One of my friends who I've been friends with for over a decade decided to play a game of EU4. I played as Austria, he played as Poland. We made a deal that I get Bohemia and they get Slovakia - both of these lands really should belong to Austria in the early-game, but I didn't want to have to destroy my friend just to take over 1 more province than I really needed. So I do my best to make deals wherever possible.
I try to extend the deal so that he stays East of the HRE and I stay in the West; he doesn't accept this part of the deal. He states he wants to expand to include all the slavic lands whilst also having a colonial Empire & the Lubeck trade node; I point out he would surround me on four fronts and undermine the HRE, forcing me to go to war with him. I recommend he scale back his ambitions, he says he'll consider. Later he threatens to vassalise a German minor, to which I respond that I will defend the Empire with force. He says the German minors are not mine, I reply I am the Holy Roman Emperor and they are of the Empire, so no.
He says there is no deal to keep the HRE and Poland separate, but he will not vassalise Magdeburg as a courtesy. I tell the Polish King it's absurd to treat an invasion threat as a courtesy and push for a peace deal; the Polish King replies that they will not agree to such a deal because they want to keep their expansion options open. I caution that this will be their downfall, and they will soon lose everything. The Polish King replies that they will keep this in mind as they expand.
They annex the Teutons and Livonians in one war. I join a coalition of Germans, Scandinavians and bring my own Hungarian allies in to invade Poland & cut them down to size. Cue Poland saying I had betrayed them and that we had no deal. I point out we had no deal, so there is no betrayal, and it's crazy to expect me not to join a coalition against an openly hostile expansionist power.
Our coalition effortlessly overwhelms the Poland-Lithuanian commonwealth and frees a lot of its vassals, while I got to severely weaken my Bohemian rival, who was allied to Poland. At this point my friend begins personally attacking me, calling me by name instead of by character. A third friend on discord intervenes and rightfully points out it's a strategy game, y u hef 2 be mad
My friend & opponent responds that's right, he should be thinking "purely strategically & always play to win like [my name]". This is in spite of me always playing god awful meme nations for fun, even giving away trade provinces in my own home node to Poland just so we can both have fun. In every game we've played, whether it's RPG or strategy he always min-maxes and I dgaf because it makes a fun dynamic when he inevitably invites a coalition of m8s against his hegemony. To put things in context, when we were RP'ing a megacampaign from CK2 to HoiIV, he accused me of metagaming after I invaded his country for assassinating my son. He said I was just using the assassination of my son as an excuse to invade. He then invaded Finland, because it would produce iron 1,400 years later. I do not think he understands what the meanings of RP or metagaming is.
But that's all fun and games, where treachery and intrigue is part of the play. But he chose to make it personal because I wouldn't give him my virtual MS paint land provinces in a DLC simulator?
In the end his country died, but so too did a part of me. Because a friend could be so cruel over a game, I just do not think it's worth it.
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Topic: How did you last die? (Read 2417549 times)