to in laws to stay the weekend, come home to watch the Peach Bowl, and Bamm! there's turn three waiting on me. However, I hate to spoil the fun, but I'm having server difficulties (internet would be great if it wasnt for those servers) I managed to download & play my turn but I cant attach & email the file. I have to continually hit refresh because I get 'Cannot find server' errors, to do anything online. Attaching / emailing is like a 5 step process on yahoo and if I get an error I have to start all over from the beginning. Tried all during the Peach Bowl, (which was the highlight of the evening considering UT's disappointing showing) and it's just not going through. I'll try a little later, but will probably be morning.

hey, i dont wanna slow down the game, so all of you guys just send me your passwords & turn instructions & i'll take your turns for you. i'll follow your instructions exactly and ... you're not going for this are you? :cry:

well fine, i dont need your passwords because i got the file to go through so :p

Shouldn't we have some sort of policy of acknowledging the send for each turn so the game isn't dropped by an email snarl

that's a good idea, either an email reply or a post in the forum, as a courtesy would be nice

Is accellerated production a doubling of the shields?

in addition to what rubberjello said, cost of advances is also halved so EVERYTHING proceeds twice as fast.

But it kind of throws all my (your) hard-learned growth and Micro-management tricks that you have learned in single-play out the window (sorta).

i dont particularly like AP because u do have to rethink your micromanagement strategies, tinker w/ them a little, plus, IMHO, it can give you a false sense of growth security

It'll probably take 50 turns to wipe you out

nah, bet i can nab him in 40 :lol:
(predesad is now hoping he's still around himself after 40 turns)

Maybe the nomadic Dutch will settle down and found a city

no, no, that's not necessary at all. u CAN win w/ just a settler & a worker, here's how:

1)fortify settler
2)start building roads w/ worker until you get to Persia
3)the king of Persia will take care of the rest ;)

I appreciate the courtesy of sending a 'got it' note, I just figured that after a while I would forget whether I received one for my own send anyway, so I was just going to ring a bell in email/forum if the game seemed to be stalled.. but if you (I guess that's you playboy :) ) want me to send a note I'll try to remember it.

Accellerated production sounds like tech will progress at a breakneck speed. I understand speeding up email games, but it's a bit of a shame with the fast tech IMHO.. I always felt it went too fast in standard rules, but maybe that's just because I much favour the first two ages and they pass by so quickly when playing the AI. By the time railroad is built out all the strategy and decision making feels futile. As a fun example of the age pre railroads, I'm playing Rome in the Rise of Rome Conquest right now (I only just got C3C) and it's a constant struggle switching troops back and forth between northern and southern Italy as I'm attacked on both fronts (Carthago MUST be destroyed!). I'm having a blast with it - if there were railroads it would just feel mindless and mechanical to me.. The dead-end tech trees on these early conquests scenarios are perfect for me.

Have the nomad Dutch found themselves an oasis yet?

Oh yes. The Dutch are quite happy now. Thanks for asking!
Coast+River+Cow+Wheat+Silks :D Nothing but the best for the Dutch! *hehehe*
(I only wish those lazy sods were Industrious!)

Rise of Rome is fun (and challenging). It is pretty difficult to get the required population before time runs out (unless you are Persia). Look at the RBC3a, RBC3b, RBC3c, and RBC3d threads in the Succession Games forum to see what's in store for you.

Ah, I'm happy the dutch found a little paradise - I hope without too many barbies.. I fear these raging hordes I have heard mutterings of amongst my people.

Rise of Rome is indeed challenging, and very fun because the AI so recklessly make peace and war on the slightest whim, they cannot easily be manipulated. I prefer to not read about the conquests as I like to explore them myself - they're a lot more fun than I expected!

I fear these raging hordes I have heard mutterings of amongst my people

the mighty Persian populace is growing restless, I can barely contain them from rushing into the unknown to strike down those savage villages, alas I must consent & send out a band of ruthless warriors, almost as uncivilized as the barbarians themselves

(if you've never played w/ raging barbarians, my advice is to go find them before they find you, or one morning you wake up and look out the palace window to find a stack of 20 barbarians licking their chops while your lonely two spearman tremble with fear so bad they drop their shields)

What are these spearmen of which you speak? They sound useless!

Btw, what are the numbers next to the names? I thought they were point scores, but if the Dutch have settled, why is their score still below 40? It looked like settling gave 40 points.. is that related to the time so the later the less it's worth?

those numbers are the score for each player. i just played my turn & if i remember correctly both the Persians & the Dutch have a lower score than everyone else, and everyone else's score is the same. the reason being that like the dutch, i did not build a city on my first turn. i dont know exactly how score works, but i think its something like you get a score for every turn and then all those scores are averaged for your final score as opposed to having a running total, therefore if everything proceeded equally, we would never catch up in score to the rest of the world.

Originally posted by ironduck
What are these spearmen of which you speak? They sound useless!

I think he was only refering to Persian Spearmen, whose skill at dropping shields and weapons is only rivaled by a few cultures who so quickly disappeared from world history that no one bothered recording their names. ;)

Score? Bah! Simply a mechanism for the "leaders" to get a false since of security before they find a Stack of Doom in their backyards!
:D

The score IS an average score. Nice pace of game so far :)

he was refering to Persian Spearmen, whose skill at dropping shields and weapons is only rivaled by a few cultures

That is correct, the Persian Spearman are very well known for skillfully dropping their shields / weapons ... because all of our men, anxious for the taste of blood, enlist in our mighty armies of Immortals and head to the battlefield in times of war, leaving our cities to be defended by women & small children, King Predesad himself rides out in leadership. Our cities are secure from attack because nobody can get through the ravaging hordes of Immortals to attack them. There is an old saying, 'defense wins championships' but the Persian strategy of the best defense is a great offense will lead us to the pinnacle of all civilization!!!

Our people are growing restless, perhaps contacts with friendly civilizations would appease them.. Also, several au pair offerings have been advertised.

11 turns in 3 days, really good start. Unfortunately for the game, but fortunately for my budget, my x-mas lay off is over & i return to work tomorrow. still shouldnt have any trouble getting at least 1 turn / day though.

Bwuhahahahahahahahahah!!!! You sucker! You have to work for living? :lol:

*A giant bosses' hand reaches out and hauls RJ off to work*

Oh yeah....right. :cry:

Has anyone met anyone yet? And who is sitting on the turn? :D

Playboy and I have met...and have found that we are waaaaay to close together. :p
Last I heard, turn 11 sent to Playboy.

Close together sounds like fun in the barn ;) .. I sent the end of round 11 to predesad (his round 12) earlier today.. Haven't met a soul yet, which, given the increasing amount of au pair offerings, is causing stress in households with 2 or more children.

au pair offerings

At the risk of sounding stupid, what is an au pair offering?

Haven't met anyone, except three barbarians I managed to pop out of a hut. Previous turn I was like, 'Oh yeah, a goody hut.' Then this turn, 'Please not a map, please not a map.' Used to playing as an expansionist civ, my favorite, where you never get barbarians from goody huts.

an au pair is when a young person travels to a different country to live with a family as their private help with kids, cleaning, cooking kind of thing.. it's usually for a year and quite a popular way to try living in a different country.. although I'm not so sure it's much fun when it comes down to it. Either way, it's hard to get all these au pairs coming in when we don't know any other civilizations yet.. heck, at this point I think my people would be happy with barbarian au pairs :crazyeye:

an au pair is when a young person travels to a different country to live with a family as their private help with kids

at this point I think my people would be happy with barbarian au pairs

Only problem with this scenario ... you said help with the kids, not eat the kids.

Yep, but I have a feeling some of these couples are happy either way, as long as they don't have to tend to them..


... I didn't say we were a civilization ourselves yet! :D

Hmmm...perhaps we can make predasad get up 15 minutes earlier so that he can play a turn *before* going to work!
:D

Oh. And Playboy and I are working out an an agreement so that we can coexist peacably for a couple thousand years. So don't you two get your hopes up that we would eliminate each other right away!

Ironduck, I couldn't let your comment slide by unremarked.

