MP: Game,HoC - House of Chains. Corinthian wins!

[Executor]

Well, that's some rather underhanded diplo Starcryst. You lead me on to think we're making a deal and joining our forces to bring down the game leader Ermor while you're actually buying more time to take over my lands without counteractions from me.

When you moved your forces to the province I suggested as an exit route for your troops I though we had a deal. So now I've lost 2 turns I should have spent counteracting you; as in preparing the defense in the fort under siege, taking action against your teleporting mages, retaking my lands and wasting 60 gems I sent you as compensation for your "troubles" and instead I've spent that time planning how to strike back at Ermor. That's quite a setback.

That's just incredibly bad sportsmanship, especially since between you and Ermor I didn't have a change anyway so I'm not sure what the purpose of the deception was other then stalling me. If you had no intention of making peace with you should have said so.

WL, feel free to find a sub for me as I most definitely won't be continuing this game nor will I bother to find a suitable sub. I think you of all people know, from our previous run ins, I have no problem with losing and being overwhelmed from all sides but this is just wrong to me. Please note that me leaving this game has nothing to do with my losing position. Sorry for the inconvenience, it's been a great game series for me so far.

[WraithLord]

Executor, I'm sorry to hear of this. If things are as you describe that it's only natural you'd be upset.

Technically back stabbing is not prohibited while cheating and exploiting is. I think this is the consensus in the community. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this.

Don't get me wrong. If I were you I'd also be upset. I have proof as recent as this game (Jotun Bretonnia debacle). Maybe not that bad but I sure felt cheated & betrayed.
Oh and such **** only works once. I for instance would never trust Teraswaerto again. So those who pull it should know it would stain their reputation for next games.

Well, I hope you'd reconsider yet would respect your wish to leave.

[Teraswaerto]

Originally Posted by WraithLord

Technically back stabbing is not prohibited while cheating and exploiting is. I think this is the consensus in the community. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this.

Don't get me wrong. If I were you I'd also be upset. I have proof as recent as this game (Jotun Bretonnia debacle). Maybe not that bad but I sure felt cheated & betrayed.
Oh and such **** only works once. I for instance would never trust Teraswaerto again. So those who pull it should know it would stain their reputation for next games.

Games, positions, circumstances, they all are different. I've both honored deals past what was rational and played at deception when necessary.

Blind trust or blind belief in any deal, blind is blind. Judge them all on their merits. If in a game deception in diplomacy is prohibited that should be clearly stated up front.

And to remind everyone, we never had any kind of deal or treaty.

[WraithLord]

Nothing wrong in deception in this game. I'm only saying you'd get to fool me but once

Cheers guys. I hope this game will cont. to be fun for all and not deteriorate to bad feelings all around.

Executor, I missed your heads up & turn hosting & a PM from a kind and caring unsung hero so your nation ended up staling

I'll add more time for sub hunting. Thanks for taking care of that!

[starcryst]

Originally Posted by Executor

Well, that's some rather underhanded diplo Starcryst. You lead me on to think we're making a deal and joining our forces to bring down the game leader Ermor while you're actually buying more time to take over my lands without counteractions from me.

When you moved your forces to the province I suggested as an exit route for your troops I though we had a deal. So now I've lost 2 turns I should have spent counteracting you; as in preparing the defense in the fort under siege, taking action against your teleporting mages, retaking my lands and wasting 60 gems I sent you as compensation for your "troubles" and instead I've spent that time planning how to strike back at Ermor. That's quite a setback.

That's just incredibly bad sportsmanship, especially since between you and Ermor I didn't have a change anyway so I'm not sure what the purpose of the deception was other then stalling me. If you had no intention of making peace with you should have said so.

WL, feel free to find a sub for me as I most definitely won't be continuing this game nor will I bother to find a suitable sub. I think you of all people know, from our previous run ins, I have no problem with losing and being overwhelmed from all sides but this is just wrong to me. Please note that me leaving this game has nothing to do with my losing position. Sorry for the inconvenience, it's been a great game series for me so far.

