As I said I questioned a tactic privately via PM to both Maiden and yourself. He chose to hide behind empire secret and you chose to essentially ignore me.

So I then discovered it on my own and published it. As far as I'm concerned that's the end of the story. Or it would be if you weren't insistent on pressing the issue.

...

I am glad to read you acknowledge no impropriety or any previously non-disclosed tactics.  I am however sorry to hear about your horse.

Regards, Jack

Mumblefratz,

as long as you put words in my mouth that I never said I will of course correct you. Simply stop that and I will stop, too.

It is true that MottiKhan helped me greatly in some of my games. I've given credit to him when these games were hosted, as I did to DethAdder, JacklV, KP, SS, GmOOnii, Iztok and also, *you*. I will always thank people whenever I play a game whose main strategy is based on others findings.

However, you *threatened* me to make "stuff" available to the public if I wouldn't hand you over the information you seek for your current game. In said PM, you used the word "cheats" 3 times. Your intent to start this conversation was solely to "sound me out", to quote you. When I didn't respond to that, you kept on quoting my posts and making false statements, putting words in my mouth I never said and which I corrected you previously, yet you continuued on your rampage.

Yes, the KzintiEmpire has some secrets, and as we are an still active empire, we wanna see our tactics preserved. You did act the same way in the past, isn't it?

I told you that part of the NB strat is in your ToE-site. It's a forum posts by Neilo (BMF) where he says something like that it has become routine to upgrade ships in debt. It's the last post in one thread to which even unregistered users have access.

I've told you *multiple* times now that the way I play doesn't include buying ships when being in debt. Why do you still post this dis-information ?

Don't wanna stress this subject too much now, but in November 2009 I took myself the time and plunged through most of the GalCiv2 forums. Judging from that, I got the impression that this isn't approved by the community here. However, I could be wrong, maybe I missed some threads. Could you please provide me a link or two were this subject of using an un-even playing field has been debated and found OK?

I'm sorry for that, in my opinion StarDock should make an exception and host this EndGameSave. DL is pretty much the hardest version of all three, this game probably would translate to 1.5mil in DA.... and the efforts you put in this game should be acknowledged in your MV profile.

Finally, it is not my intent to seek a heated debate, but you have to understand that unfounded (dis)-information cannot stand here without correction - to do so would actually be an admittance to their truthfullness; which isn't there. There might have been some misunderstandings included, but on some issues it is actually hard to see "only" a misunderstanding.

In this sense, good luck with your current game.

Maiden,

I'm sorry that you took this to be a personal attack on you or your integrity because it really wasn't intended to be that way.

My motivation for contacting you by PM was really as I stated which was to try to determine whether  or not a tactic that you must admit without knowing anything about it could reasonably be viewed as such, was "questionable". After all the Dread Lords certainly aren't a "normal" opponent that one can select.

If at that time I had known that this was in fact documented in the wiki then we wouldn't be having this conversation now. If at the time you had simply told me the information is freely available in the wiki then again we wouldn't be having this conversation now. I suspect that at that time you might not even have known yourself that this information was in the wiki, but that is neither here nor there..

Also a clear secondary reason of contacting someone by PM is to avoid a public discussion, such as the one we're having now, where it devolves to, he said, she said, and where things that initially might seem questionable turn out to be totally innocuous.

That is essentially the case here. If you or KP had given me even the slightest bit of evidence that would have allowed me to conclude that there was nothing wrong with using the DL as an opponent then I would not have gone public with it because to do so would have meant disclosing empire secret information that I did not discover through my own effort.

I alluded to this which is what I suspect was the "threat" that you reference. The implicit threat was, tell me what's going on with this "special ARC" or if you force me to find out on my own I will publish it and it will no longer be anyone's "empire secret".

You can complain about who am I to make such an ultimatum all you want but I think your choice was pretty obvious, which was to tell me enough about this special ARC to determine whether it was innocuous or not or if you make me go find out for myself then I'll be free to tell everyone else about it.

The essence of both your and KP's response in this regard was to essentially tell me to go pound sand. And so I went out and discovered it on my own and published it.

This is the long version of what I already said above:

However, if you wish to compete and compete effectively then your personal preferences about how you "wish" the game was really don't matter. The best you can do is to make Stardock aware of the situation and hope it gets corrected. However when Stardock is informed about things like ARC and decides to do nothing then someone would have to be stupid to not use a feature that results in a higher score simply because one disapproves of the feature.

So let me be clear. Having discovered that the information about using the DL as an opponent has been published in the wiki for quite some time then it's clear to me that it's as legitimate to use as a standard ARC or any other "feature" of the game that we all use.

I further state that I applaud Maiden's 687K ZYW as a significant accomplishment.

But however much you complain there is nothing illegitimate about my disclosing information I discovered due to my own effort.

I never claimed you personally used this and whether you do or don't is immaterial. It's not dis-information, it's simply the truth about the differences between those versions of the game.

