Home » Primary Racial Traits » SS » SS ultimate strategy?
| Re: SS ultimate strategy? |
Mon, 20 April 2009 05:57   |
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| vonKreedon wrote on Mon, 20 April 2009 00:33 |
As a player I assume that all the other players are playing to win; that they will do what it takes, within the agreed rules, to win. I'm counting on that and when players do not play to win due to chivalrous concepts of honor and fair play beyond the stated rules it screws with my gameplay and annoys me mightly.
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Do you say that there are game rules and those should be followed? But rules which you have agreed to bilateral or multilateral within the game can be handled differently and thus broken for a backstab?
Kind of a weird logic... kind of a backstabber's logic who even tries to give his deeds a cover of legality *grin*
| Quote: |
If you are playing to win and your sober and ruthless analysis of the situation is that the only chance for you to win is to backstab your ally and you have the realistic potential to pull off a backstab that will win the game for you, the ethic of playing to win obligates you, IMO, to perform the backstab.
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Hey hey, and now you even add a cover of legitimacy, no even more: ethics force you to backstab.
What a scam! What about the thought that within the rules you have agreed to you have lost, the other won? If you had been smart enough, you'd made another treaty or properly cancelled it early enough...
If you don't follow a treaty we have agreed upon because "to win obligates you to perform a backstab", what should made me think and trust that you follow other rules, that you don't try to use every known bug and cheat... when winning is, it seems, so overly important for you?
As much as I like to win, I am playing (o wonder) for fun. And sometimes (like now) because I feel obliged to the other players.
Playing only to win has destroyed lots of games,
doing whatever mean and exploiting deeds for profit,
the end justifies the means...
I am so fed up with this philosophy and it's usurping every bloody damned feeble space in life.
edit: typos
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[Updated on: Mon, 20 April 2009 14:06] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: SS ultimate strategy? |
Mon, 20 April 2009 06:35 |
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 magic9mushroom |
 | Commander |
Messages: 1361
Registered: May 2008 | |
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| Altruist wrote on Mon, 20 April 2009 19:57 |
| vonKreedon wrote on Mon, 20 April 2009 00:33 |
As a player I assume that all the other players are playing to win; that they will do what it takes, within the agreed rules, to win. I'm counting on that and when players do not play to win due to chivalrous concepts of honor and fair play beyond the stated rules it screws with my gameplay and annoys me mightly.
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Do you say that there are game rules and those should be followed? But rules which you have agreed to bilateral or multilateral within the game can be handled differently and thus broken for a backstab?
Kind of a weird logic... kind of a backstabber's logic who even tries to give his deeds a cover of legality *grin*
| Quote: |
If you are playing to win and your sober and ruthless analysis of the situation is that the only chance for you to win is to backstab your ally and you have the realistic potential to pull off a backstab that will win the game for you, the ethic of playing to win obligates you, IMO, to perform the backstab.
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Hey hey, and now you even add a cover of legitimacy, no even more: ethics force you to backstab.
What a scum! What about the thought that within the rules you have agreed to you have lost, the other won? If you had been smart enough, you'd made another treaty or properly cancelled it early enough...
If you don't follow a treaty we have agreed upon because "to win obligates you to perform a backstab", what should made me think and trust that you follow other rules, that you don't try to use every known bug and cheat... when winning is, it seems, so overly important for you?
As much as I like to win, I am playing (o wonder) for fun. And sometimes (like now) because I feel obliged to the other players.
Playing only to win has destroyed lots of games,
doing whatever mean and exploiting deeds for profit,
the end justifies the means...
I am so fed up with this philosophy and it's usurping every bloody damned feeble space in life.
edit: typos
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A-men!
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| Re: SS ultimate strategy? |
Mon, 20 April 2009 13:34 |
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| vonKreedon |
 | Lieutenant |
Messages: 610
Registered: March 2003
Location: Seattle, WA USA | |
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| Altruist wrote on Mon, 20 April 2009 02:57 |
Do you say that there are game rules and those should be followed? But rules which you have agreed to bilateral or multilateral within the game can be handled differently and thus broken for a backstab?
