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Beefy wrote: Just for fun - the After Action report of LiP IX from the Devil's Advocates perspective, one of the best EN games played in my opinion (and no, my team did not win...). Long, detailed, but if you like EN, a good read. WaterDios and I made up in after days, I believe...I believe. So long ago.
OK, here goes…
Volume I: Deals With the Devil
In the beginning, there were eight teams, many accusations BEFORE the game started of pre-game alliances and such, and a map that suggested a couple of teams looked more likely to win than others. But here is how the DAs began their diplomatic process:
In the pregame (but post-map) discussions, Done Dirt Cheap (DDC), Red Machine (RM), Bulletproof (BP), Sleepers (SLP), and Revindicare (REV) all entertained discussions with DA about NAP status. In the end of those discussions, the DAs agreed to the following:
3-tick NAP with DDC 3-tick NAP with RM 3-tick NAP with SLP 3-tick NAP with REV
Additionally, there was talk about forming a three way alliance, with Red Machine heading this discussion up. It never materialized.
At this point, we began looking at the board and read the discussions of multi-team deals and pre-game alliances, and decided we needed to upgrade someone to a GL NAP quickly to make sure we didn’t get gang-banged later on as the one team not in a two- or three-way alliance. REV appeared to offer the best situation for us as far as an ally goes, so on tick 3 we approached them and on tick 4 we solidified an alliance with them.
On cycle 7, an interesting turn of events came to pass. We were already concerned about the borders a few of us had with R6 players – most notably, though I thought there would be help from others I had Geronimo pressing most of his force against me, and Mephto had built significantly on my border to also press my position. With WaterDios to the south of me/Foehammer, it looked like that position, and maybe others, would be in a bit of trouble.
On this tick, WaterDios wrote me a note, titled “Reaching”, in which he said that real life concerns had led to his team having “blown this game”, and now their only hope was to see if we would NAP with them. He also mentioned they had other NAPs they could cancel if we NAPped with them. An interesting mix of messages – we are dying here, but if you NAP with us we can go attack others. Yet R6 was not our sole focus – far from it. Though we were engaged against them on multiple fronts, we also had significant BP and NM battles ongoing.
The discussions of whether or not to grant a NAP to R6 split our team down the middle. One side felt that we should press the attack, and even if they overran a few of our locations, overall they would collapse eventually and it would be to our advantage to take them out of the game. The other half, of which I was a part, believed that maintaining our strength, refocusing our efforts against BP and NM fronts, and expanding solidly in all areas (except Foehammer, who would get NAPped in by this deal) made more sense. Further, it seemed increasingly clear that Cyric would be brought to a surrender position eventually. If we could focus and take down BP, and REV could take down R6 via the surrender, we would both be looking very strong to then move on the rest of the board as necessary.
The REV deal became the tiebreak in this. We asked them what their stance would be on a NAP between us and R6 in the following note, sent from me to DWO:
“ We have been approached by Rainbow 6, they are apparently interested in peace with us. An interesting question from our standpoint - both plusses and minuses to agreeing to such.
But given we have agreed to work together as best we can, I am wondering what you status is with R6. I know you were attacking them - are you still? We are very divided on the concept of peace with R6, so I am going to have to make an executive decision on this one. What would your feelings be on this? Do you want/need us to maintain a press on R6? That would certainly weigh in my decision.
- Beefy”
We had noted that Bane and WaterDios were not exactly at each other’s throats, so there was concern over the exact status of REV/R6. However, since we were allied with them, and they were fighting R6, we decided to let their response to our question determine how we would act. It took until cycle 9 to get to a dialogue with REV about this. At this point, R6 felt we were stalling them – which we were not, we really had not been able to make up our minds and were trying to collect the last piece of information we wanted to use in the decision process.
Anyway, two notes from DWO on cycle 9 on this issue came in. The first said “I’ll let the team know and ask for their opinions. Not sure what our stance on R6 is, I believe we are crushing Cyric atm though, and Bane has a sort of makeshift peace with Waterdios.”
Followed by a note in which DWO said “the consensus was that we need to take out R6, preferably with your help. Of course the decision is yours to make, but we would prefer to see R6 die sooner rather than later.”
This left us about where we started – divided. On the one hand REV preferred we fight R6. On the other hand, they did not say they needed it – far from it, they said R6 would die sooner or later, and they preferred sooner. The side of my team that wanted to attack said, “so let’s attack!” My side said, well, they don’t need us, and they will take R6 out anyway, so again, it makes more sense for us to focus on BP and them on R6. We both end up better off, though it may take a bit longer for R6 to be run down.
In the end, we stayed split, and the decision was made by me. I have worked with WaterDios in the past, and Dranden, and decided that I would rather not redirect our team against them (for I felt that I would have to work out a deal with Geronimo at the very least, or else the overrun I mentioned earlier would occur), given that we had equal opportunity elsewhere and REV didn’t seem to need us in the battle.
This is, in my opinion, the most difficult and most questionable decision I reached in this entire game. At this point, I have an ally and I could guarantee them success against an enemy. Instead, I go a different direction. Did I think REV might do too well, gain too much of R6 if we went this way, and perhaps run away from us and coast to first? Sure, that was also a concern. Which is why I say the decision was questionable. But the bottom line was that both REV and my team felt that REV would be able to defeat R6 either way. Given that I didn’t see REV being HARMED by a NAP with us, and that I asked them directly if they needed us to continue our attack, I felt my decision was reasonable. But for all the later decisions were questioned, this is the one that I could see myself changing if I played the game again. Especially if I had hindsight as a guide!
So, we now add R6 as a 5-tick NAP. Not much happens in the next two ticks, until, on tick 11, DWO threw me a curveball. He sent a very brief note in which he said they had cancelled on BP and worked out a deal with RM to attack BP and NM together. I thought this an excellent turn of events – if REV felt good enough about their R6 war that they would join in on BP, and add NM to their target list, while (I believe) they were still attack DDC, then things must be going very well indeed. We were making good progress, and while I was mildly concerned that this might mean REV was in position to really roll the board up and run away with first, there was nothing to do about that as they had fought to an excellent position and were taking advantage. If they blew us out, we’d have to settle for second.
On tick 14, the much ballyhooed pre-game alliance reared it’s head. Apparently it did exist, between BP and SLP, and BP called in SLP help against REV. DWO sends a note to me on tick 14 in which he says they will be fighting R6, SLP, and BP, and that they are in a bit of trouble. He also adds “by the way that deal with R6 has cost us dearly as their entire team is pouring resources into Cyric Artemis now…” That indeed is what happened, as we all know, but not only were we unable to predict this, the note from WaterDios back in our NAP discussion indicated they were going to look to cancel other NAPs if we NAPped with them – so we had information that indicated they would have other battles coming after NAPping with them anyway! I don’t disagree with DWO’s statement – as I said that decision is the one I would change if I could – but I also don’t think we could have predicted what happened there.
Elrad sent a note to us, RM, NM and his own team at this point, making the next all purpose cry for help in the NGs, saying the BP/R6/SLP alliance would run us all down, so let’s work against them. We indicated a willingness to discuss these issues, saying we were already heavily engaged against BP and had cancelable NAPs with R6 and SLP.
On tick 15, Geronimo sent a note as acting captain of BP that was very interesting. Feeling the press of us, RM and REV, BP felt they were sinking fast. He offered us a deal: make peace with us, we will fight REV, and we will guarantee that you remain ahead of us in the citadel. Further, he offered that they would pay us a price for this deal. The twists and turns! REV and BP fighting each other, both feeling like they are going down! Elrad calling for board-wide help against the dominators of the game, including BP! Geronimo offering regions and secured citadel placing to save them from the mighty REV/RM/DA onslaught! What would happen next? Stay tuned for Volume II of Chronicles of the Advocates!
Volume II: To the Devil With Ya!
While pondering what Geronimo had sent to me – after replying and telling him forthright that we would not attack REV due to a GL agreement with them – word of a possible capitulation by DDC to SLP reached my ears. I questioned SSmither on this, and he denied the rumor, but did say that his team had “come to an agreement regarding peace (with SLP) so that we can focus on other fronts”.
Meantime, our team began discussing the REV and BP notes, and how we should proceed. It was generally agreed that we needed to do something to help REV, despite their seeming to bring this mess on themselves by canceling NAPs when they had existing wars that were not proceeding as well as expected. They were our allies, and they seemed to be harmed by our R6 decision, which I was just beginning to think was a bad move on my part, so we felt we needed to act in a way to help them.
I sent a note to DWO on tick 15, in response to his “bit of trouble” note, in which I said we were looking at ways to help his team, and that one thing we thought might help them would be us canceling on SLP. Since they were fighting R6/SLP/BP, and we were already fighting BP, we could open up on one or the other of their other opponents. Having agreed to the NAP fairly recently with R6, and it being a 5-tick, versus the 3-tick with SLP, it seemed that canceling on SLP would be the better option. And I stated this to DWO. He replied that SLP had just cancelled on them and it would be a bumpy ride for his team, and that any help we could lend would be appreciated.
A side note: I was traveling during this period of time, and Godfather stepped in and handled some duties for me. One thing he pursued was a situation developing on the RM/BP fronts. It appeared that RM/BP had ceased battles, and also that RM players might move into positions that would cut off Bobcobra and Godfather from BP players. Given the REV situation, Godfather made sure we would keep those alleys into BP open with direct discussions with RM players and captain. Indeed, RM confessed they had to cut a deal, and while they agreed to not block us, they also could not agree to let us have passage. A reasonable result, negotiated before there was a problem. Here is one way to avoid the blocking issues that plagued other borders at other times in this game!
Back to my tale…tick 17, I write to Geronimo and explain I have been traveling, sorry I don’t have an answer for him yet. Entirely true, though I figure the team will be leaning hard towards blowing off the BP deal. However, I have in my mind the possibility that a new order can rise from negotiations, given the carping on both sides that they are DOOMED, DOOMED, DOOMED! In any case, Geronimo says he understands, but I should know that parallel negotiations have commenced.
On tick 18, those “parallel negotiations” have borne fruit, and it is bitter indeed for my team. Badifacator writes in to me to inform me that SLP will be calling in their 3-tick NAP. Now, on the face of it I am not all that unhappy. We were considering calling in the NAP ourselves to help REV. But I can’t help wonder why they would do this – so I write a note to Badi and ask why they have taken this action. He is very frank in his response: “honestly, it’s to help Bullets team out, before game got going we had some deals that if one of us were in trouble and the one who could help had a nap with who were attacking the other that they would end it to help them, I cant go back on my word.”
