1792 No frills PBEM

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Marshal Villars
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RE: 1792 No frills PBEM

Post by Marshal Villars »

We can do whatever you guys want. I am done worrying about it all.

Anything is fine with me.

But the Russian, French, Ottoman coalition was a strong one.


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Marshal Villars
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RE: 1792 No frills PBEM

Post by Marshal Villars »

Oh! Mus, the bug I was talking about was that I couldn't produce any artillery ANYWHERE in France! Nothing else. I have reported it to Eric, and I hope he gets a chance to look into it. I thought it only applied to me! LOL It had nothing to do with any of this other stuff. I see now why that must have confused everyone. I meant the ARTILLERY production in France was off!!!!!!! Does anyone else have this problem in any games? Or in our PBEM?

I was worried if I revealed that, that people would kick my ass big time knowing that France's armies were weak.

On the other stuff, I am not interested in squabbling about PRECISELY what I meant and what he meant anymore--the bug misunderstanding shows there are a million ways to mean one thing and have someone take it a totally different way. It is the age old problem of the low bandwidth of human communication. Without the Vulcan ability to "mind meld" too much information always goes lost.

But at least now I understand why some people thought I was holding back on some big bug problem that I wanted to exploit! I see that now. LOL Oh well.

Besides, I can say that I have nothing against Kingmaker. I think he is a great guy. But we just do not get along in multi player games. And I suppose there is nothing wrong with that! :D
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Marshal Villars
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RE: 1792 No frills PBEM

Post by Marshal Villars »

By the way, the French strategy was to not piss Austria off with taking any of her core regions, including her starting Italian possessions. I was not going to cross that border (through annexation at least). I was ready to pave the way for a strong Prussia, until Frederick William II screwed me. LOL. (NOT Timurlain--again, I don't mind anything ANYONE does in character! And I certainly didn't have ANY problems with Kingmaker's style of play.)

My problem was convincing people I did not want to run central Europe. I wanted to build and support a strong central European ally. It was going to be Prussia, and when he hopped to the British that strategy crumbled. Which sucked. Because I had already pissed Austria, my desire to have a strong cooperative power in Germany was in shambles. I was prepared to let either Austria or Prussia run things up to the Rhine and help them get there. I would have felt safe that way!

In my opinion, the only thing that makes this game unplayable was the fact that France is now violating British lands in a war which has just started against Prussia. Which makes the war impossible IF we were to adopt a house rule which would prevent the execution of War Plan Vanilla Epic Ultra (and we need that kind of a house rule, because I don't want to play in a game where War Plan Vanilla Epic Ultra can be executed).




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IronWarrior
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RE: 1792 No frills PBEM

Post by IronWarrior »

Have disagreed in every instance be it your or Ironwarrior deciding that any one player would have veto power in the adoption of house rules when the majority of players think a rule needs to be adopted to prevent the game coming off the tracks.

Well since I'm getting dragged into this.... my opinion was that since insurrections was not discussed prior to starting the game the best thing to do was all in or none- a unanimous vote. Truth be told, I don't think that insurrections are nearly as bad as I previously thought and am sort of glad Matto decided against the house rule. I have seen great success with new diplomats getting a good legal roll on capture/expel and have been proven wrong on the issue.

Generally speaking, I am not a big fan of house rules. Many times something that appears broken can actually be countered. This isn't always the case, and I do agree there are issues that need some TLC, but I am of the opinion that it is much better to open topics for debate and discussion rather than derail an ongoing pbem game. I also have nothing against proposing house rules when there is an obvious need, but I also feel that if everyone isn't on board with it you need to let it go and use it for the next game. Insisting on different flavors of house rules in an already started game isn't the way to go IMO. At the end of the day it's better to carry on and be the wiser for next game where you can propose such things up front.

Just my 2 spits for what it's worth.
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RE: 1792 No frills PBEM

Post by MorningDew »

I don't even understand what the hell happened. From my perspective, having two opponents that don't like/trust each other as France and England is perfect. How absolutely historical is that!!!

We never agreed on any house rules, although I don't think anything should preclude someone from asking if we want to adopt some. However, and Marshal always approached it this way, acceptance had to be unanimous. It never was so, as far as I'm concerned, we've never adopted any house rules in this PBEM game.

I don't let a lot of e-mails/PMs bother me. I read the ones I want to read and skip those I don't care about. I answer when I have something to say and I don't respond if I have nothing to say.