Eleven turns in the first three days and you're asking who's sitting on the turn? Well, I got 12c at 9:44 and sent it out seven minutes later. I got up at 7 a.m. and there was still no turn in my mail. Do you realize Despot Ironduck that it means we've dropped from 6.54 hours per turn to 8 hours per turn and that it's been almost ELEVEN HOURS with no thirteenth turn here. I share your alarm and concern at this shocking turn of developments. We must find the source of this slackerist government and eradicate them immediately! (nudge, nudge) - I think it might be that Predesad character standing over there in the corner. He drew us in and now wants to torture us with this unbearably slow pace of game. Let's you and him fight it out before we find ourselves mired at the unbeleivably slow pace of (gasp!) a turn a day.

:eek:
:crazyeye:

We wouldn't eliminate each other, RJ. I'd just drive to SoCal with my warriors, and unleash them upon your newly founded hamlet while your guys are stuck in the construction zones on the way to Vegas :D

I wonder, am I the only non-warmonger here?

Hmmm. Non-warmonger? I think they're over at SimCity ;)

...or Rollercoaster Tycoon?*
Actually, I like to be a builder in single play. But in multi-play your predictable AI opponent turns into a unpredictable human opponent, and certain assumptions you've had (such as a minimum military!) should be seriously re-examined.


* Unless you are like my kid who created a vast pit that all the rides exited to, and then filled it full of water and had 800+ guests drown! :lol:

Hey, I like Simcity! :p

I just really enjoy the evolutionary and diplomatic aspects of the game also, but if people are just sending armies and tearing up land all the time I guess I'll just have to follow suit ;)

personally, I prefer to wait for war until the middle ages when I play the AI, like to build up my civ ... oops, that's a lie, I always take out the nearest civ as soon as I discover ironworking.

make predasad get up 15 minutes earlier

you really dont know what you're asking, but I might try it in the morning, but if I don't have a turn waiting ...

Ironduck, I tried that au pair thing with those barbs I popped out of the hut ... not a good idea, they didnt eat my children, but while I was sleeping they kidnapped half of my harem. Most of my eunuchs were subsequently executed.

Hmm, two minutes earlier should suffice ;)

Your harem consist of eunuchs? That makes no sense ;)

I was the one who executed the eunuchs, for not taking proper care of my harem.

Ahh.. of course. A true despot.

Okay, this ideally should have been discussed before the game started, but I wanted to get it going. What limitations should we have in the game regarding illegal strategies? If you know of one and you think it should be illegal we need to discuss it while the game is still young, not when the game is just going good and somebody realizes someone else did something they don't think is fair. Obviously, anything that is cheating (reloading / replaying your turn, using a cheat to view the whole map, etc) needs to not be done, but are there any specific strategies anyone feels should be kept out of the game?

I don't know of any cheats, but for anyone that does, please don't ;) - I don't see what the fun would be anyway.. Sometimes my mouse goes all weird and places a unit in the wrong position, I assume reloading on accidents like that is ok?

On a slightly different note, I guess it would be mighty nice if people don't do rate of passage rape or some such thing, but that might just be me :)

The number 1 no-no is: Don't kill off RJ!!! ;)
Other than that, I would like a totally honorable game where everybody doesn't break active Peace treaties or trade agreements. (and most especially ROP agreements!)

I'm all for the honourable play, don't think I would want to play any other way. I have a problem sometimes remembering the deals though.. when playing the AI I forget stuff like a war alliance and make peace before the 20 turns run out simply because I forget and there's no reminder.. I wish there was a way to set warnings for all deals when you're about to break them.

actually, it should be okay to break deals, IMO, all part of the game, there's always a risk when you enter a deal w/ another player, adds a certain element. but that's open for discussion. obviously the penalty for breaking a deal is none of the players will ever trust you again.

reloading on accidents

yeah, that's different, or if you forgot to do something, like you got a city about to go into disorder & you were going to move your slider, but then forgot, i was referring to things like attacking a unit, but your unit loses, so yuo reload and either dont attack, or attack in a different order / way to try to get the victory. of course, we're all on the honor system because we have no moderator monitoring us.

There's a new patch out (1.13) - how do we work this?

link - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=74476

I suppose if everyone agrees to use the patch, we all need to get the patch.

BTW, was up earlier this morning, no turn waiting, guess the timezones / availability are such that the turn wont get back to me b4 i go to work, so i'll sleep in tomorrow an extra 15 minutes.

no more thoughts regarding rules? i think im outvoted regarding deals, so looks like we'll be going the high road and play a 'totally honorable game'

The patch is only a beta. Why not keep this version until they actually release it?

Rules? Hmm. Well, another player one these forums has crafted a fine set of rules, which I modified further. I'll dig them out and post them if you like.

1.12 is also a beta, although an 'official' one at that.. Either way I agree on waiting since few people are using it yet. Terribly complicated if running several PBEMs not all being the same version!

I don't think honourability is something that can be voted on anyway, as long as reputation hits for breaking deals can be made public like they would with the AI I'm cool with it..

Sorry you didn't get a turn in the morning, too hard to predict the rounds.. sometimes they'll be there, others they won't. I'll keep trying to take my turns the moment I see them, best I can do :)

no big deal about the turn, just want to use that as an excuse not to get up early every morning :D

we're still doing real good keeping the game moving, i had 3 turns yesterday, 2 so far today, just do what you can there are going to be some slow days, everyone is going to cause a delay at some point or another

I don't think honourability is something that can be voted on anyway, as long as reputation hits for breaking deals can be made public like they would with the AI I'm cool with it..

yeah, i think if a deal is broken you should be able to email or pm the other players about it, or even post it in this thread

wait on patch is fine w/ me

Rules? Hmm. Well, another player one these forums has crafted a fine set of rules, which I modified further. I'll dig them out and post them if you like.

Yeah, go ahead and post them.

Hmm.. it seems our game has stalled a bit.. Last I sent was 24 hours ago to predesad and he sent me a notice 16 hours ago that he had played and sent on - which must be to rubberjello.. so does rubber or playboy have it now?

Just trying to keep it going at the nice pace we've had so far :)

:o I screwed up. I sent the wrong save on to Playboy.

But the long delay is not entirely all my fault, as I was checking online for over 10 hours after I sent the game on (only - I might add - half an hour after predasad sent it to me), and I didn't get Playboy's message about my screwup until giving up, going to bed, and finding Playboy's message 5 hours later.

Sorry!

No prob, just wanted to know if it accidentally had gotten stuck :)

I've seen some other pbem threads where everyone goes 'who has the turn?' and no one seems to know.. I guess they forgot if they got it or not after a while..

Btw, what is that quote about in your sig, rubber?

That quote would be from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", of course.

I had to work yesterday (something I have to do once in a while), and went to bed right after I got home. I checked in the middle of the night and saw the wrong turn, sent a note, and passed the new turn this morning.

I agree with not wanting the game to get stuck, ironduck, which is why I send confirms to the player ahead of me.

Received and sent :)

Playboy, I asked you earlier here if you wanted me to send a confirm but I didn't see a reply.. If you do I'll try to remember it.

I'm not asking you to do, just stating that I do. Sometimes it's a little more mail to deal with, but it opens backchannel diplomacy with other players.

I didn't realize the turn acknowledgements were tied to diplomacy.. either way, I haven't met you yet! :D

I'll gladly switch starting locations in the game with you Ironduck, if you want to get to know Playboy better. Right now we can spit into each other's backyard! :lol:
(Or really rather :( ) The negotiations for our mutual border is quite intense!

The negotiations for our mutual border is quite intense!

diplomacy breaking down ... you can always fight it out on the battlefield

Our plans for a peaceful expansion have been brutally halted as evil men in smelly clothing have uttered curses at us! We fear the glory days of happily playing in the poppy fields could soon be over. Dark clouds are gathering on the sky.

Our hearts are heavy.

playboy, still waiting on that post of rules

Rules?

Our foe knows not of rules!

Our foe is smelly!

Our foe has a bad taste in fashion!

Our foe makes us sick! :vomit:

Our foe knows not of rules! Our foe is smelly! Our foe has a bad taste in fashion! Our foe makes us sick!

I'm really not concerned about 'your foe' :rolleyes:

But, because I take great pity upon your obviously inferior, poverty stricken nation I will advise you accordingly:

1) Give foe bath
2) Buy foe clothes
3) Send foe to charm school
4) Send foe to obedience school

Should take care of your problems.