Foehammer, quite ever the accurate reader of ominous signs, asks me at this point if REV and SLP are still on track to fight, because Gil suddenly had 1500 fury. As we all know, REV had cut a deal at this point with SLP and BP to end their battles, not but 4 ticks after REV called the NAP in on BP to begin with.
I begin to get nervous at this stage. No further word from REV, SLP calls on us, is well heeled for battle…what has happened here? So I discuss with the team and take two actions to try and solidify the ground we are on. First, I offer R6 a GL NAP and ask if they would be willing to put aside the war with REV and create a three team alliance of R6/REV/DA to try and dominate the board and take the top three spots. The more I look at this possibility, the better it seems – we are, all three, ideally situated to run the table, and there are ways that any of us could finish on top. Of course, my team is in first at this point, so we are the leader of this threesome and most likely to finish first, and that perhaps was the undoing of this aborted attempt at a troika.
The second path I start down is talking to SLP/BP and asking them if there is a way we can mend the fences. Given that I am not sure what has happened with REV, but I know that it looks like they found an agreement with SLP/BP that is going to leave us high and dry, I figure I better explore the options on the other side of the fence should the REV/R6 tandem not be willing to work with us and help us prior to the SLP/BP onslaught – for without REV or R6 attacking SLP/BP, we would be overrun, and it was not in doubt.
WaterDios quickly agrees to the GL NAP on tick 18, but says the larger concept of a three way alliance will have to be discussed further with his team. On tick 19, Geronimo informs me that indeed BP has proceeded down another path. While not closing the door to negotiations, he says blckjck is back from an absence and will continue the discussions, but he sees the opportunities to change direction as limited. My hopes turn fully towards the R6/REV/DA alliance possibilities.
I send a note to Bane, who is listed as captain at this point of REV, since I had not heard back from DWO on my last queries regarding how we could best help REV. I ask for cooperation and coordination in the battles with SLP and BP, noting that DWO asked us to help out and that we have proceeded in a manner expecting to be able to help REV in those arenas. Bane replies that his team will discuss what I have said, but also that their current state of affairs are that they “have accepted a NAP with Sleepers and Bulletproof as of 2 cycles ago. We are discussing what needs to be done at this point.”
On tick 15, I have a back and forth with DWO on how we can help. He is glad for our assistance. I query further on details, and get no response. Apparently on tick 17 REV cuts a deal with BP/SLP, but fails to inform us, despite the fact that we have stated we are canceling agreements to join wars to help REV. On tick 19, we find this out, and suddenly it is quite clear: we have been left alone by our only ally. Now, in fairness to REV, I do not think this was intentional. Rather, I believe they were horribly inept at team leadership and coordination. That is not a knock on any player, mind. Bane was captain, but while away DWO handled some issue. However, it was never clear who was fully in charge, at least from an external view, and decisions appear to have been made without team input or even team wide knowledge.
But what ever the cause or reason, the process seemed pretty clear to us on tick 19: REV got in trouble by taking on too many enemies. They asked us for help, and we felt obliged both because they were our ally and because the R6 NAP we engaged earlier ended up hurting their cause. We began looking at canceling NAPs to help them, and discussed this with them. REV then cut a deal with the very teams we were fighting and looking to fight, leaving us holding the bag.
We were not pleased by this turn of events. On tick 20, DWO writes to my angry note the following: “To be honest, I'm frightened and confused, and I've stopped paying much attention to this game at all as it was giving me some serious headaches. Not sure exactly what is going on but basically I think Sleepers/Bulletproof came to us with a Gamelong NAP with both of them take it or leave it deal and we of course accepted, since we would've been literally toast in 5 cycles of fighting the combined forces of 4 teams (i.e. R6, DDC, Sleepers, Bulletproof). We really didn't have a choice in the matter, and it is too late now to go back.”
Wow, I am not pleased with THAT response! Confirmation of all I feared. I now begin pursuing the BP/SLP possibilities with vigor, and at the same time trying to force a reconciliation between R6 and REV. There are only two ways out of this box, as I see it: cut a deal with one pair or the other, or my team dies swiftly. The team agrees, feeling we have been left hanging on the BP/SLP front by REV, that we should still try to work the R6/REV deal, but given that SLP/BP will not be split up, we need to work with them if we cannot get R6/REV to work together and with us.
Side note: Still on tick 20, Elrad writes in to say that he beat the war drum about BP/SLP and no one replied. What a hoot! We sure did we reply, and we even pursued ways to assist REV, and REV bailed on the attack as we were joining the fray! Ah, perspective, what a wonderful thing…
Back to my story…Bane indicates in YIM (and forgive me if I misstate anything here, I do not have the YIM chat log – Bane, please feel free to correct anything here if you see a mistake) that the deal with SLP/BP had gamelong implications but that details were not clear and final disposition was not completed, so he felt his team had an option to back out of the deal entirely and would be willing to consider the R6/REV/DA possibility. He did NOT say he was ready to make this happen, but did say that it was a possibility.
I took this as a good sign, and wrote to WaterDios again to ask if he had discussed this with his team yet. In fact, since I had not heard from WD since his quick reply on tick 18 that the GL was cemented and that other discussions would occur with his team, I sent a query to the whole of R6. The Mad Scot indicated to me that not all of the R6 team members seemed aware of the offer of three way alliance I had placed on the table, as he works with both Mephto and Dranden, and in passing discussions with them they appeared oblivious to this issue.
WaterDios’ reply was interesting, and would set in motion a degradation of our relationship. He said: “We are discussion this and other options. We will get back to you as soon as possible. There are other viable options though for us to consider.” And then he followed up with a complaint about a farm between Elrad and Bobcobra, claiming that it was a questionable setup and that the activity in the area was raising “a sting” among his team – our maybe just him.
I immediately explored this situation, subbing in for Bob’s position to examine it, and found that there was a farm, it had a miscommunication that caused the fort on one side to be taken, and that to speed recovery of farming activity it was mutually agreed that the forts would be swapped since that would lead to a one tick faster resumption of farming activity. I replied to WD with this information, also pointing out that we had peace with REV since before the first NAP agreement between R6 and DA. WD pursues the issue, claiming the farm wasn’t set up until after the GL agreement, which is untrue. Farming activity hadn’t been consistent on either side, but the farm setup was agreed to and the forts built well prior to the GL agreement.
I begin to get angry, as there are serious, game-deciding issues on the table: REV/R6/DA three way alliance or not? And WD cannot discuss this with his team, yet he can take time to pursue questions about a farm between Elrad and Bobcobra – both of whom would be allies anyway if R6 agreed to the deal I was proposing! At this point, I am convinced R6 is playing for time, and WD in particular is waiting to see how his team’s battles against REV fare, perhaps even looking to establish a good enough position vis-à-vis REV before deciding if an agreement works for them. I hate delay as a diplomatic tactic, even when between enemies. Perhaps I get a little short on this issue, but I now see R6 as playing our turmoil over the SLP/BP problem, which only exists because REV created the mess, and I can’t get a straight answer out of either of these teams!
And then, the other shoe drops, and it is time for the Devil to collect his due…
Read more in Volume III of The Chronicles of the Advocates!
Volume III: Have You Ever Danced With the Devil in the Pale Moonlight?
Cycle 21, and the pressure reaches boiling point. SSmither informs me that DDC will be canceling their NAP with us, and battle will commence on tick 24. I press SSmither for a reason for this, and he vaguely indicates actions by other teams on the DDC border meant that they needed to cancel the NAP with us to try and move their team up in the citadel. I viewed this as a scavenging move, and told SSmither so. DDC had peace with us, until it was clear that we would be beset by combined forces in excess of our citadel-leading resources, and so they cancelled NAP to feast on our undefended borders as we positioned for major encounters with SLP and BP. As it turns out, they may have been pressured to cancel on us by BP or SLP – I am not clear on what happened there, but I do know that my team looked very unfavorably on the move by DDC and declared our intention to make the DDC team pay, ignoring our other fronts if needs be. We figured, this is it, we are going down. Might as well take the pile-on DDC team with us. The DA NG was a bleak place at this time.
I now begin my final appeals to REV/R6. I inform them of the DDC cancellation, and make it quite clear that my team will be swamped under, with the majority of the benefit going towards BP and SLP. I tell Bane and WaterDios in a note on cycle 21 that we will hold the line against BP/SLP until they can join the battles, and then we will push back against DDC, if we can make the three way alliance a reality. But if we cannot agree to this alliance, that I will be forced to engage SLP and BP in a negotiation in which my position will be quite unattractive. I tell them that I will be forced to accept terms from them that will make their (BP/SLP) situation vastly improved while mine declines, and that the REV/R6 positions will stymie each other in battle “while Rome is burning.” I close by asking that we at least come together, the three captains, to discuss this issue, and that time is not on our side.
As cycle 21 passes and cycle 22 comes, with no replies from either WD or Bane, I realize that R6 has played us for time and has no desire to enter into this alliance – they are moving up the citadel, and it looks like they think they can move high enough, fast enough, to take first before SLP/BP split up the DA lands and push back ahead of R6. REV is just AWOL. The only thing coming out of their team at this point is DWO’s public crying over spilt milk – claiming we GAVE the game to R6 by agreeing to the NAP with them back on tick 9! Meantime, I have been trying to rectify that situation, and cannot even get REV to discuss the possibility!
I write a note to R6 and blast WD for what I perceive to be an intentional delay tactic, pointing out how he had time to accept a GL NAP, time to complain about a meaningless fury farm between Elrad and Bobcobra, but not time to discuss the three way alliance, it’s attractiveness or lack thereof from the R6 standpoint, the likelihood they would agree to this, etc. Nothing, just “we are discussing it”. And that didn’t even seem to be true, as I pointed out before. I am angry and feel I have been strung along. Again, perhaps I get too angry over this, but I really felt (and frankly still feel) that WD let the discussion hang, with out ever indicating the R6 likelihood of buying into the three way alliance, to both keep me from doing anything else and/or to improve the R6 position should they want to go for the alliance. WaterDios has said this is not the case – I wait to hear the full details surrounding this issue from the R6 side of the fence. It still smells and feels like a string along to me. Over the next two cycles, WD and I exchange notes, with the following comments from me to WD being the upshot of the discussion from the DA standpoint: “I am done trying. You have heard what I have to say, many times over. I will consider you a hostile peace partner and engage in my own negotiations looking to salvage what I may for my team. If you really are trying to talk to your team, do so quickly, because I am tired of waiting around while you and Bane string me along. Have at each other, and good luck in your finish.”
I do as I promised I would – I write to Badifacator and I lay down in front of him and ask him to have his way with me – metaphorically speaking. I tell him that my team will not survive the battles against BP/SLP/DDC, and that though we just had a very good turn against his team, the longer term looks bleak. I point out that DDC coming in against us will eat up some of our regions, BP/SLP will split the rest, while R6 will take out REV and get all their spoils. R6 will likely coast to a win, while SLP/BP will get second and third, at best. But while my team is still on top of the citadel and still has bargaining power and the ability to alter it’s own fate, we cannot hope to do so running the present race.
