New game - The Art of War, Fight!

[Calahan]

Originally Posted by TheDemon

You know what, I kind of disagree that anything went badly this game. Having a game go to turn 38 without anyone going AI is a huge accomplishment, and while we had one person "give up at the first sign of defeat", I think that the rules laid down for this game have been hugely successful at preventing dropouts.

I agree.

I personally think this game has been a great success, and certainly the most competitive all-round I've ever played in. I split the credit for this between the game rules and WingedDog's great efforts to find subs. As without the latter we would have lost quite a few nations already by now.

But 37/38 turns without the AI appearing smashes my previous record on that front to pieces. This is even more impressive when you compare this to a game like Legends of Faerun, where about 1/4 of the players had been lost by turn 25. Although that's an unfair comparison, as you have to factor in the Baalz's +17 curse aura when talking about the drop-outs in Legends.


It will be very hard to get a game where all the players are evenly matched skill wise, as even amongst vets and noobs the skill levels vary quite a bit I think. And nation pick will be critical in this factor as well. The only way I can see it happening is in blitz games of 4-5 players, but they are less fun to play IMO. But apart from the recent Man incident, I don't think any war in this game has been won cheaply so far (indeed, most of the 'wins' haven't even been 'won' yet).

I personally think that any game, regardless of map or players, can be resonably balanced and hard fought as long as each player fights until the bitter end. And the end as in the 'proper' end, not just the point where a player decides they can no longer 'win' the game or war, so start flicking the 'Bail-Out' switch. As mentioned above by Agema, something like barricading yourself in your capital and summoning anything and everything to keep the walls up can have a dramatic effect on the game, and can sometimes add 10+ turns to a conquerors invasion timetable.


One of the most unbalancing things for games IMO is when a player takes a hopeless 'I'm going to lose, so may as well throw everything at them to try and break the siege' approach. Since that is effectively what the AI does nine times out of ten, and one of the main reasons AI's appearing unbalances games so much. The result of this action is mostly always that the sieging army captures the fort many turns quicker than is should have done, and probably for far less casualties as well.

But I think many players just see this convenient kamikaze option as the quickest way out of a game they are losing, since they can easily justify going AI if they've just had all their troops killed. Which is a decision they themselves, not their opponent, decided to take. Empty forts are pretty easy to capture by all acounts, and I don't recall the soldiers at Rorke's Drift (as one of many examples) charging out to meet their enemies when they appeared at the gates.

Going down in a 'Blaze of Glory' may appear to be a fun way to die, but it is never a good thing for game balance IMO. And it's pretty illogical to me that when your enemy asks "Please can you come out of your fort so we can kill you all?" you respond "Ok, I'll be right there".