POLL: Backstabbing

[Gryphin]

Pax and David
I think you both understand what the other has said.
Pax has define "win" for himself. He knows his "Have Fun" wins will never get recorded as a win on a table anywhere. That does not matter to him.

David has chosen the "standard" defination that most of us accept when used in most conversations. (do you think I put enought qualificaitons in?)

Backstabbing -
What we have done her is established our style of play. I'd suggest to all people going forward that they develop a stock set of agreements on how treatys can be canceled, make them clear to anyone who they make a treaty with and make clear the consequenses of such a violation.

This is not a matter of villifying a drive to win. It is a matter of what some people do and do not feel is an acceptable style of play.

AH Dimplomacy?
Henry Kissenger make it required playing for his class at Harvard.

[Roanon]

Originally posted by Gryphin:
Pax has define "win" for himself. He knows his "Have Fun" wins will never get recorded as a win on a table anywhere.

Winning in a game = achieving victory. No sense to talk around it.
Of course, one can - and most of us surely will - get other gains, or "wins" from a game. Otherwise we all would consider lost games as a waste of time, and at least I still remember games (not SE) that I had *lots* of fun even though I lost.

Backstabbing -
What we have done here is established our style of play.

Do we really ? ? I doubt it... I still play to win not to become master in treaty-keeping. Guess old Dippy (AH Diplomacy) habits die hard

I'd suggest to all people going forward that they develop a stock set of agreements on how treatys can be canceled, make them clear to anyone who they make a treaty with and make clear the consequenses of such a violation.

What consequences? Do you want to organize and legitimize cross-gaming as means of enforcing some personal and subjective view of how to keep and break treaties?

This is not a matter of villifying a drive to win. It is a matter of what some people do and do not feel is an acceptable style of play.

Any style of play that does not violate letter and spirit of the rules is acceptable. Even if you or I do not like it. And there is no rule in SE4 that makes treaties rock-hard and unbreakable. Or even difficult to break. Which makes PERFECT sense. Otherwise, it would have been easy to program things like "periods of enforced peace" or similar.

In that case, we just would have to play the first 20 turns of any given game and then look who has got the most profitable treaty partner. I do prefer a game where strategy and tactics is the main challenge, not diplomacy and treaty-making. Making treaties too reliable makes them too effective and dominating the game. For similar reasons, I will not play games where tech trading is allowed.
If you have different preferences I can understand and tolerate it, but please do not try to spread them over all PBW. If you want, make a special treaty game with special rules so that I can avoid it but please don't say we have "established a style of play" and try to force it onto others.

[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?

[Iggiboo]

The question should be asked, when is a backstab, really a backstab. In several games I've moved large fleets through my ally's space without notice. Of course he felt I was gonna backstab him and asked me about it, I said I was just moving a fleet around an enemy for an attack because that what I was doing.

He didn't accept that answer and attacked my fleet.

On one level, he felt I backstabbed him.

On another, I felt he backstabbed me.

Backstabbing boils down to trust of each other. Nothing more, nothing less.

[jimbob]

Wow! And I just play the game to stay alive

I've been playing a lot of P&N games where "classical" victory can be very very difficult, if not impossible. Also playing a B5 game, where the two Ancient Races are so much more powerful, that victory cannot be defined as one race predominating/conquering the universe. Instead players will have to be satisfied with one "side" forcing the other into submission. I guess I either choose these types of games because i) I'm an egotistical optimist who thinks he can overcome any challenge (do the impossible, acheive the classical victory where it isn't possible), or ii) I'm not in it for the classical "win".

I'll submit that when I play chess, I'm in it for the win, but something like P&N... I'm just happy to successfully board a freighter and demonstrate to the occupants the correct usage of the airlock system What's Imperator Fyrons signature? "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how much pain you cause along the way". It's just so satisfying to recieve a message from the Uber-Race's diplomat, begging on bended knee "gee willickers, can I please have my colonyship back now Mr. Pirate"

Now, back to my Ego, Ergo and why I love my mother

Edit: Oh, and if I'm in first or second place, I see no reason why I shouldn't have many long knives protruding from my back!

[ June 07, 2003, 18:38: Message edited by: jimbob ]

[Roanon]

@Teal:
well said. I totally agree.

If you can't backstab in a critical way that moves you up several positions in the game, then it's not worth it - this is not a real backstab but just a breach of trust and treaty. These small stabs are remembered and usually give a negative image.

On the other hand, a "real", artfully executed backstab, turning the victim within a few turns from a strong empire into a crippled unorganized mass of armies/countries (Dippy) or fleets/planets (SE) or whatever, is a joy to see - even from the receiving end . These too are remembered but at least from my point of view and my experiences do not necessarily give a negative image to the player, rather the opposite.

[Stone Mill]

So may well stated presentations in this thread... I can't begin to credit them all.

I'm quite surprised this topic has not come up earlier.

I've played Diplomacy... as well as Shogun? (the board game) which really focuses on alliances, diplomacy and the human element. Ive won, and lost. Backstabbed, and was the recipient.

I believe in all cases, the person (including me) that was backstabbed agreed that it happed because their position created a savory opportunity for another player, based on their lack of security behind their policy. I can tell you that I have been the strongest ally and worst enemy of the same people.

Quite often during a game we find ourselves chuckling... "Oh so you're trying to pull that stunt again, are you?" Sometimes, it's like splitting ions to separate a strategy from a player, try as we may.

And actually, for those who are put off of the backstabbing / political element, KOTH is the place to be. (I believe DavidG has mentioned this).

[ June 07, 2003, 21:34: Message edited by: Stone Mill ]