A thought on the Talisman / Live on Pay-Per-View: Geo vs. Fyron

[tesco samoa]

all i know is that due to the time invested in playing a pbw game the talisman is either bull or bear....

I think it ruins a game in stock... but in mods where there is adjustments then i have no problem...

But it can be countered you just need 20 % and greater forces to do it

I personally do not like the talisman in stock. I perfer it as a mount with no damage or range bonuses. Or if its size and hit points are increased by 100 or 150 and its cost is tripled

But there are the counters to it... the Temporal Space Yard. The Replicant centre. They are unbalancing in their own ways but not as popular in the dicussions of unbalancing racial techs...

P.S. I do not hunt down and kill taliman lovers every game.... Only if I know that I think I have a chance in the mid game to get clobbered if i do not. Then i decide if it is worth the investment in the game.....
I have never played religous in a pbw game in my life... I have in solo games.... I always found the facilites to great to build right away ( their good but cost too much at the beginning of a game... so it kills my production as i just go click happy on them )

If there is ever a rth2 i will try one... as it makes sence in that game

[geoschmo]

I am no fan of the Tailsman myself. I used to think it was no great deal because of the research cost involved to get it, but too many people have learned more efficent colonization and research techniques now for that to still be true.

The biggest problem is not that it is undefeatable, because it is not undefeatable. But it takes a lot of effort to defeat. Personnaly I like to play the diplomacy game. I don't like big coaliitions early in the game. I like to have different alliances with different people over the course of the game and try to play one against the other. And I like to pick my allies and enemies on a geographical basis which I think is mroe natural for a strategy game. But having a tailsman player in a game takes that element out because you are forced to make alliances with everyone else and go all out to get them.

What has ended up happening to me in several games is we are able to knock off the tailsman player, but their presence has forced me to cooperate with a player that in a more natural game would have been my enemy. And allowing them to expand while I concentrate on the tailsman player ends up biting me anyway.

It doesn't bother me at all when the players in my games vote to ban the religious tech. I think the game is better without it.

Geoschmo

[Taera]

I still think that the religious tech tree is an awesome economical tech tree on its own, even without the talisman in it. Wouldnt it be better off with replacing the talisman with something less combat-related?

[Fyron]

Obviously my comments were directed towards a game in which only one person is the ultimate winner.

That is not how the vast majority of PBW games are, so you are specifically narrowing down the realm of possibility. Any non-team game can end if only the members of a particular alliance are left, and they agree to end it. They are all the winners in that event.

You said it's about using dimplomacy to get them on your side. That is in effect controlling them. You are getting them to do what you want are you not?

That is the goal of diplomacy, yes. It does not require any direct controlling of them though.

If you can somehow manipulate a player to do something that is counter to his interests in the game he has made a critical error. You cannot force him to make such an error.

Forming alliances is not an error.

Basically, you need to stop limiting the game to the specific free for all format where there is no possibility for allied victory, as that is the only context in which most of your arguments on the diplomacy issue make any sense at all. In the more general sense, forming alliances is a standard part of the game. Noone has to stand alone unless they want to or get really really unlucky. I have formed tons of alliances in all sorts of games, and there has never been anything forced about them. I never had to control them into allying with me. It was simply "want to ally?" and "Sure!" (usually more verbose than that, but that is the basic idea).

It is the difference between a flat, unequvocal statment and one with conditions and qualifications. My objection is to the unequvocal nature of your post, and so on that basis the two statments are worlds apart.

My initial statement was not a flat, unequivocable statement. It very clearly has a conditional qualifier on it, "used correctly". Those two words make all the difference. It may not be the qualifier you want to hear, but it is indeed there.

[geoschmo]

I am not narrowing the realm, your initial comment contained no such qualification. It made no comment to the fact of allies or not. Therefore the allies must be irrelevant for your statement to be correct.

My initial statement was not a flat, unequivocable statement. It very clearly has a conditional qualifier on it, "used correctly". Those two words make all the difference. It may not be the qualifier you want to hear, but it is indeed there.

Please, really. You need to get a grip on your own arguments Fyron. Are you really expecting us to believe that by "used correctly" you meant to include a choice to only use it in games in which team victory is an option? What you meant was clear and well understood by everyone that read it. "used correctly" infers skill, and preformance in the game itself. It says nothing to anyone about a selective decision in game settings prior to the game start.

And by what basis do you claim the vast majority of games are not Last man standing? Have you been in the vast majority of PBW games? I think I might have somehting of an educated opinion on this subject, seeing as how the PBW server just happens to be sitting in my garage at the moment. I have been in scads of games and the large majority of them have had one of two endings. Either one person prevailed alone, or the game pretty much petered out and everybody lost interest in it. Of course their have been a lot that have had "team victories", wether offically or unofficially. I will grant that my personal experience may be slightly affected by my own personal predillection away form team games. But I am involved in many more games as owner and as PBW admin then I actually play in, so I think I can claim to know what I am talking about here. The claim that the vast majority of games are not Last man standing is a particularly ignorant one to make.

Geoschmo

[Soulfisher]

But diplomacy (for the purpose of creating allies for you, the religious-tech player) will only work if you can find another player who is willing to ally with you -and- win the game with you as their ally (in other words, they are willing to share the victory with you). If all the players in the game want to be the sole victor, they may gang up on you to destroy you, then fight each other. Or they may ally with you against others, but then prove themselves backstabbers and attack you once your allied victory is assured.

[Fyron]

In that case you might be screwed. But, I never said that you are guaranteed to be able to make allies.

Just so you know, Geo and I took the discussion to MSN a while ago (and he had to leave before we could finish it)...