Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?

[HoneyBadger]

fungalreason, I'll thank you not to make any more personal attacks.

I won't bother responding to the rest of your post, because it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but in the future, you might try making a reasonable argument, rather than just blindly sputtering.

I think I did a better job of defending Baalz than you did, sad to say.

[alansmithee]

Originally Posted by HoneyBadger

fungalreason, I'll thank you not to make any more personal attacks.

I won't bother responding to the rest of your post, because it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but in the future, you might try making a reasonable argument, rather than just blindly sputtering.

I think I did a better job of defending Baalz than you did, sad to say.

Going back and reading both posts again, I really see very little similarity between what Baalz wrote and what you wrote, outside of using Skratti. The only undead he mentions are vampires and ghosts (actually, the only summons for that matter). And he doesn't say anything about using the priests or the scouts. Really, there's almost no similarity whatsoever. You mention boosting their province defense, which he doesn't really talk about at all.

You say you did a better job of defending him, but you were the only one attacking him. I don't understand why you took so much personal offense to what was, in my opinion, a very good guide. Most people see Niefelheim and think strong double bless, and use the giants. I even remember a post where someone mentioned it was a shame that they had skinshifters, because nobody ever uses them. And (which I think was the impetus for this guide) I recently read in another thread where someone mentioned if there was another way of playing Neifel, and another poster said ignoring a double-bless with giants isn't something that could be done and is playing against the nation's strengths.

So I really think your attack (which it was) was a bit out of line. If you do have a new way of playing them (like this guide presents) please create it. As it stands, you sound quite petty.

[KissBlade]

BTW on a totally unrelated topic, this is something that I have to say always irked me when people commented. Honeybadger, both you and Baalz mentions that Niefel's power fades as late game progresses. See, that is true when people assume they're balanced like that, but they really aren't! As I pointed out, if anything, Niefel has better endgame than /most/ nations. They have durable mages (not vulnerable to artillery) with access to death and astral. AND they have recruitable SC chassis with skratti as thug chassis (and not even cap only WTF?!). That's why nations like Hinnom and Niefel bothers me. They have a great early game AND a great late game. BOO!!!

[WraithLord]

Most of the disparate ideas Baalz presents are quite familiar for a very long time. Like the most noticeable Skratti SCs and Dominion push. However the way he bound them together in his guide and added to them new perspective and the sheer balls it takes to make some of his suggestions (skip triple/dual bless, don't rely only on Niefel Jarls) - I find all this innovative and I think the credit for the innovation and the nice presentation does belong to Baalz.

That of course doesn't take anything from the ppl that came first with some tactics or ideas.
However all considered, it doesn't matter much IMO. Its not like we have patent lawyers for dominions guides and/or ideas. Posting guides is an altruistic act, the way I see it, not a reason for bickering about author rights.
I think politeness and fair conduct mandate that credit be given when possible or obvious but to expect that every one who posts a guide from now on sifts through old posts and try to find whether one of his ideas was mentioned before is way exaggerated.

[HoneyBadger]

Originally Posted by WraithLord

Most of the disparate ideas Baalz presents are quite familiar for a very long time. Like the most noticeable Skratti SCs and Dominion push. However the way he bound them together in his guide and added to them new perspective and the sheer balls it takes to make some of his suggestions (skip triple/dual bless, don't rely only on Niefel Jarls) - I find all this innovative and I think the credit for the innovation and the nice presentation does belong to Baalz.

That of course doesn't take anything from the ppl that came first with some tactics or ideas.
However all considered, it doesn't matter much IMO. Its not like we have patent lawyers for dominions guides and/or ideas. Posting guides is an altruistic act, the way I see it, not a reason for bickering about author rights.
I think politeness and fair conduct mandate that credit be given when possible or obvious but to expect that every one who posts a guide from now on sifts through old posts and try to find whether one of his ideas was mentioned before is way exaggerated.

Snarky comments from the peanut gallery aside (I'm not referring to you, Wraithlord), I think Baalz did a very good job of creating a guide. I said he did in my original post. His guides have always been excellent, concise, and well-written, and he deserves credit for that. I use his guides myself at times, and they have the power to generate new excitement about old worn-out Nations that I've played a dozen times and set aside. I appreciate all of that, and it adds to my sense of enjoyment of the game. My beef was that he presented those ideas as entirely new and unique ones that he'd dreamt up on his own. That's just patently not true, for a very large portion of what this particular guide entails. Anyone who thinks it's entirely original material is either in a strong state of denial, or hasn't been paying attention.

And there have been guides in the past where-atleast as far as I'm aware of-he *did* come up with the majority or all of the ideas on his own, quite brilliantly.

Just not in this case.

I can't honestly believe that Baalz thinks these ideas, in this particular guide, are new ideas, either, which is why it surprised me that he wrote the guide in the way that he did, and why I called him on it. If I thought he really had come up with them, independently, I probably would have just quietly wrote a few personal messages to the poor guy, correcting his mistake.

And this isn't about "sifting through old posts", and attributing or not attributing credit. It's about the attitude expressed in the guide, the reaction to it, and the reaction to any criticism of it.

If you're going to have the "sheer balls" to claim that you've reinvented the wheel, and somebody calls you on it, correctly, then have the "sheer balls" to own up to it. Otherwise, where did your "sheer balls" go?

For that matter, I for one had the "sheer balls" to make the same suggestions first, and then I had the "sheer balls" to call Baalz on it, when I guessed, reasonably, that it would piss a lot of people off.

