MP: MP YARG4, non newb LA RAND game. WL wins

[Executor]

I didn't steal Marginon provinces, I took former C'tis provinces before Pangaea did. In the end I had maybe 2 or 3 Marginon provinces and probably 3 C'tis ones. You could have easily stopped with retaking Marg provinces if you wanted to. I made no attempts to stop you from retaking them.
As for my hostile actions, I never kept any troops next to your border and didn't move against Marginon until he turned AI and C'tis started attacking him too. If you consider that hostile, fine, I would too, maybe, if someone grabbed a few province from under my nose, but that's nothing anyone else wouldn't have done, probably including you too. And it's definitely not something worth making that nation your arch nemesis and forsaking the game cause of it as you seem to have done.

And how could you not see me moving to attack Caelum, because I moved every single unit and commander I had to the Caelum border when you attacked me, literately. You can clearly see my research graph at a standstill indicating that. You can also see me losing provinces to Caelum as soon as I attacked him. In fact, the first thing I did after my two stales was attack a single province (the only one I could at that time) to declare to all the other nation and especially Midgard that I'm going after Caelum. Caelums counteractions showed pretty clearly we were in war.

And by the time you noticed Midgard stale you didn't care anymore? Dude, that was at least 5 turns in. How could you not notice me being in war with Caelum for 5 turns. Midgards first stale was on turn 41! And it was a single stale at that point in no way indicating he had given up or anything.

You could have simply taken back what you considered yours (and I would have been fine with that) and let me try and deal with Caelum. Instead you took back former Marg provinces, and I didn't react, than you took C'tis provinces, and I didn't react, than you took a couple of mine provinces, with still no reaction from me, until you finally stormed one of my forts.
So if you though I was hostile I'm pretty sure I disproved that by letting you take all those provinces from me.

Danbo, what you did in YARG 3 didn't make much sense either to be honest.
You attacked me at about turn 15, as soon as I made a move against TC. So we ended up in a 30 turn war because we still had a turtled TC between the two of us. Than you proceeded and attacked whoever was sought from you too, Arco I think, and I have no idea why. By the time Shiny attacked you were already losing the war badly. The only effect Shiny had was to grab provinces from me.

I'm not judging you play-style but I find it somewhat erratic. I can't explain your action in this or the previous YARG. Not the behavior you'd expect in a no diplo game. What C'tis, Vanheim, Svarogia and Shiny did in YARG 3 is how people should play these types of games.

And for the record, I think there is a general consensus that whenever you see an AI nation that usually translates into attack on sight before other get a change to grab *free* provinces before you. So what I did is hardly a big deal. It's one of the downsides of people turning AI.

[WraithLord]

Originally Posted by Executor

I didn't steal Marginon provinces, I took former C'tis provinces before Pangaea did. In the end I had maybe 2 or 3 Marginon provinces and probably 3 C'tis ones. You could have easily stopped with retaking Marg provinces if you wanted to. I made no attempts to stop you from retaking them.
As for my hostile actions, I never kept any troops next to your border and didn't move against Marginon until he turned AI and C'tis started attacking him too. If you consider that hostile, fine, I would too, maybe, if someone grabbed a few province from under my nose, but that's nothing anyone else wouldn't have done, probably including you too. And it's definitely not something worth making that nation your arch nemesis and forsaking the game cause of it as you seem to have done.

Executor, in YARG3 (see link ) both me and Eriu would have attacked and maybe stopped you had it not been for a silly conflict like me taking one or two of his spoils of war.
In YARG games every action that can seem hostile must be taken with utmost care if you don't want to provoke war.
Pride and feelings have a lot to do with it. When I went after Eriu it was emotion only and I knew I'm handing you the game there and then.

[Executor]

Originally Posted by WraithLord

Executor, in YARG3 (see link ) both me and Eriu would have attacked and maybe stopped you had it not been for a silly conflict like me taking one or two of his spoils of war.
In YARG games every action that can seem hostile must be taken with utmost care if you don't want to provoke war.
Pride and feelings have a lot to do with it. When I went after Eriu it was emotion only and I knew I'm handing you the game there and then.

