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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:34
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I dropped out due to personal commitments some months back but had some time the last few days to peruse the threads. Is a Hive/Drones victory a foregone conclusion now if that alliance stays together?? It appears that a fair number of posters are implying this .. .
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Maniac
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Gent, Belgium
Jul 1999
time: 06:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Trithemius
Also, Machiavelli notes that being neighbours frequently leads to conflict, not alliance. Perhaps this is not true of SMAC/X PBeMs. |
Nah, I'd say Macchiavelli simply made a very unscientific statement.  Personally I'd say proximity to each other can both lead to stronger conflict or cooperation, depending on many other factors. But IIRC the Hive told us once that when they first met the Drones, a war was indeed possible. But they managed to work things out, eventually resulting in a permapact.
quote:
Originally posted by Flubber
Not intending to restart any old fights |
That's almost inevitable no? No doubt eg foolish_icarus will storm in soon and cry out how despicable all cyborgs really are.  
quote:
but I predicted that any war between the PEACE and CYCON would lead to a result like this. Even in conquering all of PEACE with relative ease, the CYCON ended up expending resources and gaining something that is much less than what PEACE could have contributed as a full alliance partner ( bases pop go down and facilities lost or sold off). |
Most likely you will disagree and have the opinion that PEACE did everything to save the alliance, but - based on the PlaNets trade where PEACE refused to trade DocFlex, based on the IndAut trade where PEACE demanded a very high price, and based on the repeated failure to come to a DocFlex trade 15 years later - the Consciousness had the opinion that PEACE was not acting at all like a full alliance partner, but was instead just exploiting us as much as possible, and asking prices we couldn't afford. Thus by going to war we weren't losing a potential partner for cooperation. *shrug* I guess you will disagree. Who's to say who's "right"?
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In any event, water under the bridge I guess but at the time of the attack by Cycon on Peace, I was astonished that any team would attack an ally when there was obvious Drone-Hive cooperation that was leading to a superpower coalition. It was a tactically smart but strategically stupid thing to do. |
There's the element that the Hive claimed they were interested in a permapact with the Consciousness. Naturally MY 2150 - the year we were to start the war - they were so friendly to inform us they were suddenly no longer interested in such a permapact...
Another point though is that CyCon would probably always have been the little weak brother in such a three-way-pact. At least now the Consciousness had lots of fun and its - admittedly *very* short  - moment de gloire in MY 2155, directly after the unification with PUT, when IIRC we had for one year the largest population, most advanced technology and largest army. Since only five years earlier in MY 2150 we were the weakest of all the seven factions, I think that's at least quite a good achievement. 
Last edited by Maniac on 25-03-2004 at 05:04
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Minute Mirage
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Helsinki
Aug 2003
time: 07:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Flubber
In any event, water under the bridge I guess but at the time of the attack by Cycon on Peace, I was astonished that any team would attack an ally when there was obvious Drone-Hive cooperation that was leading to a superpower coalition. It was a tactically smart but strategically stupid thing to do. |
I agree, the CyCon made a bad move there. Anyway, if the next ACDG is going to be a multifaction game, maybe disallowing permanent pacts would maintain the interest until the end of the game.
Last edited by Minute Mirage on 25-03-2004 at 05:34
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jtsisyoda
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COO, Morgan Industries, ACDG3
Jul 2003
time: 00:34
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quote:
Impaler[WrG]:
If infact the Hive and Drones have based their Perma-Pact on personal trust between Voltaire and Buster then they have been fools to put their personal trust on the line for a game, that is a situation that could lead to bitterness if the Pact broke down. Ofcorse they prevented that by being total Dictators over their Factions. |
"Total dictators?" I'm getting tired of this attitude. It implies the other team members are mice. It's an attitude that can't be based on facts, unless obtained unethically (assuming such facts even existed).
The research pact and later victory pact were put to a vote on both sides. The team members had formed plenty of trust through generous exchanges of [strike]spam[/strike] information and resources over time.
Edit:
We met before the earthquake. But it forced an all or nothing situation, really. An opposing faction with such easy access is something the other three factions didn't have to worry about, so we chose to make it a strength rather than a weakness.
Last edited by jtsisyoda on 25-03-2004 at 12:21
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Trithemius
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Canberra, Australia
May 2003
time: 14:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Jamski
I agree with you too. The bitterness has only to do with the people involved, nothing to do with the format of the game.
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Another one! Yay!
quote:
I AM against permapacting though. How many times did I try and end the Hive-Drone pact, only to be told "We have promised that blah blah blah..." ?
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I'm not against long-term alliances (they are a feature of politics after all - Britain and the USA have been "permapacted" for most of the 20th century). When the considerations of victory overcome in-game politics though, I think that I agree with you. Ideally people should not be playing "to win" but rather to "sustain". Victory, in a total and longterm way, is not really a part of a political environment; there is always a tomorrow, and a next day, and a next day.
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See, in a democracy game if everything is decided at the start, and then made permanant, there's no interest anymore. I think the next demogame should have a "basic constitution" for all the teams, who are then free to add more, but not to take away from some basic rights.