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Yes, I don't think that this is "weird logic". If the game rules say that CA must have 100 points to Surface Minerals and that all treaties are binding then someone who designs a CA race without leaving 100 points to Surface Minerals or someone who breaks a treaty are then breaking the rules. And, if the game rules say that each player must randomly break a treaty every ten years and a player doesn't break his one alliance because to do so would be suicide, he is also breaking the rules. OTOH, if the game rules say nothing about honoring treaties then either keeping or breaking treaties has nothing to do with breaking the rules.
| Altruist further wrote on Mon, 20 April 2009 02:57 |
What a scum! What about the thought that within the rules you have agreed to you have lost, the other won? If you had been smart enough, you'd made another treaty or properly cancelled it early enough...
If you don't follow a treaty we have agreed upon because "to win obligates you to perform a backstab", what should made me think and trust that you follow other rules, that you don't try to use every known bug and cheat... when winning is, it seems, so overly important for you?
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Treaties are agreements meant to advance one's strategic interests, not rules meant to govern how the game is played. I'm not scum and I adhere to the rules of the game and where I'm not clear about the interpretation of a rule I ask the host and follow the host's ruling.
Now you all might get the impression that I'm a backstab happy Machievellian win-at-all-cost player, but that's not really true. In my many many Stars games over the last nearly a decade and a half of playing I've only backstabbed once, and that was about 12 years ago. I agree with Altruist's sentiment that if one is s
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| Re: SS ultimate strategy? |
Mon, 20 April 2009 13:58 |
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I think I understand the general consensus on backstabbing now but nothing is mentioned about information trading as a backstab.
if you were to give another empire a full inteligence dossier on a race you wanted to backstab yourself wouldn't it be the same?
my point is there are many was to backstab someone and anyone can die a death of a 1000 cuts as easily as the coup de grace.
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| Re: SS ultimate strategy? |
Mon, 20 April 2009 14:04 |
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| vonKreedon wrote on Mon, 20 April 2009 19:34 |
I'm not scum
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Please, accept my excuse. Of course, you are not.
I've looked up the meaning of scum now. That's not what I wanted to say but something along the meaning of "What a nonsense/rubbish/fake". I had the (wrong) impression that scum (or a similar sounding word) would sum this up.
I've also edited my former post. I think scam is the word I had in mind.
[Updated on: Mon, 20 April 2009 14:07] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: SS ultimate strategy? |
Mon, 20 April 2009 14:49 |
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I guess it is hard for me to understand some of the concepts you are talking about because of the simple games and duels I am playing.
I just strikes me as wrong to use "treaty logic" to justify conniving and decietful behavior to damage an ally.
I guess I should be more paranoid in the future.
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| Re: SS ultimate strategy? |
Mon, 20 April 2009 15:01 |
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| vonKreedon |
| Lieutenant |
Messages: 610
Registered: March 2003
Location: Seattle, WA USA | |
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The type of game you are playing makes an enormous difference. If you are playing a game that allows team victory then your treaties have a whole different set of circumstances than if you are playing a sole winner game.
Some backstory, I regularly get annoyed playing sole winner games in which the number one player is obviously starting to run away with the end-game, but his allies won't exit the alliance because of various concepts of honor and such. This messes with my gameplay since I'm assuming that all active players are trying their best to be the one winner. This is really what brings me to this philosphical discussion about honor, gameplay, and treaties. So, in a sole winner game the treaties are IMO a means to the end of winning and not a goal in themselves, but, again IMO, too many people come to hold honoring the treaty in both letter and spirit above the goal of being the sole winner.
Many argue that the fundamental goal of the game is to have fun, and I completely agree. But to quote my son, "It's a lot more fun to win."
