Before coming to another ethical topic I wanted to mention that I do in general _not_ like backstabbing and try to avoid it wherever I can. I would like to say I never backstabbed, but there have been situatuions in which it was not entirely clear who broke the traety first... I would of course say it werer the others, but well...

So... backstabbing can in general be considered unfair. But it rarely happens IMO. Something happening much more offen which annoys me a lot more is formation of large alliances quite early that fight all others who have no chance to defend themselves whatever they try. These alliances are formed, they attack everyone else, and after that they dont start fighting each other and just quit the game - and they do it also if it is a "last man standing" game.

Or some minor race helps the rank1 race without reason and makes it the winner, not caring for his own position, and the one wins because of this support, and others who play much better are defeated.

I hate this

You can of course say it is the fault of the others cause they could form an alliance to fight the alliance. But then I would not be much better than them and the overall situation would suffer cause it is like accepting it as normal - and it is not.

I personally try to have no more than 1-2 close allies, and if it is said last-man-standing I always include exic clauses in any form of pact, but in several games I was in people just give a sh** on such winning conditions and I just dont like that...

Any comments? I am the only one feeling like this?
Any suggestions what could be done about it?

Robert

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Robert wrote on Wed, 14 July 2004 15:58

Or some minor race helps the rank1 race without reason and makes it the winner, not caring for his own position, and the one wins because of this support, and others who play much better are defeated.

Quote:

Don't forget: it is about playing, not winning!

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Robert - I agree with your assessemnt, particularly the strangely loyal to the end behavior in a last man standing game. In a couple of games I have worked myself into position to effectively challenge the number one player only to fail because the number two or three player refuses to turn on the number one, thus giving up any chance of winning the game themselves.

I use diplomacy alot in my gameplay. As part of that I count on players acting in their best self-interest to win the game. I get all screwed up when players don't play to win.

IIRC, There was a time recently where I was the number four or five player, thanks to Robert nuking many of my planets in the mid-game , and had no chance whatsoever of winning. In that game I stuck with my alliance to the number two player so as to defeat Robert . But I was surprised in that game not to be approached by Robert in hopes of turning me from my ally.

[Updated on: Wed, 14 July 2004 13:53]

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vonKreedon wrote on Wed, 14 July 2004 17:44

Robert -IIRC, There was a time recently where I was the number four or five player, thanks to Robert nuking many of my planets in the mid-game , and had no chance whatsoever of winning. In that game I stuck with my alliance to the number two player so as to defeat Robert . But I was surprised in that game not to be approached by Robert in hopes of turning me from my ally.

Uhoh.... I remember.... It was me and Blue Turbit fighting this huge alliance of several players... I remember you being the IS? And then the Grendal SS, the Krugers, some others...
If I remember correctly it was simply that to some real life problems I had not much time to spend on the game. Being SD with hundrests of minefields/layers did not make it easier.
Guess it was just the lack of time... Too bad, I know I enterd some stupid battles and lost my fleets... naaa.... learned from that

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Robert wrote on Wed, 14 July 2004 16:58

I hate this You can of course say it is the fault of the others cause they could form an alliance to fight the alliance. But then I would not be much better than them and the overall situation would suffer cause it is like accepting it as normal - and it is not. I personally try to have no more than 1-2 close allies, and if it is said last-man-standing I always include exic clauses in any form of pact, but in several games I was in people just give a sh** on such winning conditions and I just dont like that... Any comments? I am the only one feeling like this? Any suggestions what could be done about it?

Robert, trust me you're not the only one feeling like this! Very recently this subject popped up again when talking to a friend and fellow Stars! player ...

What to do about it?

As player: not much. You can try all the diplomacy you want and would still not be able to change somebody's mind ... (for who knows what for in-game or Real Life reasons)
And forming a large alliance yourself to face theirs is what I really hate, I'll try to avoid that as much as possible.

As host: limit the number of friends/neutral/enemies one can have. I tried this, and have been in other games like that but people will still try to find ways around it, trying to tech trade anyway or simply share info ... The in-game "enemy" setting and the setting in someones mind can be two different things ...
Also limiting relations there is the downside that in a game where it is allowed to have a 2-player victory that those 2 players form a too strong alliance. Limitations in player relations (for example: "only one friend, one neutral, rest enemy") would prevent the other players to form an alliance of the right size to take them down ... In that case you would _want_ such a large alliance ...

You might want to try limiting player relations according to rank ... Player#1 isn't allowed to have any friends while the player in the last spot can have everyone as a friend ...
Or have a decreasing number of friends while the game progresses, so for instance in 2400 you can have 50% of the races set to friend, in 2450 25% and in 2475 everyone would be on his own. This would mean an alliance of #1 and #2 would _have_ to break up.
#1 and #2 would probably have gotten that far thanks to eachother and would be heavily intersettled, at least in a game without restrictions, they would be more careful in a restricted game ... This will bring forth some changes in gameplay which you (not Robert, but the general you) may not like, and might even find worse than those hated large alliances ...