Well, actually, if your foe "makes you sick", then by all means you should run away from them as fast as possible every time you see them. You wouldn't want to catch those nasty germs.

Looking for the rules, but they're on a machine which is down at the moment. Will post when I get them.

Pfft!

We will not run from our own lands because of these unsightly barbarians!

just hope your lands do not become polluted by your own vomit

just putting out a feeler because i haven't seen the turn in a while ... oops nevermind, there's my turn

Sorry, I think I screwed up somehow.. could've sworn I'd sent it :crazyeye:

Persian Immortals will give you a good flogging in due time as punishment

Do you think they can find their way to this remote part of the planet or do I need to draw out a map for them?

we persians are industrious & scientific. not only do we possess the intelligence to find you no matter how remote your location, but we also possess the capabilities of building a bridge to you if necessary

We Celts are a peaceful, agricultural nation of great spiritual wealth and seek no quarrel with the bridge obsessed Persians in the far east.

Wealth? did u say wealth? hmmm...

Spiritual wealth. Something it seems you Persians lack. Enlightenment comes not in the form of gold coins, despot.

Does anyone know the Hittites? I don't know anyone yet except the very evil & smelly Hittites and the secretive Indians..

.. which is a shame because it looks like the smelly ones are going to overrun my borders now :(

I'm not sure there will be any scraps left for the Persians when they're done with our peace loving nation.

I don't know anyone ... oops, i almost forgot i did meet the Mayans in passing, but they have left so little impression upon me i almost completely forgot about it.

Do not fear, the magnificent Persian empire will rescue you fromyour current plight ... just don't hold your breath.

The mighty persian empire may either act now or not bother ;)

.. if I survive this brutal and completely unprovoked onslaught I hereby vow to destroy the stinking hittitites in a most humiliating fashion.

meant 2 post this last night,

after two weeks of play we have managed a consistent 19 turns each week and an average of 2.7 turns / day. :goodjob:

the next closest i have is a two player game w/ an average of right at 2.0 turns / day, thats a difference of 10 turns over a two week period.

Yes. This one is kind of how I envisioned a PBEM game should work. The problem is getting non-flakey players in compatible time zones together. It has been quite enjoyable to make this much progress, although I personally would have liked to have some sappy AI to the south of me rather than the game-leading human player!:p

Blubberyellow, want to switch sides? ;) - I'm under attack from horse riding barbies and swarms of hittite archers.. yelp.

I forget what the barbies do when taking towns - do they just steal the gold or destroy all improvements also?

At least I'm getting plenty of drama :D

barbs can do 3 things that i know of, steal gold, destroy improvements, kill off population

@chalkduck. Yup. They can do the three things Predesad mentioned and it appears pretty random. They also can destroy whatever you are working on at the moment. They usually choose the most inconvenient one. ;)

Yikes. Most inconvenient. Hopefully our reserves will be able to deal with them while our main forces are occupied at the front lines.

You would, RJ? Instead of a peace with a nice, honorable human player which allows you to build plowshares instead of swords, you'd rather have AIs bring war to you before you have a chance to build your empire? Maybe you can trade positions with ironduck ;)

I'll trade places w/ anyone.

King Predesad thinks to himself 'regretting decision 2 pick only nonagricultural civ in this game, if someone agrees to trade, will have to saboatage Persia b4 switching :lol:

Our town was ransacked :(

While we have been training our archers and moving them to the front lines, the counterattack by our warrior was most successful! Not only were the enemy completely taken by surprise and had to quickly regroup its forces, providing temporary relief, but our lone warrior was also able to take out no less than one halitosis warrior and two archers who clearly did not use deodorant! Alas, when the third archer attacked our brave fighter finally had to leave this world, but his heroics will not be forgotten! This time we will be ready when the enemy strikes!

Further, a division of archers has been deployed to end the raids of barbarians on our coastal town, we wish them luck.

Sure thing! Good luck Barbarians. Sack his cities back to the 4000's! :D

Blubberfellow's wicked hopes had no bearing on the outcome of the battle between our mighty archers and the pitiful Angel tribe. The gold that was stolen from our city has rightfully been returned.

In other news, our smelly foe (He Who Stinks) has been seen deploying archers along our north eastern territory. They MUST be stopped!

Darn! Foiled again! We must find some way to aide the Hittites so that FluffyDuck's misled citizens become target practice for their archers!

It appears that the only target practise their archers are getting is from another barbie tribe.. once again their attempt to wage war on us has failed. Now it is only a matter of days until we build up our forces for a mighty counter attack!

The war against the Hittites is going well. The hittites have become utterly demoralized and are pushing their archers right into our rains of steel. Three more enemry archery battalions were crushed today, one by our newest, hard-hitting, body-painted, genital-waving squadron of bad boys. Soon the enemy will be begging for peace!

Further, a golden age has dawned upon our great civilization! There is much rejoice in the streets and intake of various fermented substances.

the peace loving Celts should then have sympathy & make peace w/ the Hittites, returning any spoils from war they may have plundered

We have not plundered, it is not in our nature to do so. We do, however, realize that we need to assimilate the enemy so that it no longer poses a threat.

my response is that if u have not plundered it is because they are either broke, or you have been incapable of taking any of their cities, don't give me any of that 'not in our nature crap' since u claim the war is going so well, i am inclined 2 think u have taken some of their cities & they r simply broke. Most likely they have spent the last remainder of their gold reserves in an effort to defend their women & children from your merciless attack.

You can believe what you like, but there is no need to be rude.

Meanwhile, a peace agreement has been signed.

A passing Dutch caravel has made contact with the poor, suffering nation of the Hittites. Many were the tales of woe and atrocities commited by the Celtic hordes upon this peace loving people. With their trading contacts, the Dutch people will quickly spread the word to the civilized world of the unspeakable acts commited by the Celtic nation! ;)

Oh please.

:lol:
This is entertaining stuff, keep it up!

A Dutch CARAVEL? How did you get such impressive technology so early in the game? At best I would think your men are in galleys or triremes.

Ooopsie! bad me! It was a Curragh cleverly disguised as a Caravel*

* At least to the barely literate denizens of that other, "backwards" continent! :D

@Playboy - You mean I shouldn't have that Battleship already?

We may be backwards, but we know how to party!

Originally posted by Rubberjello
A passing Dutch caravel has made contact with the poor, suffering nation of the Hittites. Many were the tales of woe and atrocities commited by the Celtic hordes upon this peace loving people. With their trading contacts, the Dutch people will quickly spread the word to the civilized world of the unspeakable acts commited by the Celtic nation! ;)

i just heard that Gallic Swordsmen celebrate their victories by sitting down to a feast of roasted small children. Is this the 'golden age' the Celtics speak about.

We may be backwards, but we know how to party!


WHAT?! You call it a party?!!

Why as soon as i realize the world's not flat I'm gonna sail right over there & feed those swords to those Gallic Swordsmen, Persian Immortals cannot tolerate such injustices in this world!

Lies, lies, they are all lies!

NO, no. Not golden AGE. It's a golden GLAZE they put on those children before eating them.

Rj, you may have a battleship, whatever that is, but just remember: "Our words are backed by NUCLEAR WEAPONS!" So keep that battleskiff pointed in another direction.

seems odd i only got 1 turn tonight, not complaining, if someone's busy, that's fine. but if the turns stuck somewhere, it's not w/ me played / sent turn 52 2300 GMT (i think 1700 GMT -6 so i add 6 hours right?) rubberjello confirmed receipt

Well, don't look at me! ;) I sent it on a half hour after you sent it. Funny how we get spoiled. I'm in two PBEMs where I would be ecstatic if we got one turn done a day!

I sent turn 52 out last night at 9:30 PST.

Indeed, RJ. I've been in some games where we couldn't maintain one turn per week.

oh yeah, well im in a game where i've only took one turn ... in a month. 4 some reason i dont expect it 2 ever get 2 turn 2

Well, I have now survived over 50 turns, so whatever happens now I consider this game a success for me ;)

Doesn't this look odd? There's supposed to be a Hittite city in the black hole in there, but it sure must be a small one :crazyeye:

Hmmm, I think that to better diagnose the problem, you should post the entire screenshot :)

Pfft!