I probably shouldn't ask this, but what am I missing?

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Marshal Villars
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RE: 1792 No frills PBEM

Post by Marshal Villars »

You're not missing much.

I won't say Kingmaker is a bad guy. It is my opinion that apparently he just doesn't like me much. I don't know why.

It is my opinion that these are facts:
1. I have posted flattering, complimentary statements about how I think Kingmaker is a great guy, fantastic CoG:EE player, eloquent writer, etc., at least over 30 times around these forums. You will find several of my boot kissing comments in this very nofrills thread. It is my opinion that Kingmaker has posted exactly ZERO good thing about me. When he does post in any way relating to me, it is my opinion that he either disagrees, or has something negative to say. If anyone can find ONLY ONE positive Kingmaker comment about me posted before he quit the game, I will buy them a copy of the next Matrix release (SERIOUSLY!)! :D Indeed, if anyone can find only ONE negative comment I made about Kingmaker before all of this happened I will also buy you a copy of the next Matrix release.
2. In the "nofrills" game, the first war could have happened between ANY two nations, giving 56 possibilities (basically an 8x8 grid minus the nations declaring war on themselves options). I don't hold it against Kingmaker in any way, but it is a fact that the first war which broke out in the game was a British declared war on France. Coincidence? I don't know.
3. Kingmaker has certainly seen MANY quick surrenders. Several of them possibly IMMEDIATE surrenders. However, the FIRST time he decided to post a front page long complaint about quick surrenderers with little backbone, it was after I had surrendered to him following almost two years of conflict. Apparently, there was no problem with Austria's immediate surrender one game year earlier. When I posted my own "quick surrender discussion thread" to make sure we would see fewer of them, Kingmaker did not participate in the constructive effort to come up with ways of incentivizing and rewarding sticking it out.
4. Kingmaker quit on the turn I had shown that using vanilla without house rules I could get Prussia to declare war on me--blowing about 1000 of the treaty points he could have used on me and putting a hole the size of Montana in his German strategy.
5. Kingmaker quit immediately after I made the statement that I would use vanilla rules to take quick surrenders against Britain when I wanted to and would not make decisions which were not rewarded in-game, just to help British foreign policy and glory accumulation.
6. I was tired of worrying about any possible strategic upper-hand I may gain perhaps causing Kingmaker to quit. I was worried that in spite of all of my nice letters and postings, that for some reason he didn't like me enough and might have something personal against me which would spill over into the game and any serious victory of mine would be rewarded with him quitting. I told one player here (who knows who he is) that this is why I did not want to play here when the game started up.
7. I wanted to have an agreed to manner of play so that when I did anything which might upset kingmaker, I wouldn't have to worry about an outcome like this.
8. Instead of discussing these matters, Kingmaker quit, bringing the entire game to a screeching halt for everyone.
9. I think I have been accused of being "disingenuous" for not notifying everyone about a possible Secret Treaty bug and for hiding another bug I was dealing with from other people. The bug I did not want to share with everyone in the game was the fact that France could not produce artillery, no matter what I tried. I did not want to share this publicly, as I felt it would make me look very weak and people might take advantage of it.
10. I sent several diplomatic and complimentary emails to Kingmaker during the course of the game, which, based on his departing statement I am lead to believe he can't stand. Since I have given Kingmaker more positive compliments and statements than anyone in these forums, I am simply lead to believe that he can't stand me.

There is nothing wrong with Kingmaker not liking me. He is certainly entitled to his opinion. Again, I think he is a great guy, top notch CoG:EE player, and an asset to the CoG:EE community. In my opinion, what happened here does not reflect on his character and I would encourage other people to keep playing with him.

That is my side of the story. I think he has his. He can tell it if he wants to.
Mus
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RE: 1792 No frills PBEM

Post by Mus »

ORIGINAL: IronWarrior

Well since I'm getting dragged into this.... my opinion was that since insurrections was not discussed prior to starting the game the best thing to do was all in or none- a unanimous vote.

Understand that is your opinion, just don't agree with it. Wasn't meant as a personal attack, just as an example of the other time I have seen it used.

I am fine with majority or supermajority decisions on house rules whenever something is badly damaging the game.
ORIGINAL: IronWarrior

At the end of the day it's better to carry on and be the wiser for next game where you can propose such things up front.