So I offer THE DEAL to Badifacator. I promise to redirect full forces towards DDC to penalize them for their scavenging move, call in NAPs on anyone we can, though R6 and REV are not possible targets for us due to our gamelong status with R6 and alliance with REV (this latter I will address in a minute). SLP redirects their efforts towards anyone other than us they want to fight, and with BPs help the two of them should dominate the citadel. Since we are conceding that we will be hammered if they continue to the war, we agree to give 20 regions to BP/SLP (there was some misunderstanding here as BP ended up thinking it was 20 to EACH of them, but we managed to work around this later). In exchange for the regions and the peace status, we ask for a pact that says none of us will end the game unless and until BP/SLP are in the top two spots in the citadel, and DA is in third.
Cycle 23, WD finally replies and says that it doesn’t look like R6 can agree to peace with REV. This could change, he says, but it won’t be changing now. Same cycle, Badifacator replies and says he has proposed the deal to blckjck, and there is initial interest in it, he will keep me posted. Still on 23 (see, this is timely negotiation) Badifacator writes back again and says BP is nervous about the third place element, they want me to send a note to them directly promising we will not try to rise above third in the final standings. I send blckjck a note immediately detailing the deal for him, including the 3rd place finish for DA behind SLP/BP. STILL on 23, blckjck and Badifacator agree to the deal, and we have our 1-2-3 alliance in place.
We now proceed to have extended discussions among the 18 players on the three teams to engage the land swap in a manner that will hide our deal for a few ticks, making it look like we are still engaged. Each team has it’s own reasons for this being useful – in our case, it is to keep DDC thinking they will have an easy run on us when in fact we will be unleashing holy HELL on them and pursuing the battles with malice intended. ALL of this is coordinated on cycle 23. I am further convinced that I have been played by R6 in the delay tactics. I just coordinated a three team, 18 player deal that swung the direction of the game around completely inside of two game cycles – yet R6 and REV couldn’t even reply to my initial notes asking for comments on the alliance for four ticks! REV I have written off as uncoordinated and a mess – one time DWO talks as captain, the next Bane (who is still listed as captain). DWO cries in the NGs about their fate, but won’t discuss my offer at all, Bane has gone AWOL since indicating that REV might be able to back out of their SLP/BP NAPs if they wanted to.
So we swing the whole thing around, and I have new dance partners. Before doing this, I discuss with my team the ramifications of the offer I was (at that time) about to make to SLP/BP. We agree that R6, as a gamelong NAP partner, has no reason to expect us to NOT cut a deal such as this. In fact, we are in agreement that we helped them when they needed it, and they blew us off when we needed them to step up. So there is zero remorse or guilt on our part that R6 may face SLP/BP combined if the deal is accepted.
REV was a trickier issue. They are allies, not just GL NAP partners. But we felt that we could only carry that weight so far – we ended up harming their cause when we NAPped with R6, and for that we felt indebted further to them. Not because we felt we did anything wrong – as detailed above, we discussed this with them and both their team and ours felt that they would clean up R6 with or without us. But because as an ally we wanted to see them rise with us to the top of the citadel.
But we tried to help them, and while doing so they shot themselves in the foot (with the BP cancellation), and then as we stepped in to assist they left US behind as they cut a deal with SLP/BP without telling us and left us to take the mighty fall. When we tried to recoup both their and our chances to move back to the top of the citadel by coordinating the R6/REV/DA alliance, they couldn’t even get up a response to the offer. Hell, I wasn’t even sure they were getting the notes we were sending half the time – I never heard anything!
So we agreed that our debt to them from the R6 NAP was paid, and that we couldn’t possibly help them to a better position in this game by NOT cutting this deal – they were destined to be destroyed by R6. Assuming they had GL NAPs with BP/SLP (I still didn’t know for sure what their status was, as they never confirmed one way or the other!) this deal would benefit REV as much as we could possibly manage, for it would likely press R6 massively, something we could not do ourselves. We couldn’t guarantee that – we made no stipulations on who BP/SLP would or would not attack in this deal. It was strictly a deal made to save our own butts. But reason would dictate that R6 would be one of the targets.
Long side note of importance: That last statement is what gets WaterDios hot under the collar. I’ll say right now, WD, if that makes you question my honor, or trash it entirely as you have been doing, trash away. Given the same circumstances, I would do the same. As I said, the only thing I would change in this game was accepting the NAP with your team on tick 9. You practically begged my team for help, and we gave help. When the tables were turned, you string us out – intentionally or not – and gave us nothing in return. You let us hang. I told you I would sell myself to SLP/BP for what ever I could get if we could not come to an agreement. It was not an idle threat. More to the point, what should I have done? Let my team get driven under and slammed off the board? Where, in what agreement, did I ever say that I would not make peace with other teams? That I would not make a finishing deal with someone else? No, REV can claim we left them behind – I think I have stated above pretty clearly why I think that is not the case, and there is more to come on that issue, but there is nothing that my team did that I find in any way contrary to the agreements we had in place with your team. I use your own words, when describing blocking as a NAP violation, to highlight my point: “I will publically state that I have blocked before and I will block again. However I will ONLY do so when it's to the most benifit to myself (or my team). IF I'm an ally with someone else, then I will consult them on it, but I very, very rarely ally. If I'm GL with someone I will talk with them, but most likely will still block if it serves my purposes. I'm out to win period.” You say you will block when it benefits your team, you say you will consult an ally, maybe a GL NAP, but you play to win. And in what way does this NOT apply here? I have made peace deals with teams and players that are at war with NAP partners of mine. If they are allies, I will discuss it with them first, as I did when I granted your team a NAP and discussed it with REV. If REV has said, “no, don’t do that” we would have turned you down. If they are NAP only, be it GL or cancelable, my agreement is I will not attack them. It does NOT state that I will not make a peace deal or alliance with anyone they are also attacking. I am out to win, and if making that deal helps me get there, I will make it. If that deal might hurt your chances, too bad. You are not my ally. You are a non-aggression pact neighbor, and that is all. I will not attack you. I owe you no more than that. As it is, I DID discuss it with you. I told you quite clearly what I would have to do if you failed to work with REV and my team. So have at the action as you will. I stand by my decision as honorable, and I do not expect you will have any salient facts that will dissuade me from this position. But I am very ready to discuss it with you further.
Back to the story…cycle 24, the pseudo wars have begun, and R6 has been given notice by SLP/BP. WaterDios writes to me to say that hey, maybe this alliance idea isn’t so crazy after all, as BLP/SP have played him and are going to attack! I reply that I feel played, and that I am tired of trying to figure out what REV is up to by observation and tired of WDs questions about a meaningless fury farm. I also say that I gave it all I could, but I will not be able to lead my team to a fourth victory, and that I believe WD made a mistake by not working on the alliance with me. Their refusal was a death knell to my team. I close by saying that I don’t have much to discuss with R6 for the remainder of the game. I quote: “You chose your path, and our teams' paths will not cross, for or against each other, as a result. Good luck on the path you have chosen. We will finish as best we can, without help or hinderance, from your squad. You'll have to do the same.”
WD responds the same tick (gasp!) and says actually, he was wrong about the Fury Farm, and he hopes we can put that firmly in the past. So, when R6 needs us again, suddenly meaningless fury farms are no longer topics of interest! I feel FURTHER convinced that I was played for time during the R6/REV/DA alliance discussions. Can you blame me? I have no response to this. Time for me to go silent.
We call in our NAP on RM at this point – gave us a chance to fight on one more front, as the DDC battles would now not be consuming for us. Also, blckjck wrote to us and asked us to not go crazy on DDC, as he felt bad they were going to get drilled by us as a result of The Deal. I agreed that we would not force surrenders on them or elim any players or anything, and that if we could achieve the 3rd place behind SLP/BP without hammering them completely, we would ease up as was possible. Adding RM to the target list allowed for greater chance of this. The cancellation really only brought one new front to war, where quixotic was in the process of being eaten alive by other forces anyway. Didn’t really want to drive the stake into him, but he was dead meat anyway and it would assist us in easing up on DDC if that became an option.
Coming up in Volume IV: Hell Hath No Fury Like a NAP Partner Scorned!
Tick 25 saw a continuation of the R6 attempts to come back to the DA good graces. Mephto wrote a very nice note, saying he felt we were good to his team and that WD should have replied quicker when I asked them for help, etc. A nice note, but the die had been cast. I was not interested in discussing the situation with R6, partly because I felt WD had strung me out, but also because there really was nothing to discuss. I had a locked deal with SLP/BP.
Further discussions with BP/SLP uncovered the miscommunication in which blckjck was under the impression we would turn over 20 regions to each of SLP and BP. Fortunately, he saw the logic in my resolution of this misunderstanding – namely that the region count no longer mattered much, so long as BP/SLP were 1-2 and neither took a disproportionate number of DA regions, and that DA ended up 3rd. In fact, BP had taken the majority of the agreed transfers at this point, so all worked out OK there.
Wyrmmlore now writes in and asks for peace between us and NM. Seems reasonable given the circumstances, not much gain to be made there anymore.
At this point the diplomacy has pretty much ended for the game. No more deals for DA, we were focused on getting the game ended with BP/SLP/DA or SLP/BP/DA, we didn’t care. Other than a forthcoming issue in regards to REV, the rest of the discussion was much like the NG posts – accusations and anger, not much else.
On cycle 26, responds to my note in which I said I would write this very Opus after the game was complete. I had enough of the back and forth in the NGs by this point, I wasn’t willing to discuss further until I could talk about all the details, which was not reasonable given the game was still being played.
In his note to me, WD decides to take umbrage with the note I posted to the lobby NG in response to DWO’s complaint that we gave the game to R6. In that note, which was from a week prior to tick 26, I mention that I find the manner in which R6 has conducted diplomacy lacks honor, in my opinion. I am, of course, referring to my only real bone of contention in this game, which was the apparent string along by WD over the REV/R6/DA alliance possibility. WD sends a long and angry note to me, in which he says many things. My two favorite are that “in the eyes of many in this game, your honor is shattered.” Well, as I said before, if this is true, oh well. I tell you all now how I played this game, from beginning to end. I know that I have teammates whom I hold in great esteem that agreed with the way I played this game, as well as several others from outside my team that also agree with me. So I doubt there is a preponderance of players that I respect who would tell me I acted inappropriately. If I am wrong on this, then I will need to re-examine my own actions, and I am willing to do that if needed. But I have not seen nor heard the need to do so up to this point. The only people questioning me so far are Elrad (and I will get to his problem in a minute) and WaterDios.
