Is this gamey?

[Roanon]

Well maybe not much, but at least a bit. Ok, no ship trades is a good solution also But no tech trades allowed is what I regard as the absolut minimum standard. With only ship trading allowed, you have to build the ship, trade it, move it to a shipyard to analyse, do the analysis - more time, not the otherwise possible instant exchange. Plus, you cannot ally tech-wise with someone from the other edge of the galaxy, and are limited to those who are near to - a natural, "healthy" limitation.

Of course, total dedictation to an alliance might lead to building shipyard-colonies within the other players empire to facilitate these trades. But these kind of alliances, from start to end at all costs, are another problem - I also think alliance victories should not be enabled. I favor Last man standing, where you have to beware who you are working together with and how closely.

Alliance victories possible and tech trades allowed reduces the game to a kind of "how many friends can I get together into this game". These kind of games are team vs. team in reality and not player vs. player - whoever wants to be the lone wolf there will surely loose if there is a minimum of competence in any team.

[PvK]

That would be nice, except you can gift shipyard bases easily enough, stacked with a shipyard base of your own, to allow instant analysis and building of tech example ships with no engines. All you need is diplomatic contact.

PvK

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Grandpa Kim:
And therein lies the truth about "team" victories. I have never seen a partnership where the partners are reasonably equal in strength. One member always seem to be way out in front of the rest, and he is the true victor. Even though its never stated, everyone knows this and its just the BMOC being gracious (and he probably has a monster empire that is a b**** to manage and doesn't want to go through the laborious end game.

You hit the nail on the head here Gpa. The problem as I see it is by giving the little hangers on the title of co-winner you elminate the incentive for them to eventually band together and take out the BMOC, or die trying. This severly limits the oppotunities for REAL diplomacy in the game. I don't consider the "Yes boss, whatever you say boss." stuff that goes on between the big guy and his lackeys as diplomacy.

While you say even though it's never stated everybody knows who the winner is, I honestly feel if it were stated openly the BMOC would have a much harder time recruiting his minions and keeping them loyal. Compare these two statements:

"Join me in a powerful alliance. We will defeat the other empires and rule the galaxy together."

or

"Join me in a powerful alliance. You will help me to defeat the other empires and I will rule the galaxy. As long as you don't go agasint me I won't destroy you and I will always know your assistance was an important part of my success and will think highly of you for it."

You might still get a few to join with the second, more honest statement, but likely not as many.

And the other question is would the BMOC have gotten as big as he did without the early absolute alliances and complete tech trading that goes on with the understanding of a team victory? Maybe, but it's doubtful in most cases.

Geoschmo

[Roanon]

As I said: if you don't mind who is owning a shipyard within your empire. Victory condition Last (single) empire standing, where teamgaming doesn't make sense, I would say this is not really common. But that is just guessing - I have not that much experience.

[DavidG]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
I don't have a problem with a little wheeling and dealing. But when it gets to the point where you have two or three empires and one is researching ships, one is researching weapons and one is researching shields and all trading what each of them gets, I have a problem.

First of all it's incredibly tedious and boring to me to do this.

Ditto. I find this tedious too because do to this requires way more time put into a game planning the tech each will do than I want to do. (if a turn takes me more than 15 or 30 mintues I'll just end it and hell with what I forgot)
The reason I like to ban it is to prevent 2 or 3 players from allying and trading tech like crazy and forgetting that it is a "Last man standing game" I suspect if players accepted that is was actually a Last man standing game then tech trading would not really be a problem.

It actually never really occured to me that players would think a game wasn't Last man standing if those were the victory conditions. I mean ganging up on one player is OK to a point. But ganging up on him and ending the game when he's done, well that's gamey (nudge nudge wink wink )

[teal]

I never really understood the idea that "if people understood that it was a Last man standing game they would be more hesitant to trade technology".

Assume there is a game with 4 players: A, B, C, and D. Further assume that in any conflict a player with superior skills and superior technology will defeat a player with inferior skill and technology (i.e. luck plays no part).

Now say A and B decide to form an alliance and trade technology. They will quickly defeat C and D who have poorer technology and then face off against each other. Since A and B have the same level of technology the one with the greater skill will win.

So the question of whether or not to trade technology with your ally boils down to one of skill. Do you think you are more skilled than your ally (or perhaps in a more favorable situation). If the answer is yes then you should trade and if the answer is no you should not. (actually you should trade anyways because C and D are going to trade anyways and you need to keep up with them, but let's not get into that). Due to some strange quirk of psychology most people feel that they are more skilled than their allies (although Garrison Kiellor might say something funny about that). So psychologically speaking most people will want to trade in this situation. Because this is so C and D are forced into trading with each other if they want to survive at all, much less be the Last one standing.

Also people who tend to think that they are unskilled (i.e. beginners) usually will not play to "win" the game via the Last man standing victory condition but rather rationalize that they are "winning" if they survive as long as possible against the others. So they will gladly trade even with an ally who is more skilled than them because it helps them survive longer than C and D even if they know they will eventually "lose" because of it.

So I don't think the Last man standing victory condition has anything to do with people's desire to tech trade or not. If tech trading is allowed a competitve player must do as much of it as they absolutely can in order to even have a shot at winning. And I agree that this aspect of the game is one that I really don't like and tend to avoid doing as much of it as I should even if I know it will mean I will lose.

[ July 30, 2003, 18:09: Message edited by: teal ]

[Loser]

Garrison Kielor?

[teal]

Back to the original question: Is gifting a planet to a doomed ally a gamey move?

I am with Geo on this. A lot depends on what the motivations and reasons for this are. If it is psychological in nature (for example if the game involves a group of friends playing who will have "bragging rights" and will relentlessly rib anyone who is eliminated then perhaps a subset of this group will act to avoid letting their ally be eliminated because they don't want to see their friend insulted outside of the game). In these sorts of cases I don't see anything wrong with the gifting of a planet.

Gifting the trade income back to the player who gifted you the planets is extremely gamey and exploiting an "unrealistic" bug and is not something that I would condone.

The whole problem here is not actually the gifting of planets, but is the way trade income works. The way it should work is the income derived should be the percentage of the smaller empires income, not each member of a trade alliance taking a percentage of their partners income. If it wasn't for the screwy way trade is implemented in SEIV then this whole thing wouldn't even be an issue. Also it is theoretically possible that someone had a wide ranging intercolonization agreement with their ally and because of this you are able to virtually wipe out an empire except for one or two planets which were deep in their allies space. Practically speaking, this is the same situation, but it is 100% not gamey.

Lastly to anyone who is listening... A game is certainly Last man standing unless explicitly discribed otherwise. However, I do wish that there was a way to end a game with a mutually agreed upon single winner say when one empire takes over 3/4 of the known galaxy and it is only a matter of time before the others fall.

[teal]

Originally posted by Loser:
Garrison Kielor?

I shouldn't refer to cultural icons since this is a worldwide forum. My apologies. I might have spelled his name wrong. He is the host of "A Prarie Home Companion" on National Public Radio in the U.S. where "All the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average"

[Fyron]

A game is certainly Last man standing unless explicitly discribed otherwise.

In your opinion, yes. That opinion is not shared by a very large portion of PBW players (perhaps 50/50). So, this is why things like this MUST be stated at game creation.