Thoughts on 'Dibs' and Definition of Hostile

[American Badass]

I do not see what CR did as wrong either.

From my understanding, as an example, CR noticed simians who were interested in waring Pyro. Now CR *could* have waved simians BEFORE simians could get into the war and within the constraints of CF, it was "legal". Negotiations between Simians and CR took place and Simians agreed to give CR x amount of acres AFTER the war so that they could fight Pyro on equal footing. CR *could* have just waved simians before but IMO what happened was fair all around.

If simians did not want to be "taxed", they could have done what Kygal suggested and Raze retal but then simians would not have got a war from Pyro.

*edit*

Again, this was all a case of CR playing their CF better than everyone else and being in situations to enable them to do this on other kingdoms.

[Elit]

This "tax" thing people keep bringing up.
Untill this age it was pretty normal if KD B gave notice to KD A, and KD A didnt want to fight KD B, KD A would start diplo talks to stop them from getting waved once notice expired. This normaly ended in KD A giving a certain amount of acres to KD B in exchange for a CF extension. Basicly, the stronger KD takes acres from the weaker KD in exchange for a longer CF.
This age, the above example is getting called "tax" and suddenly its bad? My KD (CR) is the KD accused of taxing other KD's. What we did was exactly what I discribed above. We noticed KD's when our CF's expired and engaged in diplo to see if we could make a deal both KD's would feel okay about. Why? Because to us getting the acres without having to fight for it saves resources and has value, and to the other KD, (if our demand isnt too high) it also saves them resources.
In some cases this age were we noticed KD's, the KD's we noticed asked us to wave them after a certain date or after a comming conflict. If it didnt hurt our objectives/goals, then I see no reason why we shouldnt let the KD we noticed do (wave or war) what they wanted to do.
Its all part of the diplo talks, and in the end the goal in diplo is to see if you can find a deal that both KD's feel okay about.
Why this is called "tax" now is trully beyond me. Its a game mechanic that has been used in the top for atleast 40 ages and it was never a problem.

What you did this age is "TAX" have noting with what you describe up. When you gave notice Simians Did you wave them? No you delay your wave for let them wave/war other kd. This direct affected Pew Pew and Pyro. If you have processed your wave and gain your acres from Simins this will restul Pew Pew not get waved. Its much more complicated from how you explain it.
Send notice AFTER cf expire is ok and Wave if second kd agree to trade land for CF is ok too. But send notice for let them wave/war other kd and get acres later is kind of chart shape.

[StratOcastle]

@ AB, I would say the pragmatic solution is somewhere between your ideal and Palems ' no deal '. When the CF expired the choice was and is simply this: relationships are open. 2 vs 1 either intended or unintended is in play. So in my eyes nothing is broken. AMA deal broke to take initiative, but again this is a total non-issue in 90% of Utopia.
Now if I was AMA I may have diplo with top-heavy smaller kingdoms to crash the core of whoever they chose in a 2 v 1 situation. The fact that anyone can do this who has the charm to accomplish it is diplomacy.
Nothing I'm saying here is to be incendiary, I'm only referring to the situation in question. I know this seems dumbed down, but knowing very smart people I realize that we can't always perceive the scope of their vision. If incredibly intelligent people do certain things like dual-CF expiration, then I'm as inclined to believe there was a reason as much as it could've been a case of over thinking.

[tetley]

isn't this "tax" just giving a free wave for a CF extension...?

[Sheister]

1) dibs is hilarious
2) watching top level diplomats angst in the forums is hilarious
3) my amusement comes before your sense of fair play
4) dibs is therefore awesome.

on a serious note....


There is nothing wrong with someone publicly announcing their firm intention to issue notice and to then commence hostilities at X date in the future. There is also nothing wrong with them calling the KD that uses that additional information to dodge them cowards etc. It does seem wrong to use that as a basis to hit into war. There is no deal break or anything there that would support that kind of behavior and breach of the gentleman's code that passes for law in the top. Unfortunately, the supreme rule of the game trumps. "That which is not specifically prohibited is permissible."