The second thing WD said that I particularly enjoyed was that the reason the alliance never came to fruition was because REV never replied. While I grant that REV was also delinquent in replying, WD never wrote the simple note I was asking for – a reply all to Bane and myself saying he was willing to discuss an alliance. That’s all I asked for, and that was too much for WD to do. Too much for R6, the team who came begging and pleading to us on tick 7 and whom we helped, couldn’t even send a note saying they were willing to CONSIDER the concept. If they had, and REV still doesn’t reply, well, it’s a whole different ballgame.
Why am I not as angry with REV? Well, as stated above, we owed them something, so while their non-response was equally annoying as a stand alone issue, we owed them. R6 owed us. Further, REV has problems figuring out who was leading the team and what NAPs they had – communication with them was an adventure all game long. R6, and WD in particular, had no problem on ticks 7-10 when they needed help, and no problem on ticks 24-26 when they needed help again. The only time it was hard to get a note out of WD or R6 was when my team needed help.
Side note: At this point the discussion with WD begins to get personal, and rehashing those details publicly won’t do anyone any good. Suffice it to say that WD thinks I have acted dishonorably, and he can judge based on the details above now if he still feels that way. I am perfectly willing to go to the mat to defend my actions, as I think all are 100% defensible. Every single one. As stated earlier, the only one I would even consider changing is the original R6 NAP – and I don’t feel that that deal was in any way inappropriate, but I do think it was a mistake given the situation at that time.
WD also feels that I am calling him a liar because I won’t accept at prima facie his claims of not having time to reply to my calls for help. I have detailed why I have a hard time accepting his excuses on lack of reply above in depth, but I will add only that he had one of the MOST experienced set of teammates – if his time was truly that constrained, I am quite sure that one of his formidable and former captain teammates could have handled the duties for the five to seven ticks in question.
Back to my story… At this time we have the beginning of the SLP NAP violation accusations. R6 claims there was a jump on the NAP ending. There is some move towards resolution of this, but as we all know there will be more to come on these issues. As the DAs had nothing to do with this, I will not opine on that situation in my review here, but will save my comments for threads that discuss that issue in particular. The only notes I had on the issue were that Gil had taken some regions of ours on tick 35, and we had to ask for them back – he had previously taken a temple during the pseudo war that I had not OKed for transfer as well, so we had a few issues with Gil. But we got our stuff with SLP worked out. I did ask Badifacator to resolve the issues that were coming up in the NG, especially in regards to REV as those seemed egregious by description. The accusations were flying fast and furious – his reply and the later notes from REV made it quite clear the issue was not as black and white as it was first laid out to be, and yet I think there were things done that should not have been. But again, more on that elsewhere.
On cycle 29, word comes via blckjck that REV has agreed to a deal with R6 in which R6 will hand back massive swaths of land in exchange for peace. Blckjck and I discuss what this might mean, and I opine that it seems like a spite move by R6 to make sure we don’t end up in third. Blckjck agrees, and thinks it might be an attempt to get them even higher to spite BP and maybe SLP as well. I state in my note to blckjck: “Bottom line is they (R6) MIGHT have decided that they would rather Revindicare get third than my team. If so, and if it becomes too difficult to get my team to third, as I said we will accept fourth and a game end. I don't hold any particular grudge towards Revindicare.”
This issue will come up again, but note that as far back as cycle 29 I have expressed this opinion (of not forcing the game to continue if REV is in third and we are in fourth). I reiterate on cycle 31, in response to concern from BP/SLP that REV might indeed make a run at second or first with the following: “We also cannot attack Revindicare. More to the point, as I said earlier I do not have a problem if they finish ahead of my team. Now, can they finish ahead of one of YOUR teams, which I would assume is a problem for you guys! Perhaps we should look at cast-out options? We would be OK if you guys want to end it with Sleepers, Bullet, Revi. DA as the order. I'd prefer to be third, but since I cannot attack Revindicare, and neither can you guys, it's not reasonable of me to demand that you keep the game alive to your own detriment.”
It is pointed out to me that fourth is not in the purse, which I thought it was for some reason, by one of my teammates. This is unfortunate – I feel that placing in the purse is important. It’s not the points, as the number of points given to the last place in the purse is minimal to begin with, but rather it’s a statement on your finish. Third place gets a bronze at the Olympics, and that is something I would hang on my wall for the rest of my life if I could win one (I certainly don’t have to worry about that ever happening). But fourth place, while still a very good finish in most Olympic events, gets you zip. Big difference in my eyes, and it’s how I play EN as well. I feel that making the purse means you achieved something significant in your finish.
So I backtrack slightly on my previous comments to BP/SLP. The only change I make is that I say we will not assist a cast-out unless we are in third, but we will still not use our agreement with BP/SLP to keep them from ending the game if REV is in third and us in fourth.
The game finally ends, and Elrad immediately hauls off and BLASTS us for “stabbing” REV “in the back” by taking third. So this final issue must be addressed.
First of all, we never expected we would get third. Did we grunch at the end of the game? Absolutely. Did we want third? You bet! I just described how finishing in the purse means something to me. Did we try to get third? Absolutely, of course we did! Should we NOT have tried to get third? I fail to see any reason, EVER, in this game you should not try to maximize your finish, short of having made an agreement to let someone finish ahead of you. And those agreements are of the rarest variety. In fact I entered into one of those in this game, but it is quite rare for me to do so. The only reason I did was because the other option left to me was finishing clearly well out of the purse. And I pursued every other viable option first before turning to The Deal.
Second, if REV had been in the least bit organized (and you would figure all the heat over the SLP NAP issues would have had them talking to each other and paying attention to the game), the would have grunched some and done usual, expected end of game actions. Had they, we would have had zero chance to take third. Which is why we expected we would not take third!
Finally, we could very well have made sure REV did not finish in third. We could have forced the game to go on longer (assuming no one other than DA/SLP/BP could end it, which is not true as R6 was working to end it and would have done so soon on their own I think). At the very least we could have prevented SLP/BP from ending it – until we had taken third. There is no doubt that SLP/BP could have run REV down (once battle was engaged), and we had a deal with them that said they would have to do so if we asked, or have someone else end the game for them. Not only did we NOT force that issue, we very clearly and explicitly stated to BP/SLP that we would not complain if the wanted to end the game with REV in third and us in fourth.
There is no value, in my opinion, to Elrad’s complaint. Did SLP act questionably? Quite likely, though I find less in their actions to be dubious than Elrad does – in particular the notion that any regions “belong” to anyone other than the player who owns that region right then and there. Or as Narsham so eloquently put it, “nobody has a right to any region in EN unless they can assert that right. You can exert either diplomatic or military force to do so.”
But again, I will not dive too deeply into that issue here. It is enough to say that yes, I think SLP did act in a manner that was quite questionable in regards to REV, but they have put forth reasons for their actions that are at least worthy of a discussion, which is happening elsewhere. However, in no way did we ask them to beat REV back. In no way did we support their going to war against REV. We appreciated their desire to see us get to 3rd, which Badifacator made clear was something he wanted to see happen, but there were many ways for this to occur, and we did not specify any action be taken on their part to help us get there. Not even delaying the game end, something we had the right to assert under The Deal agreed to by us, BP and SLP.
So the game ends. We, quite surprisingly, get the third place we knew was our best possible outcome once the R6/REV/DA alliance failed to materialize. We are disappointed that we did not win, but congratulate the winners and will move on to the next game – at some point.
A final word on this game and this series. I believe this may have been the finest LiP yet. Not only that, I believe this may have been the first truly well played LiP. I think that there are too many alliances, too many GL NAPs in EN games in general. I think there is too much emphasis on the tactical play, and not enough on the strategy and especially the diplomacy. EN is a game that has a rich a diplomatic possibility as the Avalon Hill board game Diplomacy, but with the structural tactics of quality probabilistic combat games. The latter has been overemphasized in the EN community. We look to create games with different tactical flavors: terrain changes, different cost spells, moving lesser, etc. But we fail to maintain the same interest in the diplomatic side of the game. The LiP series was created initially to give players an opportunity to enter a game and play together as a group, and have group play dominate. But as we have progressed through the LiPs, I have always felt something was missing. We tried ELIM once or twice to see if that was better. We have had fewer teams (7 originally) and more teams (12 was the largest), but something was still not right.
This LiP, LiP IX, has shown me what we were missing. With a stunning lack of alliances and GL NAPs (there were fewer of these in this game than any previous LiP I can remember), the diplomatic scene was vibrant – if a bit too acidic in this particular case. Fewer GL agreements leads to more back and forth play, partners switching from one side to the other as the fortunes of war and the placings in the citadel dictate different needs and different partnerships. As someone said (may have been Wyrmmlore, I can’t find the note right now), there were more teams with 100+ regions late in this game than had ever been seen in a LiP before. And that is because this game was played with the flair and feel of Diplomacy. While I do not condone actual stabs (acting precisely counter to what you agree to do), as occur in Diplomacy, I do think that not maintaining the same partnerships all game long has significant value in improving the play of the game.
I am not saying this is a “better” form of EN. Rather, that this type of game has it’s place too, along side other variations on the vanilla free-for-all game. A game in which teams must work together, must communicate well with each other, and must communicate well with other teams, tests a full range of non-battlefield skills that the EN interface offers. I liked the fact that there were so many cancelable deals in this one – AND THAT THEY WERE CANCELLED TIME AND AGAIN! You needed to maintain your own team as well as your relationships with other teams. Though we fought them all game, we were able to deal with BP. Though we began NAPped but then had them call in on us just before we might have called in on them, we were able to deal with SLP. Though we fought them all game, we were able to NAP with NM at the end. Though we were NAPped most of the game with DDC and RM, we were able to swing both ways with each of them before the end. We had a consistent relationship with only one team – our one alliance, REV. And failure to maintain good communication between us and our ally probably doomed both our teams to finish out of the running for the win.
So I hope you all consider this before saying “I hate LiP, it sucks!” And I hope you consider these facts before complaining that the NAPs were so fluid. That is, in fact, one of the beauties of the game, I think. Now perhaps there are not many who agree and want to play this flavor of EN. If so, EN will be a slightly less interesting place for me, as I do like it. But LiPs comprise less than 20% of the games I have played, and I probably have the highest percentage in that category of any active player. So it’s not like EN will lose a major element if this series goes away.
But I certainly hope it continues, and that next time the players appreciate the style of game they are in rather than complain that the diplomatic situation is so fluid. (Please note I am NOT talking about the NAP breach issues – those are problems anywhere in EN, be it LiP or any other format.)
