forward, then back

ok, i'm still writing my geocaching logs from my trip and i'm still organizing the pictures, and when i'm done i want to organize my thoughts and tell you about it.

in the meantime, i'm playing ikariam, and i'm playing on the iota server in case you want to look for me there. i'm playing as flask, which ought to be a no-brainer.

so last firday night (i think it was friday) i get an incoming message that i am under attack. for starters, i cannot imagine why anyone would attack me unless they really wanted trouble. i keep plowing my cash and resources into development, so i don't have a lot for anyone to steal and besides, i have good defenses, including the fact that i belong to a powerful alliance that protects its members aggressively.

i look this guy up. he clearly hasn't done his homework. he is a quarter of my size. his army is a quarter the size of mine. his alliance is a quarter the size of mine. additionally, the way things are stacked up, if he's done the math, he would have seen that the attack was going to cast him more than he was goign to get from me.

so i sent him a note telling him to call off his attack, or else i'd be forced to retaliate.

i do not know why you attacked me, but i'm bigger than you. i have a bigger army than you and my alliance is much bigger than yours. you will notice that you are under attack from members of my alliance.

nobody has been silly enough to attack me until you came along, so now i have to figure out how to deploy troops to your cities.

members of my alliance are already sending troops to (to use their words) flatten you. the reason i have never yet attacked you is that i do not as a rule attack active cities. you are about to lose your entire military.

my allies will stop their attacks if i ask them to.

at this point you should apologize nicely and send lovely gifts.

he did not back down. instead this is what he said:

hey i probably know you are mad...but i didnt get that much from you anyways

wasnt even worth it

ill send you effen shit back

so i said:

see now, all i was hoping for was a nice apology and the rough equivalent of the 1,200 gold you took plus a little extra, say, 1,400 total as a nice gesture.

but now my friends are mad at you because you weren't nice. a little communication could have really helped.

the mathematics of it are this: you might feel all full of yourself 'coz your'e a top 100 alliance, but we're a top 10 alliance. we have a couple of guys who don't like to pick on people, but they really enjoy the chance to go after players that have attacked us.

it's expensive, maintaining really big armies, and they don't need much of an excuse.

at this point i think one of my allies is attacking you because he "doesn't like your name".

it would have been better for you to make a nice apology, and certainly much less expensive.

the names of all his cities are amusing sexual innuendos. amusing if you're, say a twelve-year-old boy. very clever stuff.

ok what the hell do you want

let's review:


you got stupid and attacked a player four times your size, with an alliance four times the size of your alliance.


when offered the chance to make a nice apology and pay a small amount in restitution, you failed to do either.


at this point what i want is to farm you regularly and to prevent you from building any military at all.


ever.


you still have yet to learn manners and as far as i'm concerned, you are now my pet.


additionally, my alliance views with suspicion any member of your alliance or any player with whom you have regular communication. we do not have any set policy regarding this, but we're keeping our options open.


in short, you should have taken the opportunity to get the whole thing called off when you had the chance. i believe i described to you exactly what was going to happen as a result of your choices and now that these things have happened, there's no point complaining about it.

just telll me what you want

sorry, puppy, but you had enough opportunity to be polite and failed to do it at any time until now. we also did not like your friend johnlilly, who was very rude to one of our alliance members.


if you time your production right, you'll hardly notice that i'm farming you unless you try to build a military.


if you go back in your correspondence you will notice that you had two opportunities to apologize and send lovely presents.


because you did not take advantage at any time of these excellent chances, i'm just going to take what i can get from you from now on.


helpful hint: when you pick on someone four times larger than you and they ask for an apology, you should do it right away.

i tried to ask you what these lovely presents but you never told me what they were

can we make a compromise....ill try to send you 500 of something everyday

something along those lines

just please stop attacking....leave me alone

i wont pillage anymore

oh, sure. NOW you're learning some manners.


let me break this down for you.


traditionally nobody was stupid enough to attack me, so i didn't have to maintain a huge standing army.


then you came along and i had to increase the size of my army and that costs me more. surely you don't expect ME to pay the extra cost?


you are correct to observe that you're not going to pillage anymore. not only are you not going to pillage me, but you're not going to pillage anyone else. i don't trust you as far as i could throw you while i was sitting on you with a piano in my lap.


you had plenty of opportunity to be polite, but if you go back in the correspondence, i think you'll see that you were never apologetic or even courteous until it was too late.


now you are my farm, my pet, my puppy. you are my drive-through, all-night ATM.


in addition to monitoring your income and your armies, i have also been monitoring your communications and any player in an alliance with you, in regular communication with you, or trading with you will be seen as suspicious and therefore also a possible target.

just fuckin leave me alone

this isnt fun anymore

its not that serious...its a damn internet game...people make fuckin mistakes...ive learned

just leave me alone

just stop this is getting stupid

for you, maybe.


for me, it is both fun and profitable.


ode to bush:


my sweet and lovely sugar lump

who pays to stock my ammo dump

not smart enough to take advice, apologize or just play nice.

six times a day at every town

i'll pillage you and smack you down

you are my favorite little boy

my rare and cherished squeaky toy

you fought me once; here's your reward

i'll keep it up 'til i get bored

but i'll be staying for a while

to pillage you

just makes me smile.

would you please fuckin stop...this is getting ridiculious...i just want to play the fuckin game

my dear little man:


you ARE playing the game. this is the part of the game where you pay for your poor choices.


i believe i warned you what would happen to you if you crossed me, and yet you persist.


you can beg and plead all you want; i simply forward your messages to my alliance and we all have a laugh over it.


your choices inconvenienced me and my friends and now you're paying for them. i have a schedule to keep with regard to pillaging you, and i mustn't fall behind. according to my calculations, all of your cities are have entered into a new cycle and are therefore due for pillage, each in their turn.


are you familiar at all with the early days of the romanov empire? if you knew anything at all about history, you would understand why it just isn't practical for me to leave you with a viable military or any resources to speak of.


additionally, i had to upgrade my army in order to deal with you, and now someone has to pay for its upkeep. you have been nominated for this honor.


at this point if you do not wish to have me keep explaining this to you, you will simply stop sending me messages about it.


i'm busy; i have pillages to conduct, many of them on you.

im fuckin done...this is fuckin bullshit...im fuckin abandoning all my fuckin colonies...im done with this fuckin game...i hope you are fuckin happy

yep, that's kind of what i was getting at.


if i find you playing under a different account i will go after you equally aggressively.


thanks for playing, and don't let the door hit you on the way out.


*smooch*

but it turns out that he does not quit the game. he has a second illegal account that he stupidly sets up on the same island. and he has a little potty-mouth friend who decides to attack another of my allies which has the effect of a teacup poodle trying to fight a pack of wolves.

just leave me the hell alone

i have decided that from now on when you address me, you have to start with "mother may i?" or i'll send out an immediate pillage to your most convenient city.


i am tired of your profane little diatribes.


twenty minutes from now i have a ship coming in. i haven't been raiding you so much today, because there's not much left to take and because you haven't so much as made a peep. but now that you're talking again, i'm afraid i have to return to pillaging you.


how often the good humor truck comes around will depend on your behavior.


forget to say "mother may i?" = 1 immediate pillagge.

use of profanity = 2 pillages at earliest convienience.

construction of any military units will result in immediate resumption of full-bore-six-times-a-day pillage on each city whether or not there's enough for me to take to make it worthwhile.


love 'n' kisses.


now go be a good boy.


*smooch*

i have not heard from him since.