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Well I don't know if I would call it cheating, but it is really unpleasant to be on the receiving end.

I wish I could help him out but my research stinks and I am on the other side of the board.

Finally, I don't think Caelum is part of the alliance and it sounds ( again I do not have 1st hand knowledge ) that Jotunhiem only has a treaty with Man.

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Turin:
I don't know the specifics of your other game, so I'm not sure by what you mean by very early. Bear in mind also that this game is VH research., in my case, I was no where near being able to field a non-undead force before turn 2x, especially considering that Ulm had outbid me for the merc bands. Though I admit, I am new to this game, someone else would probably have done better.

In THIS game, Ulm and Man both essentially rushed towards my start, templing all the way in order to show up at my door with a priest horde. That is a tactic that is only possible if you have assurances from your neighbors that they will support you. The ONLY thing that strat is good for is removing Ermor early.

In the case of man, easy neutrals were bypassed in an effort to go straight towards my starting territory. From what I've heard, the turn files of this game will be available at the end. Check them out and see how legit it looks to you, it is possible that I'm way off base. If I am wrong, I apologize, and will happily do so again.

I had thought the whole thing was an amazing coincidence until I:

1) more fully scouted man and ulms territory and noted their expansion patterns.
2) visited the QT3 Boards- to congratulate Ulm on a game well played- and found out that all 4 of the guys who've been fighting me hang out in the same spot, and a fifth guy (Jotun) said he hopes that the other nations leave alone those nations fighting ermor and those nations supporting that fight- implying that he was supporting an effort vs Ermor.

Caelums involvement... may be coincidental, may not be. The timing of his attack is suspect, though his army is of a more realistic composition.

As Ermor, I expected to lose-but have some fun doing it, I expected to have no friends, and to come into conflict with multiple players. What I did not expect was the apparently pre-meditated attention, and the amount of coordination involved -5 players??? who in their right mind wants to go 1v5 from turn 1?

Will the cooperation end once Ermor is gone? Maybe.. or maybe it will have to be re-visited to deal with the next one on the hit list. The important thing here is that you have a block of 4 (formerly 5) players all acting in concert, from the game's beginning. This needed to be publicized.

Was it one group of 5? Or 2 Groups of 2 and an opportunist all working the same direction? I am not sure. Does that distinction matter? I think it might, but again, I'm not sure.

'Cheating'? I would say no. Bad form? I think it is, and it doesn't matter what side of it I am on. Though this was only my second MP dom2 game, maybe this stuff is par for the course.

If this is a problem with all fixed start maps... it really blows.

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With very early I mean turn 5-6. It is a game with very hard research and 6 starting provinces.
I managed to hold out with lots of wraith centurions, the fatigue effect form cold 3, my dominion of 10 guaranteeing my wraith centurions immortality and luck( getting militia events in besieged castles etc) .
The problem with ermor is that the armies continually grow without ermor having to pay anything for it.
That means lategame it´s really hard to breach castle walls, especially once ermor has access to ghostriders and can wipe out any nonserious army for a very low gem cost.

If you play ermor vs good players, they will gang up on you early. If you don´t like that fact play a different nation.

You even say that you expect to have no friends and be attacked by multiple players. Why should they wait to attack you in a game with indie strength 9?

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Turin: You may be right.

This was not a case of me thinking people should "wait to attack", heck, I was the one who attacked first. There is a difference between aggressive expansion and what has happened this game.

But hey, none of that matters. In the spirit of aggressive, out of game diplo being the mark of a 'good player', I'm still looking for allies.

I know.. if I was really good, I'd have handled this diplo stuff prior to game kick off, but I'm still learning http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

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I suggest that you get over yourself instead of whining that people have a planned alliance. There was no mention made of any silly house rules about alliances, so you should assume that people will ally as they see fit. It would make no difference anyways if they had allied before the game started, since any good player who looked at that map would see that you should ally with Ermor's neighbours and rush them early.

