I think I now understand Cohen

[LintMan]

archaeolept said:
[censored] panther you are a pain, only partially quoting me. The second quote was in direct response to you. the first, as I said, was in the context fo the discussion; namely re. [censored] Zap threatening to throw the game. As such, one mention of lintman before you started accusing me of overreacting to a post I barely considered and was quite irrelevant to what I was discussing.

lintman's original advice was "horrible" as I said, given that who it's intended recipient was. Encouraging basically self-centred anti-social behaviour to someone who was considering ruining the game as a tactic isn't a good thing; even if some of his advice, in general, was cogent.

But encouraging someone who threatens to throw a game, when they are still a huge power, to "go kamikaze" so that people will not in future games be willing to "mess with you" really isn't productive advice, IMO. Let us remember that the person he was threatening to go kamikaze on wasnt' his "nemesis", and hadn't even made any sort of attack. Rather, Zap was threatening to throw the game to Storm, who would be the best choice for being his "nemesis." There is all sort of advice that may in general be fairly good, but can be terrible when given to a certain individual or in a certain situation.

archaeolept - I'm sorry you found my advice to Zap horrible and grotesque. I was not trying to encourage Zap to "throw the game" in any way. Perhaps I misunderstood the context - I was under the impression Zap was beleaguered mainly by Vanheim and it's SCs (who I was referring to as his nemesis - wasn't this Storm?) and sinking with little to no hope of recovery, while his nemesis was well on the way to winning the game.

I'm not privy to the inside goings-on of the game or any private Messages and didn't get the impression that Zap was "considering ruining the game as a tactic". It seemed to me he thought he was sunk and wanted out of a game he had promised not to quit from. I was trying to give a suggestion of a way to make the game remain fun for him and worth staying in, rather than quitting. Maybe his situation wasn't as dire or near the end as I had thought, but that was my impression from what he wrote.

I'm also puzzled by your statement "Let us remember that the person he was threatening to go kamikaze on wasnt' his "nemesis", and hadn't even made any sort of attack." I must be missing something - I don't recall seeing Zap threaten anywhere to go kamikaze on anyone. I'm also pretty sure Zap mentioned not being able to stand up to Vanheim's Air Queen and Vans - so presumably he was getting attacked by them? And isn't Stormbinder playing Vanheim, who I was advising to go all out against? I don't know how what I wrote could be construed as advocating "throwing the game to Storm". My thought was that he had already said he had no good answer to Van's threats, so going all out against Van would at worst be ineffective and leader to a quicker demise, and at best weaken/thwart Van enough that another player could take Van down (ie: he'd get "revenge" against Van for sinking him).

Lastly, my line about getting a rep so no one will mess with you was a joke, hence the big grin smilies. More likely if you get a rep as a kamikaze nut, people just won't want to play with you anymore.

[archaeolept]

No. zapmeister tried a massive landgrab against the collapsing Arcos, and the weak marignon. Storm began to fight him, and I gave Zap my 3 turns notice as required by our agreement, since I had promised marignon that I would come to his aid in the event of attack.

Zap was fighting storm, but said that he would throw the game to storm if I attacked in any way - after being browbeaten by him, I was going to attack w/ one raiding party of 15 slingers. Even that was too much for him, and he still threatened to throw the game. As such, I did not do anything to meet my personal word to Marignon that I would come to his aid, not wanting the game to end so cheaply.

Thus, while his major opponent was Storm, who could be thought of as zap's nemesis, the threat involved throwing it is completely to his supposed "nemesis."

This is the context of my taking poorly your suggestions of "going kamikaze."

As it turned out, Zap couldn't handle storm's arguably weaker nation, and so, even w/ one of the largest empires still, decided he wanted to quit in this "no quitters" game. As a side note, and ironically, Cohen himself fought till the bitter end.

I'm just hoping this game can be salvaged. It was my first time playing as mictlan, and I was enjoying the difference.

[Stormbinder]

archaeolept said:
I'm just hoping this game can be salvaged. It was my first time playing as mictlan, and I was enjoying the difference.

Hey, let's not dramatise the situation too much. Game has been a lot of fun so far for everybody, as far as I can tell from speaking with players. 4 nations in close race with each other, no newbies, no AIs, no regular "cheese" due to the rules preventing it, interesting map, etc. Nothing have been ruined so far, so there is no need for salvaging. Machaka has not missed any turns, it has been fighing me to the best of thier abilities, constantly counterraiding me and killing several of my vans and SCs in addition to my troops. I am sure they will continue their struggle under Mark's leadership. I've turned off quickhost to help Mark get into game, as he requested.

[Ozymandias]

For what its worth I believe that maiming weapons penetrate mirror image in the same way that life draining ones do; i.e. you hit an image but the target still suffers the fatigue drain or limb chopping or whatever.