Okay, so taking our discussions into the game thread and smearing my reputation this way is what's REALLY underhanded IMHO. I play Dom3 to enjoy the game, not to participate in the kind of political BS that I have to deal with in the workplace. So I'm not going to spend a lot of time fighting with you here. But I will pass a few things along so that everyone can see I'm not the *** you are making me out to be.

In my very last correspondence to you this is what I said;

"I suspect you are going to balk at this and that we'll run out of time attempting to negotiate anything and that we'll end up continuing to fight simply because we can agree to terms we both want to live with."

And that's exactly what happened. You made a very weak offer of a few gems. The turn boundary was coming up and you weren't offering anything worthwhile (and in fact you were continually threatening me in your emails instead of negotiating) and so I assumed we were still at war, scripted my turn and then moved on.

You then sent me some gems, even though I never accepted (or even hinted that I was going to accept) your "offer". I sent those gems back immediately the following turn. I'm not sure how those gems were "wasted" since you got them back. A little tip for the future - don't send stuff to people until you have an actual agreement, in writing, with them.

You've spent a lot of time posturing in PMs to me and acting very aggressive, which I tried not to take offense to. But attacking my character in a public forum and skewing what transpired between us so that you come off as the innocent victim is crossing over the line.

I attacked you, we negotiated a bit, we didn't come to an agreement, I continued my attack. That's what actually happened and there's absolutely nothing wrong or underhanded about it.

[Executor]

I have nothing against Machiavellian type diplomacy. Personally, I just consider this to be something else.
Technically I don't think it's against forum or game rules but it does seem to be in the gray area since it sort of is exploiting.

But I have no intentions of getting into arguments whether such behavior is acceptable or not so I will respectfully bow out of this game without causing a scene since I wouldn't tolerate it in my games.

Perhaps I misinterpreted the entire situation and am blowing this out of proportion. With Starcryst's permission I can post or send the PMs to anyone interested so you can judge for yourselves I guess.
In either case this has been a rather unpleasant experience for me.

WL, I'll try to find a sub for me. This is my pile of crap so I won't be damping it on you.

EDIT: WL, delay the game a bit if you catch this in time, a day or two.
As a side note I really should open my turns before there's only a few hours left until hosting.

[Executor]

Excuse me? Not even a hint? That's where we left it off if I remember. I guess I'm breaking the rules by posting this PM but I'll live with it.
You never rejected my proposal. I asked you want you wanted and never stated anything, instead you wanted to know what I'd offer. And 60 gems + what you got/would get from my provinces isn't weak at all, considering the turn. I also offered to forge you any items I can at my forging prices, which is 25-40% off.
You never said that was a weak offer or demanded more gems or items or gold or whatever.

It also kind of sounds we were making an agreement. Further more there was plenty of time to answer me and just say "No deal" or to redo the turn since I asked WL for an extension just so I could get your answer.

And yes, when someone does something I consider bad mannered I'll post about it in the game thread and warn the other players. I won't hound you in other threads and games about it but I sure will comment on it.

Originally Posted by Executor

I have no problem about you remaining in control of a few selected provinces for a little while, it's quite reasonable. We only need to work out the details and coordinate how to make it less, well hurtful for me.
If you have any suggestions I'd be glad to hear them.

What I would suggest is moving your Slanns from 101 and 82 to province 93 if they can handle 15 PD. It's gonna cost me a bit in terms of nature mages but I guess I'll have to handle that. You'll find a lab there from which you can teleport back home or to Ermor or communion them for returning when I send a small squad to regain control of the province.

As for those in 81, I'm not sure. Maybe you could build a lab? You really should have given them gems to cast returning.

I suppose all the gems and gold you'll need for those endeavors can be collected from the occupied provinces.

Another option would be to move all Slans to 90 and build a lab, but the province has 30 PD (remnants of the monkey war) and it would take an extra turn to do it.

