Scorched earth

[KissBlade]

There's nothing wrong with scorched earth. Heck that's the entire advantage of LA Ermor. (oh look you conquer and get nothing) Personally it's happened to me quite often and I've never found anything wrong with it. If anything it makes it easier to take them down cause they're also razing their own buildings. In fact, that's the main reason why I usually try not to use the tactic myself but once you get to big endgames, the games always end up being scorched earth anyway since it's difficult to hold that many provinces. It's one of those things you factor in during war.

[VedalkenBear]

I tend to agree with KissBlade. There is nothing inherently dishonorable or 'bad sportsmanship' about scorched earth. It is a legitimate military policy, and while it may seem spiteful, if I am going to lose to someone, I would prefer to see them not be the eventual winner. If by denying them my intact infrastructure, I can cause them greater difficulties down the road, why shouldn't I?

Of course, this tactic is much more effective if as people have said you make this official 'foreign policy'. Therefore, people are dissuaded from ever attacking you because they won't get anything for it. Combined with judicious tribute, you can set up a diplomatic state where they are getting something for not attacking you, and they have the promise they will get nothing if they do attack you. Psychologically, that is a strong incentive to not attack you. Now, of course, if you are a nation famous for its endgame, then this tactic would be less effective since your own motives beyond survival are suspect...

Hmm, I seem to be rambling now.

[BigandScary]

Historically, scorched earth policies are used as a way to slow down and hamper an enemy. The defending army pillages its farms to deny supplies and burns forts to deny shelter and fortifications. Some examples include MegloBob's Russians and the destruction of Fort Ticonderoga during the French and Indian war. The major difference between this and what is described here is the idea behind it. Scorching one's own nation is done in the hope that it will allow for the nation's survival. If defeat is undeniable, then it is meer spite, and reflects poorly on the player.

[llamabeast]

There's some confusion in this thread about what kind of 'scorched earth' policy we're referring to. It could either be:

1) A tactic to increase the probability of winning the war.

2) A change of tactics once the player has already given up all hope of winning, with the sole intention of making life miserable for the opponent, and without respect for the wellbeing of your own falling nation. Hence not just fighting hard but doing odd things like encouraging third parties to take your land etc..

I think Baalz was really asking about (2). (1) seems obviously reasonable to me - (almost) any tactic is fine if it helps. (2) just seems spiteful though. If it is to discourage people attacking you in future games then I also don't like it - I don't think it's fair to carry things from one game to another.

[OmikronWarrior]

llamabeast said:
I think Baalz was really asking about (2). (1) seems obviously reasonable to me - (almost) any tactic is fine if it helps. (2) just seems spiteful though. If it is to discourage people attacking you in future games then I also don't like it - I don't think it's fair to carry things from one game to another.

Oh, no need to carry it from game to game, I think its realistic to want somebody who beats you to be in as weak a position as possible to win that game. Chalk it up to human nature. If you can't win yourself, you at least want to make a strong enough showing to stop your opponent. And realistically, how far can a player go in denying their enemy? Taxes at 200 will slowly increase unrest and lower population, but its nothing like LA Ermor's Dominion. Ditto with destroying castles and and labs. They can be rebuilt, or the attacker has enough for his own needs.

[Rytek]

I hope you are not refering to my fight to the last stand in Dolphin as Argatha vs your Sauromatia? I never overtaxed or burned down anything. But as you say, you did choke on Argatha while ULM eventually won. I had a horrible position stuck in the corner that game and missed several turns while at war with Yomi's fire 9 dragon from turn 4 or so. ULM provided me with some magic equipment, but I paid for them in gems.
I actually consider it poor sportsmanship when you are losing to turn your game over to the AI. Too many players roll over without trying to fight it out. You never get better if you don't play out your losing hand. If I had turned over to the AI in that game I would never had seen your defense 36 Sorcerors or some of our combats in the cave province vs your overwhelming numbers of archers.

[Stryke11]

NOTE BEFORE YOU READ THIS POST:

I have never used the scorched earth tactics described by the original poster. I have given gems and items to the enemy of the person attacking me or people who have been honorable to me during games. Oh, and I'm no good at multiplayer, so YMMV. I'm the "set to AI" type because my I have enough to do that I'm not going to waste time on a losing battle when I can do something else.

OK:

Scorched earth is just as legitimate a tactic as a dual bless or any other implementation people get frustrated defending.

The way I see it, if someone attacks you and in so doing declares themselves your enemy, why on earth should you give them the benefit of your infrastructure? Spiteful? Sure, I mean, those guys just destroyed your empire, butchered you people, raped, pillaged. Why not be spiteful? Just bending over and not "scorching your earth" is weak, and if someone feels this tactic is bad sportsmanship then they are just whiny.

If you commit yourself to a war with someone, you are effectively committing yourself to any tactic they may choose to deploy. I don't feel scorched earth is any worse than ganging up on people via alliances, and no one has ever criticized that blatantly unfair tactic. Why? Because that's just life, dude. Honestly, complaining that you lost the game because someone used scorched earth tactics is bad sportsmanship in my opinion, not the tactics themselves. If you're going to beat someone up, you need to finish them - that is YOUR responsibility. They are under NO obligation to smooth the path of your victory over them and to suggest that they should be is absolutely ridiculous.

[RamsHead]

Stryke11 said:
NOTE BEFORE YOU READ THIS POST:

I have never used the scorched earth tactics described by the original poster. I have given gems and items to the enemy of the person attacking me or people who have been honorable to me during games. Oh, and I'm no good at multiplayer, so YMMV. I'm the "set to AI" type because my I have enough to do that I'm not going to waste time on a losing battle when I can do something else.

