Replacement Needed for ISDG

[Twinkletoes89]

It was a game, it was lost. Let it rest. And try to think about how it feels to be critiqued this way. I sure would be hurt if it was me in the spotlight, no matter if I felt the actual point behind the attacks is just or not.

This. Can we please just let it go?

[scooter]

Since you won the ISDG can we drop all this RB is persecuting my beliefs crap and just have fun playing games together?

Seriously. 2metra, the martyr complex you run around here with got old for everyone a long time ago. Making every post/thread about you and your relationship with this forum is grating. Just stay and have fun, or leave and have fun elsewhere. Totally OK with either way. Also, I read your team's forum, and if I was admin and the comments a few of you guys (not all, I know this) were making were lobbed at me, I would have quit too. I don't blame Plako even slightly. It's his fun free time, why should he have to spend it having his integrity sniped at by a bunch of people he doesn't know.


Anyway, I don't see any good coming of this thread. The nastiness in this thread is pretty discouraging, actually. Why participate and report games around here if this is what you're subjected to?

[2metraninja]

Since you won the ISDG can we drop all this RB is persecuting my beliefs crap and just have fun playing games together?

ISDG is not over yet, nor CFC is anywhere near sure to win it. But in case it happens, you can be sure I am so far from taking all the credit for it. As for playing at RB I did quite a lot of duels and 3 pitbosses already. I find it quite different and interesting and funny place and experience. Educational too.

Nope, long ago he dropped from the post after one of his decisions was questioned. IMHO it was overreaction, but well, I know being admin is ungrateful job.

I disagree and would prefer this can of worms closed, but if you really want to continue the dicussion and again question my actions back then I can continue. At least I've calmed down long time ago. Only reasonable desicion at a time was to quit. Key members of organizing team were seriously questoning my authority and consider me favoring RB. I'm not sure how was I supposed to do my job after that.

No, no, I dont want this discussion again. No big point either. It is how you felt, I accept and respect your feelings and choice. It is how I felt, I can say it.

TBH, you beat Sullla. That's not impressive.

It's a lot harder to lead a large team than it is to refuse to take part and then come in after the fact and start insulting the players after you know the outcome.

....
it's a catch-22 because teams of strong-minded individuals can easily degenerate into bickering and making decisions worse than the single people they contain.

Effective management is really hard, news at 11. If you're someone who is effective as an individual but doesn't have proven success managing teams large and diverse enough that people management is the most important part, then I don't think you can really criticize.
...

Wholeheartedly agree. Team is rarely made out of the sum of its individuals, neither it is as high as the highest individual.

Mackoti had the advantage that he had a team who was willing to basically give him the steering wheel. But this site attempted to play a demo game, a much harder problem, and Sullla certainly didn't do everything nearly by himself (like micro plans and C&D). And there was a general consensus and faith in what was being done from most of the team.

And here we come again from where we started. "Calm down guys, it was actually only Mack who beat us, nothing surprising here" And this comes from a formal member of Team CFC, who had the opportunity to read our thread and see how were things.

I also want to comment on the part about RB having played real team demo-game. I dont know how it was in team RB, I only heard about it, so I cant be sure. For the record, we at Team CFC had a pure democracy. Elections for team leader, deputy, chief ambassador, etc, etc each 1-2 months. For example I started as a regular soldier and slowly worked my path to deputy, then to team leader. Then I was voted General when we were at war, etc. There were votes about important decisions and even when I was already team leader and I was called tyrant, despot, etc, there were cases where the team votes and decides to to the opposite of what I was proposing. Everyone could have initiated a vote, so yeah, we had a democracy and team game. When Mack joined the team it was only me and Sommers who knew who he actually was and he earned the high position of Deputy Leader and Turn player by his show of skills and devotion to the game, not because "he is just Mackoti".

Anyway, my why I started writing here was to hint that to learn from mistakes, one must first realize there was a problem/mistake at first place, where "nothing to see here, Mack beat us despite we played perfect" attitude wont help much.

Peace, brothers.

[Ichabod]

I think there's one question that still needs to be answered: does the Mackoti smurf speak perfect english?

[Krill]

TBH, you beat Sullla. That's not impressive.

It's a lot harder to lead a large team than it is to refuse to take part and then come in after the fact and start insulting the players after you know the outcome. Also I didn't sense there was a lot of dissenters against the grand strategy that Sullla was directing. What little dissent there was was shut down, and that was a meta-reason for the overall result, but it's a catch-22 because teams of strong-minded individuals can easily degenerate into bickering and making decisions worse than the single people they contain.

I've taken part in part in more than 8 demogames. Leadership roles in over half them. Been there, done that. Closest example to RB is with Gathering Storm...and that team functioned. So what I'm going to say comes from someone that actually has experience with demogames and management experience.

Effective management is really hard, news at 11. If you're someone who is effective as an individual but doesn't have proven success managing teams large and diverse enough that people management is the most important part, then I don't think you can really criticize.

Critical point here is to accept that there is a difference between managing a team, and running a team as a democracy. Namely, that when you manage a team, you accept responsibility for the teams actions, as you are controlling the actions of the individuals. A democracy does not have the same issue, as all of the critical actions are polled and decide by an informed group that understands the options and the likely consequences of said actions. So what were you doing, running a democracy, or a dictatorship?