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| Re: SS ultimate strategy? |
Mon, 20 April 2009 15:13 |
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I guess in a single player winner game that would be understandable. you will not win unless you throw the dice a few times.
it's like they say "you can be a good man or a great man, but you can not be both"
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| Re: SS ultimate strategy? |
Mon, 20 April 2009 16:01 |
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| PaulCr |
 | Chief Warrant Officer 3
Stars! V.I.P
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Messages: 187
Registered: February 2007
Location: An Island that kinda look... | |
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You should always have an exit clause in any treaty you make so a backstab should not be needed. About the only possible time I'd consider a backstab is if I was pretty much forced into a treaty that I couldn't reasonably get out of, ie number 1 player forces you ally with him or he'll wipe you out, if you've been coerced into a treaty then I see no problem with attacking him without warning, with a proper negotiated agreement though you should activate the exit clause you've built in. There's nothing to stop you actually preparing before the exit clause if you can get away with it, ie ship building, positioning, consolidating key planets etc unless something about the agreement prevents it.
Of course the above is my opinion, there's generally nothing in the game rules to stop you backstabbing someone but if somebody does break a negotiated treaty I'd certainly move them to the bottom of the list of potential allies in any future game, I wouldn't rule out an alliance completely but I'd explore any other reasonable options first.
I would agree with VonKreedon that the aim should be to win but that's what the exit clause is there for, if someone is beginning to run away with the game then it's should be in your interest to activate it, although there could be strategic reasons to wait a while before doing so, usually to let the 2nd place player get beaten up for a while since there's no point exiting an agreement with the 1st placed player if it means the 2nd placed player will win instead.
[Updated on: Mon, 20 April 2009 16:04] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: SS ultimate strategy? |
Tue, 21 April 2009 11:52 |
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| vonKreedon |
| Lieutenant |
Messages: 610
Registered: March 2003
Location: Seattle, WA USA | |
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| PaulCr wrote on Mon, 20 April 2009 13:01 |
I would agree with VonKreedon that the aim should be to win but that's what the exit clause is there for, if someone is beginning to run away with the game then it's should be in your interest to activate it, although there could be strategic reasons to wait a while before doing so, usually to let the 2nd place player get beaten up for a while since there's no point exiting an agreement with the 1st placed player if it means the 2nd placed player will win instead.
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I argue that if the number 1 is starting to run away in the end-game then you should break/exit your alliance with him. Certainly if you are not the number 2 you want to try and arrange things so that the number 2 takes most of the damage and receives less of the benefit so that after you've pulled down the current number 1 there is at least less distance between you and the new number 1 (ok, now I'm flashing on the '60s TV series The Prisoner. "Who is number 1?" "You are number 6." "I am not a number, I am a free man!" "HAHAHAHAHAHA..."). Anyway, if you remain allied with number 1, and you are a known "no backstabs, ever" proponent, then he can concentrate on number 2 et al without worrying about what you might do to him and so allocating resources for that contingency. This makes it less likely that number 1's runaway train can be stopped. OTOH, if you exit your alliance with number 1, then he has to divide his focus even if all you do is play defense, and so greatly increasing the chance of derailing his train to victory.
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| Re: SS ultimate strategy? |
Tue, 21 April 2009 23:35 |
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| magic9mushroom |
| Commander |
Messages: 1361
Registered: May 2008 | |
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| vonKreedon wrote on Wed, 22 April 2009 01:52 |
| PaulCr wrote on Mon, 20 April 2009 13:01 |
I would agree with VonKreedon that the aim should be to win but that's what the exit clause is there for, if someone is beginning to run away with the game then it's should be in your interest to activate it, although there could be strategic reasons to wait a while before doing so, usually to let the 2nd place player get beaten up for a while since there's no point exiting an agreement with the 1st placed player if it means the 2nd placed player will win instead.
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I argue that if the number 1 is starting to run away in the end-game then you should break/exit your alliance with him. Certainly if you are not the number 2 you want to try and arrange things so that the number 2 takes most of the damage and receives less of the benefit so that after you've pulled down the current number 1 there is at least less distance between you and the new number 1 (ok, now I'm flashing on the '60s TV series The Prisoner. "Who is number 1?" "You are number 6." "I am not a number, I am a free man!" "HAHAHAHAHAHA..."). Anyway, if you remain allied with number 1, and you are a known "no backstabs, ever" proponent, then he can concentrate on number 2 et al without worrying about what you might do to him and so allocating resources for that contingency. This makes it less likely that number 1's runaway train can be stopped. OTOH, if you exit your alliance with number 1, then he has to divide his focus even if all you do is play defense, and so greatly increasing the chance of derailing his train to victory.