Again I repeat I never claimed you used this feature or not. Nor did I even imply that the feature was intrinsically good or bad. It just is. It's a feature of the game that everyone is free to use or not use at their own choice.

That 's the only topic that I have brought up here and that is the only question that I asked via PM. I think it was a legitimate question. You were certainly within your rights to not give me any information about it. But I was equally within my rights to find out about it myself and publish the answer that was the fruit of my own labor.

I really don't know why you bring up all this other stuff but it was you that brought it up and anything that I said that was not specifically related to special ARC of DL opponents was only in response to something from you.

just FYI, in no version of DL, DA or TA you can buy ships when being in debt. No such '"feature" exists.

Update your game and see for yourself.

'nuff said.

I'm not sure why my alias is being brought into this, but I'll bite. 

I'm honored if any of my hints were used by Maiden in any of his games.  I've congratulated him on his excellent scores and have never claimed that he did anything untoward, in public or in private.

One thing that we might want to remember is that the Kzinti and Tyranny have always had a friendly rivalry going where we'd take fun jabs at each other.  The operative words here being friendly and fun.  If this degenerates beyond that, I want no part of it.

I've long been a member of both the Tyranny and the Kzinti.  While it's no secret that my loyalty belongs with the Tyranny, I'm still a full member in the Kzinti,  A senator the last time I checked.

If my name is brought into this then I, like Maiden, have the full right to defend myself and will do so.

My top score for the ZYW was simply the DL version played in DA with ARC and more modern strategies added.  I did a DL version of it long before, without ARC, albeit with a much lower score.  Nobody seemed to have a problem with that one, even though it went well into December of Year 0.

Maiden has taken it to a new level and should be encouraged to continue.  I see nobody else stepping up and offering any serious competition to his scores. 

I'm confident in the legitimacy of his games. 

In *all* versions of DL *above* v1.5 and certainly in DA v1.80g and I *believe* all versions of DA above that as well you can indeed buy ships while in debt in exactly the same manner as how you can buy buildings while in debt but perhaps that's an empire secret that you haven't learned yet.

Try it yourself on your version of DL or DA. Get into debt and queue a ship on a planet. Of course you can't go to the planet screen and buy the ship there just as you can't buy a building from the planet screen. You have to go to the colony list of your Civilization Manager and then you can buy all the ships you want directly from the Starport column just as you can buy buildings while in debt from the Building column.

There you go some free empire secrets.

I'm pretty sure *all* versions of TA correct this.

Plus this has nothing to do with the question I raised. This is merely an attempt to obfuscate the issue. The only issue I raised was using the "special ARC" to get Dread Lord opponents. As fully discussed to death above.

It was this assertion, that the knowledge of how to create a Dread Lord opponent was on the ToE site that caused me to make the following response.

So one more question if I may. Is this a true statement? Did you or did you not indicate to me on the ToE forums that you did not know how to use the Dread Lords as an opponent?

Actually I stand correctly. I also used Motti's name in reply #52 in response to Jacklv's mention of SS's questioning Motti's game in reply #51.

And I used his name a 2nd time in my reply #60 as well.

.

My only claim is that you indicated to me that you may have known *of it* but did not know precisely how it was accomplished.

I know that you have no interest in using the DL ARC yourself and I don't see how anything that I've said impled that you did just that you or anyone else in the ToE did not know precisely how it was done.

I've just tried on DA v2.01 and in DL 1.53; doesn't work. Sorry. And I doubt my games are bugged, I've verified both.

Yes, exactly. 

First I have to make a disk image of my current drive. Only then would I be willing to install Impulse on my machine. Then I could do an upgrade and run the test for myself. Finally I could undo everything by restoring my original disk image. It would take some time to do and I'm not sure it's worth the effort to me.

Firstly because all of this is not particularly germane to the initial point I raised. Secondly you're questioning only one of the three separate purchasing functions (and the least important of the three) that I claim can be made while bankrupt. I assume you're not denying that you can purchase buildings and upgrade ships while bankrupt in these versions only that you can't directly buy ships, right?

In any case since this seems important to you I will make the test but I also suggest that we move the discussion of version differences to another thread. I'll open up a new one tomorrow.

As far as I'm concerned the question I opened up is done with. Can we at least agree on that?

Given that the information is freely available on the wiki I can acknowledge that there is nothing wrong with using the Dread Lords in a special ARC.

However can you at least acknowledge that it was not unreasonable of me to initially question the legitimacy of the Dread Lords ARC and once I did discover how it was done on my own to publish this information?

If so then there is nothing more for me to say here.

And I definitely am interested in understanding what significant differences exist between the revs I currently have and the ones people are currently playing but I'll leave that to another thread.

Ahhhhh, back to the ZeroYearWin-l ve!

How Agt. Smith looooves to built all those StarBases everywhere; in a Tiny Galaxy that's the real neat thing