A Discussion on kingmaking and community standards.

[WraithLord]

Originally Posted by DonCorazon

...
I would not waste 3-4 hours to play a board game where one player was just going to quit, by granting his points to another as the game neared its conclusion. Why should I waste 12 months and 100s of hours to do so in Dominions?

Hey, b/c this is a war game. War is not fair and diplomacy plays a crucial part in wars. If said scenario happened to you then it represents a failure on your part on the diplomatic front and this can lead to you losing a war, in dominions same as in RL.

I can also say the same see if you find the difference "I would not waste 3-4 hours to play a board game where one player was just going to quit, by granting his 3k gems to another as the game neared its conclusion. Why should I waste 12 months and 100s of hours to do so in Dominions?"

Bottom line, if you want more "fairness" then either remove diplo or prohibit king making acts altogether. I personally like the former while thinking the latter would end up being boring.

[Micah]

I think a large part of the distaste over VP gifting is because they're a somewhat artificial measure. In theory they are supposed to roughly correspond with control of territory and the overall position of the player that controls them. Because of this it is very uncommon to see a game with non-cap VPs, because players have found that a single turn teleport win is detrimental to the enjoyment of the game. Similarly, a VP gifting scenario causes the game to end abruptly, with no recourse for the losing player. Stating that late-game VP gifting is able to be countered is, frankly, a load of crap, especially if the colluding players plan things properly.

1500 gems sure sounds like a lot, but is only about 3 turns worth of income in the example scenario or any large late game.

[Micah]

K- I don't see where Sombre said your bad reputation had anything to do with in-game behavior, could you please point out where that was stated?

[WraithLord]

I said "Saying that giving VPs is bad but giving gems is ok leads to a dead-end in dealing with this issue."

Then DonC & Micah just went right ahead and proved my point. I disagree with you and certainly am not the only one, I think I even saw similar opinions in this thread (although I admit to not having read it all). So you disagree with me and I/ppl that think the same disagree back

You'd say that gem giving is ok and VP giving is not. I'd say they are ultimately very similar - actually equivalent in the abstract manner of how many steps it gets one closer to winning. Then you'd go back and say they they are not the same since VPs are suicide while gems are not. I beg your pardon but that's not true. 1500 gems are a big deal. Use 1k for AN and you practically ensure winning. Imagine nation A is 10% stronger than B in end game. Nation A is en route to winning when B gets 2k gems. Now B can cast a bunch of globals or do whatever it wants and grab the victory. Those 2k gems would translate if you like to VPs.

Micah, you said "Stating that late-game VP gifting is able to be countered is, frankly, a load of crap, especially if the colluding players plan things properly."
First of that's somewhat rude phrasing you chose. You are blatantly disregarding and demeaning an opinion different than your own. Second, that's absolutely true. The exchange of VPs in end game is very likely to be monitored so nation B can intervene directly and prevent that from happening. When 2k gems are given to nation B nation A can do nothing about it, knows nothing about it and will surely lose due to this. The same will happen to nation C that gave the 2k gems - so it's suicidal for C as well.
Edit: you also said "1500 gems sure sounds like a lot, but is only about 3 turns worth of income in the example scenario or any large late game."
Micah, that is not the point, the point is the principal that X amount of gems, or Y amount of items or Z amount of VPs are all "mathematically" equal in the "winning factor" they represent. What is the exact ratio is of course elusive, depends on context and many other circumstantial factors. 1.5K gems can certainly be worth a victory in certain circumstance, if not 1.5K then 2K or 2.5K etc. Enough gems wins games and that's a fact, the only difference with VPs is that there's no accumulate gems victory condition so the player actually has to translate gems to victory conditions.

We can go and on forever. There will never be an agreement b/c this is a matter of opinions and we don't all think the same. That's why I suggested that in order to make progress with the matter at hand ( if that's indeed what this thread is about and just a sparring arena ) we need to put all king making acts in the same basket and treat them the same. Otherwise dissension may always result and this discussion will just go off track to what is actually a side issue.

[DonCorazon]

I didn't prove your point at all Wraith. I said only that when you take gem giving to ad absurdem levels, does it even come close and even then it still falls completely short of a game ending suicide move as we just saw. Recent real world example: Did my gem giving end the game? No. Did another players surrendering of VPs? Absolutely. Could I have given my VPs to another player and ended it? Yes. Does that totally defy my sense of honor? Absolutely.

