Re: PBW - Loosers Who Quit
There is a related concept that I would also add to this thread, that I discovered the hard way.
In some games, when RL intrudes, a player will want to quit. That's fine, of course. But if done poorly, can lead to problems.
I was in one game where I was in such a situation - I was the #2 empire due to the surrender of another empire to me a bit before. The war that had resulted in that surrender was between myself and a number of allies (they did the hard work, and I just got smacked around) -- but the player surrendered to me not them. So, some turns go by, and RL is intruding on my gaming, and so I decided to get out of the game.
From the beginnging of the game my empire had cooperated closely with another empire, we were very close allies, and so forth. And, I was number two, and they were number, like, Last. So, when it came time for me to get out of the game, I thought a lot about it and I thought that if I were to merge my empire with theirs it would make sense from a roleplaying, historical, and strategic point of view.
Note to all: what you may think is perfectly clear from your perspective can be perceived very differently by other players.
When I did this, a couple players raised holy h*ll, got angry, and there were bad feelings. I put the game on hold, backed off my idea, and tried to explain my reasoning, but, really, my reasoning wasn't the problem, it was, I think, more the WAY in which I did it. In retrospect I should either have just opened up the empire for the AI or a replacement player, or slowly and moderately explained why I thought it was a good idea to merge the empires. After a while of listening to others get angry at me, I got defensive and p*ssy, and so I went ahead with my original plan and merged my empire with my ally and got out of the game.
I have always prided myself on my "honourable" approach to gaming - I won't backstab, break my word, start wars without cause, etc...and so when this happened I was very much taken by surprise by people's anger . The point being: even getting out of a game can go wrong if it is done poorly, which happened in this case.
In the end, I think it all worked out, since it gave the remaining players a chance to go to war and take over my former empire, which they had probably wanted to do for a while, but my point remains: quitting can be a touchy business, and it is better to not assume your reasons will sit well with others. Good rule of thumb is to not merge empires, even if it makes sense from your perspective.
Alarik
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