Isn't it weird, though? There's a black hole instead of a city.

Alright, we admit it.
It's a new weapon the Mayans and Dutch have developed, called a "Stealth Black Hole". We tested it out on the Hittites as a warning to you warmongering Celts and Persians. :)

Yikes. I see the Celtic nation immediately needs to research gravity shields.

The reason it is black is because you have not yet explored that tile of terrain.

That would normally be the case, but I have stood right next to it, and it remained black. Since I did not want to risk war I did not try to enter it (as I was asked to leave immediately). I'll try to look at it next turn, I just thought it was a pretty amusing picture.

Once again the smelly men from the east have declared war on us - after wading all over our lands! :mad:

In a counter offensive our troops quickly managed to take one of their towns, alas only a single lunatic was left and set fire to it so that it burnt to the ashes.

How come news are never heard from the faraway lands?

Alas, negotiations are tense in faraway lands. It turns out that 3 Civilizations that are for some reason called "human controlled" are sharing the same continent. The land is just about all claimed, Iron is in extremely short supply, and plots and counter-plots swirl around. Without the buffer of what is for some reason called an "AI controlled" Civilization to provide a common enemy, tensions are mounting.

The Dutch have led the way in technology for almost the whole game, and rumor has it, they have even deposed their despotic tyrant and are looking for a King at this point.

Tensions are mounting? First I've heard of it. Dammit, where's my seneschal?

The Celtic people are weary from the constant wars with barbarian tribes and smelly Hitites. Unfortunately they refuse to make peace. Perhaps it is time to teach them a lesson they will not forget.

or perhaps it's time 4 them 2 teach u a lesson? u shoulda took em out when u had the chance, when they were on their heels & running. i hope u learned ur lesson.

meanwhile i am embroiled in this very tense love triangle over here on my continent, the smallest of the 3 civs. Iron is scarce? Good, very good. W/ iron my neighbors would surely conspire against me & crush me.

We shall see who is teaching whom a lesson :p

Unfortunately it's a double war again now, I need to deal with yet another barbarian tribe.. The Celtic people are strong though, so we are not worried.

I'm just glad the Celtic people decided to spend their Golden Age in Depotism. :D

okay guys, was hoping 2 get 1 last turn in b4 surgery tomorrow, but did not make it back around. ironduck, send me the turn twice, just 2 make sure it gets 2 me & i give u guys my word as soon as i am home & able i will play & send this game first.

c ya thursday

predesad, there's no hurry man :) Hope it goes well and you have a good recovery.

Flubbergello, that's what you think ;)

We'll all have a good thought for you today, Predesad.

Shortage of Iron? Fortunately my people have discovered a new source of iron, so I'll be building swordsmen (defensive, of course).

Hey, this sounds like a good game, can we get some screenshots going to pass the time while we wait for Predesad to recover?

You spent your GOlden AGe in Despotism? Ouch dude. :(

Any GA is a good GA as long as it's not in Despotism, though i suppose you might not have had as much of a choice as you wanted.

My golden age was triggered by the Hittites declaring war on me and my subsequent victory in the hands of my celtic swordsmen. Not long after I was crowned king. Do not believe the lies of the people out there who are apparently still despots - they have not even met our highly civilized culture!

I'll put out more screenshots if the others do - the problem is just that I have not met any humans yet, I'm on a continent with 2 AIs, one of which is bent on eternal war..

How do I capture a screen shot?

Just press the 'print screen' button next to the F12 key, then open an imagefile (window) in a paint program the same size as your screen resolution (so it fits), then press ctrl-v to paste it in. You can crop out all the stuff you don't want us to see before saving..

Originally posted by ironduck
I'm on a continent with 2 AIs, one of which is bent on eternal war..

:lol: That happens, if you have writing, make an embassy with the other AI and bribe them with something to have them duke it out with the war crazed AI, chances are the two of you will be able to wipe'em out.

That happens, if you have writing, make an embassy with the other AI and bribe them with something to have them duke it out with the war crazed AI, chances are the two of you will be able to wipe'em out.

no, no, bad advice, very bad advice.

what u should do is declare war on both the ai civs @ the same time

And make sure you don't declare war until your troops are inside their territory ;)

Warmongerers! The peaceful celtic nation has once again negotiated peace with the smellies. India would not be very helpful anyway, they're positioned too far away to get significant troops over.

IT IS WAR!!!
The honorable government of the Netherlands has fulfilled its obligations and has declared war upon the Persians. It has received a plea from the Mayans to invoke their MPP and truce which has been held in honor for 2500 years. (but is due to expire next turn) It seems there was an aggressive Persian incursion into Mayan territory last turn.

However, there are scattered reports that the Persian "incursion" was a band of explorers who have been in Mayan territory for the past 1000 years, as a band of Mayan explorers has been in Persia for about the same amount of time. Thus, a "gentleman's agreement" seemed to exist about these two forces between the two governments.

If these rumors prove to be true, then the whole situation will be reappraised when the treaty expires past the year 1000 BC. If it is proven that the Mayans have massacred these Persian explorers unexpectedly, then in all honor the Netherlands is under no compulsion to help the Mayans in their war, and indeed would be disinclined to extend any further MPP or Peace deals to the untrustworthy Incan government.

History shall judge what happens in the next millenium. In all fairness, the Dutch will come out on top with their honor intact and reputation stainless.

Colour me confused :crazyeye:

I read this twice and still don't get it.. The dutch (whom we have met) are at war with the persians (whom we have not met) because..?

And the mayans (whom we have met) are not at war with anyone? Or at war with the persians?

:mischief:

Meanwhile, the proud celtic nation is holding its stand against the outrageous hittites who refuse to make peace.

My dear friend & comrade Rubberjello, i certainly understand the predicament u are in. The Persians & the Mayans have each had a warrior unit near the others territory for over a 1000 years. The Mayans warrior even trespassed the Persian borders, but we were inclined to overlook this blunder. The Mayans requested that the Persians remove their warrior from near their territory, & we were simply trying to comply. In order to leave, the Persian warrior was forced to go through one square inside Mayan borders, since the Mayan warrior had previously trespassed our territory i felt he would allow me this one square intrusion, this city had been esablished after my warrior had passed that square previously. Instead the Mayans attacked the unsuspecting warrior. We have in response attacked the Mayan warrior in our lands, blood has already been spilled on both sides, casualties are small.

We, the Persians would also like to point out the Mayans attacked us while we were right in the middle of a 20 turn deal, an exchange of luxury resources.

Technically, an MPP can only be enforced if a nation invades another's lands AND attacks, bringing the war to their homefront. The attack by the Mayans which started this war was unprovoked and the subsequent counterattack by the Persians took place in Persian territory. Therefore it is my conclusion the Dutch are under no obligation to the Mayans.

Most Wise Emporer of the Dutch, I will gladly forgive you for destroying that section of road which has caused this silly war between our peaceful nations, a war perpetrated by the evil Mayans. Since your MPP expires next turn anyway, I extend my hand to you in peace and assure you there will be no harsh feelings by the Persians, we will remove this incident from our annals completely.

Your Loyal Friend,

Emporer Predesad

WAR !!!

Most xxxxx of the Mayans, how dare you start a war with the peaceful Persians right in the middle of a trade deal? And worse yet, try to ensnare our friends, the Dutch.

Let it be known we will not rest until your nation has been exterminated !!!

Also, let me thank you, our nation was in a state of chaos, anarchy reigned supreme & i was busy putting down the rebellion. Now that this war has surfaced, the people have rushed to me and are planning shortly to inaugarate me as the First King of the Persian nation.

..ummm.. so you're going to war with the mayans over a single tit-for-tat warrior elimination?

..and the netherlands are now at war with the persians..?

politics :D

Colour me confused

Ironduck, it is quite simple really, the Mayans & Dutch have had a longstanding alliance / MPP trade cooperation. The Persians never tried to interfere with this arrangement. This deal is to expire in 1 turn. Now the Mayans are resorting to acts of desperation.

The Persians had a warrior near Mayan territory.