Ultimately, I'd like to rely on players sense of judgment, in the same way the legal system has abstract standards such as reasonable care that are used to determine if someone was negligent. Your arguments are destroying my worldview, however, that I can rely on such standards since you are an expert player and we clearly do not see eye to eye on what I once thought was fundamental.

What I thought was common sense, clearly is not. Ultimately it leads me to the conclusion that I need to make sure I am playing with players who share my own standards of good sportsmanship and honor, which don't include suicidal moves that hand another player a victory, among other things.

So I will drop out of this debate and heed the lessons that this discussion has taught me.

[WraithLord]

Originally Posted by DonCorazon

I didn't prove your point at all Wraith. I said only that when you take gem giving to ad absurdem levels, does it even come close and even then it still falls completely short of a game ending suicide move as we just saw. Recent real world example: Did my gem giving end the game? No. Did another players surrendering of VPs? Absolutely. Could I have given my VPs to another player and ended it? Yes. Does that totally defy my sense of honor? Absolutely.

Ultimately, I'd like to rely on players sense of judgment, in the same way the legal system has abstract standards such as reasonable care that are used to determine if someone was negligent. Your arguments are destroying my worldview, however, that I can rely on such standards since you are an expert player and we clearly do not see eye to eye on what I once thought was fundamental.

What I thought was common sense, clearly is not. Ultimately it leads me to the conclusion that I need to make sure I am playing with players who share my own standards of good sportsmanship and honor, which don't include suicidal moves that hand another player a victory, among other things.

So I will drop out of this debate and heed the lessons that this discussion has taught me.

DonC, you proved my point by your very adamant disagreement with me as that was my point exactly

Why are you always going back to that same example? I'm trying to bring a broad perspective to the discussion and limiting to one example does, well, limit the discussion.

you said: "What I thought was common sense, clearly is not."
and I couldn't agree more. My personal experience leaves a very bad taste of gem/items transfer as I lost games directly to these king making acts. So I personally very much dislike that part although I am forced to "play the game" in diplo game since everybody does.

Then:
" Ultimately it leads me to the conclusion that I need to make sure I am playing with players who share my own standards of good sportsmanship and honor, which don't include suicidal moves that hand another player a victory, among other things.
"
I think this will work. However this will not help all the good players who are not "on par" with these said standards or not included in this select hypothetical group you refer to.

I have the same advice for that larger audience. Either accept king making is part of diplomacy games or prohibit it altogether or don't play diplo games. I think this is a constructive advice. If you disagree with that as well I'd be interested in hearing why.

[DonCorazon]

Originally Posted by WraithLord

DonC, you proved my point by your very adamant disagreement with me as that was my point exactly

What? So by disagreeing with you I proved your point. That makes any further use of my time debating you pointless.

[Micah]

Wrath - Pardon my phrasing, but I'm having trouble with the idea that an experienced player such as yourself can really and truly believe that a third party can reasonably do anything about a well-executed VP gift.

I'll spell it out for you. First turn the gifting player drops any domes on their VP by suiciding the casters. There is no way to know this without witnessing an attack or launching a spell at the province the same turn. The next turn the attacker teleports in with a good-sized force including a few good anti-SC units and drops a crumble at the VP. The turn after that the attacker storms the fort while the gifting nation casts domes with a few units that remained in the VP province, scripted to retreat.

A third party seeing the teleported attack squad now has to throw his army at a wall of domes with no way of properly scripting his forces to account for the units that will be picked off by them. Additionally, the person being gifted with the VPs has the powerful first-turn advantage as they are defending from the third party. Plus, of course, all of this requires that the third party has forces on-hand to respond to an attack immediately, so they have to be equipped and sitting on a lab, ready to go.

I can't fathom how you could begin to say that this is in any way a preventable tactic, and hence the strong phrasing of my position. If you had simply failed to properly consider your position I apologize for my vehemence.

As to the gem issue, clearly the nation sending the gems must be getting them from somewhere, and sending them means not spending them. It's the same as ganging. A good player can overcome a 2:1 war (which is essentially what gifting gems to one player results in) or being set back a few turns of gem income, and in fact where their superior skill really can shine through.

By contrast, VP gifting is the equivalent of informing them that their nation is now dead because they were outnumbered and removing them from the game, since it happens too fast to be countered and there is not interactivity. Gem gifting is, of course, non-interactive, but it must be turned into interactive units and spells to be of value. Obviously, as with ganging, there is a point at which even the best player cannot hope to compete with enough pressure, but that's a situation that shouldn't arise if people are playing to win, as nations will either want to remain sovereign since they are still contenders, or else will have too few gems to have more of an impact on the outcome than player skill.