I also do not think there is anything wrong with a noticed (officially noticed) KD running into another war. They take a huge risk to do that. It could as easily burn them to the ground doing that.

[KyGal]

isn't this "tax" just giving a free wave for a CF extension...?

Yes it is Tetley, and that in itself isn't wrong or bad. I think it's a matter of how much you demand, how much weaker the other kd is (such as you notice the minute they leave a war, knowing they aren't strong enough to fight you or anyone else), and as Elilt pointed out, the timing of the tax collection. I can notice you today, you agree to pay your taxes, so I say to you "Okay, I don't want the land right now, but I will collect it the last week of the age"...

Hell, come to think of it... that's a good strategy. I'll just hand all the kd's "You owe me X acres", and I'll spend the last 2 weeks collecting all of those free lands :D That in itself is risky though, as was seen in HoH and Rage's mess with Legacy a few ages back... But I take full blame for that, for being a sucker and letting them delay

[Maximouse]

isn't this "tax" just giving a free wave for a CF extension...?

Yes it is.

[American Badass]

Yes it is Tetley, and that in itself isn't wrong or bad. I think it's a matter of how much you demand, how much weaker the other kd is (such as you notice the minute they leave a war, knowing they aren't strong enough to fight you or anyone else), and as Elilt pointed out, the timing of the tax collection. I can notice you today, you agree to pay your taxes, so I say to you "Okay, I don't want the land right now, but I will collect it the last week of the age"...

Hell, come to think of it... that's a good strategy. I'll just hand all the kd's "You owe me X acres", and I'll spend the last 2 weeks collecting all of those free lands :D That in itself is risky though, as was seen in HoH and Rage's mess with Legacy a few ages back... But I take full blame for that, for being a sucker and letting them delay

This is why I believe there should be an x% land guidance to determine what is "fair" before next age starts. Say a MAX of 15% land can be claimed for a CF extension (minimum of 1 week duration with a 48 hour notice CF). This would enable all kingdoms to know where they stand and it is "fair" for all. It also means that a massive kingdom does not get to bully and dicatate a land amount at time of asking.

So a kingdom being notice has 3 options :

a) Give 15% land for 1 week extension (48 hours notice) minimum (Obviously longer CF notices can be agreed upon by both parties)
b) Refuse and enter a raze retal
c) go to war

[Maximouse]

What you did this age is "TAX" have noting with what you describe up. When you gave notice Simians Did you wave them? No you delay your wave for let them wave/war other kd. This direct affected Pew Pew and Pyro. If you have processed your wave and gain your acres from Simins this will restul Pew Pew not get waved. Its much more complicated from how you explain it.
Send notice AFTER cf expire is ok and Wave if second kd agree to trade land for CF is ok too. But send notice for let them wave/war other kd and get acres later is kind of chart shape.

K, let me explain the Simian situation a bit more.

Our CF with them expired before they were able to go after pew2 and pyro. I aproached Anri on irc and told him we were noticing them. Anri and I then talked since Simians prefered a CF extension over a hostile with CR. For us the situation was as followed. If we didnt make a deal with Simians we were able to take between 15K and 25K acres in probably a few days tops. We would need to train up heavily ofcourse and spent time and resources which we rather use in pumpmode. (edit: there was also the risk simians would raze retal which would take the out of the top completely and limit our gains to perhaps 10K max)
Simians prefered a deal aswell since if we waved them it would screw their plans. We settled on 20K acres as a price for the CF extension. 20K acres was at that time roughly 1.5 to 2 waves in acres. Not an uncommon price for a CF extension with a KD you dont want to face. (we took I think 12K acres in our 1st wave on simians later)
Simians made 1 other demand in the diplo talks, and that was to not take the acres untill they were done with pew2 and pyro. That demand was because if we took the acres before their upcomming conflicts it would stop them from beeing able to fight those conflicts.
So for CR, what mattered was getting the acres without having to train up and waste resources and pumptime. For Simians what mattered was them beeing able to fight the 2 conflicts they had planned. In the end we agreed to wait.
Both KD's got what they wanted as a result of diplo talks.

