Scorched earth

[Baalz]

Yes, and to make things even clearer that this is an orthogonal discussion to putting up a good fight, my biggest frustration ever was an opponent giving up *before the first fight even happened* and turning all his efforts to destroying everything he had while I was waiting for the NAP to expire - I'm not talking about border provinces he thought he'd lose, he started pillaging his capital the turn I sent NAP notice. I'm talking about crippling yourself because you've decided your cause is lost and you are *solely* trying to reduce what the person who defeated you will gain after you're gone. Its really a matter of intent as obviously there is a lot of room for these type of actions as part of fighting to the last man. When you're saying "I'm doing this because you beat me and I therefore hope you lose". Pillaging the last of your population so you can giving large sums of gems/gold to the most likely opponent of your invader, inviting unrelated players to take your provinces while you leave them undefended, and razing your last castles are simply not part of fighting until the end as you are explicitly destroying yourself.

I do spot in this thread another justification, which is in the case that your invader is drastically more powerful than anybody else trying to bring him down a peg to make a more competitive game for everyone is really in everybody's best interest. That's a valid move, and I don't even really think anybody could be annoyed by that.

[Reverend Zombie]

Baalz said:
Pillaging the last of your population so you can giving large sums of gems/gold to the most likely opponent of your invader, inviting unrelated players to take your provinces while you leave them undefended, and razing your last castles are simply not part of fighting until the end as you are explicitly destroying yourself.

To put your position positively, then, you want the player who you have attacked who is about to go down to defeat to

• refrain from pillaging his provinces
• reserve undefended provinces for your armies
• leave all standing castles for you to take over

Is that an accurate statement of your position?

[Baalz]

Reverend Zombie said:

To put your position positively, then, you want the player who you have attacked who is about to go down to defeat to

• refrain from pillaging his provinces
• reserve undefended provinces for your armies
• leave all standing castles for you to take over

Is that an accurate statement of your position?

No, it's not. These are examples of symptoms of an attitude and it misrepresents my point on more than one level to list them like that as it's much more about the intent than the behavior. Being a poor sport can be as trivial as whining in the forums about how unfair your loss was, and I feel actions taken under the justification "you beat me, therefore I hope you lose" are weak sauce. Clearly, on your last turn sending all your gold/gems to someone you have no previous relationship falls into this category, as does begging other neighbors to invade you before player A gets all the spoils, and clearly plenty of people raze/pillage etc. for the same reason. Nobody is suggesting you can't pillage your own provinces, nobody is suggesting the invader is entitled to you reserving anything for them, and nobody is suggesting you make things easy on anybody when they're trying to beat you. I am suggesting you congratulate the guy who bested you and thank him for a good game rather than whatever petty things can be done to sabotage him. That's what sportsmanship is about.

And with that, I'm done beating this dead, dead horse.

[Reverend Zombie]

thejeff said:
So, please, argue against the actual issue not the straw man of "just didn't put up a fight against a much more superior force"

From the original post of this thread:

For those of us who view an attack in the game as sufficient justification to deny any benefit therefrom to the aggressor, can you or the original poster please tell us what behavior from the defender you find acceptable at the point that hope for victory is lost?

doing incredibly annoying things is often a great strategy for victory, but at the point you’re not working towards a victory and rather destroying yourself as fast as possible for no reason other than to destroy value

[/quote]

Where do you draw the line at which "non-optimal gaming behavior" becomes unsportsmanlike?

I could posit that an early attack on a neighboring player will leave me less likely to win due to the drain on my resources.

Am I therefore unsportsmanlike if I attack anyway, since I have engaged in action which lessens my chances of winning and have caused the attacked player no little annoyance?

[thejeff]

It's situational, of course.
From my point of view, it's when your actions are no longer aimed at survival, or even delaying your defeat, but actually hasten it. I've given examples of what the differences.
My main point was to distinguish between not using scorched earth tactics and not putting up a good fight.

You speak of denying any benefit to the aggressor. Would you also use scorched earth tactics if you had been the initial aggressor, but had been outfought and were losing?

I would not consider it unsportsmanlike to attack early. Maybe foolish, depending on the situation.
How about a Marveni player realizing he's started next to Helheim and immediately razing his castle and pillaging his lands, since he's certain to be destroyed and wants to make sure Helheim doesn't benefit? That seems to me the equivalent strawman on the other side of the argument.
(Though it did happen to me once, with Marignon and Jotunheim instead. Invaded the same Indy around turn 5, he refused my NAP offer and he'd destroyed his castle before my troops found it.)

[Reverend Zombie]

thejeff said:
It's situational, of course.
From my point of view, it's when your actions are no longer aimed at survival, or even delaying your defeat, but actually hasten it.

Almost any action a player takes has the potential to hasten his defeat.

Who's to judge?

In your Marverni (or Marignon/Jotunheim example)...what is the acceptable alternative, assuming the razing was un-acceptable to you?

[PyroStock]

I'll also point out that if 3 players remain and somehow *only* player A's scorched earth tactic will cause player B to lose the game then regardless what player A does he *will* cause someone to lose.
Player B, "He's crippling himself and scorching earth just to minimize my winnings and try to cause me to ultimately lose!"
Player C, "He's just rolling over & giving player B all his castles, labs and provinces in perfect condition just to try to cause me to ultimately lose!"

Self-destruction to protect your allies, trading partners or even strangers isn't unsportsman-like. From the perspective of the other players, one could only hope the only guy close enough to jump on the grenade would do so for the others if he was going to die anyways.

If one needs something they do not currently own to win a game, whether it's a global spell, several artifacts or some castles, income and labs, then the burden is only on them to try to obtain it. If their spoils of war are less than expected then they expected too much.