Donovan Zoi
The Return
Okay, no worries. It was more that we waited around for a week for you to play the previous turn when most other people appeared to be back. The lack of any posting was also a bit confusing. Glad to have you back, though.
Sorry it took so long to respond here. It's been a busy week.
To answer this, I'll state that I found Irgy's post about the metagame an interesting read. And while it doesn't change my position on how I feel these games should be played, it did reveal a bit about how the metagame had affected my own insights. You see, I have taken more than a cursory glance at CivStats records over the months and one consistency is how you end up decimating your opponents by 1000-2000 points each time.
Long story short, I knew early that entering into any type of agreement with you would become "the fool's gambit," a term I heard from Realms Beyond players to describe trading with (and thereby further enabling) someone more domestically powerful than yourself. Taking the metagame of past performance into account, you can almost automatically be considered a "front-runner" before you even placed your first city.
If I am aware of this, there's no way that a MP veteran like Elkad was not. He could have kept you in check with some coy diplomacy or an agreement with a deadline. He could have approached any one of us to work out some kind of arrangement to further balance you out. Instead he used you as a meal ticket, which is now reaping handsome rewards in the late game even though he doesn't have a snowball's chance of winning the game by official terms.
I have nothing against nabaxo, judging by his start and the fact that I haven't seen him in as many games. I can surmise that his deals were made just to stay alive.
Now that you know my philosophy of the game, if I were your neighbor you wouldn't have had quecha's holding down the fort until Rifles. I'll tell you that much.
And I'm sorry, but calling our alliance "ridiculous" is quite tiresome, considering that even our reactionary measures were not enough to halt the inevitable. What did you expect us to do? Just trade in 2 man groups so you could coast to your usual victory?
That sounds a bit smug if you ask me. Did you have to untie that hand from behind your back to type this?
I'm not saying it's your fault. I am merely stating where the game is currently at, and why I am not getting much joy out of it. Rushing units was our only hope, and even that looks dim at this point.
Not interested. With your espionage afforded by your allies, you could grab the SE the minute you notice I started building it. Plus I am not going to waste my time on space race when I'll perennially be 5 steps behind. Once again, just stating the facts.
I'll point out again that this wasn't any sudden action to throw the game; it had been building out of a necessary friendship since almost the start of the game. Also, may I ask again what the alternative was supposed to be? Elkad suddenly teaming up with nabaxo to try to wipe me out? That just would have been suicide for the three of us, throwing the game in an instant. Almost certainly throwing it to you... or maybe Irgy/2metra. (No offence to Dave/BCLG, but I think you guys will probably agree you're not competing for first place at this point.
Besides, we seem to have a difference of philosophy here. With tech trading on, I view this as more of a "team" game. We have two teams at this point in this game - fairly evenly matched, in my opinion - and one of those includes myself, Elkad and nabaxo. If one of us manages to claim a victory, then in my view that is a team victory for us. As I see it, there can be no individual victory for me in this game - I simply could not have got to where I am without the wholehearted support and effort of my teammates. I know it, they know it, and you all know it. Assuming I win, they deserve every bit as much credit for the victory as me, in my view. I assumed the same would be true of your alliance, in that if any of you managed to win, it would be credited as a team victory.
If tech trading was off it would be a different story, of course. But to me, when you have tech trading on and form a strong tech alliance with other players, you can't pretend that your success is separate from theirs. They are as much a part of your victory as you are, and there's no way around it.
I don't know many people that are happy with tech trading games, and I am certainly not one of them. More accurately, I'd be happy with them if they weren't used as an excuse to band into some "ridiculous" first-strike tech party whereby the only recourse for others is to regroup quickly and band together in a sometimes more "ridiculous" (or so I've heard...
) counteralliance. The actual MTDG seems to be a glaring example of this, even though I couldn't tell you much about it. Why the hell is there a 4-team alliance in a game with 6 teams? Since success cannot be separated, does that mean that the MTDG will have four winners? 
Both the lame and the good had tech trading on. But tech trading can enrich the game so long as each player competes from the standpoint of self-interest.
That's big of you to say so, and I do mean that. Yet the CivStats archives will know better. And the foreknowledge of the metagame will almost always ensure that you will successfully recruit someone willing to share your victory.
Hmmmm, 18 hours on the clock. I wonder when the turn will change? 