All enemy games are fun, but again one excellent player (luck, skill, whatever) in the game and you might not be able to bring it down because of the relations limit ...
I prefer teamgames and "all enemy" is now a standard rule in my games. If you already have 2-3 teammates (better than allies!) why would you want more? Allying with another team would mean you would get close to having an alliance of half the races of the universe.


To end: Restricting player relations prevents people from forming large alliances and start to beat up everyone. But sometimes you need a big alliance if you see there is a runaway leader, if your only other option is to concede the game. And you can only hope that the alliance (when there is no restriction) will break up again after the #1 has been taking care off. That's the most tricky part, most of the times players might see the defeat of #1 as "mission accomplished", don't start fighting amongst theirself and end the game without a "winner".
Limiting player relations would bring such a game to an early end because of the #1 being unstoppable.
So it is not a perfect solution ... Maybe the friend limit per rank would help here ... ?

mch

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Nothing helps against large alliances with 100% efficiency. Victory conditions like "last man who is not on knees or the score leader at 2550" help quite well. Even these are not as safe as they seem at first glance however.

So here is the strategy for large alliance haters:
1) Join games where solo victory is the only option.
2) Form as large alliances there as possible.

3) Kill isolationalists.

4) Destroy other alliances.

5) Agree with your allies that you win anyway.


There are piles of stories like "i was #4 and could not turn that #2 against #1 whatever diplo i tried". So what? Probably there were #3, #5 etc?

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vonKreedon wrote on Wed, 14 July 2004 16:44

Robert - I agree with your assessemnt, particularly the strangely loyal to the end behavior in a last man standing game. In a couple of games I have worked myself into position to effectively challenge the number one player only to fail because the number two or three player refuses to turn on the number one, thus giving up any chance of winning the game themselves. I use diplomacy alot in my gameplay. As part of that I count on players acting in their best self-interest to win the game. I get all screwed up when players don't play to win.

Most players are unwilling to take on a much stronger opponent, even if a lot of them could gang up together. It's human nature and happens just as much in real life than in Stars!

Think of it this way; a terrorist is pointing a gun at you, and tells you to pick up a shovel and dig a grave. You know that as soon as you are done he is going to kill you and shove you into it, so you have nothing to lose by fighting back, right ? How many people would fight though ? Not many of us.

Building a "kill the leader" coalition is probably amongst the more important stratgies in the game. There is generally a huge amount of reluctance and inertia to overcome. Many players do like to play "fair" and need an excuse to go to war; "you are going to win unless I attack you" is not "nice". In addition, any weak player who attacks a strong one is bound to be worried about what they are bringing down on their heads.

It is frustrating if you can't build the coalition (I was in that situation in my last game), but blaming it on others is unreasonable. It's the way people are and failing to overcome that is just a sign that your diplomacy could have been better.

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vonKreedon wrote on Wed, 14 July 2004 17:44

Robert - I agree with your assessemnt, particularly the strangely loyal to the end behavior in a last man standing game. In a couple of games I have worked myself into position to effectively challenge the number one player only to fail because the number two or three player refuses to turn on the number one, thus giving up any chance of winning the game themselves. I use diplomacy alot in my gameplay. As part of that I count on players acting in their best self-interest to win the game. I get all screwed up when players don't play to win.

Probably one of those games you are referring to was WKF:TLC (Wild Knife Fight : The Legend Continues).
Solo victory game, I ended up in a four player alliance stumping a smaller race, once I realized what was happening (I didn't talk much to other races since the more you talk the less you are inclined to attack them later!!!) I bailed out as fast as I could (away from that 'large alliance'). Helped the smaller race and made him my ally (needed him to get weap tech since I had weap expensive, experimental race). Heavily at war with one race (the biggest I could find, or did he find me? ), more or less neutral to others and somewhere got #1.

My ally was one of those you couldn't get to join against me, the reason had nothing to do with the game or Victory Conditions, the 24h schedule was too much for him and he'd like the game to be over, same for me since I just became a father a week or so before the game was decided to be over ... Should he have joined you the game would have gone on for several more years ...
So in this case the game was decided by Real Life issues ...


But we already talked about this more than a year ago, here, so sorry to repeat.

That time it also started from a post from Robert with about the same content as now. So those large alliances will keep being a problem?

The host can try but in the end it depends on the players attitude (if that's the right word) towards the game ...

mch

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My complaint is not with large alliances, or even with players who have no hope of winning staying loyal to an alliance with number 1.