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Maybe smaller teams with more precisely defined "positions" (and a group of voting* but "untitled" members who enjoy the roleplay or covet a position of their own?) would be better? That might promote intra-faction politics as was an inter-faction politics (e.g. maybe the "military minister" wants war, but the "science minister" and "foreign minister" won't let it happen?). I know that some teams did do this type of thing, but making it more universal and a little more concrete might be interesting.
* Voting does not neccessarily mean literally having an electoral poll. It could represent status or bargaining of cliques or lobbying in citizen's assemblies or -anything-; I find the idea of the Hive (for example) having an election to be a bit weird. )
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Flubber
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With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Maniac
That accepting of Doc:Ini took place after previous deals had already soured CyCon attitude towards PEACE. So personally I'd be more interested to know what was the PEACE attitude towards CyCon before MY 2141. Did you honestly believe the deals you proposed were very and equally beneficial for both parties, or did you think, like CyCon, that you gained more out of your deal proposals than us?
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You have to understand that I missed a lot of the bad blood between CYCON and PEACE as I was away during the infamous trades that got both factions to ind auto. I head about bad blood but all I knew when I came back was that there was a deal and that Cycon owed PEACE a tech. I thought PEACE being willing to accept future considerations showed a good deal of good will on our part ( this consideration was , after all, never paid).
However my feeling was that the Cycon was being a difficult ally. BUT my view was that the Hive-Drone threat was OBVIOUS and that we had to try to work together. However the CYCON never responded positively to queries about permapacting so gifting techs outright was not in the cards.
I don't think that PEACE did better out of the deals . .. The result of the deals if CYCON had honoured them was that PEACE would have been owed techs from having provided techs for future consideration. CYCON had already shown themselves to be untrustworthy, by researching things that PEACE already had , instead of a tech to return a tech owed, and I personally totally disbelieved explanations that this was an "error".
BUT, my thoughts were that if CYCON and PEACE did not work together, they would have no chance against the Hive-Drones alliance. So despite certain misgivings, PEACE was once again willing to send a tech for nothing (future considerations) in the hopes of good relations . .. I really saw no other option -- To me it was a lot like the Soviets and US teaming up in WWII . . they might not REALLY get along but they had no choice against a common threat. My view was that PEACE-CYCON-UNI had to try to work together since anything else would doom all three to defeat.
So prior to the backstab, I didn't trust you folks but figured that there was no way that anyone in the southern 3 would ever backstab any of the others since cooperation was so obviously needed.
If that backstab had not happened, the Hive-Drone alliance would be facing 3 empires with more tech and units than the two empires they now face . .. It probably would not be enough but it would absolutely have been stronger than the opposition they now face. The cycon backstab and war caused PEACE to trade several techs to HIVE-Drones IIRC allowing them to easily fill in any gaps in their tech tree and move to MMI more quickly and easily. Again an obvious result . . . an attacked party helpd out those that do not attack them.
AS for a permapact with the Hive, the CYCON must have been dreaming. The speed at which the Hive-Drone alliance went up the tech tree suggested complete cooperation and quite frankly they didn't need anyone else. As Maniac points out, the CYCON were behind in most categories and really none of the southern 3 could offer much to the Hive-Drones.
So my assessment is that the Cycon backstab was the turning point of the game and made Hive-Drone victory inevitable. Interestingly, while it made the Cycon stronger for a time, it pretty much killed all their chances to participate in any sort of win.
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Chaunk
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CEO of Morgan Industries, ACDG3
Apr 2002
time: 05:34
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Whether or not playing as one team against the ai will actually mean less friction is surely a moot point. Most people prefer playing against another person. They think better, play better, and are much more interesting to interact with. Point in case the PEACE CyCon “back stab”. I personally was entirely against the move, hence I left the CyCon, (possibly actually saying to much to PEACE in the process. If so, then I apologise to the CyCon! It's not like it actually helped PEACE at all  ). But it was certainly more interesting than attempting to get a tech out of an ai player!
I tend to agree with Flubber though. In a PBEM like this, an early war (i.e pre MMI), unless completely effective, swift and brutal does nothing to help either player. It might help one to get a few more bases, but the opportunity cost of such a move is shocking!Instead of building a 4-1-4 build a crawler, and soon you'll be able to build more crawlers, and hence be better able to win a quick decisive war, like it sounds like the drones and the hive have.
FWIW, I too was for a PEACE/CyCon perma pact*. The problem was that most of CyCon weren't
*I was actually against a pact at all unless we were gonna stand by it for the duration. I like to play like I am in RL, my word is my bond. If I lose a game or two because of that, then so be it.
But then, it's mostly water under the bridge now. Lets get cracking on the next one 
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25-03-2004 03:39
). And even before this year the Hive-Drone mineral production was most likely double or triple that of CPU. So yes, I think the outcome of this game is a foregone conclusion. An outcome IMHO already decided the year an eartquake connected the Drone and Hive continents (at least I hope that's what happened), thus giving them the ability to cooperate much earlier and much closer than all other factions. 
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