Of course, I completely agree. And forgive me since I don't intend to insult anyone, but that kind of behavior is kind of petty. If someone does something I consider worth revenge I'm not going to do it if it means forfeiting the game, and considerably lowering everyone else chances if not completely, unless I'm either already in war with everyone (like the situation in Garden of the Moon if you remember) or if it's a RP like game and I have thematic reasons.
Don't get me wrong, I love going on a rampage and getting my revenge for being backstabbed, etc, but nothing remotely dramatic happened here. I took a few provinces Pangae would have taken had I not. And I made no attempt to retaliate even when I lost more than twice as much in return.

Not that I have anything against what Danbo did, I just find it strange that he should chose to attack once I got back in the game and started attacking you. It's a bit of an overreaction especially as he was waiting for someone to stop you, namely and that being me.

Not sure about the map, but I can make one with fixed starts if you'd like, just as soon as you know the number of players in it.

[WraithLord]

I agree. Pettiness is unwanted, but sometimes it creeps on you and you let your self indulge in it. Not ideal, but there you have it.

Re. the sensible course of action. No argument here. It's just that my point is that in RAND kind of game you can't depend on the other player doing what you consider to be the sensible action.

Clearly from "sensible" PoV you did the right thing and Gath got in the way and his intervention seems completely irrational. But the deeper you dig into the matter the less clear cut things may seem.

Thank you for your generous offer to add fixed starts! If it's ok w/ you I'll take you on it when the times come.

[Executor]

Originally Posted by WraithLord

I agree. Pettiness is unwanted, but sometimes it creeps on you and you let your self indulge in it. Not ideal, but there you have it.

Re. the sensible course of action. No argument here. It's just that my point is that in RAND kind of game you can't depend on the other player doing what you consider to be the sensible action.

Clearly from "sensible" PoV you did the right thing and Gath got in the way and his intervention seems completely irrational. But the deeper you dig into the matter the less clear cut things may seem.

Thank you for your generous offer to add fixed starts! If it's ok w/ you I'll take you on it when the times come.

Sure!

Sorry Danbo if I insulted you, WL summed it up pretty nice here. It is as he says, it seemed pretty irrational to me, but I'm sure it can be said about all of us at some point.

[danbo]

No offence taken, Executor. Actually I'm not offended if someone thinks my actions are irrational or just plain stupid. I only defended my right to take part in these type of games, which I love. That's all.

Cheers, I think in the next game I won't disappoint you

P.S. Yes, in the YARG3 I attacked another nation while alrealdy losing badly to you. It might seem irrational but it has simple explanation. I ran out of money and my troops started to desert. And it actually worked, I defeated that nation and improved my finances for some time.

[sansanjuan]

Ex
On a related note as far as what were they thinking..
I made a failed attempt to draw Midgard into your lands while you we're seiging my cap. I started raiding on both sides of the Midgard/ Pyth border hoping Midgard would drop the dragon on my reading party at the same time you hit it. With no diplomacy there was some (though small) chance of an "entanglement" misunderstandings near your cap. It came to naught but thought I'd bring it up.
ssj

[Executor]

Originally Posted by sansanjuan

Ex
On a related note as far as what were they thinking..
I made a failed attempt to draw Midgard into your lands while you we're seiging my cap. I started raiding on both sides of the Midgard/ Pyth border hoping Midgard would drop the dragon on my reading party at the same time you hit it. With no diplomacy there was some (though small) chance of an "entanglement" misunderstandings near your cap. It came to naught but thought I'd bring it up.
ssj

Heh, I'm quite familiar with what you tried to do. I did the same thing in some other no diplo game, where I managed to draw two more nations into conflict and there was no way I'd fall for it.
I let Midgard retake his and waited a few turns, I think, before I retook mine, just in case.

Danbo, yeah, I was a bit of an ars to say that. I was being sarcastic but to be honest not completly, sorry.
Regarding YARG 3, I'm glad it worked as I ended up with a couple of more provinces!