With a defined end point like 1000 or even 2000 Glory I am OK with that concept, in a 276 turn game that is likely to last more than a year not so much. I have better things to do with my time.

I agree with you on the severity of the insurrection issue BTW, although I still see it as a problem, but still disagree on the idea of not adopting a house rule on the objection of a single player because there is a laundry list of issues that have been found since then that badly need to be addressed.

ORIGINAL: montesaurus

I have zero interest participating in a game where France/Russia/Turkey run the board for the entire game while a bunch of the smaller countries sit and eat French table scraps and that is the way things were set to go with nobody willing to form a coalition to stop French hegemony.

I want to clarify these comments, because they are not based on the fact that Austria has a bunch of hostile neighbors as suggested. If that was an issue I would have never agreed to play a country like Austria in the first place, as I have witnessed them be the whipping post of Europe in all my PBEMs thus far and while played by good players I might add. Have made comments in several of the PBEM threads that Austria is big weak and ORANGE, AND smack in the middle of the map. Something about the human predatory drive must get activated by that I don't know what it is.

[;)]

The issue is whether or not there is an interesting/competitive dynamic going on which is going to require a GOOD ACTIVE PLAYER to take over as Britain.

If we could find an experienced player to step in for Britain who could take one look at the game situation and see that France is going to win unless Britain forms friendships and expends money to stop it right now, I would be willing to continue.

Failing that, this game looks screwed, because a newbie British player is in a very bad situation with no friends and tied to a corpse (Rhine territories he can't possibly hold in the long term).

That is my assessment of the strategic situation, and as I requested before, correct me if I am wrong on that. Without somebody with the ability to do something, and soon, France will win. I could hit end turn every move and the outcome wouldn't change much, and that kind of game I have no interest in continuing.

If we got Terje or Matto or Lenin or some other "old hand" the game might be salvaged.
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Marshal Villars
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RE: 1792 No frills PBEM

Post by Marshal Villars »

Mus, if we continue, something has to be done with the fact that there is a hole the size of Laos in the vanilla rules which would allow me to execute War Plan Vanilla Epic Ultra. Again, I am not a fan of War Plan Vanilla Epic Ultra, but if there is no house rule which prevents these things from happening, then who in this game knows what they can do anymore. My surrender against Britain was taken knowing I could march across neutral lands (even those of people I had surrendered to).

However, since I am not all about winning, I would be happy to cancel the war with Prussia and withdraw to France and respect the neutrality of Britain if everyone else would also agree to respect the neutrality of any power which had conquered them as long as the enforced peace lasted unless a special in-game treaty was drawn up to allow for passage of lands in such instances. We also have to worry about a winning nation taking advantage of this during an enforced peace. Ultimately I would like to have an official umpire appointed (can be Timurlain as far as I am concerned, because I am not obsessed with beating anyone) who can make calls and decisions which we must all respect. I don't want committee decisions with no rules on how the decision is reached which take ages to resolve because no one knows what the rules of decision making are.

However, War Plan Vanilla Epic Ultra demonstrates that Vanilla DOES need AT LEAST this one house rule, so I don't kick Britain's ass every few years in this most unrealistic and offensive manner currently allowed in "vanilla".

I have no problem with your dislike of French power. I would worry too. But remember, I am equally worried with Austrian power! [:D] And I believe you have 50% more provinces than I do! [:D]

NOTE: Because the enforced peace screws a lot up and makes things complicated, I really wish there was a different method with dropping glory point penalties for going to war against a recent enemy--but the glory penalty would be dropped if there were a casus belli.
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RE: 1792 No frills PBEM

Post by Mus »

ORIGINAL: Marshal Villars

However, War Plan Vanilla Epic Ultra demonstrates that Vanilla DOES need AT LEAST this one house rule, so I don't kick Britain's ass every few years in this most unrealistic and offensive manner currently allowed in "vanilla".

I will address this issue in a PM, but I don't think this plan is as Epic as you think it is.

Agree though that just the possibility of doing something like that is idiotic and the ability for the loser to violate neutrality at will needs to be quickly addressed .
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RE: 1792 No frills PBEM

Post by IronWarrior »

With a defined end point like 1000 or even 2000 Glory I am OK with that concept, in a 276 turn game that is likely to last more than a year not so much. I have better things to do with my time.

