Another game, another win.
This PRS thing is going to be so easy to “work”. I’m now 5 for 5, and all I did this game was flip my icon on the last turn of the game. And a second place finish too. Sweet.
Though I am a bit disappointed. This is the first of the 4 that I didn’t finish in what the PRS says is the top 10 or the position all time. My VP based rating may actually fall despite finishing in second place for the game.
Until next game,
Darrell the neutral
Well you wanted to demonstrate flaws glad we could oblige. Second is pretty good and drives your average up a bit. Good luck in your future games
Brad
I’ll chime in here because I was the leader of the FP team in game 17.
The history of this game starts with about 6 of us that wanted to tryout ME-PBM as an alternative to another PBM system we were quite familiar with (ALAMAZE). We asked Clint to set us up in a game and due to our numbers he recommended a grudge game and offered to find us some additional players. Brad’s team was also relatively new to the game so we agreed to play.
We added 3 players (thru Clint) to our team (9 total) and started the game under the mentorship of the 3 veterans Clint brought to our team. When the Eoth player went bankrupt on turn 3, those of us who were new to the system were just shocked in disbelief, especially since the DS team had nothing to do with it. The player meant to be a mentor to us had eliminated himself.
Next we sought out the neutrals to see if they would bring balance to the game so we could continue. With fruitless conversation with the Harad, Corsairs and East, I turned to Clint and Brad for solutions. With 1/2 our team being new to this system (i.e. FIRST GAME), we didn’t want our first game to be a Mt. Everest type challenge. Those of you, who call us wimps, consider trying to learn chess for the first time against a skilled opponent YET you have to give up your queen before the game begins. In discussions with Clint and my team, we felt it was best to end the game and invest in a new one.
In hindsight I would have handled the communications differently after the Eoth bankruptcy, but what is done is done. We are going to try this PBM system one more time in a 12x12, and we will have a better go of it and erase this anomaly as a fluke. I congratulate Brad’s team in their victory. We have no hard feelings towards them, the neutrals, or the Eoth #17 player. Clint has been gracious in taking care of all players in this game due to this issue.
Dave
have you guys considered dividing up for a game and getting a little experience before you form a team…might be a little more fun <you can razz eachother> and give you some perspective from both sides of the war before you try again…and get to know a few of the other player’s ways of doing things…just a thought
I would second the suggestion that the six of you split up (3 DS and 3 FP) and play with other experienced folks. You can learn a lot that way. This game has multiple levels of complexity. I’m learning new stuff all the time and have been playing for 12 years!
Granted, that would be a good way to learn the game. Some of us have started separate games already to boost our personal experience. However the point of this grudge game was to play a game together on the same side as we are all friends and experience the ME environment.
Also, we (including the veterans added to our team through Clint) do not believe that we were losing game #17 before the Eoth experience. (Despite Brad’s beliefs) We believe that we can compete with the guidance of veteran players we have acquired along the way. In addition there are other teams out there like us that want to learn true team tactics, and enjoy the game along the way. We learned a ton in 3 turns of #17, and will take that into our next team game. I assure you that this game was a fluke that even the veterans on our squad claim they have never seen before. Our next game will be quite different.
Dave
Dave is right the way the game ended was a fluke. Games certainly don’t end that early in the vast majority of cases. Even with totally incompetent opponents and our were not incompetent at all it is hard to generate enough damage in 3 turns to win a game unless you have destroyed the will to continue.
While we could see that the loss of the Eothraim due to bankruptcy was a heavy blow. The proposed solution that was suggested by the Free team was that we allow the Eothraim to be reconstituted or that they be given the Easterling nation as compensation in order to continue the game. Since we did nothing to cause the early bankruptcy of the Eothraim which has already been discussed in this thread. We did not feel we should bear the burden of reconstituting that nation or instead giving them a fresh nation even closer to the frontier of Mordor. We did not feel their solution was equitable. Our view was they had just gained the Rhudaur nation which would make the plight of the Witch King a serious one. One neutral was incummunicado and the other 3 were sitting the fence.
When the suggestion was made that there was cheating in some way or that one or more of the neutrals had entered the game predisposed to join the DS, which would have been news to us as we did not know a single one of the Neutral players it made us even less willing to give ground. The suggestion that Alan was a plant or that either the Corsairs or Easterlings were our undeclared allies was totally without basis. Neither had done a thing toward either side when the game ended. The Easterlings may have given information which the Free thought was false, and was, because it was based on map information only and not on scouting was not cheating or having him in our pocket.