The Mayans had a warrior near Persian territory.

Mayans trespassed borders, i overlooked.

Persians trespassed only trying to leave the area, they attacked my warrior.

Mayans tried to enforce MPP w/ Dutch by claiming I invaded their lands. Dutch felt it was a pack of lies and also had a warrior in my territory. To keep reputation intact & to prevent dischord between the Persians & Dutch, the Dutch warrior pillaged a road, which caused war between our peoples and honored the MPP, but inflicted minimal loss to the Persians. Very smart move by the Dutch. Very foolish move by the Mayans.

So now the persians are at war with the mayans and the dutch are staying neutral?

I'd like to hear the mayan version..

Originally posted by ironduck
So now the persians are at war with the mayans and the dutch are staying neutral?

I'd like to hear the mayan version..

As would I. :) The Dutch and the Mayans are both officially at war with the Persians as of now. Pending the outcome of the "exploring warrior" incident, the Dutch will decide how vigorously to pursue the war against the Persians. Or, indeed to pull out altogether and remain neutral.

may / may not have limited availability Sunday / Monday, ISP issues

Anxiously awaiting Mayan response :D

After reviewing all the evidence, the Dutch Government has come to the conclusion that the Mayans were the guilty party in "the incident". Furthermore, the Dutch people were much wroth at at the manipulative diplomacy attempted by the Mayans, so much so that they have declared war on the Mayan nation.

It is with some trepidation that the Dutch have noticed a large Persian force on their borders - but hopefully that force will be going after the Mayans also. The Eastern Continent seems destined to be paved with bloodshed.

(Please note the date - the Mayan and Dutch MPP and treaties expired 25 years ago)

My dearest friend, Most Wise King of the hearty Dutch people:

Fear nothing from the hordes of immortals you now see near your borders, they have in fact been dispatched to Maya. We have left our cities defended, but never planned to launch an invasion against the Dutch, convinced the truth would indeed come out and peace would reign once again between our nations.

We are deeply saddened that war has touched our homefront, our people have been busy building temples and religious revival has swept the lands, our immortals having been employed as sacrificial priests, alas that duty will no go to others as they must take up arms and defend our honor and make retribution for the lives taken in ambush.

Sorry, but I hadn't been on this forum in several days, and just now saw the last page of messages.

* * *

There's something rotten in the Netherlands and it's not the Gouda.

Talk about duplicitious!

When passing turn 75 (six turns ago), the Dutch wrote:
Weeeeelllllllll....I must confess that he is offering an alliance against you.

When passing turn 77 (four turns ago), the Dutch wrote:
Wow. This sucks. Two people are tearing at me here..... I'll have to think about it overnight. :(

When passing turn 78 (three turns ago), the Dutch wrote:
war is going to start in 975 BC, unless the Persians do something against me in the meantime.

- I would point out here that the Dutch informed me the Persians were going to attack me this turn (turn 81)

When passing turn 79 (two turns ago), the Dutch wrote:
I must admit that I have never fought a single battle against a human opponent before in Civ3, and I'm kind of anxious to see how I do.

* * *

Therefore, when the Persian warrior (not explorer) once again violated my territory, I was under the impression from the Dutch that it was the prelude to attack, and thus defended my territory.

What I find most interesting is that on the very turn that the Dutch declare war, the Persian is offering peace, and it makes me wonder about whether the Dutch maliciously contrived to bring the peaceloving Mayan people to the point of war with the Persians.

Furthermore, as the attached image will show, the nefarious Dutch were massing forces to strike at Maya, and that their positioning reveals that they could NOT have been brought to bear upon the Persians, as treaty required they would. Their declaration of war was obviously made in bad faith, as their troops were already positioned to attack Maya. The Dutch have proven to be hollow allies, and I would not trust them further than I could throw a leerdammer wheel.

When we met, the Dutch asked offered peace and stated they were builders rather than militarists. It is my fault that I misunderstood that term to mean 'empire builder' rather than warlord. As you can see by the attached picture, the Dutch have a different meaning to the term 'builder'.

Prdesad: Not to argue with you, but: Throughout the period of our mutual wanderings, I DID NOT enter your territory at all, until the last couple of turns, and that was only after I had informed you of my intentions:

I wrote: "BTW, that warrior of yours is heading towards my heartland. We've each had a warrior scouting unclaimed territory, but I'm returning home now, while you've been trespassing. I hear reports of your men looting chickens in the countryside, which is very disturbing."

You replied: "i am inclined 2 continue 2 scout unclaimed territory. i will honor ur borders & not trespass as long as u honor mine. good luck getting home."


I took this to mean that you knew my warrior was returning the only way he could, and that you gave me your blessing to do so. When you would not open a path, I moved back into neutral territory, but attacked the unit which was then positioned to attack as the Dutch predicted they would be. Trade agreement or not, I had multiple targets of opportunity there and needed to protect them.

Furthermore, you state below that: "Technically, an MPP can only be enforced if a nation invades another's lands AND attacks, bringing the war to their homefront. The attack by the Mayans which started this war was unprovoked and the subsequent counterattack by the Persians took place in Persian territory. Therefore it is my conclusion the Dutch are under no obligation to the Mayans."

How convenient for you to render that verdict. In fact, TECHNICALLY, nowhere in the rules does it specify boundaries or limitations of an MPP between human players.

And there's more deviousness here: You write: "To keep reputation intact & to prevent dischord between the Persians & Dutch, the Dutch warrior pillaged a road, which caused war between our peoples and honored the MPP, but inflicted minimal loss to the Persians. Very smart move by the Dutch. Very foolish move by the Mayans."

With this you expose the decption by the Dutch, that in fact the declaration of war was not made in the good faith spelled out in our non-aggression pact/MPP, but was a transparent attempt to pull a fig leaf of honor over their pre-determined war plan.

Just as convenient for the Dutch was their finding: "After reviewing all the evidence, the Dutch Government has come to the conclusion that the Mayans were the guilty party in "the incident". Furthermore, the Dutch people were much wroth at at the manipulative diplomacy attempted by the Mayans, so much so that they have declared war on the Mayan nation."

We have somewhere around 170 countries on this planet. I'll withdraw my entire argument and objection if you can just tell me of ONE NATION that would not see the uninvited incursion of armed military within their borders as an act of war.

* * *

None of the above really bothers me. What bothers me here is to be baselessly called a liar and a coward by the host of this game. While a certain amount of role-playing enhances the gaming experience, personal insults do not.

The peace-loving Mayan people will not become slaves of warmongers. Therefore, I am ordering that 'special Kool-Aid' be passed out to the citizenry at the very next opportunity. You may get our roads, but you will never get our cities. You two want your armies to fight. Fine. Fight each other.

What bothers me here is to be baselessly called a liar and a coward by the host of this game.

Playboy, before i write anything regarding the war situation or in game situation i want to clear one thing up, all of my comments, ALL of my comments are directed towards a character, King Playboy of the Mayans, that character exists only in the PBEM in which we are participating. And in fact these comments are made by another character, King Predesad of the Persians, who also exists only in the PBEM in which we are participating.

It is all about role playing & perhaps I do get a bit carried away. The host was never calling you aliar or a coward, not you personally. However, I want to push aside any technicalities of the role playing issue and offer you a sincere apology. I in no way shape or form meant to call you personally a coward or a liar, i ask that you please accept my apology. I never meant to make any character attacks upon you and will refrain from doing so in the future if it offends you. If you take these type of comments personally, then i refuse to make excuses for myself and claim they are a part of the game. Instead I will simply not do it, and again extend my sincerest apologies, I would clear this up via email, however since my initial comment was broadcast via this thread I feel it is only appropriate I apologize on this thread as I have done several times and will continue to do several more times if it is necessary.

In fact, I am so upset by the fact that you took my comments seriously, personally, that I will not argue the in game points at all until this issue is cleared up. I am sorry, playboy for my comments, they were indeed not meant against you personally but against the character you represent in the game, that character I accused of being a liar and that character I accused of cowardice. However, again, I refuse to hide behind the role playing and make excuses because you have obviously been offended and I am the one who caused the offense.

Furthermore, I find that this sincere, detailed apology is not enough, but immediately after making this post I wil go to my other posts and edit out any comments which I feel might have been misconstrued as personal character attacks.