- Beefy, Captain, Devil’s Advocates

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-------Original Message-------
Beefy wrote: Just for fun - the After Action report of LiP IX from the Devil's Advocates perspective, one of the best EN games played in my opinion (and no, my team did not win...). Long, detailed, but if you like EN, a good read. WaterDios and I made up in after days, I believe...I believe. So long ago.
OK, here goes…
Volume I: Deals With the Devil
In the beginning, there were eight teams, many accusations BEFORE the game started of pre-game alliances and such, and a map that suggested a couple of teams looked more likely to win than others. But here is how the DAs began their diplomatic process:
In the pregame (but post-map) discussions, Done Dirt Cheap (DDC), Red Machine (RM), Bulletproof (BP), Sleepers (SLP), and Revindicare (REV) all entertained discussions with DA about NAP status. In the end of those discussions, the DAs agreed to the following:
3-tick NAP with DDC 3-tick NAP with RM 3-tick NAP with SLP 3-tick NAP with REV
Additionally, there was talk about forming a three way alliance, with Red Machine heading this discussion up. It never materialized.
At this point, we began looking at the board and read the discussions of multi-team deals and pre-game alliances, and decided we needed to upgrade someone to a GL NAP quickly to make sure we didn’t get gang-banged later on as the one team not in a two- or three-way alliance. REV appeared to offer the best situation for us as far as an ally goes, so on tick 3 we approached them and on tick 4 we solidified an alliance with them.
On cycle 7, an interesting turn of events came to pass. We were already concerned about the borders a few of us had with R6 players – most notably, though I thought there would be help from others I had Geronimo pressing most of his force against me, and Mephto had built significantly on my border to also press my position. With WaterDios to the south of me/Foehammer, it looked like that position, and maybe others, would be in a bit of trouble.
On this tick, WaterDios wrote me a note, titled “Reaching”, in which he said that real life concerns had led to his team having “blown this game”, and now their only hope was to see if we would NAP with them. He also mentioned they had other NAPs they could cancel if we NAPped with them. An interesting mix of messages – we are dying here, but if you NAP with us we can go attack others. Yet R6 was not our sole focus – far from it. Though we were engaged against them on multiple fronts, we also had significant BP and NM battles ongoing.
The discussions of whether or not to grant a NAP to R6 split our team down the middle. One side felt that we should press the attack, and even if they overran a few of our locations, overall they would collapse eventually and it would be to our advantage to take them out of the game. The other half, of which I was a part, believed that maintaining our strength, refocusing our efforts against BP and NM fronts, and expanding solidly in all areas (except Foehammer, who would get NAPped in by this deal) made more sense. Further, it seemed increasingly clear that Cyric would be brought to a surrender position eventually. If we could focus and take down BP, and REV could take down R6 via the surrender, we would both be looking very strong to then move on the rest of the board as necessary.
The REV deal became the tiebreak in this. We asked them what their stance would be on a NAP between us and R6 in the following note, sent from me to DWO:
“ We have been approached by Rainbow 6, they are apparently interested in peace with us. An interesting question from our standpoint - both plusses and minuses to agreeing to such.
But given we have agreed to work together as best we can, I am wondering what you status is with R6. I know you were attacking them - are you still? We are very divided on the concept of peace with R6, so I am going to have to make an executive decision on this one. What would your feelings be on this? Do you want/need us to maintain a press on R6? That would certainly weigh in my decision.
- Beefy”
We had noted that Bane and WaterDios were not exactly at each other’s throats, so there was concern over the exact status of REV/R6. However, since we were allied with them, and they were fighting R6, we decided to let their response to our question determine how we would act. It took until cycle 9 to get to a dialogue with REV about this. At this point, R6 felt we were stalling them – which we were not, we really had not been able to make up our minds and were trying to collect the last piece of information we wanted to use in the decision process.
Anyway, two notes from DWO on cycle 9 on this issue came in. The first said “I’ll let the team know and ask for their opinions. Not sure what our stance on R6 is, I believe we are crushing Cyric atm though, and Bane has a sort of makeshift peace with Waterdios.”
Followed by a note in which DWO said “the consensus was that we need to take out R6, preferably with your help. Of course the decision is yours to make, but we would prefer to see R6 die sooner rather than later.”
This left us about where we started – divided. On the one hand REV preferred we fight R6. On the other hand, they did not say they needed it – far from it, they said R6 would die sooner or later, and they preferred sooner. The side of my team that wanted to attack said, “so let’s attack!” My side said, well, they don’t need us, and they will take R6 out anyway, so again, it makes more sense for us to focus on BP and them on R6. We both end up better off, though it may take a bit longer for R6 to be run down.
In the end, we stayed split, and the decision was made by me. I have worked with WaterDios in the past, and Dranden, and decided that I would rather not redirect our team against them (for I felt that I would have to work out a deal with Geronimo at the very least, or else the overrun I mentioned earlier would occur), given that we had equal opportunity elsewhere and REV didn’t seem to need us in the battle.
This is, in my opinion, the most difficult and most questionable decision I reached in this entire game. At this point, I have an ally and I could guarantee them success against an enemy. Instead, I go a different direction. Did I think REV might do too well, gain too much of R6 if we went this way, and perhaps run away from us and coast to first? Sure, that was also a concern. Which is why I say the decision was questionable. But the bottom line was that both REV and my team felt that REV would be able to defeat R6 either way. Given that I didn’t see REV being HARMED by a NAP with us, and that I asked them directly if they needed us to continue our attack, I felt my decision was reasonable. But for all the later decisions were questioned, this is the one that I could see myself changing if I played the game again. Especially if I had hindsight as a guide!
So, we now add R6 as a 5-tick NAP. Not much happens in the next two ticks, until, on tick 11, DWO threw me a curveball. He sent a very brief note in which he said they had cancelled on BP and worked out a deal with RM to attack BP and NM together. I thought this an excellent turn of events – if REV felt good enough about their R6 war that they would join in on BP, and add NM to their target list, while (I believe) they were still attack DDC, then things must be going very well indeed. We were making good progress, and while I was mildly concerned that this might mean REV was in position to really roll the board up and run away with first, there was nothing to do about that as they had fought to an excellent position and were taking advantage. If they blew us out, we’d have to settle for second.
On tick 14, the much ballyhooed pre-game alliance reared it’s head. Apparently it did exist, between BP and SLP, and BP called in SLP help against REV. DWO sends a note to me on tick 14 in which he says they will be fighting R6, SLP, and BP, and that they are in a bit of trouble. He also adds “by the way that deal with R6 has cost us dearly as their entire team is pouring resources into Cyric Artemis now…” That indeed is what happened, as we all know, but not only were we unable to predict this, the note from WaterDios back in our NAP discussion indicated they were going to look to cancel other NAPs if we NAPped with them – so we had information that indicated they would have other battles coming after NAPping with them anyway! I don’t disagree with DWO’s statement – as I said that decision is the one I would change if I could – but I also don’t think we could have predicted what happened there.
Elrad sent a note to us, RM, NM and his own team at this point, making the next all purpose cry for help in the NGs, saying the BP/R6/SLP alliance would run us all down, so let’s work against them. We indicated a willingness to discuss these issues, saying we were already heavily engaged against BP and had cancelable NAPs with R6 and SLP.
On tick 15, Geronimo sent a note as acting captain of BP that was very interesting. Feeling the press of us, RM and REV, BP felt they were sinking fast. He offered us a deal: make peace with us, we will fight REV, and we will guarantee that you remain ahead of us in the citadel. Further, he offered that they would pay us a price for this deal. The twists and turns! REV and BP fighting each other, both feeling like they are going down! Elrad calling for board-wide help against the dominators of the game, including BP! Geronimo offering regions and secured citadel placing to save them from the mighty REV/RM/DA onslaught! What would happen next? Stay tuned for Volume II of Chronicles of the Advocates!
Volume II: To the Devil With Ya!
While pondering what Geronimo had sent to me – after replying and telling him forthright that we would not attack REV due to a GL agreement with them – word of a possible capitulation by DDC to SLP reached my ears. I questioned SSmither on this, and he denied the rumor, but did say that his team had “come to an agreement regarding peace (with SLP) so that we can focus on other fronts”.
Meantime, our team began discussing the REV and BP notes, and how we should proceed. It was generally agreed that we needed to do something to help REV, despite their seeming to bring this mess on themselves by canceling NAPs when they had existing wars that were not proceeding as well as expected. They were our allies, and they seemed to be harmed by our R6 decision, which I was just beginning to think was a bad move on my part, so we felt we needed to act in a way to help them.
I sent a note to DWO on tick 15, in response to his “bit of trouble” note, in which I said we were looking at ways to help his team, and that one thing we thought might help them would be us canceling on SLP. Since they were fighting R6/SLP/BP, and we were already fighting BP, we could open up on one or the other of their other opponents. Having agreed to the NAP fairly recently with R6, and it being a 5-tick, versus the 3-tick with SLP, it seemed that canceling on SLP would be the better option. And I stated this to DWO. He replied that SLP had just cancelled on them and it would be a bumpy ride for his team, and that any help we could lend would be appreciated.
A side note: I was traveling during this period of time, and Godfather stepped in and handled some duties for me. One thing he pursued was a situation developing on the RM/BP fronts. It appeared that RM/BP had ceased battles, and also that RM players might move into positions that would cut off Bobcobra and Godfather from BP players. Given the REV situation, Godfather made sure we would keep those alleys into BP open with direct discussions with RM players and captain. Indeed, RM confessed they had to cut a deal, and while they agreed to not block us, they also could not agree to let us have passage. A reasonable result, negotiated before there was a problem. Here is one way to avoid the blocking issues that plagued other borders at other times in this game!
Back to my tale…tick 17, I write to Geronimo and explain I have been traveling, sorry I don’t have an answer for him yet. Entirely true, though I figure the team will be leaning hard towards blowing off the BP deal. However, I have in my mind the possibility that a new order can rise from negotiations, given the carping on both sides that they are DOOMED, DOOMED, DOOMED! In any case, Geronimo says he understands, but I should know that parallel negotiations have commenced.
On tick 18, those “parallel negotiations” have borne fruit, and it is bitter indeed for my team. Badifacator writes in to me to inform me that SLP will be calling in their 3-tick NAP. Now, on the face of it I am not all that unhappy. We were considering calling in the NAP ourselves to help REV. But I can’t help wonder why they would do this – so I write a note to Badi and ask why they have taken this action. He is very frank in his response: “honestly, it’s to help Bullets team out, before game got going we had some deals that if one of us were in trouble and the one who could help had a nap with who were attacking the other that they would end it to help them, I cant go back on my word.”