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Why are you playing Ermor on a map that sticks Ermor right in the middle of 5 enemies if you don't want it to be 1 vs 5 from the first turn? Your starting position is not a secret, and any living nation will certainly want to get rid of you or bottle you up in less than a dozen provinces before turn 20 if they can do it.

I never cease to be amazed at the behaviour of people who complain when they lose to an alliance. That's the nature of the game, and if you don't work the diplomacy angle you will end up losing.

It's not bad form. It's perfectly acceptable, standard, expected behaviour in a game that rewards you well for taking out an opponent early.

Well, then as a complete MP newbie, you shouldn't really have expected to Last more than a couple dozen turns against competent aggressive players anyways.

The problem is that you see it as a problem. It's not hard to create a coalition of 5 nations to agree to take out Ermor early once you know where they are, and it's really easy to find them given only a small amount of cooperation.

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Graeme:
Thanks for the feedback.

Though I am new to Dom2, I'm not new to multiplayer strat games in general. The "ok, let's goon-squad that guy" tactic is pretty universal across every strat game I've ever encountered, with pretty much the same results.

I'm going to take you at face value here and assume that you're right about Ermor being some kind of hostility-magnet, though In the Euro-wars 2 game- my first MP one, that did not seem to be the case.

Tell me experienced Dom2 guy:
Am I a 'good player' if me and 4 buddies decide we're going to take out playerX before any of us have contact with him/her? And when we do so.. is playerX a poor player if he/she calls us on it?

I'm just making sure here, if I read you right, your answers to the above should be yes and yes.

Also:
I'm not trying to throw stones here. I am new to this game, and this community. This particular game has been a negative experience for me. I would like to know the 'ground rules' you people go by so I can make my decision as to whether this hobby is really for me or not. So far, it looks like more than one player are under the impression that Ermor is not defeatable 1v1, so alliances are mandated, what other nations have that stigma? Also the diplo... what is the accepted standard? Always team with people I know/like outside of the game? Diplo by national preference (ie Marignon vs Ermor)? Or Diplo as to what is actually advantageous for my country at any particular time?

Thanks,
Crash.

*Grame: Completely unrelated question: What game were you checking out that you reg'd here in 2000? *

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My opinion is to pretty much ignore anything Graeme Dice says, as his advice is typically quite poor. You can see from many of his past Posts that he is frequently in the minority on lots of issues. Also, he loves to flame people unnecessarily.

ANY pre-game alliances should be announced before the game starts so that the other players can decide whether or not to play that way and form their own counter-alliances. Anything else is highly unethical. The best you can do as a response is tell everyone when it occurs (like you did) so that other folks know the truth about certain people. Of course, players can always change their handles and do it again. And unfortunately, there are far too many 'Norfleets' in the multi-player gaming communities who have to win at all costs. At least there seems to be fewer of this type in Dominions than there are in Starcraft and many other games.

A possible solution to the pre-game alliance problem is for the developers to come up with a team concept in addition to the standard FFA scenario. I doubt this will happen anytime soon, though.

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Well, since I've yet to see any useful advice from you, I'll simply return the favour.

You really like to whinge, don't you. I flame people who deserve it, and right now, you deserve it.

Go cry me a river. If there are no house rules about pre-game diplomacy, then anything goes. If you want to play a different type of game, then start your own and make the players anonymous.

That's right, since it isn't actually a problem.

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That means that you're good at diplomacy, which is the single most important part of the game.

No. A player who complains about in-game alliances is whining however when there are no pre-game rules about alliances.

I don't see why it's a negative experience. In any given Dom2 game, only 1 out of the 17 people will win. As such, you shouldn't expect to win more than 1/17 games at the most, and losing early simply means that you can move on to more games.

It's not that people think that Ermor can't be defeated, it's that Ermor permanently depopulates the provinces. People attack them because they want to keep you bottled up in a few provinces for as long as possible.

Make alliances with whoever you want, whenever you want.

Space Empires IV