If we had taken the acres before simians engaged pew2 and pyro it would have directly effected the charts aswell. Pew2 probably would have been bigger, and Pyro wouldnt have warred Simians and be smaller. Perhaps pyro would then have noticed Simians, and perhaps simians would have made a deal with them. We dont know. And we would have probably been forced to train up to take the acres since Simians didnt want to deal if they were left in a position that didnt enable them to go after their objectives.

Any action any KD does effects the charts. If you wave somebody, it limits the acres your direct opponents could take from them. If you CF somebody you give them time to pump and potentialy prep to better war a direct opponent. If you war somebody and beat them, you limit the acres your opponent could take from them. And I guess you can list another dozen examples easily.

What we did was to delay our wave at the request of Simians.
Why? Because to us getting the deal was better then the alternative.

[Zauper]

Dibs are dumb.

I know a hostile when I see one. Trying to define it won't work.

Elit: I disagree, because simians agreed to two options: war or a preset acreage. This means that there is functionally no difference to notice before / after, except that a deal is already in place to protect our anticipated gains (the acre count). That it's a flat acreage also protects simians in the event they win and don't want to war, because we can't push them into warring us. Is there a difference between this and noticing them after the war? Not really, the same negotiation of war vs acres had to happen, and the call is made by them, not us.

Essentially, Anri merely agreed to remove notice, and he would fight us after his war concluded.

You can say that we shouldn't have let them war pyro. My personal preference is to not end peoples ages. Sure, if we hadn't made the deal, they wouldn't have been able to fight pyro. Is that really a problem? Pyro didn't mind fighting them, and they wanted to fight pyro.

Hell, you and I made the same deal last age. You CFd to let us fight pyro, with the agreement that we would give acres after.

So yes, the 'tax' is land for a CF extension, with an agreement for the land to come in the future (after a specific event) rather than the present. These deals have been common for some time.

[clawz]

My personal preference is to not end peoples ages.

The people that took over when you left apparently ended AMA's beautiful age with 1x nonsensical thread.

[Zauper]

The people that took over when you left apparently ended AMA's beautiful age with 1x nonsensical thread.

Deal breaks deserve GBs. Your action called for it. This isn't the thread for that discussion.

[Proteus]

I'm not supporting dibs, but the concept behind it is easy to understand...

What if Kingdom A gives Kingdom B the button (after a week of prep), and then Kingdom B gives Kingdom C the button, and Kingdom C declares?

Is anyone in the wrong here? Is KD B wrong for dodging? Is KD C wrong for hitting KD B? Did Kingdom A "claim" anything?

This happened like 5+ times over the last 2 ages, and several times it resulted in people hitting into war.

Is it more complicated if B + C mutually agreed to break a server-known CF to make this happen? Who is in the wrong then? (And yes this happened too.)

Kingdom B is then retarded and should get raped for waving someone else after just being handed button until they end hostile with diplomacy with Kd A. If they wave outside of hostile without diplomacy then Kd A should keep hitting but stop after a reasonable amount of time (like one additional free wave).

Dibs is a problem when someone is telling you BEFORE you even get into conflict that you cant fight anyone else except the kd that is coming for you even thought you have many options. Anyone should be free to fight who they want and no one is allowed to dictate this, if you want to fight someone wave them first and give them button but dont start dragon or forum thread and claim its hostile,very simple concept.

This thread is adorable.

You all have one primary objective and that is to swindle and screw over your competition to beat them.

Let's say you get some good definitions set down and "rules" set in place. The first thing you're gonna start doing to digging for loopholes. Ways to get around the rules and not look like the bad guys. When push comes to shove and you're backed into a corner you're going to do whatever you think you need to do anyway.

I disagree here, personally when leading i would try to outplay the competition by being and playing smarter through use of superior strategy and positioning, not by playing dirty and dong questionable things...thats for people who are not good enough to beat someone 1v1 and look for loopholes to double hostile said kd, etc.