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Since when does this logical course of action require backstabbing?
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| Re: SS ultimate strategy? |
Wed, 22 April 2009 11:03 |
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| Micha | 
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Messages: 2342
Registered: November 2002
Location: Belgium GMT +1 | |
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| vonKreedon wrote on Mon, 20 April 2009 19:34 |
| Altruist wrote on Mon, 20 April 2009 02:57 |
Do you say that there are game rules and those should be followed? But rules which you have agreed to bilateral or multilateral within the game can be handled differently and thus broken for a backstab?
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Yes, I don't think that this is "weird logic". If the game rules say that CA must have 100 points to Surface Minerals and that all treaties are binding then someone who designs a CA race without leaving 100 points to Surface Minerals or someone who breaks a treaty are then breaking the rules. And, if the game rules say that each player must randomly break a treaty every ten years and a player doesn't break his one alliance because to do so would be suicide, he is also breaking the rules. OTOH, if the game rules say nothing about honoring treaties then either keeping or breaking treaties has nothing to do with breaking the rules.
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I agree with vonKreedon here; the host sets the rules, those you *have* to follow. Agreements between races with their rules are treaties between two different species, with their own racial or personal quirks. Those treaties are not made between *players*, but between the emperors, kings, ... or maybe even the pets of those races.
That's the theory ... in practise it becomes harder if you *let* it. When you have been allied with someone for 20-30 years, mix your game mails with stories about your kids, have become friends, ... things have changed, ... it's different and it's near impossible to not take things personal.
The way you go is a *decision* you have to make, it will depend on the game, your goal, your ally ...
For example the best alliance you can have to *win* (IMHO) is when you drop all role playing, don't mess around with quid pro quo (tech for tech and whatever) but both just share as much as they can, looking past each race seperately. With more or less equal races both will florish and benefit, and not in the least you don't have to spend hours and hours on writ
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| Re: SS ultimate strategy? |
Wed, 22 April 2009 14:20 |
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| vonKreedon |
| Lieutenant |
Messages: 610
Registered: March 2003
Location: Seattle, WA USA | |
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I did not read Eagle's message as saying anything about roleplaying, but rather that if you take ingame relations personally then you are making a choice that is not the only choice one can make. And that if you make the choice to take ingame relations personally that has ramifications both ingame and out of game. That is all I read.
Regarding your question to me about when an end-game backstab might be logically required given the option of using an exit clause:
- your long time ally is starting to run away with the game
- if you do not turn on your ally in the very near future you will lose the game
- you are substantially intersettled
- you have a long exit clause, say five years
- if you invoke the exit clause you can say with a high degree of certainty he will be able to concentrate enough force against you to crush your rebellion with little difficulty
- but, if you do not give notice you will be able to produce/have transferred to you enough forces for you to then gate into enough of your "ally's" major production centers to have a high likelihood of crippling him and giving you the time and space to effectively outproduce and outmaneuver your now very pissed off opponent and very possibly win the game.
In that very constrained set of circumstances I argue that you should at the very least seriously examine to possibility of executing a backstab, including sending out diplomatic feelers to the other races to see what kind of coordinated strike you might be able engineer to make the backstab's success more probable.
[Updated on: Wed, 22 April 2009 14:22] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: SS ultimate strategy? |
Wed, 22 April 2009 16:44 |
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| PaulCr |
| Chief Warrant Officer 3
Stars! V.I.P
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Messages: 187
Registered: February 2007
Location: An Island that kinda look... | |
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I'd expect to see any large number of ships that have suddenly decided without explanation to go either to a friendly planet with a gate or an enemy planet without destroying the starbase and would become suspicious and set you back to neutral and send a message explaining why. If you did manage to do that to me though I would no longer be interested in trying to win the game but would instead throw everything I had at you to cause the maximum possible damage, given we are intersettled as your scenario suggest and I'm supposedly the runaway leader, the chance of you then be able to win the game would drop to virtually zero. So instead of helping your long term ally to win who has presumably been helpful to you until that point you would have instead given the game away to one of your long term enemies who has presumably been doing everything they could to stop you from winning.
