Petition: For the Sake of Fun

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Master Zen
We were at war Nathan, unable to engage because there were no troops to engage. Our declaration of war was posted. As for GoW lives at stake that's just another case of self-justification and you can go around and around the issue but ultimately leading to the inescapable fact that it was a hostile act, even by your definitions.

If you'll check the record, you will see that my focus was pretty consistently on how providing Vox with iron would cost us in lives. We did not want Voxian immortals and pikes killing our troops, and anyone who provided iron to Vox would have been partially responsible for the deaths of GS troops killed by weapons made from that iron. Since Vox was at war with GS and not with anyone else, there could be little doubt regarding who the iron would be used against, at least in the short term. And while a civ could have argued that they were only making the sale for the money and had no actual desire to see our forces die, recent Gathering Storm military action was the only reason the possibility of selling Vox iron existed. Thus, the very best that another team could argue is that they were trying to profit from our military successes at the expense of having more of our soldiers die.

Further, "hostile" is your word, not ours. I think the words that best describe the feelings of the team as a whole (although some individuals had harsher attitudes) were,

Nor are we saying that supplying Vox with iron would, in and of itself, destroy another team's hopes of having good diplomatic relations with us. But it would be quite capable of nudging our attitude a notch or two (e.g. from Polite to Cautious or Annoyed, to use game terms), and that could easily have an impact on close choices in future negotiations.

As far as the deal between GoW and us was concerned, GoW could have turned its riders around at any time and gone home without suffering a single casualty. Granted, doing so would have posed problems with respect to your preexisting deal with ND. But since that deal seemed to provide no respect whatsoever for GS's interests, we had equally little respect for that deal.

At a deeper level, GoW negotiated a NAP with us and thought they could use it as a "let us split Bob with ND while you get nothing" (or at least nothing for a very long time) pact. That disconnect between what we felt the legitimate purpose of the pact was and what GoW was trying to turn it into is what ultimately led to the pact's failure. It is one thing to expect Gathering Storm to behave honorably, but quite another to willfully abuse our honor and expect us to put up with it. Under the terms of the NAP, we had as much right to conquer and keep RP territory as GoW did. But GoW's attitude toward us seemed to completely disregard that fact, thereby ensuring that we would side with RP to the extent that we felt the NAP allowed rather than with GoW.

Not that I should be complaining too much about that aspect of the situation, because I've enjoyed working with RP and that probably wouldn't have happened if GoW and ND hadn't pushed GS and RP together. Still, I get extremely irritated when members of GoW try to portray our honor as worthless. There is a long way between "not quite 100% perfect" and worthless.

Nathan

[Shiber]

BALEETED!!

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by BigFree
BTW, should GF get a PCR for all the 'deleted' posts he's made? He sure has a habit for going back and getting rid of the evidence; how sad.

Don't push it BF.

[Hot_Enamel]

Originally posted by nbarclay

Still, I get extremely irritated when members of GoW try to portray our honor as worthless. There is a long way between "not quite 100% perfect" and worthless.

Nathan

Nah... I would probably say it is worthless.

GS put themselves on this pedestal as being the most almighty righteousness civ in the game.
The above couple of posts seem to indicate that GS broke the NAP just to “even the score” with GoW. Thats fair enough, we are doing the same to RP.
Don’t start blaming us if we feel we have to point out that your honour code ain’t worth **** anymore.

[Master Zen]

Nathan, I still don't see the difference between the Voxian situation and ours. You argue that any iron deal would have been at the expense of GS's soldiers dying, yet that is no different from our advance being stalled which would have led RP to concentrate against ND, which would have led to not only ND troops dying, but then furthermore to GoW troops dying once we went around your cultural borders into action.

Second of all that NAP was to us a "let's split Bob with ND and not get backstabbed by GS" deal. Nothing more. What other legitimate uses did the NAP have other than that? It said nothing to GS's "interests" on Bob, which as far as wanting more land is baloney, by the time ND and GoW had established ourselves on Bob, GS would have more than enough time to use the beachheads as invasion routes also considering that GS cities on Bob would be extremely corrupt.

