MP Game - Live and Learn (newbie game)-running

[Yvelina]

With him stalling every turn, it's just as if we had 48h with quickhost disabled. My term has started, and I really like it this way. And to make things even better, I know it is not Arco who is throwing spells at me. I really do not get it. Machaka, Abysia, and C'tis are fighting. Pythium should be happy to let me join the fray, so he can remain at peace and build up. Who the hell is testing my domes every turn? I wish I could throw a few fire domes

[Thufir]

Schmoe said:
I say we give him another 24 hours. Since it's on 48h quickhost, and usually somebody takes more than 24 hours, it shouldn't be a big deal.

I know, it's a longshot, but it would be better than setting him to AI.

Well, I'm in no rush here, but I believe that it has been more than 4 days now since J Henry took a turn. IMO, Arco has been very static the entire game, and other than further perplexing Yvelina as to the source of hostile spell casting (which actually was of considerable value - but thats permanently lost now, no matter whether he shows up or not ), I don't see that he was likely to have much impact on the outcome of the game.

You know Thufir, the more experience I'm getting with this game the worse I feel about going AI in the Last game we played. I know that me doing so really screwed you over. I realize now I should have at the very least tried to find a sub, so consider this an apology.

Actually, I just went through my list of games, and I don't see that you went AI in any of them, unless you were using a different ID? There were a couple of positions that went AI prematurely in Pandemonium (they were owned by "Jarenko" and "odd_enuf"), so I guess your apology is going to the wrong person?

In all the games I have created, I've never seen the need to be that "hardcore" about going AI or not. I can see the fun in creating a "no quitter" game, and I'd have a different opinion in that case, but none of my games to date have been declared as no quitter games.

In our game, it would certainly be bad if any of yourself, Yvelina or Bleach went AI. And if the game became unbearable for any of you, I'd certainly work to find a sub. But for the rest of us, it doesn't seem that we are likely to play a major role in the outcome.

OTOH, I've also never gone AI myself. If I become uncompetitive in a game, the level of fun in it does drop, but I usually find it pretty easy to crank out turns that are far better than what the AI could do, without a large amount of effort. I can also maintain a line of diplomacy that's consistent with the history of the nation I've created. I'm sometimes surprised by how many players go AI when they're down to their Last two or three provinces. It take so little effort to play at that point, and I usually value the opportunity to experiment tactically, w/o any great consequence hinging on the result. If I can drag out my ending for 1-2 turns longer than the AI could've then I congratulate myself for having contributed to the game.

So, generally, fighting it out to the bitter end is a good thing, but I've never felt it should be required. What *does* get me torqued is when a player just disappears w/o any notice whatsoever. It takes 5 minutes to post a PM to the game owner w/ your password and say "I'm gone". It takes maybe half an hour to post on the forum a note looking for subs, and doing a bit of follow up. Simply disappearing is totally lame, IMO.

[Thufir]

Yvelina said:
With him stalling every turn, it's just as if we had 48h with quickhost disabled. My term has started, and I really like it this way.

We can certainly disable quickhost - I'm fine with that. Is anyone opposed to turning off quickhost? If do that would it be ok to set it to host about 11pm PDT (which I think is GMT-7, since we're on daylight savings time).

And to make things even better, I know it is not Arco who is throwing spells at me. I really do not get it. Machaka, Abysia, and C'tis are fighting. Pythium should be happy to let me join the fray, so he can remain at peace and build up. Who the hell is testing my domes every turn? I wish I could throw a few fire domes

Ah, fire domes are nice! Wouldn't a world where all the mysteries of life are removed be so boring!

[Schmoe]

Thufir said:
Actually, I just went through my list of games, and I don't see that you went AI in any of them, unless you were using a different ID? There were a couple of positions that went AI prematurely in Pandemonium (they were owned by "Jarenko" and "odd_enuf"), so I guess your apology is going to the wrong person?

Didn't you host a PBEM game back in May or June? I was Machaka, I thought you were Abyssia, and Ulm and Pythium had jumped out in the lead. Abyssia and Machaka had an alliance, and the turn I went AI, the AI decided to attack Abyssia, even though Ulm was seiging two Machakan fortresses! That was my first MP game. This is my second.

Anyway, I don't have a real problem with people going AI, but I think it's polite to at least try to find another resolution.

