Lurking the Seven Seas

[williams482]

Bruindane seems to have a much better sense of how desperate their situation is than Suboptimal does. Yes, chop everything into ships. That's pretty much the only chance that team has right now, and truthfully it's still not going to be enough unless Chevalier (or his replacement, if the turn pace continues to drag on) makes some major tactical errors.

Really, though, what on earth is Suboptimal doing? Does he really believe he'll be able to keep the infrastructure he's been spending faith and chops on as recently as last turn?

[williams482]

While I still think it's unsporting to fully block off cities, I don't see anything wrong with parking near units, and I also park in Archduke's harbor to try and cut down on Norwegian pillaging:

Since Norway already pillaged his way past me in the culture tree, I don't see that I have to take that without fighting back somehow. I can't attack him thanks to the alliance, but that goes both ways. If it's cool to murder an enemy while I can't interfere, then it must be okay for me protect an enemy while he can't interfere, no? 

Figures. Yeah we gotta ban this to the bottom circle of banlist hell with Nan Madol. It might be one thing when someone like PBEM18 Canada does it and it's fun underdog scrappiness, but here when we have the runaway favorite to win blockading cities during peacetime to lock in that advantage it is a lot less cute. Obviously nothing personal against CMF, who is just using what's in the rules, but we have to do something about this in future games. We could be using it ourselves to block him in China (I have a few caravels that could turn around and a sword that is already heading there to search for natural wonders for ES), but I'm against that just out of sheer distaste for the tactic. If we have to reduce this to a blockade-off to see who gets to win this game instead of an actual climatic clash of fleets, I'm not sure I want to win that way...

No, no! No, "nothing personal against CMF". Fuck him! He knows this is poor sportsmanship! He has been around long enough to remember the previous discussions on banning this type of behavior. We all agreed that a ban would be too hard to enforce and had a gentleman's agreement not to do this shit! He knows better! Luckily he is dropping out soon and maybe Ichabod will think differently on this tactic.

So Woden/Ljubljana are (justifiably, I think) peeved at CMF for blocking off Japanese cities, while CMF claims in his thread that his purpose is to merely prevent harbor pillages. Which is probably true (he could be blocking off the English capital too, but nope he's sitting on the second ring harbor instead), but when the only access to a city is the harbor tile the effect is the same, and I'm having trouble finding a reason why blocking a harbor pillage is any more honorable than blocking a city capture.

I'm inclined to agree with ljubljana that this sort of thing shouldn't be allowed, even if I am a recent guilty party. It seems we do need some more explicit guidelines on exactly what tomfoolery with DoF invincibility is acceptable and what isn't. 

Edit: One more bitchy thing to say. This behavior is on the same level as putting a bunch of resource costing units in production (e.g. knights), using up all your resources, then faith buying the older, cheaper unit (e.g. heavy chariots) of the same class if you have the GMC. Then canceling the newer units during the same turn, getting all your resources back and upgrading them while running the discount cards. No explicit rule against it and technically not an exploit of a bug, just poor play and against the spirit of the game.

I dunno, that sure seems like an exploit to me. Of course a lot of the "swapping resources between teammates to allow construction of older units to be upgraded with a discount" that's been done by this team and others in this game achieves essentially the same thing in only a slightly less hacky manner, so maybe that's actually just fine? Bleh.

[Cornflakes]

My personal opinion is that blocking of cities during a DOF should be 100% allowed without restrictions. That is one of the risks/rewards of DOF, and that should be weighed in the decision. At the same time blocking has a diplo hit with the person you are blocking, so be prepared for the backlash and retribution when it comes, and weigh that into the the decision before you go blocking tiles. In my opinion the "resource-upgrade exploit" is not a comparable situation. Tile blocking is 100% preventable (don't sign a DoF) and doesn't get around any of the mechanics just by following a specific procedure of actions.

I wouldn't interfere with any comments in their threads. Just let them vent, unless they specifically request lurker input or mediation.

[CFCJesterFool]

My personal opinion is that blocking of cities during a DOF should be 100% allowed without restrictions. That is one of the risks/rewards of DOF, and that should be weighed in the decision. At the same time blocking has a diplo hit with the person you are blocking, so be prepared for the backlash and retribution when it comes, and weigh that into the the decision before you go blocking tiles. In my opinion the "resource-upgrade exploit" is not a comparable situation. Tile blocking is 100% preventable (don't sign a DoF) and doesn't get around any of the mechanics just by following a specific procedure of actions.

I wouldn't interfere with any comments in their threads. Just let them vent, unless they specifically request lurker input or mediation.

ABSOLUTELY. Players get a little too quick to sign DOF and then cry when they realize how the game mechanic works.

[williams482]

The problem here would be that both sides allegedly disagree with that stance, but also disagree on what the "gentleman's agreement" does actually permit. This seems to be something that should be hashed out in more depth before a future game just so everyone is on the same page, whatever attitude ultimately prevails.

[MJW (ya that one)]

I suggested banning multi-unit blockades because you cannot deny guilt. This might allow CMF to block the harbor but not the rest of the English cities. There's no reason to allow multi-unit blockades unless you believe in gentleman's agreements because it would give the thumb's up to single-unit blockades (I suspect this is the reason this idea didn't catch on) I don't believe in gentleman's agreements.

I don't see the problem with getting access to old units by running out of resources. This can happen naturally by you running out but then getting other source of the resource, but delaying it so you can finish building the old unit. This is just an extension of that. Feels like overflowing walls which everyone use to do and had no problem with it.

So I would ban blocking with more than one unit and nothing else.

[Krill]

+1 for allowing a complete DoF city blockage. We know that NAPs are bad, players should be far more careful with them.

[civac2]

Maybe reduce the duration of DOFs/alliances. That would nearly render the issue moot. Thirty turns is excessive anyway.

[MJW (ya that one)]

I put the odds of an Archduke rage-quit at 30%.

[TheArchduke]

I put the odds of an Archduke rage-quit at 30%.

Funny guy.