The rest shouldn't be a problem I think. You can retreat the mages and the pretender over 123 while keeping your forces in 116 with the Gate Stone dude for one more turn, or not. You can overtax the province at 200% while patroling to get some cash, I've been doing it for a very long time now.
Either way is good.

Let me know what you think how we should proceed.

[starcryst]

You sent that offer and I never responded. I have no clue how that equates to a deal in your mind, especially when I specifically said in my very last PM to you that I expected we'd run out of time on a deal and just continue fighting.

You don't think that just assuming we had a deal despite the fact we never agreed on one is just a bit presumptuous? I personally never assume I have a deal until I have it in writing. But at minimum you should have the other person at least SAY you have a deal - which I never did.

You can think that I was acting underhanded if you want, but the reality is that I was on business fund raising for my company in San Fran that entire week and Dom3 was not the most important thing on my mind right then. I scripted my turn to continue to attack you and then waited to see if you'd offer a deal that I could live with. You didn't, and so I didn't change my strat.

The path for retreat you suggested was always the path I intended to use to recombine my slaans with my main army. You apparently think I was being deceptive and acting like we had a deal in place, but I was just doing what I planned all along - damaging your economy as much as possible in the first stage of the war and then combining my forces to try and knock down your forts one at a time.

I'm very sorry that you believe I manipulated you into not responding for a couple of turns. That was never my intent - in fact, I would have welcomed an opportunity to try and destroy your army in the field as I actually don't want to try and siege your cap with your forces in there defending. Whether I would have succeeded or not is in question, but having you not respond for two turns actually works against my goal of bringing this war to an early resolution (one way or another).

And you seem to think that getting 60 gems and the income from half a dozen provinces for a few turns was fair compensation for my attack. I lost more than that in gems from my pretender dying and when you consider the losses for the whole campaign, at best I'd have broken even and had nothing to show for it long term.

Also I don't need forging (which I told you) I need gems and cash in very large quantities so that I can create more Slaans. My whole strat is based on slaans in support of holy summoned troops - forged gear is nice, but not central to my strat (slaans have no hand, feet, head or chest slots).

I really don't want to make an enemy here of another player. As you know from the poor way that I used my pretender, I am a very new player and I'm still learning both the game and the expected behavior in the Dom3 community.

But I also don't want to get a reputation, which I believe is undeserved in this case, for underhanded diplomacy. However you thought things went down, I never intended to deceive you. In the future, I'll be explicit and say "no deal" as you suggest. I (mistakenly) assumed that you'd behave as if we were still at war until we had an actual agreement in place. If you were truly acting as if we had an agreement, then I'm sorry it went down the way it did.

[Corinthian]

Dont you think this map is unfair? I search all my lands almost completely, but I still have less gem income than the neighboring lizards and their much smaller lands. But now things are changing. Finally, after so many months of lizard death scales and overtaxing, the dead in Itza almost outnumbers the living. And what the skeptical hippo does not realize is that just like old people, the dead always vote!

In this latest election we saw the entire northern caucus switch from red to purple in the biggest political reshuffling that this game has seen thus far!


Sorry starcryst. This is not about Executor, but rather about the fact that after the dwarves are dead, I will be your only land neighbor and only viable expansion vector. And frankly, I feel it would be better to start this inevitable war on my conditions rather than yours.

For the rest of you who are unsure, this is probably the optimal time to gang me btw.

[Executor]

Congrats Corinthian. It was interesting watching, what little I could, how fast you devoured Orge Kingdom.

If you don't mind sharing, I would like to know your build once the game is officially over. You menages to stay ahead with research while reanimating and also have a good gem lead, especially with how ridiculous site searching was (at least for me).

Originally Posted by Corinthian

For the rest of you who are unsure, this is probably the optimal time to gang me btw.

When the game leader says something along these lines it usually means the game is all ready over btw.