Foehammer, quite ever the accurate reader of ominous signs, asks me at this point if REV and SLP are still on track to fight, because Gil suddenly had 1500 fury. As we all know, REV had cut a deal at this point with SLP and BP to end their battles, not but 4 ticks after REV called the NAP in on BP to begin with.
I begin to get nervous at this stage. No further word from REV, SLP calls on us, is well heeled for battle…what has happened here? So I discuss with the team and take two actions to try and solidify the ground we are on. First, I offer R6 a GL NAP and ask if they would be willing to put aside the war with REV and create a three team alliance of R6/REV/DA to try and dominate the board and take the top three spots. The more I look at this possibility, the better it seems – we are, all three, ideally situated to run the table, and there are ways that any of us could finish on top. Of course, my team is in first at this point, so we are the leader of this threesome and most likely to finish first, and that perhaps was the undoing of this aborted attempt at a troika.
The second path I start down is talking to SLP/BP and asking them if there is a way we can mend the fences. Given that I am not sure what has happened with REV, but I know that it looks like they found an agreement with SLP/BP that is going to leave us high and dry, I figure I better explore the options on the other side of the fence should the REV/R6 tandem not be willing to work with us and help us prior to the SLP/BP onslaught – for without REV or R6 attacking SLP/BP, we would be overrun, and it was not in doubt.
WaterDios quickly agrees to the GL NAP on tick 18, but says the larger concept of a three way alliance will have to be discussed further with his team. On tick 19, Geronimo informs me that indeed BP has proceeded down another path. While not closing the door to negotiations, he says blckjck is back from an absence and will continue the discussions, but he sees the opportunities to change direction as limited. My hopes turn fully towards the R6/REV/DA alliance possibilities.
I send a note to Bane, who is listed as captain at this point of REV, since I had not heard back from DWO on my last queries regarding how we could best help REV. I ask for cooperation and coordination in the battles with SLP and BP, noting that DWO asked us to help out and that we have proceeded in a manner expecting to be able to help REV in those arenas. Bane replies that his team will discuss what I have said, but also that their current state of affairs are that they “have accepted a NAP with Sleepers and Bulletproof as of 2 cycles ago. We are discussing what needs to be done at this point.”
On tick 15, I have a back and forth with DWO on how we can help. He is glad for our assistance. I query further on details, and get no response. Apparently on tick 17 REV cuts a deal with BP/SLP, but fails to inform us, despite the fact that we have stated we are canceling agreements to join wars to help REV. On tick 19, we find this out, and suddenly it is quite clear: we have been left alone by our only ally. Now, in fairness to REV, I do not think this was intentional. Rather, I believe they were horribly inept at team leadership and coordination. That is not a knock on any player, mind. Bane was captain, but while away DWO handled some issue. However, it was never clear who was fully in charge, at least from an external view, and decisions appear to have been made without team input or even team wide knowledge.
But what ever the cause or reason, the process seemed pretty clear to us on tick 19: REV got in trouble by taking on too many enemies. They asked us for help, and we felt obliged both because they were our ally and because the R6 NAP we engaged earlier ended up hurting their cause. We began looking at canceling NAPs to help them, and discussed this with them. REV then cut a deal with the very teams we were fighting and looking to fight, leaving us holding the bag.
We were not pleased by this turn of events. On tick 20, DWO writes to my angry note the following: “To be honest, I'm frightened and confused, and I've stopped paying much attention to this game at all as it was giving me some serious headaches. Not sure exactly what is going on but basically I think Sleepers/Bulletproof came to us with a Gamelong NAP with both of them take it or leave it deal and we of course accepted, since we would've been literally toast in 5 cycles of fighting the combined forces of 4 teams (i.e. R6, DDC, Sleepers, Bulletproof). We really didn't have a choice in the matter, and it is too late now to go back.”
Wow, I am not pleased with THAT response! Confirmation of all I feared. I now begin pursuing the BP/SLP possibilities with vigor, and at the same time trying to force a reconciliation between R6 and REV. There are only two ways out of this box, as I see it: cut a deal with one pair or the other, or my team dies swiftly. The team agrees, feeling we have been left hanging on the BP/SLP front by REV, that we should still try to work the R6/REV deal, but given that SLP/BP will not be split up, we need to work with them if we cannot get R6/REV to work together and with us.
Side note: Still on tick 20, Elrad writes in to say that he beat the war drum about BP/SLP and no one replied. What a hoot! We sure did we reply, and we even pursued ways to assist REV, and REV bailed on the attack as we were joining the fray! Ah, perspective, what a wonderful thing…
Back to my story…Bane indicates in YIM (and forgive me if I misstate anything here, I do not have the YIM chat log – Bane, please feel free to correct anything here if you see a mistake) that the deal with SLP/BP had gamelong implications but that details were not clear and final disposition was not completed, so he felt his team had an option to back out of the deal entirely and would be willing to consider the R6/REV/DA possibility. He did NOT say he was ready to make this happen, but did say that it was a possibility.
I took this as a good sign, and wrote to WaterDios again to ask if he had discussed this with his team yet. In fact, since I had not heard from WD since his quick reply on tick 18 that the GL was cemented and that other discussions would occur with his team, I sent a query to the whole of R6. The Mad Scot indicated to me that not all of the R6 team members seemed aware of the offer of three way alliance I had placed on the table, as he works with both Mephto and Dranden, and in passing discussions with them they appeared oblivious to this issue.
WaterDios’ reply was interesting, and would set in motion a degradation of our relationship. He said: “We are discussion this and other options. We will get back to you as soon as possible. There are other viable options though for us to consider.” And then he followed up with a complaint about a farm between Elrad and Bobcobra, claiming that it was a questionable setup and that the activity in the area was raising “a sting” among his team – our maybe just him.
I immediately explored this situation, subbing in for Bob’s position to examine it, and found that there was a farm, it had a miscommunication that caused the fort on one side to be taken, and that to speed recovery of farming activity it was mutually agreed that the forts would be swapped since that would lead to a one tick faster resumption of farming activity. I replied to WD with this information, also pointing out that we had peace with REV since before the first NAP agreement between R6 and DA. WD pursues the issue, claiming the farm wasn’t set up until after the GL agreement, which is untrue. Farming activity hadn’t been consistent on either side, but the farm setup was agreed to and the forts built well prior to the GL agreement.
I begin to get angry, as there are serious, game-deciding issues on the table: REV/R6/DA three way alliance or not? And WD cannot discuss this with his team, yet he can take time to pursue questions about a farm between Elrad and Bobcobra – both of whom would be allies anyway if R6 agreed to the deal I was proposing! At this point, I am convinced R6 is playing for time, and WD in particular is waiting to see how his team’s battles against REV fare, perhaps even looking to establish a good enough position vis-à-vis REV before deciding if an agreement works for them. I hate delay as a diplomatic tactic, even when between enemies. Perhaps I get a little short on this issue, but I now see R6 as playing our turmoil over the SLP/BP problem, which only exists because REV created the mess, and I can’t get a straight answer out of either of these teams!
And then, the other shoe drops, and it is time for the Devil to collect his due…
Read more in Volume III of The Chronicles of the Advocates!
Volume III: Have You Ever Danced With the Devil in the Pale Moonlight?
Cycle 21, and the pressure reaches boiling point. SSmither informs me that DDC will be canceling their NAP with us, and battle will commence on tick 24. I press SSmither for a reason for this, and he vaguely indicates actions by other teams on the DDC border meant that they needed to cancel the NAP with us to try and move their team up in the citadel. I viewed this as a scavenging move, and told SSmither so. DDC had peace with us, until it was clear that we would be beset by combined forces in excess of our citadel-leading resources, and so they cancelled NAP to feast on our undefended borders as we positioned for major encounters with SLP and BP. As it turns out, they may have been pressured to cancel on us by BP or SLP – I am not clear on what happened there, but I do know that my team looked very unfavorably on the move by DDC and declared our intention to make the DDC team pay, ignoring our other fronts if needs be. We figured, this is it, we are going down. Might as well take the pile-on DDC team with us. The DA NG was a bleak place at this time.
I now begin my final appeals to REV/R6. I inform them of the DDC cancellation, and make it quite clear that my team will be swamped under, with the majority of the benefit going towards BP and SLP. I tell Bane and WaterDios in a note on cycle 21 that we will hold the line against BP/SLP until they can join the battles, and then we will push back against DDC, if we can make the three way alliance a reality. But if we cannot agree to this alliance, that I will be forced to engage SLP and BP in a negotiation in which my position will be quite unattractive. I tell them that I will be forced to accept terms from them that will make their (BP/SLP) situation vastly improved while mine declines, and that the REV/R6 positions will stymie each other in battle “while Rome is burning.” I close by asking that we at least come together, the three captains, to discuss this issue, and that time is not on our side.
As cycle 21 passes and cycle 22 comes, with no replies from either WD or Bane, I realize that R6 has played us for time and has no desire to enter into this alliance – they are moving up the citadel, and it looks like they think they can move high enough, fast enough, to take first before SLP/BP split up the DA lands and push back ahead of R6. REV is just AWOL. The only thing coming out of their team at this point is DWO’s public crying over spilt milk – claiming we GAVE the game to R6 by agreeing to the NAP with them back on tick 9! Meantime, I have been trying to rectify that situation, and cannot even get REV to discuss the possibility!
I write a note to R6 and blast WD for what I perceive to be an intentional delay tactic, pointing out how he had time to accept a GL NAP, time to complain about a meaningless fury farm between Elrad and Bobcobra, but not time to discuss the three way alliance, it’s attractiveness or lack thereof from the R6 standpoint, the likelihood they would agree to this, etc. Nothing, just “we are discussing it”. And that didn’t even seem to be true, as I pointed out before. I am angry and feel I have been strung along. Again, perhaps I get too angry over this, but I really felt (and frankly still feel) that WD let the discussion hang, with out ever indicating the R6 likelihood of buying into the three way alliance, to both keep me from doing anything else and/or to improve the R6 position should they want to go for the alliance. WaterDios has said this is not the case – I wait to hear the full details surrounding this issue from the R6 side of the fence. It still smells and feels like a string along to me. Over the next two cycles, WD and I exchange notes, with the following comments from me to WD being the upshot of the discussion from the DA standpoint: “I am done trying. You have heard what I have to say, many times over. I will consider you a hostile peace partner and engage in my own negotiations looking to salvage what I may for my team. If you really are trying to talk to your team, do so quickly, because I am tired of waiting around while you and Bane string me along. Have at each other, and good luck in your finish.”
I do as I promised I would – I write to Badifacator and I lay down in front of him and ask him to have his way with me – metaphorically speaking. I tell him that my team will not survive the battles against BP/SLP/DDC, and that though we just had a very good turn against his team, the longer term looks bleak. I point out that DDC coming in against us will eat up some of our regions, BP/SLP will split the rest, while R6 will take out REV and get all their spoils. R6 will likely coast to a win, while SLP/BP will get second and third, at best. But while my team is still on top of the citadel and still has bargaining power and the ability to alter it’s own fate, we cannot hope to do so running the present race.
