3341

It’s important to maintain appearances. I can’t feel good about myself if I’m not taunting my opponents.

3342

A cap I dont have yet! Guarded by anywhere up to 80 spiders of doom. And I’m not attacking them with fiery arrows, or super self-buffed thugs, but highly flammable, rather hungry, and rather light ‘infantry’. Plus you got all your fire and death mages just churning out research AND making little magic babies - no, this battle isnt a foregone conclusion…

3343

Not the battle silly! Look at the charts. I’m a deader. You don’t even have to fight.

3344

Executive summary:

It looks like whoever is NOT fighting Van or (maybe) Caelum at this point is in for a special place in idiot hell.

I’d still call Van the more urgent problem – he’s got a solid base in former Pan now and enough money to outproduce three other nations. What do you want to do, wait until he control 90% of the map by fighting wars he, ahem, ‘did not want’?

Oh, and btw: Pan is NOT doing well and is NOT rallying, whatever the claims of those piling dirt on my coffin.

3345

Austen’s pretty good with the propaganda, no?

3346

Nah.

See?

3347

“I’m not good at shooting. You don’t have to duck.”

3348

Re: Pan - Still has enormous army that I really have no answer for… Took back about half-dozen provinces previous turn.

Re: Shin - You know what… I really don’t know what’s going on… He has an enormous army that I have no answer for and could have easily taken back half the provinces I raided last turn. Instead, he chose to not attack…

I’m sure this is prep to some awful situation where I will look like a moron… the good news tho is that I will learn something new…

3349

Not sure what the quotes about the I did not want were for… quick review:

  • He PMs me to make sure I am not about to attack him
  • I assure him I am not and move away
  • He attacks me…
  • I counterattack via raid and offer peace
  • He says he will only agree if I give him more than he had to start and emphasizes repeatedly that he can destroy me…
  • He doesn’t attack me, and instead, comes to the boards to ask everyone else to do it…

Wait… that’s it isn’t it?

What I couldn’t figure out before…

His strategy is to hole his mages up and run away with research. Keep his enormous army safe and convince everyone here to attack me. Once everyone is gang-banging me, he can reclaim his provinces and grab some extras without risking his army or having to stop research…

When the dust settles, everyone else is beat up, he still has his army intact and has completely dominating magic.

So he decided not to take anything back so he could convince everyone else to fight me…

Well played, sir… very devious… now I guess we have to see if anyone wants to fight your war for you…

3350

Umm, no. Unless a full dozen is six in Scandinavia. And if you look at the graphs now… c’mon. But yeah, if you were out for a VP, you picked the wrong cap to siege – provided the rest of the world doesn’t leave you alone, that is.

I assure you, you don’t look like a moron from where I’m sitting. But paranoia’s always a healthy thing. :)

3351

I was gone all weekend and clearly I should have hired a sitter.

3352

I made a few corrections for you. Also, you keep saying you have no answer to my “massive” army. I refer to the graphs: your army is plenty big enough to take on mine. And I see a rather large force of skinshifters heading my way. You repeatedly saying that everyone else around you is more powerful than you is not really holding water.

3353

You’re just trolling me right? I suck at diplo so bad… I guess I will fall for the troll… I’m afraid if I don’t that someone might buy this…

Will someone PM me (or post here) and let me know if everyone sees this is just trolling and I can ignore this sort of thing in the future? Not just in this game, but in general what is the protocol? I’ve played other games where people say things that are entirely untrue in the forums. I feel like if I don’t address them then other players take them as true, but if I do address them I just get dragged down into nonsense like this which isn’t really fun… :/

Seriously… any advice on this would be great…

Anyhoo… into the abyss…

They had just stormed the fort and were patrolling unrest… where were they supposed to be?

It’s hard to imagine that this could be less true… . You sent that PM shortly after you got turn 28. You then staled on turn 28. You then scripted your attack on me on turn 29. You attacked me on literally the very_next_turn that you actually submitted.

