Sophistry - (Finished) Winner DrPraetorious!

[FAJ]

I have no problem with giving gems out to whom ever. I don't even mind bumping taxes in dire straits; but for the purpose of raising quick money for defense.

I don't really like scorched earth tactics, as it gives you no benifit. i can understand if the enemy were treacherous, or dishonest. Just for the sake of bitterness is weak in my opinion. I don't think grudges should carry over between games, so hurting the conquering player for no gain annoys me.

I don't think I was trecherous, I had communicated with you severeal turns before, declared war, waited and eventually attacked (the same turn you attacked me). It makes me sad that such aimiable relations would be met with such measures, but to each his own. It is my practice to give my extra gold and gems to the conquering player if they were honorable (to the effect of representing them plundering my stores). I always thought that capturing an enemy lab should steal a small portion of gems, and conquering an enemy province would steal a small percentage of gold. I mean, where are all these gems and goldstores located? Why can't the victor plunder their stores? If that were the case, I would see it to be thematic for players to spirit their gems away to neighbors and friendlies.

in other treachery news, Pangaea attacks without warning or any sort of communication. Helhiem may be quick in getting its come-uppings. That medusa threatens to petrify my entire army.

Cliff Notes:
-Giving gems is fine (pro-choice )
-Scorching the earth is unsportsmanly-like conduct unless responding to similar treachery
-Pangaea is a creep

I think it represents a game imbalance, that I was so easily able to overpower Marverni. I have never played a rush strategy before, never played with, or against Helhiem and made some random god when velusion offered me the extra place. With so little experiance, it shouldnt be so easy to just click the helhirding button a lot and win.

[sum1lost]

tibbs said:
I think the argument is baseless. It's his nation. Sensori can do whatever he wants to do with it. Maybe his pretender was feeble minded and is a bit of a lunatic. Whatever the reason it's been done and arguing about won't solve a thing. That's a part of playing a MP game.

[Sensori]

FAJ said:
I don't really like scorched earth tactics, as it gives you no benifit. i can understand if the enemy were treacherous, or dishonest. Just for the sake of bitterness is weak in my opinion. I don't think grudges should carry over between games, so hurting the conquering player for no gain annoys me.

Now, if my armies had actually been effective against you, I wouldn't have had to go around pillaging in the first place. Why did I start it? I had to give you a very concrete reason why to run after my armies! It was your choice that you attacked Marverni (the province) instead of killing the armies that were ravaging your countryside, in my opinion, and your population paid the price. I didn't "hurt you" for "no reason". You hurt yourself for no reason! ;p Had you left Marverni open for a few turns longer (which is what I was trying to do), my troops would've still sucked, and you would've still managed to beat them all with just looking at them angrily.

But really, I don't see any reason NOT to pillage your (attacking) enemy's lands, especially when there's nothing else you could do to fight them. I don't think anyone *wants* to make his or her enemy stronger with practically no consequences. It doesn't really stand to reason. Why should I opt to not use anything I have in my toolset to fight a menace, if just to make it a little easier for his other neighbors to defeat him?

You know how much unrest that pillage added? Instead of something close to measly 100, that came with tax 200, some provinces jumped up to 300+. Now that's what I was looking for. Weaker provinces with unrest that won't die by just keeping taxes at 0 for a couple of turns. Real consequences! Oh yeah. I also used the income from the pillages to fund my last few armies since I was down to like 20 income. ;p Wasn't enough alone to keep them afloat.

It is my practice to give my extra gold and gems to the conquering player if they were honorable (to the effect of representing them plundering my stores).

Now, here we have a big difference in ideology. I don't think that attacking can ever be seen as honorable (especially since the reason seems to always be "I NEED MY EMPIRE TO GROW"), unless the target is something like Ashen Empire Ermor where it's a public service. I see it as the defender's duty to fight the attacker to the bitter end, and do whatever it takes to slow down his demise. The analogy that comes to mind is a mugger expecting the mugged to just, well, be mugged, if the said mugger says, "I'm gonna mug you now!" I see that things are only different if the attacker gets overpowered by the defender. THEN you're just getting what's coming to ya, and it's all your fault.

I always thought that capturing an enemy lab should steal a small portion of gems

It would've been funny if I had gotten some of your gems from taking over that lone lab in the corner of your empire. See how this idea just would never work? The loser could eat up your gems so easily. You could never have labs outside of fortresses, because one call of the winds could cripple you if you had forgotten an event caused lab somewhere.

Why can't the victor plunder their stores?

Because the stores are omnipresent, looming over everything and everywhere. When you need gold, it appears out of thin air if your God thus wills it (he has gold in his coffers in his seeeeeeeeeeeecret hideout). Closest thing to "plundering someone's stores" ingame is pillaging the place.

[EarthRaver]

you made perfect sense

[Baalz]

Sensori said:
Now, here we have a big difference in ideology. I don't think that attacking can ever be seen as honorable (especially since the reason seems to always be "I NEED MY EMPIRE TO GROW"), unless the target is something like Ashen Empire Ermor where it's a public service. I see it as the defender's duty to fight the attacker to the bitter end, and do whatever it takes to slow down his demise. The analogy that comes to mind is a mugger expecting the mugged to just, well, be mugged, if the said mugger says, "I'm gonna mug you now!" I see that things are only different if the attacker gets overpowered by the defender. THEN you're just getting what's coming to ya, and it's all your fault.