The biggest factor however was the notification that they would drop on turn 3 unless this or so happened. Members of our team wondered what would the result be if we did give in and they suffered another surprise say in turn 7. Would they then want a do over or end the game again. We were not going to play with that hanging over the game. Mistakes happen, in this case it was a catastrophic mistake but there was no wrong doing in the game that I was aware of and losing the queen may mean the game is an uphill one but not unwinnable. You play on in my opinion. I have ridden the long descent into defeat in other games, but I fought on to get experiences to aid me in other games.
Best to you guys and I hope your next team game 12 on 12 is a better experience for you.
Brad
Once a again I will repeat myself that we believe no “cheating” or foul play took place in game 17. Alan made a horrendous error and the East joining you on turn 0 is a normal game occurrence.
There are three reasons we ended this game:
The advice of Clint and the disposition of the neutrals as we perceived it. We did not feel that the neutrals were going to join us. The Corsair player was lobbying for player rating changes that we felt would force him to DS. We also felt the Harad was more interested in joining you with market maneuvering. I’m not saying they would have, but it was our perception at the time.
The agreement we made with you in the beginning of the game that if the majority of a team was out that we would not continue the game. There were a minority among our teammates that would have continued to play this game till the end as you say you would have. But we agreed otherwise at the beginning we wouldn’t do that to each other.
The event took the wind out of us, and the majority of us didn’t want to continue for a variety of reasons. I’m actually surprised that a few of my friends (new players) didn’t decide to just find something else to do with their time and money. We have one more game about to start, and we know we will have a better experience.
Our suggestion of bringing back the Eoth position was based on the facts that you did NO damage to it; therefore why would you care if the position existed again? You certainly didn’t give us the indication you feared us, so why not earn your victory with this solution? Our team felt that your position of “play on as is” was in fact saying “we want the win any way we can take it”, even if technically unearned. You won.
I will finish with what I started. We make NO claims of “cheating” or anything unethical happening in this game. This will be my last post.
Except that you just did say the Easterlings joined us on turn 0. That is simply not true. I have told you this. The Corsair player has told you this why do you all continue to bring this up?
It has obviously gone right past you guys that we were not the ones on the attack. We chose to defend, we chose to counter punch. We were not under any obligation to take the battle to you. I fail to see where your argument is about how much damage we had done to the Easterling or not done to the Easterling has anything to do with this games ending. We can agree that you thought you guys were winning and we felt we were accomplishing what we wanted to do from the start.
When we decided to let you break yourselves on our fortifications and buy time to develop a character force that would be harder to track and would do as much damage to you in the late mid to late game we predicted your attack would come against either the Ice King capital, the Ithil Pass or Morannon. We put the Blind Sorcerers army and that of the Cloud Lord force marching to the hex just east of Barad Ungol, where with the advantage of the road network we could shift forces to any of those threatened spots faster than you could mass on them. What does the Easterling have to do with that? Nothing that is what. The Easterling is in no position to attack Mordor by himself. His map does not see far into Mordor, it is easy to leave shell armies where he can see them and draw conclusions, which unless he recons or scouts armies can be wildly innaccurate. Your team mate has told me that the Easterling gave you innaccurate information about where our troops were located, is that what makes you feel he was in our pocket? Well sorry but first he was a neutral to you and not an ally or did you think otherwise. As a neutral he was not under any obligation to give you accurate information at all. I believe and maybe Walter will post here as to what information he gave you, that he told you he could see armies here and there and you made the wrong assumptions. In the messages leading up to the end of the game you implied that we had to have known the east was safe and thus the Easterlings were safely in our pocket or we could not have sent everything to Barad Ungol to stop your attack. Foolish words, without a shred of evidence and without accuracy. You did not do an adequate job of reconnaissance. If you had you would have seen that the Long Rider had moved his army to mislead you and that the Dog Lord had moved another army off your and the Easterlings map to block any incursion from the East. You didn’t pick them up so you felt that we left the east completely without protection. No we would of if we had submitted orders trapped the Gondor army in the east with the Long Rider and if he could not destroy you the Dog Lord would arrive at the end of the turn to finish the job.