Good point and a fair point. However this was a "no frills" game, and when all's said and done you can't really insist on or hold the game hostage for house rules. That's kindof like the kid who would hold the dice hostage in Monopoly until his demands were met for trading properties. [:D] I DO agree that it sounds like something that needs looking at and addressed in a patch. Nations that surrender really should not be able to violate the neutrality of the nation(s) that they surrender to.

On the other hand this game was advertised as "no frills" vanilla and a long one. Perhaps the best thing to do is for those of us who want to expose and test exploits and such, is to start a short-length game, perhaps the one Marshal started. Once the issues have been ironed out and debated and brought to the attention of the devs, a longer game could be started with house rules in place for anything not covered in a patch. I was looking forward to seeing War Plan Vanilla Epic Ultra in action, for as it stands we still don't know for sure that it would work. Sometimes things that look good on paper don't always work out.... I think Karl Marx would vouch for that. [:D]

Anyway, if there is enough interest in a short game to test these sorts of things, I'm willing to help out.
Mus
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RE: 1792 No frills PBEM

Post by Mus »

ORIGINAL: IronWarrior

Good point and a fair point. However this was a "no frills" game, and when all's said and done you can't really insist on or hold the game hostage for house rules.

I actually believe that is why Kingmaker quit, not the rather petty reasons speculated about, not that I want to take sides in any personal squabbles, just sayin'.

Anyways,

I will try to send in my files in the morning. I am out of town Thursday through Sunday. If we can find an experienced player to take over for Britain I will continue when I get back.

And I am also down for any game testing.
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Marshal Villars
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RE: 1792 No frills PBEM

Post by Marshal Villars »

Yes, the bug I was having problems with was what I thought was an artillery production bug which had prevented me from adding any artillery since the beginning of the game--ask Montesaurus, he knew about it. Indeed, so did Eric (though I don't think he has yet had time to get to it in his pile of work). IF Kingmaker thought I was trying to screw him with a "neutral march-over" bug strategy, then that is tragic, and I feel badly for him and for me because of such a misunderstanding. I do hope that Mus considers telling Kingmaker that I am sorry if there are any hard feelings. It was my honest opinion that it was vanilla and so I did it. But the tactic should be banished.

And as I said, I do not want to present Kingmaker as a bad guy at all. It is possible that, as in so many situations within the realm of human communication, that without all of the facts at our disposal, we did not understand each other. Perhaps he DID think I was trying to use the neutral territory cross over as a "bug" exploit--keeping it a secret from everyone until the last minute. If that had been the case, then I WOULD have been kind of a jerk.

Anyway, because I know that people can have misunderstandings, and it is possible that the problem here was based on JUST that, as I said , it would be nice to remind people that what happened has no reflections on Kingmaker's character and people should of course keep playing with him. He is a good player, I enjoyed it when he handed me my ass in the game because it REALLY got me to improve my game and he is still one of the top assets of the CoG:EE online community. If he doesn't want to talk to me again, that is fine.

I do hope everyone here takes the fact into account that just before this happened I had invited Kingmaker into my next play-testing group and sees this as a sign that I truly DID think Kingmaker is a super-valuable member of the community (even if we shouldn't be playing games against each other)--and that offer still stands.
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Marshal Villars
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RE: 1792 No frills PBEM

Post by Marshal Villars »

Whether War Plan Vanilla Epic Ultra would have worked or not, it would have been ludicrous and I would have felt sorry for Kingmaker with every step the plan came closer to action (no, I don't dislike Kingmaker--though I was a little pissed after his quitting).

I am happy to play with no house rules, as long as I know I am really playing without house rules and no one will get pissed if I take a quick surrender or try War Plan Vanilla Epic Ultra (though the odds of its success are now virtually zero because the element of surprise has been tossed to the wind). Because, folks, that is vanilla.

I have a feeling that just before I hit him with War Plan Vanilla Epic Ultra, I would have tried to get a voluntary non-proliferation treaty agreed on which would have prevented my landing. But, again, he wouldn't have been interested and I would have gone ahead with the landing, which in my pure opinion, could have also lead to this.

Now that this is public knowledge, War Plan Vanilla Epic Ultra probably wouldn't work. Surprise would have been at least 50% of the reason for success.
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RE: 1792 No frills PBEM

Post by Mus »

I will have to look at the circumstances of France about the artillery bug. When I was hit with this the reason was insufficient barracks, a requirement unpublished in the manual. That shouldn't be an issue with France.
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