Large alliances are a lot of work, assuming that they are actively cooperating vs. passive mutual NAPs. Large alliances are often necessary to bring down a race that has acheived monster status. But the purpose of the alliance is to defeat the monster or another alliance and so, assuming that the game parameters specified that there can be only one winner, once the alliance has met the goal of defeating the enemy there should be a re-shuffling of alliances as the members position themselves to be the ultimate game winner. I fairly often find myself allied with the former number one player that I just help pull down.

If the number two or three players are allied with the number one player they should be looking to the exit clauses in their treaties while negotiating other alliances to bring down the number one. For the number two and three, or even four and five in a closely contested game, to stay allied with the number one in the end-game defeats the point of a Last Man Standing style of game. I understand and agree with Micha's point about RL intevening and taking precedence in such game decisions, but the point of a LMS game is still undermined when the players do not play to win.

If a player knows that he is completely out of contention then it is completely understandable why he would simply stick with his current alliance, even if it is with the number one player. The gaming problem I have is with those who have a shot at winning if only they will be strategic risk takers, but who refuse to take the risk in breaking their alliances in order to try and win.

I tend to play in drawn out games and that has much to do with my playing style. I'm most comfortable in the number two position until some point in the end-game. I try and build coalitions to take down the number one player and position myself to then have an advantage over my allies. I look for the long term rather than the quick kill, and so play HP rather than QS races. This likely makes me more prone to complain when I cannot persuade potential coalition members that their best interests are in allying with me against their current ally and number one player. Poor me.

[Updated on: Thu, 15 July 2004 13:41]

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[Updated on: Thu, 15 July 2004 14:02]

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[Updated on: Thu, 15 July 2004 19:00]

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multilis wrote on Thu, 15 July 2004 14:59

If we were going to have some system where #1 was not allowed to have friends but #2 was, I can just see #1 building large freighters in orbit to pull his pop back from 50% to 33% per planet. Now that he has only 2/3 of his previous resource count, he moves into #2 position and everyone gangs up on the former #2 who is now "#1". It could get funny as everyone races to strip pop off all their worlds to compete for a lower score.

Good point,obviously IS would love such a situation. I did this once in a PPS game where I was trying to hold a coalition together against the number one.

[Updated on: Fri, 16 July 2004 00:08]

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multilis wrote on Fri, 16 July 2004 16:57

So what if as Mr. Newbie, my neighbour Sotek attacks me 2420ish and squashes me? Would I be lost to community?

No. You learn how important it is to be strong early.

Quote:

Or what if I manage to take the lead, then every other player gangs up on me so I get squashed without a chance and #2 wins as VanKreedon tries for?

Again, you learn that being #1 is not the most important thing if you want to win it.

Quote:

Or I am a warmongerish QS and everyone unites to stop my rampage?

You learn that you must pay more attention to diplomacy ... with a QS, -f or whatever.

Quote:

Imagine you play month and half in 8 player game... year is 2425 you are #3 and see that there #1, #2 and #4 have formed a strong, pw-sharing alliance and refuse any diplo, #5 and #7 are fighting each other (yakimora DD-s, pop drop) #6 and #8 dropped out so the leading alliance is vulturing their space. What you do?

And you have nothing to do, nothing to learn ... game is spoiled at 2425 and you invested month and half into playing it.

See the difference?

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[Updated on: Fri, 16 July 2004 12:02]

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[Updated on: Fri, 16 July 2004 12:06]

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multilis wrote on Fri, 16 July 2004 18:05

Fine you are a QS surrounded by HPs. No one wants to fight, everyone will gang up on you if you attack anyone. No alliances at all. Going to suicide against anyone or drop out or be toast when the HP eccons have twice the resources and all see you as weak easy prey?

Been there... done that. You are the only wolf in lamb universe? Thats joy! Use your QS power into spreading out and taking/securing planets. Use your QS power in territory talks. These HP-s are so sweetly agreeable. Do not attack directly if noone starts to object too harshly. Check what HP-s have most similar habs and try to make them into disagreement with each other. Ally with one as supporter against another. Kill another. Take more space than your ally, since you fight most of the war... etc. With QS one has surprizingly good econ when compared to HP-s you just need to take all the (deep yellow etc) planets you can.

Oh yes you are the one who names -f as QS too. If you got -f in HP universe then kill them all 4 of your neighbours by 2450. Maybe leave one if it has hab that fits with yours. See if you have less econ than the rest of universe at 2450. I didnt. Most important is to drop their scouts and colony fleets early and keep them small and easy to kill.

It all is fun and irrelevant comparing how large alliance of top races is not fun.

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