Had we submitted orders we would have in all probability over run the North Gondor armies at Barad Ungol, they were very tiny as you know. In the over run victories the Cloud Lord and Blind Sorcerer stood a good chance of killing those North Gondor army commanders. This would have been painful and would have made it hard to name new ones and recruit fresh troops because we too had found the Ring of Winds, knew the solution to the riddle and in one more turn would have had Erennis at the Gondor capital assassinating command rank characters. Gontran was nearly at kill level without the ring would have stolen gold and been a killer arriving at the same time as Erennis. Life for a North Gondor commander at Minas Arnor would have been unpleasant.
In the North Cardolan had just lost two armies, true you had an impressive array of armies closing in on Angmar, but the Witch King has a lot of military might and your erroneous estimates that the troops outside his manuevering army were tiny seed armies would have been shown too late for you again, to be larger than you thought. Din Ohtar and Ji Indur were both at Dol Guldur at the start of turn 3, both had Long Stride at casting ranks in the 90’s, both were with artifacts and nation SNA in the 90 agent rank. This turn the Witch King would have sallied to stop your armies short of their objectives and while he would have lost the battles next turn, two of your army commanders would have died. His main army would probably stop and destroy another army while the garrison of Carn Dum would recruit and wait. Next turn our agents would have assassinated your army commanders and returned to greet Bain and his buddies at Dol Guldur. While I may lose Dol Guldur that was accepted from the start of the game, thus the reason there was no garrison there. As explained earlier the plan was to let you waste troops on the fortifications while I relocated. Also at Dol Guldur next turn would have been Urzahil, Khamul and Celedhring plus a double scouting agent to pick up any other characters you had at Dol Guldur. Let’s see assassinate Bain and the Sinda Commander. Pick up lots of artifacts challenge anyone else we spot and if you remained true to form slaughter free characters en masse at Dol Guldur. Meanwhile the Curse Squad arrives in the West, not able to kill in a turn mind you but definately able to in two, to be rejoined by our agents. Between the agents in both theatres and Curse Mages and the Witch Kings armies the fight would be long and costly for you there.
I know this was our view and we cannot read your minds but you had moved just as we had predicted, with the exception of the Eothraim who slipped past us to aid you at Barad Ungol. You were not scouting effectively. You did not have back up commanders in the armies moving into combat, making you vulnerable to agent action. Your fleets in Rhun sat innactive while the Long Rider cruised you let him get ashore without a battle. This doomed the Dwarves in the Iron Hills. You got Rhudaur to join you in turn 3, the same time you lost the Eothraim. So to use your Chess analogy: you lost your queen but picked up another bishop. You accused the Easterling of being DS from turn 0 because he wouldn’t join you on hearing the bad news and because he didn’t feed you 100% accurate information. Joseph said in his email you guys thought that 2 of the Southern Neutrals were predisposed to DS from the start. Your team members suggested that we let you replace the Eothraim with another of your team playing two positions. Or that you be given the Easterlings to even the odds. So you want your queen back and the extra bishop too? The alternative you drop. To us the point was you wanted to be given a do over, and yet there was no incentive for us to do this except that you guys would quit. What was to stop you from quitting a few turns down the line? Give you the Dunlendings maybe the Corsairs.
I tried to be gracious about the game ending. I thanked you guys for the game and wished you well. Read the announcement again Dave and you will see there is no denigrating comment in it. For you guys to keep harping on that the game ended because the Easterlings were DS from the start, or as your messages demanding a fix for the Eothraim that it made you guys think he did what he did deliberately to sabotage his nation. Then in this thread to say it’s our fault that we wanted the win so badly that we would take it anyway we could even if cheaply by your resignation is just sour grapes and bad sportsmanship. That is why we declined a rematch with you guys. We tried to be polite in announcing the end of the game but you guys keep saying it wasn’t that bad you weren’t getting beaten in fact you were winning. Wel bub most winners don’t quit. I will stop being polite now. You were getting your teeth kicked in. Had the game continued it would have gotten far worse for you. You only were taking things we decided not to defend. Angmar may have fallen to you over time but the cost would have lost you the game. We felt the war was won last turn. Gondor had shot it’s bolt. We would not give it a second chance. Stop this drivel and own up to the fact that you guys quit prematurely everyone else knows that, read the comments on the thread again. Don’t try to lay this at anyone elses feet. As you said we did nothing at all to the Eothraim. But you still had 9 on 9 and you quit that says it all.
all the best in all your future games and can’t we all just be friends?
Gavin,
You are right. It is a waste of time trying to explain the situation. I think from the postings in the thread that experienced players understand the situation at game end even if our opponents didn’t.
There is no point is taking this discussion any farther so I will bow out here as well.
Thanks for being the voice of reason.
Brad