So I offer THE DEAL to Badifacator. I promise to redirect full forces towards DDC to penalize them for their scavenging move, call in NAPs on anyone we can, though R6 and REV are not possible targets for us due to our gamelong status with R6 and alliance with REV (this latter I will address in a minute). SLP redirects their efforts towards anyone other than us they want to fight, and with BPs help the two of them should dominate the citadel. Since we are conceding that we will be hammered if they continue to the war, we agree to give 20 regions to BP/SLP (there was some misunderstanding here as BP ended up thinking it was 20 to EACH of them, but we managed to work around this later). In exchange for the regions and the peace status, we ask for a pact that says none of us will end the game unless and until BP/SLP are in the top two spots in the citadel, and DA is in third.
Cycle 23, WD finally replies and says that it doesn’t look like R6 can agree to peace with REV. This could change, he says, but it won’t be changing now. Same cycle, Badifacator replies and says he has proposed the deal to blckjck, and there is initial interest in it, he will keep me posted. Still on 23 (see, this is timely negotiation) Badifacator writes back again and says BP is nervous about the third place element, they want me to send a note to them directly promising we will not try to rise above third in the final standings. I send blckjck a note immediately detailing the deal for him, including the 3rd place finish for DA behind SLP/BP. STILL on 23, blckjck and Badifacator agree to the deal, and we have our 1-2-3 alliance in place.
We now proceed to have extended discussions among the 18 players on the three teams to engage the land swap in a manner that will hide our deal for a few ticks, making it look like we are still engaged. Each team has it’s own reasons for this being useful – in our case, it is to keep DDC thinking they will have an easy run on us when in fact we will be unleashing holy HELL on them and pursuing the battles with malice intended. ALL of this is coordinated on cycle 23. I am further convinced that I have been played by R6 in the delay tactics. I just coordinated a three team, 18 player deal that swung the direction of the game around completely inside of two game cycles – yet R6 and REV couldn’t even reply to my initial notes asking for comments on the alliance for four ticks! REV I have written off as uncoordinated and a mess – one time DWO talks as captain, the next Bane (who is still listed as captain). DWO cries in the NGs about their fate, but won’t discuss my offer at all, Bane has gone AWOL since indicating that REV might be able to back out of their SLP/BP NAPs if they wanted to.
So we swing the whole thing around, and I have new dance partners. Before doing this, I discuss with my team the ramifications of the offer I was (at that time) about to make to SLP/BP. We agree that R6, as a gamelong NAP partner, has no reason to expect us to NOT cut a deal such as this. In fact, we are in agreement that we helped them when they needed it, and they blew us off when we needed them to step up. So there is zero remorse or guilt on our part that R6 may face SLP/BP combined if the deal is accepted.
REV was a trickier issue. They are allies, not just GL NAP partners. But we felt that we could only carry that weight so far – we ended up harming their cause when we NAPped with R6, and for that we felt indebted further to them. Not because we felt we did anything wrong – as detailed above, we discussed this with them and both their team and ours felt that they would clean up R6 with or without us. But because as an ally we wanted to see them rise with us to the top of the citadel.
But we tried to help them, and while doing so they shot themselves in the foot (with the BP cancellation), and then as we stepped in to assist they left US behind as they cut a deal with SLP/BP without telling us and left us to take the mighty fall. When we tried to recoup both their and our chances to move back to the top of the citadel by coordinating the R6/REV/DA alliance, they couldn’t even get up a response to the offer. Hell, I wasn’t even sure they were getting the notes we were sending half the time – I never heard anything!
So we agreed that our debt to them from the R6 NAP was paid, and that we couldn’t possibly help them to a better position in this game by NOT cutting this deal – they were destined to be destroyed by R6. Assuming they had GL NAPs with BP/SLP (I still didn’t know for sure what their status was, as they never confirmed one way or the other!) this deal would benefit REV as much as we could possibly manage, for it would likely press R6 massively, something we could not do ourselves. We couldn’t guarantee that – we made no stipulations on who BP/SLP would or would not attack in this deal. It was strictly a deal made to save our own butts. But reason would dictate that R6 would be one of the targets.
Long side note of importance: That last statement is what gets WaterDios hot under the collar. I’ll say right now, WD, if that makes you question my honor, or trash it entirely as you have been doing, trash away. Given the same circumstances, I would do the same. As I said, the only thing I would change in this game was accepting the NAP with your team on tick 9. You practically begged my team for help, and we gave help. When the tables were turned, you string us out – intentionally or not – and gave us nothing in return. You let us hang. I told you I would sell myself to SLP/BP for what ever I could get if we could not come to an agreement. It was not an idle threat. More to the point, what should I have done? Let my team get driven under and slammed off the board? Where, in what agreement, did I ever say that I would not make peace with other teams? That I would not make a finishing deal with someone else? No, REV can claim we left them behind – I think I have stated above pretty clearly why I think that is not the case, and there is more to come on that issue, but there is nothing that my team did that I find in any way contrary to the agreements we had in place with your team. I use your own words, when describing blocking as a NAP violation, to highlight my point: “I will publically state that I have blocked before and I will block again. However I will ONLY do so when it's to the most benifit to myself (or my team). IF I'm an ally with someone else, then I will consult them on it, but I very, very rarely ally. If I'm GL with someone I will talk with them, but most likely will still block if it serves my purposes. I'm out to win period.” You say you will block when it benefits your team, you say you will consult an ally, maybe a GL NAP, but you play to win. And in what way does this NOT apply here? I have made peace deals with teams and players that are at war with NAP partners of mine. If they are allies, I will discuss it with them first, as I did when I granted your team a NAP and discussed it with REV. If REV has said, “no, don’t do that” we would have turned you down. If they are NAP only, be it GL or cancelable, my agreement is I will not attack them. It does NOT state that I will not make a peace deal or alliance with anyone they are also attacking. I am out to win, and if making that deal helps me get there, I will make it. If that deal might hurt your chances, too bad. You are not my ally. You are a non-aggression pact neighbor, and that is all. I will not attack you. I owe you no more than that. As it is, I DID discuss it with you. I told you quite clearly what I would have to do if you failed to work with REV and my team. So have at the action as you will. I stand by my decision as honorable, and I do not expect you will have any salient facts that will dissuade me from this position. But I am very ready to discuss it with you further.
Back to the story…cycle 24, the pseudo wars have begun, and R6 has been given notice by SLP/BP. WaterDios writes to me to say that hey, maybe this alliance idea isn’t so crazy after all, as BLP/SP have played him and are going to attack! I reply that I feel played, and that I am tired of trying to figure out what REV is up to by observation and tired of WDs questions about a meaningless fury farm. I also say that I gave it all I could, but I will not be able to lead my team to a fourth victory, and that I believe WD made a mistake by not working on the alliance with me. Their refusal was a death knell to my team. I close by saying that I don’t have much to discuss with R6 for the remainder of the game. I quote: “You chose your path, and our teams' paths will not cross, for or against each other, as a result. Good luck on the path you have chosen. We will finish as best we can, without help or hinderance, from your squad. You'll have to do the same.”
WD responds the same tick (gasp!) and says actually, he was wrong about the Fury Farm, and he hopes we can put that firmly in the past. So, when R6 needs us again, suddenly meaningless fury farms are no longer topics of interest! I feel FURTHER convinced that I was played for time during the R6/REV/DA alliance discussions. Can you blame me? I have no response to this. Time for me to go silent.
We call in our NAP on RM at this point – gave us a chance to fight on one more front, as the DDC battles would now not be consuming for us. Also, blckjck wrote to us and asked us to not go crazy on DDC, as he felt bad they were going to get drilled by us as a result of The Deal. I agreed that we would not force surrenders on them or elim any players or anything, and that if we could achieve the 3rd place behind SLP/BP without hammering them completely, we would ease up as was possible. Adding RM to the target list allowed for greater chance of this. The cancellation really only brought one new front to war, where quixotic was in the process of being eaten alive by other forces anyway. Didn’t really want to drive the stake into him, but he was dead meat anyway and it would assist us in easing up on DDC if that became an option.
Coming up in Volume IV: Hell Hath No Fury Like a NAP Partner Scorned!
Tick 25 saw a continuation of the R6 attempts to come back to the DA good graces. Mephto wrote a very nice note, saying he felt we were good to his team and that WD should have replied quicker when I asked them for help, etc. A nice note, but the die had been cast. I was not interested in discussing the situation with R6, partly because I felt WD had strung me out, but also because there really was nothing to discuss. I had a locked deal with SLP/BP.
Further discussions with BP/SLP uncovered the miscommunication in which blckjck was under the impression we would turn over 20 regions to each of SLP and BP. Fortunately, he saw the logic in my resolution of this misunderstanding – namely that the region count no longer mattered much, so long as BP/SLP were 1-2 and neither took a disproportionate number of DA regions, and that DA ended up 3rd. In fact, BP had taken the majority of the agreed transfers at this point, so all worked out OK there.
Wyrmmlore now writes in and asks for peace between us and NM. Seems reasonable given the circumstances, not much gain to be made there anymore.
At this point the diplomacy has pretty much ended for the game. No more deals for DA, we were focused on getting the game ended with BP/SLP/DA or SLP/BP/DA, we didn’t care. Other than a forthcoming issue in regards to REV, the rest of the discussion was much like the NG posts – accusations and anger, not much else.
On cycle 26, responds to my note in which I said I would write this very Opus after the game was complete. I had enough of the back and forth in the NGs by this point, I wasn’t willing to discuss further until I could talk about all the details, which was not reasonable given the game was still being played.
In his note to me, WD decides to take umbrage with the note I posted to the lobby NG in response to DWO’s complaint that we gave the game to R6. In that note, which was from a week prior to tick 26, I mention that I find the manner in which R6 has conducted diplomacy lacks honor, in my opinion. I am, of course, referring to my only real bone of contention in this game, which was the apparent string along by WD over the REV/R6/DA alliance possibility. WD sends a long and angry note to me, in which he says many things. My two favorite are that “in the eyes of many in this game, your honor is shattered.” Well, as I said before, if this is true, oh well. I tell you all now how I played this game, from beginning to end. I know that I have teammates whom I hold in great esteem that agreed with the way I played this game, as well as several others from outside my team that also agree with me. So I doubt there is a preponderance of players that I respect who would tell me I acted inappropriately. If I am wrong on this, then I will need to re-examine my own actions, and I am willing to do that if needed. But I have not seen nor heard the need to do so up to this point. The only people questioning me so far are Elrad (and I will get to his problem in a minute) and WaterDios.