OK:

Scorched earth is just as legitimate a tactic as a dual bless or any other implementation people get frustrated defending.

The way I see it, if someone attacks you and in so doing declares themselves your enemy, why on earth should you give them the benefit of your infrastructure? Spiteful? Sure, I mean, those guys just destroyed your empire, butchered you people, raped, pillaged. Why not be spiteful? Just bending over and not "scorching your earth" is weak, and if someone feels this tactic is bad sportsmanship then they are just whiny.

If you commit yourself to a war with someone, you are effectively committing yourself to any tactic they may choose to deploy. I don't feel scorched earth is any worse than ganging up on people via alliances, and no one has ever criticized that blatantly unfair tactic. Why? Because that's just life, dude. Honestly, complaining that you lost the game because someone used scorched earth tactics is bad sportsmanship in my opinion, not the tactics themselves. If you're going to beat someone up, you need to finish them - that is YOUR responsibility. They are under NO obligation to smooth the path of your victory over them and to suggest that they should be is absolutely ridiculous.

I agree 100%.

I use scorched earth tactics when I feel I no longer have any chance of winning against someone. I prefer fighting to the bitter end and making my opponent's conquest of me as unpleasant as possible. I don't do it out of spite, and I don't do it to discourage people from attacking me in future games. I generally don't deconstruct forts though, because keeping them up will usually make them waste more time.

[Baalz]

Rytek said:
I hope you are not refering to my fight to the last stand in Dolphin as Argatha vs your Sauromatia?

No, of course not. As Llamabeast point out, I'm not talking about doing things that screw up your opponent to give you a better chance of winning, and I'm not talking about fighting to the bitter end. You were a great opponent and I appreciate the extra effort you put in to playing until the bitter end - it's almost always more fun to play against a person than the AI and I know it's not the most fun thing to do to keep playing after you've been crippled.

Szumo said:
I do scorched earth tactic when i'm ganged up upon so badly that i have no chance of surviving. Did it in Afterthought and in Nuance, both times Baalz was one of the people attacking me, so i might be the one who is he mainly referring too - or not

I don't really want to get into "so and so annoys me", but FWIW I wasn't really talking about you, probably for no other reason than your scorched earth haven't really inconvenienced me too much because of how things played out. This does get to the crux of my question though, and Nuance provides a good example if things had played out differently your scorched earth could have been extremely annoying. If, for the sake of argument, I had attacked you by myself in Nuance and been winning while Arco successfully attacked Abyssia then your scorched earth would likely have had the result of leaving me in no position to have any chance of challenging Arco for the win. This seems just spiteful, why do you want to do your best to make sure I lose to Arco (who, for the sake of those not in the game, had chilly relations with Szumo)?

So, to be clear, I'm not talking about fighting until the end, I'm not talking about trying to screw over somebody who violated a NAP, and I'm not talking about doing things that give you a short term boost when you've still got a slim chance of pulling something off. I'm talking about actively doing your best to destroy value for the intent of screwing up the person who is invading you, out of character (nobody is talking about LA Ermor), and with no gain to you. Sending gold/gems to unrelated parties, razing labs/castles, pillaging your capital (when you have no use of the gold), etc. These actions are not justifiable within the framework of "I'm trying to win and I fight to the end".

Why, at the point that you decide to throw in the towel, do you want to do your best to make sure I lose against the next guy I fight? This is the part that seems to me like very bad sportsmanship, and I'm trying to understand what the justification is. The closest thing to a justification I've seen seems to be that you're (in character) bitter about being invaded. This seems like a pretty weak justification if you haven't really been roleplaying up until the end. The people saying they do it just to make the conquest of them as unpleasant as possible haven't really answered my question as to why - is it because you're bitter about losing, or is it because you want to deter aggression in the next game?

Again, to reiterate as many people seem to have missed my intent, I'm *only* talking about things done solely for the purpose of spitting in the eye of the guy who has defeated you.

[Szumo]

Baalz said:
I don't really want to get into "so and so annoys me", but FWIW I wasn't really talking about you, probably for no other reason than your scorched earth haven't really inconvenienced me too much because of how things played out. This does get to the crux of my question though, and Nuance provides a good example if things had played out differently your scorched earth could have been extremely annoying. If, for the sake of argument, I had attacked you by myself in Nuance and been winning while Arco successfully attacked Abyssia then your scorched earth would likely have had the result of leaving me in no position to have any chance of challenging Arco for the win. This seems just spiteful, why do you want to do your best to make sure I lose to Arco (who, for the sake of those not in the game, had chilly relations with Szumo)?

I assumed you were acting together. You gave me notice of NAP right after my war with Arco broke out. NAP ended right about when i started to lose that war - badly (for example, losing 130 commanders in one battle).
I hardly scorched earth any lands i expected you to take really, mostly because at that point i hadn't many forces able to scorch left. I did scorch a lot of provinces trying to slow down Arco's invasion though. If you had attacked by yourself, i would not be in an obviously losing position and would have no immediate reason to use scorched earth tactic anyway. As my ally Machaka was overwhelmed quickly by Arco, and only other nation left was Abyssia, i gave over 30k gold i gained from overtaxing and pillaging to Abyssia as soon i heard he gave NAP termination notice to Arco.
General rule i try to follow is to always go against the most likely winner (Arco in this case). I found this very disappointing someone would rather ally with winning player at this stage of game