I can only ask that all parties interested in the details of the current in game situation reserve judgement until such time as I feel comfortable proceeding to explain how I feel the Dutch did keep their agreement with the Mayans. I will not go into any details right now with an explanation because the personal issue here is infinitely more important to me.

I offer this as a reasonable explanation only, not trying to make excuses. Everyone knows I have just had surgery one week ago. I am in severe pain at times, constant pain although not always severe. I have taken more drugs (prescribed, following directions) in the past three months than I ever have in my adult lifetime. Sometimes the affects of these drugs do cause me to get carried away, especially in wee hoursof morning when I am very tired, yet unable to sleep due to surgery. Not just here in this forum, but in other places involving PBEM games I have posted & emailed things which later I was shocked to see I had written them. I offer this not as an excuse, but rather as a reason to why I might get carried away.

Despite this feeble explanation, I still offer you a sincere apology. My prescription medication having no effect on the meaning behind this apology. ;)

Therefore, I am ordering that 'special Kool-Aid' be passed out to the citizenry at the very next opportunity. You may get our roads, but you will never get our cities. You two want your armies to fight. Fine. Fight each other.

I have interpretted this to mean you intend to quit on your next turn and I ask that you do not quit, I will in fact beg you not to quit. Please do not quit about this personal issue as I am retracting all I have said with sincere apologies and assurances those types of comments will not occur again at the risk of offending you further.

If you want to quit because of the iminent war, I suggest that the war has only begun, victory is far from assured, and I would very much like you to continue, not because I want to have the pleasure of beating you, but because I dont know if we will win, or if we win will the war, will it ultimately cost us the game anyway. These are issues which must be played out. I believe at the beginning I asked for players who would not quit the game. If you quit at this point in the game, then the game is tarnished, we might have to just all retire and throw it out. But I am inclined to believe you are not quitting because of the game situation, but rather because of my comments, and once again I am sorry.

Predesad

*stepping out of character also*

I too wish to apologize for any misunderstandings outside of the game. I won't do so as well and verbosely ;) as Predsad, but above all I want to make sure there is nothing personal involved. The way you have played this game (from what I can observe) is that you are an excellent Civ. player who easily outgrew me in the peacetime race. I have the utmost respect for your skills.

The Dutch government is indeed being duplicit. But they did follow the letter of the law. (MPP and and Non-aggression towards the Mayans until the 1000 BC turn was up). I will be the first to admit that the "war" with the Persians was a convenient smoke screen (Machavellion sp? is probably a more appropriate word), but as with the quotes you included in the above message show - I tried to drop some hints that I was turning from the peaceful builder race (which you were whipping my butt on!) to a more military one.

In my defence all I can say is that there have been many, many wars in real human history started over even more muddied and tangled events (mostly misunderstandings), and what is happening in our game is mirroring that.

As I have also mentioned, I have a fairly limited experience in playing with other humans in Civ. I do not know how I would react if I saw a SoD (Stack of Doom) bearing down upon my precious civilization. I would probably be very pissed, desperate, and actually upset in real life. I think I would consider the "Kool Aid" act as you mentioned. That just goes to show you that in fact we probably have fairly similar personalities - perfectionist - involved - and intense?

Anyway - I hope this can all be worked out without any permanent judgements (in real life and in current and future games) against each other.

i will even go a step further, at the risk of rubberjello feeling i have revealed too much, & state exactly what has happened to clear your honorable name, playboy. rubberjello & i have been planning this war for maybe 20 or 30 turns, merely waiting for your peace deal to run out. yes, my warrior would have attacked a worker in your area, or other unit, not the turn you attacked me, but 2 turns later, & hopefully try to get in position to be out of reach of your units & get to a mountain to fortify, probably not possible.

the smokescreen war between the persians / dutch was in fact needed by the persians / dutch to prematurely cancel a trade even if you had not declared war on me we would have had this false war.

the persians & dutch have plotted against the mayans because you have a target on your back out distancing yourself from us & being too close to the dutch. obviously i would have preferred for the other player in this game, ironduck to be shrouded in mystery regarding these details, but i unhesitantly push this aside for the sake of clearing this issue up on the personal front. having an in game advantage to me is not worth inflicting real life character damage

once more i apologize

:crazyeye:

Well that was interesting ;)

I didn't interpret the comments that had been made earlier as being against Playboy but rather against the ruler of the Mayans, although I can see how it could have been interpreted that way..

Maybe it would be easier if people had different names for the ingame leaders, then we would only use those names and it would be obvious.. but just saying the name of the nation should work 'the divine, peace-loving, advanced Celtic nation' suffices, for instance.

Either way I hope no one quits this game, I've enjoyed it a lot, but obviously it's no fun if people get angry with each other.. So far I've only had the AI to be angry with (amazingly the hittites still refuse to negotiate peace, I kid you not).

Gonna play my turn and seng along now..

well, i am at least glad that others did not perceive my comments as persoanl character attacks, i can only hope playboy will accept my apology

I'm sorry if I seem a bit touchy here. A few years back I was playing a lot of Starfleet Command, having played it's boardgame precursor, Star Fleet Battles since 1981. I was very involved in the online MPlayer (later GameSpy) community, and I loved the game. But due to the competitive nature of players, the game taunts soon devolved into personal attacks of the leaders and officers of a number of fleets. After putting up with (and at points participating) this malicious infighting for over a year, I just walked away from it and haven't gone back.

While I understand the bravado of a game persona, the fact is that when others browse these threads, false accusations can cause a reader to prejudge another forum member before they ever encounter them, with resultant problems occurring when those players finally meet in the arena.

I've never broken a gaming agreement, and as such took offense to being called a liar, resulting in my rather extended previous post.

Presedad, apology accepted. I have no desire to be a martyr here. I just want to make sure that we don't start the insult ball rolling down a very slippery slope, to the detriment of us all.

* * *

Now, as for the game . . .

Well, the Dutch have certainly shown their true colors admitting their duplicity. Not only have they paid mere lip service to a mutual defense pact, but Persia has revealed that the plan was hatched way back during our initial treaty. Thus, the Dutch negotiated a MPP/NAP in bad faith from the start. Brother Celt, if you ever shake hands with the Dutch make sure you count your fingers afterward. This situation is like the U.S. pulling out of NAFTA and attacking Canada shortly thereafter. Maybe not, though. Perhaps the more appropriate historical reference is the Nazi abrogation of the non-aggression defence pact of 1940 with the Soviets.

Since we're laying cards on the table, I'd like to discuss how little the early game score is relevant to the situation. RJ stated several times that he felt 'threatened' by me, particularly by my construction of the Pyramids. Hardly a militaristic wonder, but beneficial for an agricultural society. The problem was that it popped my GA, and so, over the twenty turns ending in 1075BC, my improvements got built a little quicker and my score went up in the near term.

In fact, though, despotism is just about the worst way to come into a GA. I was further hampered by the fact the trying to switch to Republic, which I discovered about halfway through the GA, would have cost me 5-7 turns of the GA, and thus slowed down progression to a more productive government.

Therefore any rise in my points would be more than offset by a later GA initiated under a more efficient gov't. It was certainly my fault for not reading up and realizing that the Pyramids could trigger an agricultural GA. Nonetheless, players who follow the score too closely can often develop a myopic viewpoint.

Furthermore, I am not suprised that my score was moving up faster. With assurances of peace from my neighbor, I built more plowshares than swords. Had you done the same instead of building up an army of at least 30 units, your score would also have moved faster. (This is not to argue merits of different game strategies, but rather to explain why I pulled ahead).


RJ, because of our agreement, (which included floating the idea of holding off war until the modern age) I confided in you that I had no access to iron, and you claimed the same. Of course, a few turns later when a curragh came in sight of one of your cities, it was defended by a Swiss merc. I'm not crying about the iron, or that you've ganged up to kill Maya. I might well do the same in your shoes. Just don't tell me that you feel threatened by my 2-2-1s and 1-2-1s when you've amassed a huge war machine if 4-2-1s, 1-4-1s and trebuchets. That bell rings a little hollow.