Yes… a zero risk attack on your part since the mercs are going away anyway… I guess since it was at no risk to you, I should just let you have the province?

Also, you keep talking about how my provinces are so worthless and meaningless… yet you demand that I cede them to you and are willing to go to war to gain some of them. Seems odd…

I will have to address this in two parts:

  1. In the interests of complete disclosure, the following turn I only raided two provinces. I was hoping that doing so might be a motivator for peaceful negotiations. As it wasn’t, then I raided everywhere I could. This only makes sense…

If you are determined to fight me, then I need to hit as hard as I can. If not, then I clearly needed to be in a stronger position to negotiate peace. Speaking of which…

  1. The idea that I offered an insulting peace is is so absurd I’m not even sure how to address it. I offered to give you back pretty much all your provinces. Your counter offer was that I give back every one and some additional provinces that I had fought for while you were off taking provinces from Machaka.

So to reiterate - after I raided about 10 of your provinces, your peace offer was that I give them all back and a few others in addition. But my offer was the insulting one? This has to be trolling…

Look. I’m not sitting here saying that in the game I’m in a horrible position. I am in a decent position. This picture that you are painting that I am some unstoppable juggernaut who is steamrolling everyone is ridiculous.

Shin wanted this war and still wants this war. Shin has refused peace and rather than fight back has tried to get everyone else to fight back for him while he sits in his forts and stretches his research lead further.

This is your war Nate… you’re the only one who wanted it and you’re the one who has made sure it has continued. Punching someone in the nose then curling up and asking everyone to protect you when the other guy swings back is no way to behave.

Lastly… 100% dead serious… I would like some advice on how to deal with situations like this, because I always seem to handle them wrong…

3354

Austen, my advice would be to engage in as little diplomacy as possible. :)

3355

I have never trolled, will never troll, and frankly am insulted that you would call me a troll. I’m not trying to get a rise out of you or argue with you. I’m presenting my point of view on events that have taken place in this game. My line-by-line was an attempt at humor that appears to have utterly failed.

Yes, I’m using a public forum against you. I’m calling for help against a stronger opponent that I believe is about to win the game. Am I exaggerating? Yes, of course. Am I exaggerating MUCH? No. You’re in the lead and have been there for a half-dozen turns at least.

At the time that I sent the message saying give me back my land and a couple of other provinces, you only had 2 of my territories. The “insulting peace offer” could be due to the fact that we sent messages during different turns. I tend to be too busy to check my turn files as soon as they come in, so if my asking for all of my territories came back after you took ten of mine, I’ll take back that statement.

It sure felt like a long time between when I sent that message and when I attacked. Perhaps that was due to the pace of the game. My memory of events is probably different from actual events. I’ll blame that on my ridiculous busy-ness as well (and possibly lag time on messaging) and apologize if I’ve misrepresented myself. (Was there seriously only one turn between message and attack? I could have sworn it was at least 3…)

I sincerely hope I’m not causing as much frustration as I think I’m seeing in your posts. It’s impossible to hear tone in writing. I’m out to have a good time and learn as much as I can in the game. I’m not here to piss people off. I apologize if you feel like I’m trolling you, and I’ll stop mentioning your juggernaughtiness. (see, another attempt at humor :)

3356

OK… I have to casually use this in a sentence as soon as possible… the idea of a naughty juggernaut is almost more than I can bear…

3357

As a general policy for everyone or specifically for me due to my ineptness? (Austen, my advice is not to enter Ironman Triathlons.) ;)

3358

I’d say don’t do public diplomacy unless you’re having fun doing it. I’m certainly having fun reading it, for the record!

3359

yeah. Truthfullness in public diplomacy is certainly optional.

Refer back to NewbieRumble2 where nobody had a clear picture of what was going on because of some excellent forum postings.

3360

My Pretender is finally awake!