MP Game - "Throne Of Heavens", veterans and experienced players only (full)

[Stormbinder]

The game is up and runing again, new turn 54 have been hosted.

My thanks to Mose for the quick intervention!

[Stormbinder]

Since the game is geting increasingly more complicated, and since some people have been asking for it, I am switching the game to 48h quickhost, if it is ok with everybody.

[Stormbinder]

Greetings all.

I regret to say but I am going to bow out of this game at this point.

About 5 turns ago Mictlan(Archaeolept) offered an "alliance victory" option to Pangeya(qunatum_mechanic) against my Vanheim nation, and Panquea accepted it. Frankly I was quite startled by such development, especially after all that Machaka controversity and discussions of "fair" and "not fair" victories and gameplay. IMO the idea from the begining of this game, which was even reflected in the name, was that "The Throne Of Heavens can have but one owner". (c) But as Archae told me, it was not officially in the rules, and it become clear to me that unfortunatly both Mictlan and Pangeya have different ideas of what constitutes a fair victory. They also both replied to me that they dislike endgames, and would like to be over with it as soon as they can.


My attempts to talk to Archae and QM against such "alliance victory" were not successeful. But I think that in the situation when Micltan alone was stronger than me (he had 10 times more SCs, more gem income, better reseach, much better army), him offering "alliance victory" to the 3rd major nation did not make much sense to me, to put it mildly. ;(


But this is just my opinion, clearly Archae and QM feel differently, or they would not go ahead with such "strategy". I am not going to start discussion on this. What I am telling here is my personal opinion, nothing else. Other people may feel differently.


All I can say is that if I wanted to win the game in such manner, I would won it twice already, beyond any doubts. As you all know well, Machaka offered me to do similar things by "throwing the game in my favor" on two different occasions, when he was still very powerfull nation. And as you know I did everything I could to refuse such victory, since I simply didn't feel there is any glory or fun in it. I also worked hard to find sub for Machaka, together with Zap, so I would not overun his huge empire in 2-3 turns as I would if it would be swithced to AI in the middle of the war with me. All these actions of mine were motivated not by masohism, but by simple desire to have "fun" and "fair" endgame, instead of automatic victory for my nation. And of course I don't regret it, since vitory does not mean much to me comparable to fun and challenging gameplay.



But anyway, enough about it. I don't want to start discussion of what fair and what not. I am just explaining my motives and feelings. If you guys will want to continue this game and will find a sub for me, I'll be glad to provide my password along with master password for the game. Although I must say that in this situation when 2 out of 3 major nations agreed to share "alliance victory", the rest of the nations don't have any chance to win, no matter who will play them. I could still struggle for a very long time in this game, since I have a lot of different resourses, unique artifacts and strong overall position, but such "endgame" simply does not make any sense for me.




To be fair, I want to say that both Archae and QM played well, and they lead their nations to become one of the major nations in the game by using good skills and tactics. I also freely admit that their combinded might is stronger than that of my nation, or any other combination of nations. I just wished they would not decide at the end to go ahead with "alliance victory" in such sitiation, simply because they "dislike endgames". ;(



Anyway, I want to thank each and every player in this game, both permament players and subs. IMHO the game was a real bLast. I think the house rules worked very well and prevented a lot of end-game cheese that plaqued so many other MP dom2 games. I hope you liked them as well.

I hope each of you guys had a lot of fun with this game. So my deep thanks to you all for all your time and efforts to create this great gaming experience, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Take care!

With best regards,
Stormbinder

[WraithLord]

My two cents.

Assuming that Pangaea and Mictlan have indeed agreed to an allied victory.
I think it is against the "spirit" of the game as I understood it.
The game was supposed to be FFA. With only one winner.
Deciding on "allied" victory in such a game spoils the fun of it for the other players (at least for me).
Anyway, this is my sentiment. Don't think I care much for continuing the game given the way things stand.

[Thufir]

Can I ask if this game is actually being played or not? The reason I ask is that Tyrant had recently opened a new game, got a crew signed up, and then stopped the game at my request when I screwed up my pretender upload. He did not immediately create a new game, and when he attempted to, the 23 game limit had been reached. Since no new games have been created since his attempt, that means that some older game must've been stopped and restarted. My best guess is that this is the game that's been restarted.

So, if you guys are not intending to play this out, can we coordinate w/ Tyrant to make sure that Tyrant gets the slot?

TIA,

Thufir

[archaeolept]

the game is still going, whatever storm's self-righteous spaz.

he should be looking for a substitute.

Frankly, we've only been fighting for 3 turns, and I offered to w/draw my acceptance of a combined victory. as such, storm's claim that

My attempts to talk to Archae and QM against such "alliance victory" were not successeful.

is an out and out lie. I don't much care whether there's an alliance victory or not, though long endgames bore me.

Let us be clear: storm's extremely aggressive diplomacy towards both me and quantum alienated both of us - even though all my initial plans for the game originally involved looking for an ally against quantum's pangaia. However, storm was just so irritating and self-righteous both of us eventually coalesced against him. And, to us, he looked to be the strongest as he had just taken out most of the southern continent.