As for the Kool-Aid, I have ordered two varieties, red and blue. One I will give to my armies, while the other will be distributed to my cities. Without iron, we have little hope of standing against two armies. Therefore, as our defenses fail, we shall endeavor to return the earth to the way we found it. You may get a few roads and irrigation channels we might miss, but you will never enslave Mayan cities. So, give it a try and see if you can wipe me out before I leave as much trace for history as the Minoans did. (Understand that I am not quitting the game, but rather embarking on a scorched earth policy).

Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!

Isn't it alright if we just use the national identity? Should make it clear we're just roleplaying I would think..

The peaceful Celts have been in a non-stop war almost throughout the length of their civilization :rolleyes:

Wow! Eerily similar experiences.

I was a huge player of HoMM (Heroes of Might and Magic) a while back. I was pretty good amongst a small circle of friends, but when I took it to the next level (Tourney of Honor) I was horrified at how the competition escalated into mean, vicious, personal attacks, and dare I say - cheating. The former idyllic and relaxing game became something monstrous. I also walked away.

I feel bad about the whole situation. I had no idea you had already experienced your GA, Playboy. I saw the escalation in Pop, score, and tech advances as purely home grown. At that point I thought I was in trouble, and when Predasad approached me with a plan to share his Iron, I saw an opportunity I didn't want to waste.

So even though I am now sharing secrets that I wouldn't want Ironfart ;) to hear. Let me say that I have gambled big time in that I have turned off all research and infrastructure builds for the last 15 turns and developed most of the army you see. I don't know if I will be able to recover from this gamble and catch up with the aforementioned gaseous fowl. If the Mayan war is a long, drawn-out affair - he will have a big lead and a long time to build up his infrastructures and even wonders. Of course, there are always the Persians (with the only source of Iron on the Continent) awaiting in the wings. If the Mayans go, then it would be a 3 player brawl and 2 will always gang up against the one, and the one in this case might be me this time.

It sounds like maybe the next game we could imbark upon a cooperative effort? The Fall of Rome (we each play a Barb tribe helping each other) might be a fun PBEM to play as a team. Just an idea...

Gaseous fowl? Now I never! On behalf of the proud Celtic nation I can say we are exhausted, err, I mean insulted!

A conquest sounds like fun, I'm still bummed I missed the napoleon one..

With all the chatting from all parties today I'm surprised I haven't gotten a second turn yet :confused:

I certainly don't mind discussing game strategy in an open way here. It's what we used to do when our gaming groups met in the analog world every week.

What surprises me here is that Predesad would even give you iron in the first place. Given the extended isthmus between the Persian homeland and the rest of the continent, he could have pushed forward a wall of Immortals and pikemen which the two of us would have been hard pressed to counter. On the other hand, I guess he figures to knock one opponent off this age, and then deny the other iron in the next round of weapons development. It's an interesting strategic choice.

I also tried a new strategy (for me) in that as an agricultural civ, I've sacrificed a lot of citizens to the gods to hurry buildings and they grow back quick. It's hard to tell at this point whether that was a better strategy than letting the pop get to WLTK size, and I won't be around long enough to judge :P Certainly in this game the early GA skewed the result.

Ironduck, I haven't seen the game today.

The suspense is killing me! I need to hear bulletins from the war theatre! I will pay 1 gold coin for accurate information! :D

The Mayans have abandoned a pop 11 city rather than let it fall into the hands of the treacherous Dutch. You may keep your 1 gp :)

Wow, drama from the get-go! Keep me posted with bulletins from the war, our people crave entertainment :D

Im back guys, internet been down 2 days

Now to defend Rubberjello's reputation:

First of all, an MPP in civIII is only enforced if another nation invades & attacks inside the territory of the nation. i can point to threads where MPP strategies against the AI have been used to verify. Basically, you cannot use an MPP to force a player to join you in a war in which you invade their territory, or attack their units first even if they are in your territory or units at sea, unclaimed land etc. This is not my interpretation, but rather the way MPPs work in the game. For instance just as an example, if in this game, Persia and Maya both had MPP with Dutch, but not with each other, then as the situation stands, the Dutch would not yet be obligated to choose sides and honor the MPP because nobody has attacked a unit in the other's territory. The MPP would have to be enforced, however once Persian forces reached your cities or units inside your cultural borders and attacked them, not you attacking my units. Again this is not my interpretation, this is how MPP works in the game and i can point you to a thread I read just last weekend discussing MPP strategy which shows I am correct. Therefore, the Dutch were not obligated to join the war against the Persians at that time, and since the MPP expired, will not be required to do so.

Regarding our plans, how often when playing a game against the AI is their an agreement in place in which you are plotting to attack that civ as soon as the agreement expires? This is a major part of civ warmongering strategy and as long as conflict is not started or units moved into borders for attack while the agreement is in place, there is no rep hit. Rubberjello did not approach me, I approached him. He told me initially he could not agree to anything until it became closer for his agreement to expire. I had to bribe him sufficiently to convince him to ally with me, I am the one who has done the plotting / planning. I needed something, bad layout of territory hampered development, no bonus resources whatsoever except one fish in a city maybe 10 tiles away from capitol. But i had iron & horses, and when i had iron & horses i was able to see that neither the Dutch nor the Mayans had it (at that time) because it came up on diplomacy as something i could offer in trade. While discussions began 20 - 30 turns before the MPP expired, the actual agreement to completely go forward with the deal and my subsequently supplying him with iron did not take place until about 10 - 15 turns before the deal expired.

The Persians made no contact with any civ for a while and were convinced we were isolated on an island. I made contact with the Mayans long before I made contact with the Dutch, would have found the Dutch also, but two exploring warriors were victims of barbarians, which at that point in the game represented maybe 40% of my militery (not counting workers of course) Once i discovered i was not on an island i did not build warriors to do additional exploring because i was a very very small civ, Maya were very very large. I felt my only hope was to concentrate on defense and have some immortals ready in case they attacked. Avoided negotiations with Maya for fear they would soon discover our vulnerability and possibily make tribute demands, i was also very poor and behind in tech. At this point in the game I felt I was destined to be the first player to be wiped out.

Finally w/ alphabet / curragh I made contact w/ Dutch. Also communicated via email to Celts encouraging him 2 put a boat in the water so we could make contact (gave no directions to my land, just figured w/ both of us hunting each other maybe we would be lucky) This was about 30 turns left in agreement between Dutch & Maya (this is of course a guess) immediately i began discussions w/ Dutch trying to persuade them, and like i said they were reluctant until sufficiently bribed w/ iron and horses, i played a large part in the dutch being able to get horses also. rubberjello was concerend if he did not ally w/ me, then playboy would, i was concerned if they would both ally against me to get my iron. (but not for my land, it's not really worth that much)

I needed an ally & i had no idea how far away the Celts were or when/if I would make contact, i was desperate at the time and pushed the dutch. the dutch weren't out looking to screw the Maya, they just happened to be sitting in their homes one day when i came sailing by in my boat, iron sword in hand to show off, complete w/ delusions of grandeur, and finally i was able to convince him. There was no violation in the agreement, it was simply allowed to expire. The Dutch must have felt they needed to make plans for their own protection once the agreement expired at the expense of the Maya.

Understand your disbanding / abandoning cities policy, I might do the same in your shoes, but I had no idea we were really that superior to you militarily. Yes, we have superior weaponry , but that does not guarantee a victory.

As far as Ironduck is concerend, he has his hands full with a couple piddly AI's and will never survive long enough to decide if he can trust us.

BTW, playboy, just out of curiosity because i dont get to see replay of fights, did you get to sink my elite 1 HP curragh that had just fought off 6 barbarian galleys or did it sink in the ocean, if you sunk it, did your galley survive the ocean or sink, of course the last part you might not want to divulge, but guessing it survived & killed my other curragh.

as far as the trash talking, i will leave it very general in nature, not accusational, if i wanna make it more accusatory i'll just do so in an email & cc the other players.