I can see a backstab being completely excusable if you've been coerced into an alliance but if the alliance has been mutually beneficial as it should be then a backstab is ridiculous when an exit clause exists, if it hasn't been beneficial then you shouldn't have been in it in the first place.
While I might not like my ally activating the exit clause I certainly wouldn't have the same venom for attacking him, with seperate territories I wouldn't go after him unless it made much more sense strategically, with intersettling however you pretty much would have to but if I was going to allow intersettling in my territory in a single winner only game it would be on condition that the alliance last until we are down to 3 players at best and 2 if we are pretty closely matched.
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| Re: SS ultimate strategy? |
Wed, 22 April 2009 17:31 |
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| vonKreedon |
| Lieutenant |
Messages: 610
Registered: March 2003
Location: Seattle, WA USA | |
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| PaulCr wrote on Wed, 22 April 2009 13:44 |
[SNIP] If you did manage to do that to me though I would no longer be interested in trying to win the game but would instead throw everything I had at you to cause the maximum possible damage, given we are intersettled as your scenario suggest and I'm supposedly the runaway leader, the chance of you then be able to win the game would drop to virtually zero.
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Yeah, as I noted the backstabee is going to be mightly pissed and you should assume that his focus is going to change from winning the game to preventing you from surviving to the end of the game. I think this is short sighted myself and have in fact used this tendency to help win a game, but that's another story. So, as I noted in my hypothetical conditions, your analysis of the situation would need to tell you that the backstab is likely to be massive and successful enough to keep the backstabee from wreaking his vengeance on you. You sure as hell don't want to wound the tiger; the only time a backstab would be worthwhile is if you are going to at least cripple and better yet mortally wound the target. If your analysis does not assure you of the probability of at least crippling your target, then it's not worth doing.
But really, the venom that goes into being attacked by your target usually has very little impact; you're going to be crushed by the run away number one if you do nothing, so having a crippled tiger stalking you to his detriment in all other areas of the game is a generally a better situation for you. While he focuses his white hot venom on attacking you and neglecting everything else, he is getting weaker and weaker as your new allies tear at his exposed flanks. The only real danger here is that your former and new allies quickly come to an understanding and all turn on you. Ouch, that would hurt a lot. Better have some risk mitigation in place for this before you go ahead with the backstab.
All in all this circles back to my assertion that backstabbing should be a very very rare event, requir
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| Re: SS ultimate strategy? |
Wed, 22 April 2009 17:51 |
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| PaulCr |
| Chief Warrant Officer 3
Stars! V.I.P
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Messages: 187
Registered: February 2007
Location: An Island that kinda look... | |
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The fact that people will react to it so badly is what stops it happening more often and I would actually call it a survival trait, if every game had completely anonymous players and email addresses it would happen a lot more often, the fact that people take it so badly is probably a genetic trait that developed to allow the human race to be able to cooperate with one another. If we just brushed it off it would be completely common place with everyone just doing whatever they liked and society could not function so we'd still be living in caves beating each other over the head assuming that is we hadn't been wiped out by a more evolved animal that we'd allowed to evolve in the meantime. We certainly wouldn't be playing stars so we wouldn't be having this conversation. Of course there are few people who seem to be missing the necessary gene but generally they are called psychopaths and have hopefully been locked up.
Going back to your scenario though, I'd still be completely logical in my attacks, it's just that now I'm doing whatever is best to wipe you out than to win the game, if trying to win the game was actually more likely to allow me to wipe you out then that's the route I'd take, if you've done your job correctly though that should be now impossible so my big fleet that you presumably avoided during your attacks is now going to target your spread out fleet and planets to do maximum damage and if I am running away with the game then I presumably already have a much bigger force than you do even if I have lost a half my planets and that will be going fully against you and you won't have enough to be able to stop it.