[WraithLord]

Originally Posted by Micah

Wrath - Pardon my phrasing, but I'm having trouble with the idea that an experienced player such as yourself can really and truly believe that a third party can reasonably do anything about a well-executed VP gift.

I'll spell it out for you. First turn the gifting player drops any domes on their VP by suiciding the casters. There is no way to know this without witnessing an attack or launching a spell at the province the same turn. The next turn the attacker teleports in with a good-sized force including a few good anti-SC units and drops a crumble at the VP. The turn after that the attacker storms the fort while the gifting nation casts domes with a few units that remained in the VP province, scripted to retreat.

A third party seeing the teleported attack squad now has to throw his army at a wall of domes with no way of properly scripting his forces to account for the units that will be picked off by them. Additionally, the person being gifted with the VPs has the powerful first-turn advantage as they are defending from the third party. Plus, of course, all of this requires that the third party has forces on-hand to respond to an attack immediately, so they have to be equipped and sitting on a lab, ready to go.

I can't fathom how you could begin to say that this is in any way a preventable tactic, and hence the strong phrasing of my position. If you had simply failed to properly consider your position I apologize for my vehemence.

Yes. I was thinking of VP transfer in a more simplistic manner. You know, nation A sends a scout to empty nation B VP and casts crumble. Next turn it storms the castle. You can replace the scout with an army, or one SC, or army+SC etc. W/O the domes part (which I haven't considered at all) I think it can be countered (I apologize beforehand if I missed yet another angle ).
Now are you 100% sure about the domes?- IIRC casting order is random so there's no guarantee that they'd come up *before* nation C's teleporting SCs coming to bust the transfer.
I agree with you though. Its tough to counter and gives an advantage to nation A that is as inherent to the game as the fact the gem transfer is clandestine and un-counter-able, namely the defender's first turn advantage. The difference is that technically it's possible to try and counter and have a chance of success in case nation C is lucky/strong enough to have the right material to send in.

Originally Posted by Micah

As to the gem issue, clearly the nation sending the gems must be getting them from somewhere, and sending them means not spending them. It's the same as ganging. A good player can overcome a 2:1 war (which is essentially what gifting gems to one player results in) or being set back a few turns of gem income, and in fact where their superior skill really can shine through.

By contrast, VP gifting is the equivalent of informing them that their nation is now dead because they were outnumbered and removing them from the game, since it happens too fast to be countered and there is not interactivity. Gem gifting is, of course, non-interactive, but it must be turned into interactive units and spells to be of value. Obviously, as with ganging, there is a point at which even the best player cannot hope to compete with enough pressure, but that's a situation that shouldn't arise if people are playing to win, as nations will either want to remain sovereign since they are still contenders, or else will have too few gems to have more of an impact on the outcome than player skill.

"but that's a situation that shouldn't arise if people are playing to win"
Yes, but that's the thing, the don't always. I have seen it countless times. Not all ppl play to win. Oh, they sure enough join the game with an abstract notion of winning, but then RP or awe of the vets or losing interest in the game causes them to lose that drive to win. Then these players become unexpected and can and do influence the game. Type A players that are also good diplomats are usually deft at recognizing these situations and making the most of them which brings the game to a new level of meta gaming or in other words makes diplomacy king over tactics. Is that good or bad?- I honestly don't know. Depends on the mood
I mean so long as we identify the root cause we have a hope of addressing it in house rules. Whether or not ppl would be interested in playing diplo no KM games is a different matter altogether

BTW, just had an idea, what if instead of prohibiting KM acts players would be expected to announce them in the game thread for all to see. Something like:
"Arco will send 1k S gems to Pyth. this turn"
or
"Ermor plans to give it's VP in xyz to Caelum next turn"
Would that make things better?- If so, better in what sense?

[KissBlade]

Giving up your last VP is pretty stupid IMO. I do find other forms of scorched earth fair game because IMO as long as you have your capital standing, (sometimes even less) you have a shot at winning the game. it may be slim but 0.00001 > 0. Pooling gems to someone to support their win is kind of weak but honestly, I think pooling gems to global dispel is weak so meh. (mostly cause I like to gem whore and cast huge globals ...)