I'm sometimes surprised by how many players go AI when they're down to their Last two or three provinces. It take so little effort to play at that point, and I usually value the opportunity to experiment tactically, w/o any great consequence hinging on the result. If I can drag out my ending for 1-2 turns longer than the AI could've then I congratulate myself for having contributed to the game.

So, generally, fighting it out to the bitter end is a good thing, but I've never felt it should be required. What *does* get me torqued is when a player just disappears w/o any notice whatsoever. It takes 5 minutes to post a PM to the game owner w/ your password and say "I'm gone". It takes maybe half an hour to post on the forum a note looking for subs, and doing a bit of follow up. Simply disappearing is totally lame, IMO.

Agreed.

[Schmoe]

Yvelina said:
With him stalling every turn, it's just as if we had 48h with quickhost disabled. My term has started, and I really like it this way.

Yeah, I don't have a problem with going to no quickhost. I'm in the middle of a very busy semester, too. But I'm fine with quickhost enabled, if people want to keep it that way.

I wish I could throw a few fire domes

Don't we all...

[Schmoe]

Schmoe said:
Didn't you host a PBEM game back in May or June? I was Machaka, I thought you were Abyssia, and Ulm and Pythium had jumped out in the lead. Abyssia and Machaka had an alliance, and the turn I went AI, the AI decided to attack Abyssia, even though Ulm was seiging two Machakan fortresses! That was my first MP game. This is my second.

Erk! I double-checked, and it appears you were not the Thufir I was speaking of Mea culpa. But still, if you had been that guy, and I had gone AI on you, I would have felt bad. Heh.

[Thufir]

OK, Arco is now set to AI. I will now set to 48h fixed hosting, and I will set it to host at 8pm, PDT. If there's any consensus to change that, I'll be happy to do so (I'm guessing that this is a time that will work both east coast and west coast - it's my impression that we don't have any European players in this game).

[J Henry Waugh]

Sorry all... ...lost net contact for a few days... ...figured I staled for a few turns but didn't mean to hold things up... ...and tried to play this morning...

[Thufir]

J Henry Waugh said:
Sorry all... ...lost net contact for a few days... ...figured I staled for a few turns but didn't mean to hold things up... ...and tried to play this morning...

Sorry about that - but that was a pretty lengthy disappearance of yours, so I was at a bit of a loss. For future reference, if you can make it to a web browser via a friend's computer (or whatever), and let us know your out of touch for a bit, we could've worked up some alternate solutions.

Hope to see you in another game!

[Thufir]

My apologies for the delayed response - I've been meaning to reply to this for a while.

Yvelina said:
o Oh, and did I mention, I hate this game. I wanna play team games, where you know which way your front and rear are.

...

o I hate diplomacy. I think I will write Pythiumx2, Abysiax2, C'tis and AI on a dice, and see which way it rolls.

I can certainly sympathize w/ the desire to play team games. I've talked a bit with Boron about the team game that he's in, and it does sound like fun. The downside of a team game is that unless your team has the time and the will to communicate and coordinate effectively, then there's not much of a point in being a "team". From what Boron has told me, they have had some communication problems in their game.

You may have read this, but a while back Bleach started an excellent thread ( here) on what this community thinks is reasonable while conducting diplomacy in MP games. I come from a background of playing the boardgame "Diplomacy" where cutthroat play and back stabbing are essential to the game being interesting (and it can get *very* interesting indeed, if you're interested in complex strategy). Partly based on Bleach's thread, I've decided to moderate my behavior while playing Dom2, as I think the majority of the Dom2 community has a different mind set than most Diplomacy players have.

That said, even in Dom2 I find it helpful to cultivate a bit of deliberate split personality disorder (as one would with any RP type of game - particularly those RP games that permit/encourage inter-player conflict). As such, the one that thing that I can promise you, Yvelina, is that if you were to attack the nation of Pythium magically, or otherwise, based on a possibly mistaken belief that Pythium cast those dispels, then I would react with fury in-game (well such fury as the weakened Pythium is capable of ), but would *not* carry it over to any new games.

YMMV, but for me the 2 keys to making FFA, diplomacy type games fun are to deliberately split in-game and out-of-game mindsets, and making sure not to carry over grudges between games. Oh, and perhaps not taking the game *too* seriously - if I've made my guess wrong and attacked the wrong player - who cares? It's just a game!

On a separate note, I've hosted four games, and this game has had the most fun/interesting group to play with! It's been quite interesting to watch the ebb and flow of who's in the lead, and I'm looking forward to seeing the ultimate outcome!