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| Re: SS ultimate strategy? |
Thu, 23 April 2009 02:26 |
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| magic9mushroom |
| Commander |
Messages: 1361
Registered: May 2008 | |
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| Eagle of Fire wrote on Thu, 23 April 2009 08:37 |
| Quote: |
Stars is not inherently a roleplaying game. Therefore, don't be such a snob at people who don't.
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STARS! is inherently a RP game. As soon as diplomacy come in, you have to communicate with the other players. And I don't know for you, but I'm no immortal galactic race leader in real life... So it's only a role for me. If you say that it isn't for you... Well, "we" might have a problem and have to place you in the aisle with the guys who think they are Napoleon.
People who don't want to bother with RP usualy don't want to bother with diplomacy either. Why, I can't understand... But it's their choice. And that is what I refered to the personal choice.
To be very blunt, if I ever realize that some players begin to pick up on other particular players simply because of incidental arguments such as old backstabs then I will probably begin to pick names and make a list of people I don't want to play with. And then avoid playing games in which they participate
I am simply not interested to play a multiplayer game with people who can't make the difference between real life and an online game...
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Hmph. Well, you'll find a lot of people on that list then.
I play to win, to test my skill against others. RP is occasional and sporadic for me. Stars! is a strategy game.
You're wrong that people who don't RP don't do diplomacy either - diplomacy is only rational if you want to win, and I'm enthusiastic about it.
And as I have been saying, players are different people, and their playing style will inevitably have similarities from game to game. Therefore, it is only natural to look at past experience when determining the expected utility of an alliance. Stick me right on that list, I'm proud of my reasoning abilities.
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| Re: SS ultimate strategy? |
Thu, 23 April 2009 02:29 |
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| magic9mushroom |
| Commander |
Messages: 1361
Registered: May 2008 | |
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| slimdrag00n wrote on Thu, 23 April 2009 09:04 |
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I am simply not interested to play a multiplayer game with people who can't make the difference between real life and an online game...
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Yeah. Everyone plays to win. You cant go on crying if you get back stabbed.( real life example) You wouldn't let your friend charge 10 grand on your credit card because he promises that he will play you back with interest.
Anyone who back stab's for no good reason (gaining nothing)is simply making an idiot move. Don't take it to heart. Its a game and your bound to get beat by anyone in the game even your allies are only using you. They are only allies because they are trying to gain something from you one way or another. Expect the unexpected. Wipe the tears.
People are going to win at all costs.. they dont play a stars game for 6 months to come in 2nd.
Be safe..
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I'm not one to "go on crying" if I get backstabbed. I'm just not one to walk blithely into a trap either. Golden rule, m'boy.
[Updated on: Thu, 23 April 2009 02:29] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: SS ultimate strategy? |
Thu, 23 April 2009 07:02 |
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Micha, you've summed it up quite fine. And with this differentiation of very close alliances on the one hand and tactical alliances "at a distance" I think we can all work a lot better (and understand each other a bit better).
| Eagle of Fire wrote on Thu, 23 April 2009 00:37 |
I am simply not interested to play a multiplayer game with people who can't make the difference between real life and an online game...
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Very true.
If you want to say or indicate that those who don't backstab can't differ between RL and a game.... mmh, as a matter of fact I have never experienced such a thing. But I've seen lots of backstabbers having a real problem of loosing in a game, taking it much too seriously, probably seeing themselves (unwarranted) diminished by the loss. It's unbelievable to what kind of swearing, cheating, abuse and backstabbing this can lead. But this experiences aren't from Stars! but from having been a Mod in a MMPOG. It's a prime reason why I play Stars, nicer older intelligent players.
Probably I am not the only one with such experience and this might very well be also the reason why all backstabber discussion get quite heated up. There is fear that this "attitude" which has destroyed so many good games out there, might poison Stars, too. And thus even a discussion about RP-backstabs or tactical backstabs in a there-can-be-only-one game always involves also the fear for the integrity of the whole game or rather not the game but the integrity of the player community.
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