Ladies and gentlemen,
We are gathered here today to witness what happens when the Leader of an alliance refuses to engage in serious diplomacy. This was the diplomatic message I sent to Hendrik:
> > > On the 14.02.2021 4:32 JuneBarcarolle wrote:
> > > > Greetings Hendrik,
> > > >
> > > > I would like to discuss the 1v1 situation between Vendon and Pete. As you are aware, they had initially had a conflict back when Vendon was in PHNX and Pete was tagless. It started over a complaint about the wonder on their mutual island. Vendon was building up his temple in a new town, and Pete pillaged him for it.
> > > >
> > > > While this was happening, Vendon was also trying to build up his new account as it was not developed enough for him to properly fight off a player such as Pete. Also while this was going on, Pete was recruited by PHNX, making it impossible for Vendon to get revenge for those pillages. Once Vendon dropped PHNX’s tag, Pete began pillaging him again.
> > > >
> > > > At this point Vendon has built up his account enough that he can go after Pete. Given that Pete was attacking him unprovoked after Vendon left PHNX, we believe he should be allowed his retaliation. We would prefer this be left as a 1v1, but you and at least one other member of PHNX seem to be insisting on defending Pete, making this more of a conflict than it should be. I have no idea what PHNX’s internal policies are regarding supporting or interfering with member’s retaliations. But here in Lost we believe in allowing members to retaliate.
> > > >
> > > > ********
> > > >
> > > > For some additional background, when Vendon first joined Lost, I noticed several of his towns were blockaded by Pete. I sent a message to Pete asking what was going on. He said there had been some issues about leeching but agreed to unblock Vendon’s ports since Vendon wasn’t leeching the wonder anymore. He neglected to mention anything about pillaging after the temples had been fixed. When I sent him a message asking if/why he was pillaging Vendon, he never responded. (Vendon did provide proof at the time of those pillages.)
> > > >
> > > > At that time Pete was also sending some rather unpleasant messages to Vendon, claiming we would never support him. (He’s wrong.) I was also able to retrieve some of the messages from the Agora on their island, and it seems Pete has caused similar problems with other people (not in Lost or PHNX) on their island. According to the agora messages, both Pete and Vendon had at times pulled priests intentionally to get back at the other, so using leeching as a justification to attack Vendon after he left PHNX seems insincere since Pete admitted to pulling his priests, too.
> > > >
> > > > Again, we just want our member to have his chance at revenge for attacks on him without PHNX interfering. Please let me know how you wish to proceed with this.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Sincerely,
> > > > June
> > > >
This conversation quickly degenerated into Hendrik screaming at me to SHUT THE HELL UP and accuse me of being “such a liar.”
Around this time another one of our members, The Enforcer, planted a mwc on Vendon and Pete’s island to see what was up with the wonder. He witnessed Vendon’s faith level was fine but Pete was leeching the wonder.
Since PHNX didn’t want to talk with me, Skyhawk (Lost’s diplomat) started talking with PHNX’s diplomat, Tarl Cabot. Tarl tried telling Skyhawk that I was lying to him, that Vendon was lying to him, and that he himself had dropped a floater on the island and it was Vendon who was leeching. He then informed Skyhawk that he believed Vendon joined Lost because he got “spanked” by Pete and couldn’t handle his own fights.
Since Vendon was the one wanting to fight (by himself) and Pete was the one who had Hendrik and Tarl defending his towns, we didn’t buy this. When Skyhawk asked if that was the case, why was PHNX refusing to allow the 1v1 and let Pete “spank” Vendon again?
Tarl then claimed that WE were the ones not allowing a 1v1. He went on to explain that tactics in fighting don’t matter. All that matters is which side has more troops and gold and that because we were supplying Vendon with gold and troops, it wasn’t a 1v1. (Note: Pete’s trader score was also pretty high, so we’re pretty sure he was buying stuff, too.)
In our experience, a player using their trading post does not violate a 1v1 fight. But PHNX wasn’t having any of that. Tarl continued to insist that fighting wasn’t about skill at all.
While these discussions were going on, I was talking with Gynaicles about the situation. Gyna is a good friend of hendrik’s and he agreed that PHNX really shouldn’t have recruited Pete until after the fight between Vendon and Pete had been resolved. So he offered to try to resolve things.
Through Gyna, Lost and PHNX agreed to let these two have their 1v1. Originally Pete had dropped into vmode to cause Vendon to run out of gold. When that didn’t happen, he came back and stayed active. Then Vendon dropped into vmode due to computer issues. So I negotiated a 1v1 for Vendon and Pete while Vendon was still in vmode.
These are the rules both sides agreed to:
- First to inflict 500,000 damage through the killing of military and/or pillaging of resources is declared the winner.
- If 500,000 damage is not achieved within 7 days, the one closest to 500,000 will be declared the winner.
- Allied units can not be present in either player's towns.
- Neither player may deploy to or occupy PHNX or Lost towns or ports.
- Neither player may go into vacation mode before a winner in determined.
- When the winner is declared, there must be an immediate ceasefire and miracle faith must remain at 100% or higher.
- Fight begins Saturday 27.02.2021 18:00:00
- Fight ends no later than Saturday 06.03.2021 18:00:00
When the start time hit, Vendon was still in vmode due to still having computer issues. Since nothing was said about him needing to absolutely be logged back in and active, we didn’t think anything of it. But PHNX argued that he had forfeited the match by not showing up. We disagreed. Since there was nothing stating that he had to log in, and they knew ahead of time he was in vmode due to computer issues, our stance was that they should have made it a stipulation if they cared about the start time that much. (The match was scheduled for a total of 7 days, so it’s not like either player was going to be online the entire time anyway.)
When Vendon was able to log in, hours after the start time and oblivious of the drama unfolding, he began his attacks. It wasn’t long until he ran into Hendrik’s military deployed to Pete’s town.
By this time we were convinced that Hendrik, for whatever reason, wasn’t going to allow the 1v1. So it came as no surprise that he was there intervening. We began to attack Hendrik in response.
Later that day Hendrik sent me another message. This time he was screaming at me about Veronika Viking. (For reference, VV is not a member of Lost. She hasn’t been in Lost since years before the server merge of 2015. She has nothing to do with this conflict and we have no idea why he even mentioned her.) He also told us to “Bring it.”
Also during the time, Hendrik got into a shouting match with his own diplomat. Tarl is now telling us that Hendrik booted him.
At this point, PHNX’s Leader has a former General who dropped tag, has either booted his own diplomat or the diplomat dropped tag, has recruited a guy with a known history of picking fights, is raving to me about a player not in our alliance and not involved in this conflict, is making accusations about things from 2008, and is now inviting us to fight his alliance…
We’re done with the crazy.
Terms:
TBD. (It's late. We'll decide later.)