[teal]

Originally posted by Chronon:
Has anyone here ever played Avalon Hill's Diplomacy? Now there is a game that truly rewards backstabbing (it's almost impossible to win without backstabbing at least one player in the game). It used to be my favorite game, but I don't play it anymore because too many of my friends took it personally when they got backstabbed, and it started to carry over into real life. In comparison, I find the group of players on PBW quite honorable and forthright. Yes, backstabs do happen, but in my experience Partnerships really mean something in SE4. I find that very refreshing.

Well seems there are some other former Diplomacy players here. Not suprising given that the two games tickle many of the same parts of the brain...

I will take a different tack here and say that it is generally a bad move to backstab in Diplomacy and I won most of my Diplomacy games without backstabbing. Yes there are situations where it is a good move, but in general it is a bad move for many reasons involving psychology and more importantly "momentum" which I could go into depth about, but this is not the place to do so.

But this raises the question: "Is it a good idea to backstab in SEIV?" If we define winning in the normal way (to meet the victory conditions of the game), then will backstabbing (in general) help one achieve this goal or make it harder to reach this goal?

Some thoughts:

1) A backstab that allows the backstabbing player to meet the victory conditions of the game in one turn by definition helps them to achieve the goals of the game. But if you were in such a position you were probably going to win anyways so no need to soil ones reputation on PBW by backstabbing. So here it seems you should probably not backstab. And incidentally, tbontob missed a Category of player a while back by failing to include the player who will keep all of their agreements until it becomes crystal clear that keeping the agreement is the difference between winning and loosing (or perhaps that was player type 2? I wasn't entirely clear).

2) A backstab which gains some tactical short term advantage over an enemy but which does not contribute to any long term strategic goal. Such as moving ones fleet through the heavily defended warp point while having a TR treaty and then declaring war. (note I have yet to really experience a SEIV backstab so my comments are probably of little or no use!) IMO this is an extremely poor move. You will gain a reputation as a treaty breaker (in game and out of game too for whatever that is worth) which will make further negotiations with others in the game more difficult. And second of all the short term gains you are likely to make are easily offset by the coming counterattack and loosing the benefit of a peaceful front (remember that this is the backstab that is only tactically good, not strategically).

3) The backstab which is tactically beneficial (if it's not tactically beneficial why the beep are you doing it in the first place?) and has the added benefit of being strategically beneficial (i.e. it was directed at someone you needed to attack anyways). IMO this should never come up when playing with good opponents. It is their job to make sure that it is never in their allies interest to backstab them or to want to hurt them. Much more beneficial to work together to confront your common enemies. If at any time it becomes obvious that you must play in such a way that it then becomes in your allies best interest to attack you then as a good player you had better prepare for that attack. And backstabbing someone who is prepared for the backstab is by definition case #2 (you may gain a small short term tactical advantage, but if they were prepared then you will likely find the going tough and the strategic gains you hoped for likely will not be there).

So in my opinion most of the cases when backstabbing becomes an opportunity are actually poor to medium level moves. There still remains the case when your ally is not a good player (or is unable to be a good player in this particular game due to lack of resources or poor technology or something) and let's themselves get way out of position attacking your common foe and makes it so that by attacking them you are extremely likely to win the game. I suppose that will help you win the game but like I said earlier it shouldn't come up that often.

Just my two cents. I haven't really played enough SEIV to think this through enough and am in large part applying my Diplomacy experience to this game. Perhaps a bad thing to do. Any other opinions?