Opinions on ethics of this PBW move

[geoschmo]

Yeech.

PBW makes no official policy on this sort of thing, as long as it happens in the clear and open. The only behavior will step into and stop is actual cheating where a player is manipulating data files, or playing two empires simultaneously unknown to the other players.

It is the game owners responsibility and say as to whether this sort of thing is allowed. There may be some sort of logical game reason for it. For exapmple if it's a team game.

However, personally I wouldn't like it either if the game owner allowed something like this without making it perfectly clear to the other players what the deal was beforehand. My suggestion is you take it up with him. If you don't get an answer you like you are free to vote with your feet and find a game with an owner mroe receptive to player input. There are plenty of games to chose from on PBW.

Geoschmo
PBW Admin Team

[Saxon]

Yep, the surrender thing is pretty yucky. I can see it if discussed ahead of time and the two empires had been allies for a long time anyway, but otherwise, it is dubious. Geo has a good point. This is for fun, so do not stay if they are doing dodgy things in the game.

[dumbluck]

Surely there is some background info that explains this. Otherwise this is not a good decision by the game owner at all. Unless, of coarse, he's "on the take"...

[DavidG]

Well yea there is some background. After discussing with the game owner and player it seems there was no ill intent so case closed. I'm curious however what everyone thinks of players losing ground in a war and then surrendering to an ally? They friends I play with (not the PBW games) always do this and seem to think it's OK. It bugs the H$%# out of me though especialy if I'm also allied with the player he surrenders to. I think a player should either just quit and let the AI take over or surrender to the player who defeated them. It just seems so unrealistic to me. It would be like the Nazis surrendering to Canada in 1944. All of sudden the Brits, Americans and Russians have to ceasefire or declare war on Canada.

Originally posted by dumbluck:
Surely there is some background info that explains this. Otherwise this is not a good decision by the game owner at all. Unless, of coarse, he's "on the take"...

[Growltigga]

Well, I think that if you have a problem with this, you need to set up either a house rule or withdraw when it happens with one of your games.

If you think about it, it is too unrealistic for a race/nation being beaten badly in a war to 'surrender' (read cry for protection) to a much stronger race - if you then have to fight both combined, isn't this galactic machtpolitick at work?

[geoschmo]

I can understand your not liking it from a game play perspective, but your analogy is flawed. It's actually more like the Nazi's surrendering to Italy, an ally, or at least to Switzerland, a non-alligned nation. Canada was part of the allies in WWII, so the Nazi's surrendering to Canada, would in effect be the same as surrendering to any Allied power, including the US.

Part of the problem is you can't refuse the surrender of an empire. Which would be a good thing to add to the game.

If you think about it from a non-game play perspective, it makes sense for a race to surrender to an ally and possibly avoid anialation rather than fight to the death, or surrender to an enemy that is likely to treat the population harshly.

It all depends on whether you are looking at the game from a game play perspective, or a role play perspective I guess.

That's one of the reaons I highly recomend that the surrender option be turned off for all multiplayer games. It just leave too many doors open for trouble.

Geoschmo

[PvK]

Ya, sounds like the situation is better handled by Protectorate or Subjugation treaties, except that if one player is leaving, he would then have to submit two turns, whereas Surrender allows combining empires.

I agree surrender should require acceptance. (I don't expect the Swiss would have accepted surrender by Nazi Germany.)

Surrender of course turns two empires into one, which has both advantages and disadvantages for the new empire formed. It only has one set of traits and characteristics, one research queue, one intel queue, one diplomatic channel, one treaty column, one set of trade relationships, one ship set (except for old ships), and I think fleet experience may be lost. If the empires had trade going between them before, that's lost, so a potential 20% production and resource loss there. On the other hand, the points are all pooled, which can be helpful for some things - mainly it requires less management.

PvK