The second thing WD said that I particularly enjoyed was that the reason the alliance never came to fruition was because REV never replied. While I grant that REV was also delinquent in replying, WD never wrote the simple note I was asking for – a reply all to Bane and myself saying he was willing to discuss an alliance. That’s all I asked for, and that was too much for WD to do. Too much for R6, the team who came begging and pleading to us on tick 7 and whom we helped, couldn’t even send a note saying they were willing to CONSIDER the concept. If they had, and REV still doesn’t reply, well, it’s a whole different ballgame.
Why am I not as angry with REV? Well, as stated above, we owed them something, so while their non-response was equally annoying as a stand alone issue, we owed them. R6 owed us. Further, REV has problems figuring out who was leading the team and what NAPs they had – communication with them was an adventure all game long. R6, and WD in particular, had no problem on ticks 7-10 when they needed help, and no problem on ticks 24-26 when they needed help again. The only time it was hard to get a note out of WD or R6 was when my team needed help.
Side note: At this point the discussion with WD begins to get personal, and rehashing those details publicly won’t do anyone any good. Suffice it to say that WD thinks I have acted dishonorably, and he can judge based on the details above now if he still feels that way. I am perfectly willing to go to the mat to defend my actions, as I think all are 100% defensible. Every single one. As stated earlier, the only one I would even consider changing is the original R6 NAP – and I don’t feel that that deal was in any way inappropriate, but I do think it was a mistake given the situation at that time.
WD also feels that I am calling him a liar because I won’t accept at prima facie his claims of not having time to reply to my calls for help. I have detailed why I have a hard time accepting his excuses on lack of reply above in depth, but I will add only that he had one of the MOST experienced set of teammates – if his time was truly that constrained, I am quite sure that one of his formidable and former captain teammates could have handled the duties for the five to seven ticks in question.
Back to my story… At this time we have the beginning of the SLP NAP violation accusations. R6 claims there was a jump on the NAP ending. There is some move towards resolution of this, but as we all know there will be more to come on these issues. As the DAs had nothing to do with this, I will not opine on that situation in my review here, but will save my comments for threads that discuss that issue in particular. The only notes I had on the issue were that Gil had taken some regions of ours on tick 35, and we had to ask for them back – he had previously taken a temple during the pseudo war that I had not OKed for transfer as well, so we had a few issues with Gil. But we got our stuff with SLP worked out. I did ask Badifacator to resolve the issues that were coming up in the NG, especially in regards to REV as those seemed egregious by description. The accusations were flying fast and furious – his reply and the later notes from REV made it quite clear the issue was not as black and white as it was first laid out to be, and yet I think there were things done that should not have been. But again, more on that elsewhere.
On cycle 29, word comes via blckjck that REV has agreed to a deal with R6 in which R6 will hand back massive swaths of land in exchange for peace. Blckjck and I discuss what this might mean, and I opine that it seems like a spite move by R6 to make sure we don’t end up in third. Blckjck agrees, and thinks it might be an attempt to get them even higher to spite BP and maybe SLP as well. I state in my note to blckjck: “Bottom line is they (R6) MIGHT have decided that they would rather Revindicare get third than my team. If so, and if it becomes too difficult to get my team to third, as I said we will accept fourth and a game end. I don't hold any particular grudge towards Revindicare.”
This issue will come up again, but note that as far back as cycle 29 I have expressed this opinion (of not forcing the game to continue if REV is in third and we are in fourth). I reiterate on cycle 31, in response to concern from BP/SLP that REV might indeed make a run at second or first with the following: “We also cannot attack Revindicare. More to the point, as I said earlier I do not have a problem if they finish ahead of my team. Now, can they finish ahead of one of YOUR teams, which I would assume is a problem for you guys! Perhaps we should look at cast-out options? We would be OK if you guys want to end it with Sleepers, Bullet, Revi. DA as the order. I'd prefer to be third, but since I cannot attack Revindicare, and neither can you guys, it's not reasonable of me to demand that you keep the game alive to your own detriment.”
It is pointed out to me that fourth is not in the purse, which I thought it was for some reason, by one of my teammates. This is unfortunate – I feel that placing in the purse is important. It’s not the points, as the number of points given to the last place in the purse is minimal to begin with, but rather it’s a statement on your finish. Third place gets a bronze at the Olympics, and that is something I would hang on my wall for the rest of my life if I could win one (I certainly don’t have to worry about that ever happening). But fourth place, while still a very good finish in most Olympic events, gets you zip. Big difference in my eyes, and it’s how I play EN as well. I feel that making the purse means you achieved something significant in your finish.
So I backtrack slightly on my previous comments to BP/SLP. The only change I make is that I say we will not assist a cast-out unless we are in third, but we will still not use our agreement with BP/SLP to keep them from ending the game if REV is in third and us in fourth.
The game finally ends, and Elrad immediately hauls off and BLASTS us for “stabbing” REV “in the back” by taking third. So this final issue must be addressed.
First of all, we never expected we would get third. Did we grunch at the end of the game? Absolutely. Did we want third? You bet! I just described how finishing in the purse means something to me. Did we try to get third? Absolutely, of course we did! Should we NOT have tried to get third? I fail to see any reason, EVER, in this game you should not try to maximize your finish, short of having made an agreement to let someone finish ahead of you. And those agreements are of the rarest variety. In fact I entered into one of those in this game, but it is quite rare for me to do so. The only reason I did was because the other option left to me was finishing clearly well out of the purse. And I pursued every other viable option first before turning to The Deal.
Second, if REV had been in the least bit organized (and you would figure all the heat over the SLP NAP issues would have had them talking to each other and paying attention to the game), the would have grunched some and done usual, expected end of game actions. Had they, we would have had zero chance to take third. Which is why we expected we would not take third!
Finally, we could very well have made sure REV did not finish in third. We could have forced the game to go on longer (assuming no one other than DA/SLP/BP could end it, which is not true as R6 was working to end it and would have done so soon on their own I think). At the very least we could have prevented SLP/BP from ending it – until we had taken third. There is no doubt that SLP/BP could have run REV down (once battle was engaged), and we had a deal with them that said they would have to do so if we asked, or have someone else end the game for them. Not only did we NOT force that issue, we very clearly and explicitly stated to BP/SLP that we would not complain if the wanted to end the game with REV in third and us in fourth.
There is no value, in my opinion, to Elrad’s complaint. Did SLP act questionably? Quite likely, though I find less in their actions to be dubious than Elrad does – in particular the notion that any regions “belong” to anyone other than the player who owns that region right then and there. Or as Narsham so eloquently put it, “nobody has a right to any region in EN unless they can assert that right. You can exert either diplomatic or military force to do so.”
But again, I will not dive too deeply into that issue here. It is enough to say that yes, I think SLP did act in a manner that was quite questionable in regards to REV, but they have put forth reasons for their actions that are at least worthy of a discussion, which is happening elsewhere. However, in no way did we ask them to beat REV back. In no way did we support their going to war against REV. We appreciated their desire to see us get to 3rd, which Badifacator made clear was something he wanted to see happen, but there were many ways for this to occur, and we did not specify any action be taken on their part to help us get there. Not even delaying the game end, something we had the right to assert under The Deal agreed to by us, BP and SLP.
So the game ends. We, quite surprisingly, get the third place we knew was our best possible outcome once the R6/REV/DA alliance failed to materialize. We are disappointed that we did not win, but congratulate the winners and will move on to the next game – at some point.
A final word on this game and this series. I believe this may have been the finest LiP yet. Not only that, I believe this may have been the first truly well played LiP. I think that there are too many alliances, too many GL NAPs in EN games in general. I think there is too much emphasis on the tactical play, and not enough on the strategy and especially the diplomacy. EN is a game that has a rich a diplomatic possibility as the Avalon Hill board game Diplomacy, but with the structural tactics of quality probabilistic combat games. The latter has been overemphasized in the EN community. We look to create games with different tactical flavors: terrain changes, different cost spells, moving lesser, etc. But we fail to maintain the same interest in the diplomatic side of the game. The LiP series was created initially to give players an opportunity to enter a game and play together as a group, and have group play dominate. But as we have progressed through the LiPs, I have always felt something was missing. We tried ELIM once or twice to see if that was better. We have had fewer teams (7 originally) and more teams (12 was the largest), but something was still not right.
This LiP, LiP IX, has shown me what we were missing. With a stunning lack of alliances and GL NAPs (there were fewer of these in this game than any previous LiP I can remember), the diplomatic scene was vibrant – if a bit too acidic in this particular case. Fewer GL agreements leads to more back and forth play, partners switching from one side to the other as the fortunes of war and the placings in the citadel dictate different needs and different partnerships. As someone said (may have been Wyrmmlore, I can’t find the note right now), there were more teams with 100+ regions late in this game than had ever been seen in a LiP before. And that is because this game was played with the flair and feel of Diplomacy. While I do not condone actual stabs (acting precisely counter to what you agree to do), as occur in Diplomacy, I do think that not maintaining the same partnerships all game long has significant value in improving the play of the game.
I am not saying this is a “better” form of EN. Rather, that this type of game has it’s place too, along side other variations on the vanilla free-for-all game. A game in which teams must work together, must communicate well with each other, and must communicate well with other teams, tests a full range of non-battlefield skills that the EN interface offers. I liked the fact that there were so many cancelable deals in this one – AND THAT THEY WERE CANCELLED TIME AND AGAIN! You needed to maintain your own team as well as your relationships with other teams. Though we fought them all game, we were able to deal with BP. Though we began NAPped but then had them call in on us just before we might have called in on them, we were able to deal with SLP. Though we fought them all game, we were able to NAP with NM at the end. Though we were NAPped most of the game with DDC and RM, we were able to swing both ways with each of them before the end. We had a consistent relationship with only one team – our one alliance, REV. And failure to maintain good communication between us and our ally probably doomed both our teams to finish out of the running for the win.
So I hope you all consider this before saying “I hate LiP, it sucks!” And I hope you consider these facts before complaining that the NAPs were so fluid. That is, in fact, one of the beauties of the game, I think. Now perhaps there are not many who agree and want to play this flavor of EN. If so, EN will be a slightly less interesting place for me, as I do like it. But LiPs comprise less than 20% of the games I have played, and I probably have the highest percentage in that category of any active player. So it’s not like EN will lose a major element if this series goes away.
But I certainly hope it continues, and that next time the players appreciate the style of game they are in rather than complain that the diplomatic situation is so fluid. (Please note I am NOT talking about the NAP breach issues – those are problems anywhere in EN, be it LiP or any other format.)
- Beefy, Captain, Devil’s Advocates