Well, not to egg on a rant, but I thought I might elaborate on my point about sportsmanship that obviously touched a nerve. Your analogy of a mugging seems a bit out of place, obviously if you're being victimized by a criminal sportsmanship doesn't have any bearing- you fight as dirty as you can. My feeling though, is I'm not being mugged, I'm playing a game whose sole purpose is the mutual enjoyment of all involved. A well fought opponent deserves a congratulations and a (virtual) handshake, not me doing every annoying thing I can think of to make his life more difficult against his *next* opponent after I have no hope of lasting more than a few turns.

Just to be clear I'm not talking about whatever happened in this game (which didn't effect me and I have no particular opinion on), but rather the position that its good policy to do your best to dick over whoever beats you by destroying your buildings, pillaging your own lands, and giving your gems to anyone who seems likely to use them against him. That, as I said, just smacks of poor sportsmanship being justified by weak rational.

[Sensori]

Baalz said:
Well, not to egg on a rant, but I thought I might elaborate on my point about sportsmanship that obviously touched a nerve.

All it did was make me go "..." here behind the monitor, because I find "bad sportsmanship" to be the one of the stupidest terms used when it comes to games, especially when you're using it to describe someone defending against an opponent that's winning, not because of skill (as FAJ said, he's just clickin' the Helhirding button), but because of an early game imbalance that's in his favor.

A well fought opponent deserves a congratulations and a (virtual) handshake

Yeah. As I said, if I had been able to FIGHT him, I would've acted differently. But the point you're missing is that nothing was "well fought" in this war. All he needed to do was show up. Did you miss the part where I said my 100 man army lost to 10 Helhirdings? Because it happened. I had set up the army, I had given my mages orders to use the few spells I had. And everywhere we met, I lost.

but rather the position that its good policy to do your best to dick over whoever beats you by destroying your buildings,

It is a good policy if you get rushed early and there's nothing you can do about it because your nation's capabilities to thwart it suck. At least you're making sure that your enemy won't just grow stronger, but has to actually do something to get full use of places. I don't see what's the problem with that, really. If I can't fight him on the battlefield, of course I fight him where I can, which is his pocket book.

pillaging your own lands,

Actually, I pillaged HIS lands in an attempt to keep him away from my lands, and set mine to 200% tax. There's the difference. But yes, I would've pillaged Marverni proper without a blink of an eye if I had had the chance, because now he has a what, 400 gold income giving province that also provides some gems which he just had to sit in for a couple of turns and then press the "storm" button. I don't think he even lost a single helhirding in the process.

SUCH A HARD FOUGHT VICTORY. Jesus Christ.

That, as I said, just smacks of poor sportsmanship being justified by weak rational.

Well, you aren't really justifying your position with a great rational, either. You are making it sound that you think that nations like Marverni shouldn't even try to do anything but die ASAP against early rush nations because it sure as hell can't fight off their armies. Sure, it'd make the attacker happy, but it wouldn't make anyone else happy. And doesn't make for a fun game for the player of Marverni, either.

In fact, I'll come around and say that attacking a nation that can't defend itself against you at all is worse sportsmanship than that nation trying to do something against you! ;p

[FAJ]

Oh now common. I was anything but unsportsmanly.

I have been trounced by early rushers before too; it is frusterating. You explained your position; pillaging my provinces and bumping taxes in your own for a resource war. That is legit. I think scorching the earth for bitterness' sake is wrong. You didn't do that, so I don't know what the argument is.

I would have been upset if you started pillaging Marverni the turn we attacked eachother. You didnt even scuttle the lab, which was nice of you. (Your spirit lived on and a random event burned it down a turn later though ).

[Sensori]

I didn't? I swear I tried to!

Mental note: if breaking the lab and storming takes place the same turn, lab stays up. But at least the event broke it down, so... Just as planned!

FAJ, I was just kidding when I said that (about the sportsmanship). It's how Helheim's set up, you pretty much need to rush someone early on if you don't want to die. "Problem" is that people you'll rush won't wanna die, either. It's funny though that no one who had anything to do with the war had nothing negative to say about it. Just people who're God knows where on the map do.

Sure, when Marverni was besieged I was thinking I would've pillaged it if I had the chance (if you had broken the siege, THEN I would've started pillaging it), but seriously enough, it was my only bigger source of income for as long as it was free, so me pillaging it beforehand wouldn't really been very likely. I needed it as much as you probably needed it to pay for the upkeep on your crazy Helhirding armies. ;p

[tibbs]

As long as you are playing within the rules of the game(not cheating) I dont' have a problem with it. This isn't really a "sport" so sportsmanship doesn't apply. This is a game about war.

Did Hitler say Stalin was "unsportsmanlike" when Stalin burned down every village that the Germans captured during the Barbarossa advance?

[FAJ]

well, the pillaging isn't really gonna hurt me too badly anyways. It will hurt Pangaea . He will have those provinces soon enough. My "army" of ~15 valkries stands adjacent to his 1000+ legion of doom and in spitting distance of his gorgon.

In other news; is there any trick to dealing with a petrifying opponent when you have no mages/research?