The purpose of this thread was to highlight the most pervasive use of lame play we have seen in the recent ages. None of this stuff is new but as you know certain strategies and ways of playing tend to fall out of favor only to come back again. The biggest problem I've seen in the post-Abs era is the use of dibs and dictating what others should do under threat of 2v1 and intentional blatant farmout to chart shape. No one enjoys being on the receiving end of this and hopefully by discussing it people can avoid doing it, or if they do it at least enough people will know its bad and will intervene if they see it happening.

Dibs are dumb.

I know a hostile when I see one. Trying to define it won't work.

As do I, however there is still the problem of how others define it. This age a new standard of making a couple hits and starting thread and dragon was considered hostile that had to be respected and one that could not been avoided although it is not hostile by any top kd definition. Hostile can be complicated and sometimes what appears to not be hostile actually is (PB vs all faery palem kd few ages ago) and I have no problem with this, I have a problem when people try to come up with new and stupid definitions of hostile like forum threads, tagging "vs. insert kd name here" without actually making an action in game that constitutes hostile.

[flutterby]

Dibs is <snip>

Did you tell Sanctuary this when this 'discussion' took place the last time? Just curious.

[TheOne]

K, let me explain the Simian situation a bit more.

Our CF with them expired before they were able to go after pew2 and pyro. I aproached Anri on irc and told him we were noticing them. Anri and I then talked since Simians prefered a CF extension over a hostile with CR. For us the situation was as followed. If we didnt make a deal with Simians we were able to take between 15K and 25K acres in probably a few days tops. We would need to train up heavily ofcourse and spent time and resources which we rather use in pumpmode. (edit: there was also the risk simians would raze retal which would take the out of the top completely and limit our gains to perhaps 10K max)
Simians prefered a deal aswell since if we waved them it would screw their plans. We settled on 20K acres as a price for the CF extension. 20K acres was at that time roughly 1.5 to 2 waves in acres. Not an uncommon price for a CF extension with a KD you dont want to face. (we took I think 12K acres in our 1st wave on simians later)
Simians made 1 other demand in the diplo talks, and that was to not take the acres untill they were done with pew2 and pyro. That demand was because if we took the acres before their upcomming conflicts it would stop them from beeing able to fight those conflicts.
So for CR, what mattered was getting the acres without having to train up and waste resources and pumptime. For Simians what mattered was them beeing able to fight the 2 conflicts they had planned. In the end we agreed to wait.
Both KD's got what they wanted as a result of diplo talks.

If we had taken the acres before simians engaged pew2 and pyro it would have directly effected the charts aswell. Pew2 probably would have been bigger, and Pyro wouldnt have warred Simians and be smaller. Perhaps pyro would then have noticed Simians, and perhaps simians would have made a deal with them. We dont know. And we would have probably been forced to train up to take the acres since Simians didnt want to deal if they were left in a position that didnt enable them to go after their objectives.

Any action any KD does effects the charts. If you wave somebody, it limits the acres your direct opponents could take from them. If you CF somebody you give them time to pump and potentialy prep to better war a direct opponent. If you war somebody and beat them, you limit the acres your opponent could take from them. And I guess you can list another dozen examples easily.

What we did was to delay our wave at the request of Simians.
Why? Because to us getting the deal was better then the alternative.

As a competitor's point of view, I dont like what CR did because it slowed down Pyro's & Pew's progress...

As a neutral point of view, what CR did was to some extent quite brilliant. I mean, Simians & CR both agreed to that deal. CR gained by not wasting resources training up + not wasting precious pumped time, Simians gained by potentially able to 'win' both Pew & Pyro and then agreed to a forced war with CR which is also good for Simians if they can pull a rabbit out of a hat. I mean, both parties agreed to it.

In addition, doing this will allow CR to slow down their closest rivals Pyro+Pew + fattening up Simians for themselves later. I mean, it's just 'good diplo' in my opinoin. Simians had to take this chance, if not they will just hand over acres to CR and then Pew & Pyro will farm them later.

Still as a competitor and a friend of Pew, I feel :(

-cJ