Sure we don't have patent lawyers, and there aren't any royalties involved, and I really, truly, don't care if somebody borrows my ideas, uses them, changes them, whatever, but I believe there's a matter of integrity involved over maintaining honesty about who did what, and what happened when. I expect that this mess has probably harmed my own reputation more than it has Baalz-and I had a feeling it would when I first posted, I didn't go into this blindly-but I've made a point, which is on record, of atleast trying to give people credit for ideas that I've made use of, whenever I was aware of it. I, and everyone else that puts their free time and mental energies into this game, deserve atleast a bare minimum of respect for the inspiration that we individually and collectively generate. Baalz deserves it, Sombre deserves it, the guy who wrote about skinshifters in the manual deserves it, new people who make their very first contributive post here deserve it, on their very first day, and I deserve it too. It doesn't cost anything, except a little time and an understanding of the concept of humilty.

[alansmithee]

Originally Posted by HoneyBadger

Snarky comments from the peanut gallery aside (I'm not referring to you, Wraithlord), I think Baalz did a very good job of creating a guide. I said he did in my original post. His guides have always been excellent, concise, and well-written, and he deserves credit for that. I use his guides myself at times, and they have the power to generate new excitement about old worn-out Nations that I've played a dozen times and set aside. I appreciate all of that, and it adds to my sense of enjoyment of the game. My beef was that he presented those ideas as entirely new and unique ones that he'd dreamt up on his own. That's just patently not true, for a very large portion of what this particular guide entails. Anyone who thinks it's entirely original material is either in a strong state of denial, or hasn't been paying attention.

And there have been guides in the past where-atleast as far as I'm aware of-he *did* come up with the majority or all of the ideas on his own, quite brilliantly.

Just not in this case.

I can't honestly believe that Baalz thinks these ideas, in this particular guide, are new ideas, either, which is why it surprised me that he wrote the guide in the way that he did, and why I called him on it. If I thought he really had come up with them, independently, I probably would have just quietly wrote a few personal messages to the poor guy, correcting his mistake.

And this isn't about "sifting through old posts", and attributing or not attributing credit. It's about the attitude expressed in the guide, the reaction to it, and the reaction to any criticism of it.

If you're going to have the "sheer balls" to claim that you've reinvented the wheel, and somebody calls you on it, correctly, then have the "sheer balls" to own up to it. Otherwise, where did your "sheer balls" go?

For that matter, I for one had the "sheer balls" to make the same suggestions first, and then I had the "sheer balls" to call Baalz on it, when I guessed, reasonably, that it would piss a lot of people off.

Sure we don't have patent lawyers, and there aren't any royalties involved, and I really, truly, don't care if somebody borrows my ideas, uses them, changes them, whatever, but I believe there's a matter of integrity involved over maintaining honesty about who did what, and what happened when. I expect that this mess has probably harmed my own reputation more than it has Baalz-and I had a feeling it would when I first posted, I didn't go into this blindly-but I've made a point, which is on record, of atleast trying to give people credit for ideas that I've made use of, whenever I was aware of it. I, and everyone else that puts their free time and mental energies into this game, deserve atleast a bare minimum of respect for the inspiration that we individually and collectively generate. Baalz deserves it, Sombre deserves it, the guy who wrote about skinshifters in the manual deserves it, new people who make their very first contributive post here deserve it, on their very first day, and I deserve it too. It doesn't cost anything, except a little time and an understanding of the concept of humilty.

As I am assuming I'm considered part of the "snarky peanut gallery", please show where in your original post in the thread you had any of the same ideas outside of "use skrattis". I really see this as some odd personal attack, and a largely baseless one at that.

And where was the concept of humility with you essentially saying "notice me, these are my ideas!"? If you have good ideas, put together your own guide. As many people in the thread have stated, there are many new ideas in his guide (or at least things people didn't know before, since you obviously think this is all common knowledge). What you posted previously had almost nothing to do with this guide. Yet you want to somehow claim credit for the ideas, and make thinly veiled insults against the person who wrote the guide.

And the main reason I'm even bothering to post this is because I think attitudes like yours in this thread and another poster in the guide for Marignon only serve to discourage people from putting in the time and effort to make good guides (or any guides whatsoever). And me, as a relatively new player, loves to have the selection of different ideas and strategies for playing nations that come from the guides. I'm sure many other people also appreciate the effort. I doubt if anyone would want to try to navigate searching approx. 3 years of posts every time they want to write a guide to make sure someone who made some tangentially related comment about the nation doesn't throw a fit and start complaining. And that (at least to me) seems to be what you're doing here.

Sincerely,

-The Peanut Gallery

[HoneyBadger]

Originally Posted by alansmithee

As I am assuming I'm considered part of the "snarky peanut gallery", please show where in your original post in the thread you had any of the same ideas outside of "use skrattis". I really see this as some odd personal attack, and a largely baseless one at that.

1: Correct

2: I made several clear examples, aside from presenting the original posts, in their entirety.

3: The reason is that you don't bother to even half-read the posts that you spend so very much time and energy criticising.

Atleast I bothered to read Baalz's post before replying to it.

[Sombre]

Deleted at Baalz request.

[Sombre]

I don't think anyone seriously thinks HB has a leg to stand on criticising Baalz.

The blood forged weapons are what interested me.

[Endoperez]

I agree with HB on the fact that this isn't revolutionary in the same way as, say, Baalz's guide to Marverni. This probably doesn't offer much new stuff for veterans of many Niefel-wars, but I doubt they'd need guides any way.

For those of use who don't play multiplayer or haven't played with/against Niefelheim in MP, this gives a very nice vision of what it can be like.