Anyway, I have to sleep so enough debating for today. All I can say is once your honor has proved itself to be "not quite 100% perfect" there's pretty much little reason left to trust. You only have to be caught in a lie once in life for people to consider you al liar, same with Civ.

[Shiber]

H_E, MZ, I am SO disappointed with you.
Let's drop the act, OK? You are continuing your campaign of character assassination of my team with sarcastic remarks such as "GS put themselves on this pedestal as being the most almighty righteousness civ in the game."
The only audience of this discussion is Lego and Vox. The rest are directly involved in the war on Bob and most people are already too biased toward their side to ever change over, so this argument serves only two purposes:
1. To attempt to convince Lego and Vox that GS does not adhere to its moral code which it has proclaimed throughout the game, and therefore the members of GS are completely untrustworthy, are liars and are even more arrogant than you have portrayed RP to be, and therefore Lego and Vox should rally to your cause and join your side in fighting RP and GS.
2. To irritate everyone involved in this commmunity beyond bear.

If you want to continue this as a professional discussion, please:
1. Refrain from using any more sarcasm and throwing statements into the fray that serve only to irritate the other side.
2. Stop this threadjack. Continue the discussion in another thread (if you have to start a NEW thread, please at least give it a neutral name, OK?)

One last personal opinion:
I, for one, seriously HATED RP's methods of diplomacy and shaping of public opinion throughout this game. They have constantly portrayed other teams as what they are not - for instance, they have called GS, Lego and ND isolationists, as well as other names which I will not repeat, throughout most of the game. Now GoW is doing the same.
Perhaps you feel that you are returning RP the "favor", by attacking the joint RP-GS enemy using methods similar to those that RP has employed (look how you've degenerated ), as well as scoring points with Lego and Vox. But I can honestly say that if I were a member of Lego or Vox, I'd hate GoW right now for its [understatement] tasteless [/understatement] behavior. Not that it would affect my judgement of whether to support GoW-ND or GS-RP, if any at all; I like to think that teams should make important decisions based on logic and rational debating, as well as on estimates of who are friends of the team and who are not and who might be willing to cooperate, not based on hate and loath and on some "thread of grudges".

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Shiber
H_E, MZ, I am SO disappointed with you.
Let's drop the act, OK?

Won't help. Just ignore them. I do.

[Hot_Enamel]

Didnt mean to hijack....I have already transferred my posts to the more appropriate thread.

Originally posted by Shiber
H_E, MZ, I am SO disappointed with you.
Let's drop the act, OK? You are continuing your campaign of character assassination of my team with sarcastic remarks such as "GS put themselves on this pedestal as being the most almighty righteousness civ in the game."
The only audience of this discussion is Lego and Vox.

Plus those members in GS who want to adhere to their honour code.
Plus those RP members who suddenly realise that allowing their leaders to treat other teams like AI is the wrong strategy.

Those guys still get a vote in their teams agenda dont they ?

Likewise, GoW members can easily censor MZ & myself.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by Hot_Enamel
Plus those RP members who suddenly realise that allowing their leaders to treat other teams like AI is the wrong strategy.

Leave out the "You're treating us like some AI" accusations, OK?
Whatever tricks RP has pulled on GoW, they did it because they are intimidated by GoW's intelligence and skill and realize that in order to win this game, they have to pull every trick that they have up their sleeve and maximize their skills and advantages in order to defeat you.
To say that RP was treating GoW "like an AI" is an insult both to RP and to GoW. It shows that you have the inability to appreciate the fact that whatever efforts the enemy takes, it is because he both respects you as an adversary, and is afraid of your potency.

