Re: Diplomacy ethics
 

Carebear is a pretty derogative term for people who have a different understanding of diplomacy.

Shall people who think diplomacy means anything goes be known as Nazis?

/godwin's law

Re: Diplomacy ethics
 

Well played, sir.

Re: Diplomacy ethics
 

Doesn't Machiavellian already have a poor enough reputation to be considered derogatory in many circles? Why do we need to go straight to the bottom?

Re: Diplomacy ethics
 

Foodstamp: That IRC comment is offensive. And I don't even know what you are talking about? How could IRC possibly cause this community to fail? I've been on IRC a few months and it's a lot of fun and a great way to make friends and learn about Dominions.

It's probably safe to say that less than 10% of the players here on these boards spend any time on IRC and it's only about 25 of us regulars. The interesting thing is it's heavily weighted to the hall of fame. Perhaps because you learn about the game 10 times faster there.

We joke about it because the IRC folks get slammed on these forums frequently. It's not like folks on IRC all agree or some kind of strange conspiracy. We argue everyday about everything.

Re: Diplomacy ethics
 

The word "gunboaters" is already there for people who think diplomacy mean nothing. And for people who do diplomacy when it suits them but canruthlessly take advantage of situations are called "machiavellians".

"Nazis" are reserved for people who are anal about following the rules to the letter even when they have no point or purpose (like the famous "White sets up first! Don't touch your pieces yet, you set up second according to the rules!" in chess, as if it made any difference who sets up first).

Re: Diplomacy ethics
 

That's BS.

Jarkko: I was just fulfilling godwin's law.

Re: Diplomacy ethics
 

Lighten up. I was kidding. The use of "totally" should have been an indicator.

I swear, oversensitive CareBears.

Re: Diplomacy ethics
 

I was unaware that "care bear" referred to anything outside of Diplomacy. That is where I learned and used the term. It was not necessarily derogatory, it was used to describe a method of play. I have never played a MMO and hope to keep it that way.

My point is that there is a time and place to keep your word, and a time not to. 99% of the time, you keep your word, or do not commit to anything. The other 1%, if it suited you, you broke it.

In Diplomacy, it you never, ever, ever, left your backside open. Here, if you do so, and someone moves in, they are called every name in the book. In Diplomacy, it was good play. You maximized your return for a minimum of time and effort.

Now, there was an opportunity cost to doing so. If you gained a reputation for not keeping your word, it was much hard to work out deals. In a game where everyone started with the same strength, that meant that you would have to give more than you received which put you in a worse position vis a vis the other players. The player I feared the most in Diplomacy was not the player who did not keep his word, it was the player that DID EXACTLY WHAT HE SAID.

To me, it is simple, you negotiate with the other player, if he stabs you, you make sure he does not win. You take him down with you. It is a valid tactic and makes sure that he does not reap a reward for his actions.

Someone who stabbed me and made a game changing play was respected. Sure, I hated the fact I got stabbed, but it led to him winning the game. Good for him, I should have made sure I was not a viable stabbing target. I think that is where people get upset is they do not like to think they did anything wrong. They want to point the finger at the player who stabbed and say he was not ethical, lied, whatever. For my line of work, the most important thing is your word. You never over-promise, you over-deliver. If I am on time, it means nothing to the customer. If I am a day late, I am garbage.

The flip side...

I have an NAP with country X, if I give three turns notice of cancelling the NAP, guess what happens... All of a sudden, I have a militarized border. If I just invaded, I get all these provinces for free! The reason why many people get upset when they are stabbed, is that they are putting all their eggs in another basket, and when they do not invest in any scouting activity to see what is going on somewhere else, in a presumably quiet sector, they get blindsided. In Diplomacy, if you saw someone massing on your border, you were talking to him constantly to find out his intentions. If you did not get an answer you liked, you took precautions against his potential moves.

The one game played with enforced diplomacy was not a fun experience. Had NAPs with several players, and then they all let them expire or gave the requisite notice and went after me. I tried several times to make deals and negotiate with them, all to no avail. A couple of them said that they could not call off the dogs on me because they had other NAPs, which were unbreakable, and had to keep expanding to keep up with X. To me, that is a bunch of hooey... But, by the rules of the game, they were correct.

Re: Diplomacy ethics
 

If the MMO usage of Carebear is derived from Diplomacy I think that is really cool. In an MMO it is someone who avoids player versus player by sticking to the safe zones or forming large alliances that completely eliminates the risk of losing in pvp. The latter is the extreme and is also called "zerging" (Starcraft reference).

Re: Diplomacy ethics
 

Regarding reputation carrying over games.

Personally I consider people who backstab when the opportunity arises to be clever and will surely be more careful of them in the following games. Those who honor agreements even to their death every single time I consider a gullible idiots that are mostly assets when they're allied with me, as then I can either have them fight with me or fight them when I feel like doing that.

That's really it. I do have diplomacy with people who I know backstab, the thing just is that you need to be in regular contact and watch them closely for when the tables change and it isn't profitable for them to have agreements with you anymore. Having specific hatred against a specifid player since you lost the last game is just ridiculosuly childish, and gladly the people I regularily play with don't do that.

Machiavellian diplomacy feels more real and is far more intriguing, but that's just my five euro cents.