What then happened was that storm put forth a lot of bragging and trash talk. frankly, i believed him as to his capabilites and fully expected to lose two armies this past turn; especially since he's played far more endgames than I have. However, it was all hot air, and this Last turn he blew most of his prime units on obviously risky and unthought-out attacks. This is why he now wants to find some excuse to quit, not any supposed victory agreement between me and quantum.

Remember: this was his game, his "no quitters" game.

he had 10 times more SCs, more gem income, better reseach, much better army)

10 times? that's bizarre, and quite untrue are you saying that I had 80+ SCs? (since you had at least 8 that i even knew about, including an allfather, 2 air queens, 2 water queens, an AQ mummy, and tartarians). my gem income was slightly higher, and my army better (though unknown to me, as I did not know what storm's forces consisted of).

All I can say is that if I wanted to win the game in such manner, I would won it twice already, beyond any doubts.

but here we see the essence of storm's mental processes: he seems to need to convince himself that he deserves to win so badly that he w/draws into fantasy. Machaka also offered me an alliance; and at the stage where storm was offered the alliance, Machaka had already been largely eviscerated by the war and had absolutely no forces to send against me; much less sufficient forces to destroy me lol. Storm was uninterested in an alliance w/ machak because he expected to take out all of machaka's remaining territory, which he almost did.

Anyways, the alliance victory no longer holds (it was never set in stone anyways - as I just told quantum that I would accept one), since storm is being so whiny about it.

No quitters huh? LOL

[Stormbinder]

What a pile of nonsense Archae. I am somewhat dissapointed to hear it from you.


You mostly did not dispute any of the facts that I said in my post, you are just trying to spin them around.

And when you try to contradict me directly it is simply untrue.

Just few points from your letter:


I only have 1 water queen, not 2. Always had.

As I said you were leading in *all* graphs when you offered that "alliance victory" option to qunatum, except my slight lead in provinces and gold income. You had more gem income, better reseach, *much* more SCs(specifically you had all Archdevils, all Icedevils, Demon Lords (except those owened by Pangeya), Helios(excpet those owned by Pangeya), your pretender), some some Fire/Earth Kings, plus other SCs), *much* better army, *much* more blood income.
All SCs I had, when you and Pangeya joined in "alliance victory" plan against me that you have offered to him, was 2(two) AQs , 1(one) pretender, 1(one) WQ, and 1(one) tantarian. 1 AQ mummy came either around that time or shortly after it, and was promptly blinded in the very first battle with Machaka. I had no other SCs whatsoever. Your math has nothing to do with reality.
In such conditions offering "alliance victory" to 3rd (and Last) major nation is very lame in my honest opinion.


I expressed my feeling about it to you and to quantum very clearly at that time. You personally told me that this was not directly prohibited by the rules, that's the way you want to play it, and that you dislike endgames. Quantum said pretty much the same, and he also told me that he accepted your offer and because of this he is withdrewing from NoneAgressionTreaty with me. Are you going to dispute it? Or are you telling that QM was lieing?


Finally I already freely admited that your 2 combined nations are obviously stronger than any combination of all other nations, including my own. So your boasting about your two victories this turn does not make any sense, since I already admited that I will eventualy lose. I killed Quantum's pretender this turn, got 2 very expensive unique battle artifacts from him, wiped out 2 of his armis and broke the gates of two of his castles while breaking his sieges on two of mine. I also suffered some serious losses. But it all does not matter at the end, since as I said the writing on the wall is clear.



The Machaka part of your letter is totally untrue. He offered me to throw the game in my favor on two ocasions, first time when he was still the largest nation in the world. You, Archae, have agreed yourself that he could easely do it, if he would go ahead with his plan of fighting you and not resisting me. That's excactly why you backed off, since you obviously wanted to win the game by yourself. I just never expected that you would come with such "genious" "alliance victory" plan as you did, to archive your goal.


Now you are trying to tell us that Machaka was weak and harmless. LOL. Why than you backed of from his theat and whined so much about his "blackmail"???


Of course I wanted to win the war against him myself. The the goal of the war, you know. When I attacked him after his agression against Marignon, Machaka was the most powerfull nation on the globe, as everybody, including yourself, agreed. But nevertheless I wanted to beat him myself, not receive the victory on the golden plate in "alliance" with him against you, as he have offered repeatedly during our war, or to recieve the victory on the game on the golden plate, if he would direct all his forces against you, and allow me to overun his empire, as he threaten to do. Feel the difference archae. You was pissed and scared by his threat, since you knew very well just like I did, that it was very credible. That was the only reason why you backed off.



As for your "allaince voctory" that was "never set a stone" - sorry, but that's a total bull****. You have directly offered it an "alliance victory" to Quantum. He have accepted it. He told me about it himeself when he withdrew from NAT with me and attacked me, and you withdrew from NAT with me one turn before that. Whom do you think you are fooling Archae?



I would never quit the game if you would not turn game that was supposed to be FFA into that lame "alliance victory" crap with other major nation, when your was already was the strongest nation in the game, partly because you never was in a single challenging war in this game. If you dislike endgames so much you should find a sub for yourself, I am sure there would be a lot of takers. IMO "alliance victory" is very lame solution to avoid long endgames.



If you will manage to find a sub let me know. I've set game to 6000 hours quickhost for now. Otherwise please don't insult other people intelligence with your spin.