GoW has had some successes in this game, and some defeats. If your way of dealing with defeat is to accuse the other side of lying, arrogance, cheating, pretending to have a moral high-ground and what not, then I honestly couldn't care less about what you have to say, and this discussion is over as far as I'm concerned.

[civman2000]

After all, we are all human.

What about the Legomen?

[Hot_Enamel]

Originally posted by Shiber
GoW has had some successes in this game, and some defeats. If your way of dealing with defeat is to accuse the other side of lying, arrogance, cheating, pretending to have a moral high-ground and what not, then I honestly couldn't care less about what you have to say, and this discussion is over as far as I'm concerned.

Lying - never
Arrogance - maybe
Cheating - Never
No morals - didnt mean to
Disregarding their honour code - yes

If you want the discussion to stop .. then stop replying


I'll keep going so long as you keep posting

[Shiber]

Sigh...

[BigFree]

RP never treated another team as if they were the AI. Do not impugn our motives or actions by saying we treat others in a highly disrepectful manner; that itself is disrespectful to the RP teams member's.

Take a look around; I'm sure there's some overlapping going on from one team to another when you look at all the DG's going on. When you accuse someone of being one thing in one game (PTWDG) you accuse them of being the same in another game (ISDG or PTWDG2.) Becareful of whom you accuse of what; it will come back to haunt you.

[Hot_Enamel]

Humm...

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Hot_Enamel
Nah... I would probably say it is worthless.

GS put themselves on this pedestal as being the most almighty righteousness civ in the game.
The above couple of posts seem to indicate that GS broke the NAP just to “even the score” with GoW. Thats fair enough, we are doing the same to RP.
Don’t start blaming us if we feel we have to point out that your honour code ain’t worth **** anymore.

I don't agree with "broke." GoW has been finding rather interesting interpretations for agreements all game, so it seemed like poetic justice that we allow ourselves to interpret the NAP with you a little more loosely than we might have under other circumstances - especially considering the way GoW sided with ND and against us over whether or not we would be allowed to hold land on Bob. You sought to interfere with our expansion in doing so, so we did not consider it clearly more unjust or hostile to take actions that would, in the process of protecting a military ally facing a common enemy and helping our ally wear down that enemy (namely Neu Demogyptica), interfere with your expansion. But we did not attack or threaten a single thing that you actually owned.

Basically, what we set up was a symmetric situation in which we and RP would be fighting ND while you and ND were fighting RP, but the two of us would not be fighting each other unless you attacked us or indicated an intent to do so. That is a long, long way from simply deciding not to honor the NAP at all. Had you chosen to honor the NAP, the only troops you would have faced in your battle with RP would have been RP troops - and that at a time when RP's forces had already been worn down in battle against ND while yours were all fresh and intact.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by BigFree
RP never treated another team as if they were the AI.

Never.

Besides every civ player knows that, when dealing with the AI, it is the AI which is ALWAYS disrespectful first.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Master Zen
Nathan, I still don't see the difference between the Voxian situation and ours. You argue that any iron deal would have been at the expense of GS's soldiers dying, yet that is no different from our advance being stalled which would have led RP to concentrate against ND, which would have led to not only ND troops dying, but then furthermore to GoW troops dying once we went around your cultural borders into action.

In other words, your troops' deaths would have been an incidental by-product of our helping our ally fight against Neu Demogyptica, which had made itself our enemy by demanding a right to expand without our being allowed to expand similarly. And even that much would have happened only if you chose to press on with your attack plans knowing that ND's ability to help you would be far more limited than you had originally envisioned.

Second of all that NAP was to us a "let's split Bob with ND and not get backstabbed by GS" deal.

Then why did you not tell us that the deal included a provision that we would be expected to allow you to split Bob with ND without our being allowed to get a share of the land for ourselves? We would never have signed such a deal, and you would have avoided this mess. As I said, you were trying to use a NAP as something far more than just a NAP.

What other legitimate uses did the NAP have other than that?