Do I think you could have played the game by yourself and done better? Or that Seven could have? Probably. Mackoti had the advantage that he had a team who was willing to basically give him the steering wheel. But this site attempted to play a demo game, a much harder problem, and Sullla certainly didn't do everything nearly by himself (like micro plans and C&D). And there was a general consensus and faith in what was being done from most of the team.

Better believe it a lot of people could have done better, not just those from RB. What I disagree with is that you tried to play this as a democracy. Even if you polled the critical stuff, and I'm not sure you did, you did not explain all the options, nor the consequences of said options. You said "We want to do this, who agrees with me". That's not a democracy, and you're naive if you think it is. What you had, at best, was a dictatorship and you didn't realise it, or didn't care. I'm not sure which.

Look, RB lost. No one cares about that. Personally I still care about the decisions that the team made. I care about why they were made. I want the people involved in that game to come forward and justify those decisions, and I definitely want you to explain why there were turn players that quit during the game. I want you to explain why Sullla basically had veto decision over choices yet he bears no responsibility for the outcome of the game. And I definitely want you to justify the invasion of Germany.

[Brian Shanahan]

Of course RB did mistakes, main of which was not accounting for the fact this was not their usual playground / neighbourhood (turf?) and not caring to adapt for the format of the game. The "we are the best, fuсk the rest" attitude did not helped much too.

To be perfectly honest, and truthful, the fact that both you and somerswerd were a right shower of wankers before the game contributed too.

[Bobchillingworth]

Yaaaay

[Sullla]

I'm going to politely ask everyone to be civil in this thread. As several have said already, there's a lot of finger-pointing and passive-aggressive comments that are only going to lead to angry feelings. Feel free to discuss the Intersite game, but keep it respectful please.

This is the warning for this thread, I will lock it if we see more of the same. Thanks.

[pindicator]

Since you won the ISDG can we drop all this RB is persecuting my beliefs crap and just have fun playing games together?

ISDG is not over yet, nor CFC is anywhere near sure to win it. But in case it happens, you can be sure I am so far from taking all the credit for it. As for playing at RB I did quite a lot of duels and 3 pitbosses already. I find it quite different and interesting and funny place and experience. Educational too.

Glad you're having fun with the games here.

[WilliamLP]

My better judgement tells me to stop writing anything about this and I have no business speaking about it. But this is the internet, where's the fun in that?

I've taken part in part in more than 8 demogames. Leadership roles in over half them. Been there, done that. Closest example to RB is with Gathering Storm...and that team functioned. So what I'm going to say comes from someone that actually has experience with demogames and management experience.

TEAM in the RB demogame certainly didn't function. Do you as original team leader take any responsibility for that? I actually thought you'd said things here to the effect that the main thing you learned from demo games is not to play demo games because they don't suit you.

Critical point here is to accept that there is a difference between managing a team, and running a team as a democracy. Namely, that when you manage a team, you accept responsibility for the teams actions, as you are controlling the actions of the individuals. A democracy does not have the same issue, as all of the critical actions are polled and decide by an informed group that understands the options and the likely consequences of said actions. So what were you doing, running a democracy, or a dictatorship?

Other people can correct me but it was more of a representation. Sullla was overwhelmingly endorsed as the turn player early on, Scooter had responsibility for diplo. Kjn was doing C&D. Various people were working on micro plans.

Look, RB lost. No one cares about that. Personally I still care about the decisions that the team made. I care about why they were made.

I care too but because I'm interested in it as an applied microcosm of tricky people issues that applies to other things. I wasn't much of a part of the team but did lurk it and made comments here and there.

I want the people involved in that game to come forward and justify those decisions, and I definitely want you to explain why there were turn players that quit during the game. I want you to explain why Sullla basically had veto decision over choices yet he bears no responsibility for the outcome of the game.

I find your animosity to Sullla entertaining now that Noble and Commodore seem to have mostly made up. I think it's unfair to single him out, because while he was acting as the appointed team general I didn't see much evidence that many others thought the wrong decisions were being made at the time they were. I saw a lot of agreement (and still do) around the idea that we played the "optimal Civ play" and who cares if it lost game because there's nothing we can do when we're ganged up on. (And ignoring the valid reasons why the other teams did so.)

And I definitely want you to justify the invasion of Germany.

Someone else will have to step up for that. I wrote (after the fact): "Attacking the Germans, with the benefit of hindsight, was a bad strategic play that gained little and lost everything." And not stopping when we said we would stop was diplomatic suicide with the whole world, and quite the act of hubris, and a terrible overextension when falling behind in key military techs. It should have been apparent at the time that it was a terrible play but I didn't see anyone making that case. The team was kind of caught up in group-think and bravado about it. And yeah, the reasons for that fascinate me too.

And, I'm sure many here would still try to justify the play after the fact as the correct play nonetheless, ignoring that this a game played with people, and that human behavior has cause and effect too.

TLDR: I don't think I disagree on the key criticism of how the game was played or how decisions were made but I think you're going past that into an unfair personal attack on Sullla.