Ahem.. I think the strong Celts will survive their constant wars against the AI just fine.. It would be embarrassing to be wiped out by the AI with no human intervention ;)

I don't see a violation of treaties either as long as they are allowed to expire. I don't think I'll ever understand the warrior incident, so I'm just ignoring that part ;)

There is one thing though - if we switch out of game mode here for a sec - how are we supposed to know who attacked whom? Say, if I have an MPP with any of you three and one attacks the other and both claim the other party attacked, then I'm screwed. When playing the AI it always knows who attacked so the rep hit is taken in accordance, but how is a human supposed to know what happens in the fog of war? The MPP is really problematic in that regard since it can't be known for sure in most cases if it was properly invoked..

Edit: unless I just haven't been told 'x declared war on y' yet because no attacks have been made.. that would make sense.. Since I still haven't met the Persians I can't know about that war, only the Dutch-Mayan war, which according to my advisor is not yet taking place.

@ Ironfluck - The Fog of war :satan: Just whom can you believe? :D

*******************************************
HEAR YE HEAR YE

A Proclamation from the King RJ of the Dutch

We have discovered a monster in our midst! A criminal so heinious, so vile, so dispicable - that our souls cry out for vengeance and justice.

Who is this villain? It is none other than the leader of the Maya. While we were engaged in our punitive expedition to the south to slap the hand of Mayans for their duplicitous diplmatic ways, we discovered an entire city destroyed and the population, down to the last infant child, massacred!!! All evidence points to their own soldiers doing the killing! Hardened soldiers were reduced to tears while observing the rows of unburied corpses of citizens from all age groups and walks of life just lying in the streets. They, as have I, have sworn a solemn vow to bring the perpetrators of this policy to justice, and give them some of their own medicine.

Such infamy cannot be allowed to live on this same Earth as us honest and hardworking Dutch. It will will rooted out and utterly destroyed, and such survivors as can be saved will be welcomed into the Dutch kingdom as equal citizens under the King's law.

May the Lord(s) (since monotheism hasn't been discovered yet) have mercy upon the souls of those thousands of innocents.

regarding the MPP, the third party would have to try to do some investigating into the incident to determine who was telling the truth, i miss those reports form foreign advisor, cultural advisor, etc, at least you knew a little about what was occurring in otherm parts of the world. overall, though, i think everyone can be expected to maintain some honesty, for instance, playboy attacked my warrior first in his territory to start the war, that much is settled, the rest are just details that dont really matter outside of politics that leave you scratching your head wondering whom to believe.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Rubberjello

HEAR YE HEAR YE

A Prolamation from the King RJ of the Dutch

We have discovered a monster in our midst! A criminal so heinious, so vile, so dispicable - that our souls cry out for vengeance and justice.

Who is this villain? It is none other than the leader of the Maya. While we were engaged in our punitive expedition to the south to slap the hand of Mayans for their duplicitous diplmatic ways, we discovered an entire city destroyed and the population, down to the last infant child, massacred!!! All evidence points to their own soldiers doing the killing! Hardened soldiers were reduced to tears while observing the rows of unburied corpses of citizens from all age groups and walks of life just lying in the streets. They, as have I, have sworn a solemn vow to bring the perpetrators of this policy to justice, and give them some of their own medicine.

Such infamy cannot be allowed to live on this same Earth as us honest and hardworking Dutch. It will will rooted out and utterly destroyed, and such survivors as can be saved will be welcomed into the Dutch kingdom as equal citizens under the King's law.
[QUOTE]

Upon hearing of this montrosity our immortals came completely unglued, it was all i, as commander of the military, could do to keep them from turning back, they simply did not have the heart to have to witness such misdeeds first hand. Naturally, their support goes out to the poor Dutch soldiers who did witness this sight. I have finally convinced the Persian Immortals to continue in the war effort so as to try to save the Mayan women & children from their own cruel leader, they will be welcomed into Persian society as well as the Duch and we pledge our allegiance with the Dutch in bringing the criminals to justice.

If I don't get those advisor reports there's no way I can know what's going on on your continent unless I have scouts placed at the key locations, and who would allow that? Not me.

We could agree about being honest on who declared war on whom, but that wasn't exactly how things were initially presented in this thread as you were trying to leave me confused ;) One is more fair, the other is more fun, I don't see any obvious solutions..

technically, we were honest, the first attack & start of war was by the Mayans on my warrior who was in their territory, the debate was what was the intentions of the warrior in their territory

Errrhhhmmm.... Well, from a technical point of view, Planning a war upon your long-time ally while the treaty is still in effect is "dishonest". But as Predesad pointed out - we ALL do that to the AI all the time!

It's dishonest, but it's not 'illegal'.. it's something that can be discussed here as we do and then people can make up their minds, but I feel it will be more fair for everyone if *actual* breaking of treaties would be honestly declared.. although maybe that ruins some of the fun too.. clearly I have little experience with this multiplayer thing.

It was important to me to figure out if war had been illegally declared (breaking of treaties), since I can't see what's happening that's all I have to go by when I make up my idea of who is trustworthy..

Originally posted by ironduck
It's dishonest, but it's not 'illegal'.. it's something that can be discussed here as we do and then people can make up their minds, but I feel it will be more fair for everyone if *actual* breaking of treaties would be honestly declared.. although maybe that ruins some of the fun too.. clearly I have little experience with this multiplayer thing.

It was important to me to figure out if war had been illegally declared (breaking of treaties), since I can't see what's happening that's all I have to go by when I make up my idea of who is trustworthy..

there were no breaking of treaties by any party in the current war, the issue is the planning to go to war when treaty expired, but in epic game its done all the time, & in multiplayer its done all the time, most times deals are made for peace for the length of time the players feel they will be ready for war, players typically know to be ready for war once the treaty expires, that's just the nature of the game unless you are purely a peace loving player which obviously i am not since i stirred this whole thing up to begin with

Playboy must be away.. still haven't received anything.. and just as it was getting exciting too! I can't stand these cliffhangers! :D

well, i certainly dont want to be pushy, but perhaps the turn needs to be sent to playboy again just in case, assuming thats where it is stuck at, ill send an email to rubberjello & playboy

As to the comments of the nefarious Persian and duplicitous Dutch governments since my last post, what a load of malarkey!

Predesad writes: "Now to defend Rubberjello's reputation"

A bit late for that, eh? He's already admitted to entering into a treaty in bad faith, and then deceiving me about that in private emails. Certainly, there can be no credibility in Dutch words.

As for your polemic on MPPs, it was wasted breath. The fact was that I already knew you two were plotting to war against Maya, and that without iron I could not stand against the two of you. Since you did not refute my earlier point, you must have realized it's basic truth: An uninvited territorial incursion by armed forces is considered an act of war anywhere on earth.

Predesad writes: I had to bribe him sufficiently to convince him to ally with me

In any civilized society(except computer gaming, it seems), the acceptance of bribes is considered immoral at the very least.

My intention when invoking the MPP was to find out whether the Dutch ruler was honorable or not, and I certainly found out. It's not a mistake I will make with him again.

Rubberjello writes: HEAR YE HEAR YE blah blah blah

As I wrote earlier, our cities would be abandoned because our citizens were unwilling to become Dutch slaves. Do not, as you have so callously done before, make accusations in my direction to cover your own misdeeds, conniving, treacherous warmonger. Also, you shouldn't be using the words "honest" and "Dutch" in the same sentence. BTW, the size 7 city of Tonopah has been abandoned and burned in welcome of your arrival.



Predesad writes: technically, we were honest

Really? That's like President Clinton saying 'technically' he didn't have sex with the intern, and that he didn't lie about it. It doesn't pass the smell test.

Rubberjello writes: Errrhhhmmm.... Well, from a technical point of view, Planning a war upon your long-time ally while the treaty is still in effect is "dishonest". But as Predesad pointed out - we ALL do that to the AI all the time!

Don't forget that agreeing to extend said treaty while you were already planning for war is especially odious :) Ya know, guys, I don't care what you do to the AI. I play against humans because I want a different kind of game. Using the same strategies on humans and code robs you of the richness of play that cannot be achieved against machine alone. I would also point out that the AI is far more humane than either of you. The AI is willing to make peace after x# of turns, whereas you two are obviously engaged in a war of total genocide against the Maya.

ironduck writes: It's dishonest, but it's not 'illegal'

I believe that we use the terms unethical or immoral to describe that condition. When I answered the call for a game of 'honorable players', I guess I misunderstood the term. I believe M