Its legitimate purpose was to allow both GS and GoW to expand our holdings, on an equal basis, without fear of being stabbed in the back by the other. But your clear opposition to our taking and keeping land on Bob pretty much threw the idea that you regarded the agreement as (gasp) symmetric out the window. Our setting up the one-and-a-half vs. one-and-a-half war we did in our alliance with RP was the best way we could come up with to restore that symmetry.

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by Shiber
Sigh...

It's ok, Shiber. Some people are just hopeless. I hate to say it, but you're honestly just better off to give up now.

[nbarclay]

By the way, I could make a similar argument that if RP had been forced to divert troops to defend against you, it would have undermined their ability to fight against ND, resulting in more GS deaths in our war against ND. Right? So given a choice between doing what was best for the lives of our own troops and doing what was best for the lives of your troops, we chose to give our own troops the higher priority. It wasn't a matter of hostility toward you; merely a result of pragmatism during wartime.

[Aeson]

Honor is something that only matters to the person who has it (or thinks they do), as it realistically can only be judged by the individual themselves. Everyone else is relying on 2nd or 3rd hand information, and can only guess at things such as motive, intent, and what 'honor' means to the individual in the first place.

I've always cringed when the subject of GS honor is brought up. I agree it shouldn't even be mentioned, but it still reflects on me. That doesn't dispel the fact that saying GS has no honor is a derogatory remark, not just about those who bring up honor, but directed at the whole team.

These finger pointing threads are a good analogy to the honor issue, only it reflects on all of us here at Poly. Regardless of which team the person pointing the fingers or sticking out their chest is on, or the "it's just a game, so when I insult you or your team it's all good" type qualifiers used, they only serve to help lower the Civ III community down to the level of those expected for first person shooters.

That's my opinion on these threads. I say raze them.

[Arnelos]

Aeson,

Very well put

[Master Zen]

@ Shiber

The only people it seems we've irritated apparently have been GS and RP members which I hardly find surprising since the accussations have been against them. However, how all this trash-talking is affecting some of you makes me think that perhaps there is some truth in it all, hence why it actually makes it more disturbing...

Anyway, the trash-talking hasn't been one-sided mind you, but I don't care, trash-talking isn't trash-talking unless there are trash replies to your trashy posts.

Now, since some of US have signed the disclaimer don't you think we're simply doing it in the sake of fun and not with real intentions to hurt people? Like I said, I have nothing against GSers, but I have every right to trash an supposedly superior honor code which to me is totally worthless.



@ Aeson

Sometimes even those playing the most complex, serious and mature strategy games feel the need to act like if we were playing Quake instead, like OPD said, it's the passion in these threads which makes it much more exciting don't you think?

[notyoueither]

It's OK MZ, we wouldn't expect you or most of the Glory of War to understand the first thing about honour, so how could you accurately judge it?

We should not be offended by a blind man describing the colour of our uniforms.

[Aeson]

You can be passionate without being insulting, slinging mud, ect.

[Shiber]

Once again, to that Aeson.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by notyoueither
It's OK MZ, we wouldn't expect you or most of the Glory of War to understand the first thing about honour, so how could you accurately judge it?

We should not be offended by a blind man describing the coulour of our uniforms.

see? these are words of the wise

take it easy people, I haven't insulted anyone, my flame targets were GS as a team, not as individuals and this is like the 3rd time I say it...

Shiber: you just flamed retarded people...

[Shiber]

Only flamers would see that as a flame

[Aeson]

That's the whole point MZ. You are flaming everyone on GS regarding things said by individuals on GS. It's not better than making individual remarks, it's worse.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Master Zen
take it easy people, I haven't insulted anyone, my flame targets were GS as a team, not as individuals and this is like the 3rd time I say it...

Even if you say it 3 times more, the insults still stand.

[Panzer32]

MZ don't even try to talk about diplomacy stuff here... its not wanted by many people.

Use your thread



(just a word of advice)