Scorched earth

[NTJedi]

sum1lost said:
I don't know about anyone else, but I've avoided playing games with people because of things like this. I'm here to play a fun game first, win second. So, my behavior won't be to discourage them from attacking, but to encourage them to play again.

See your internal issue is that you believe you are 100% entitled to the ownership of the labs, castles, and gold income of your dying enemies. As a result you are annoyed when an opponent denies you of possible spoils of war. However you fail to understand this is a game of war where pillaging, destruction, disease and scorched earth is part of the game. The developers provided these ugly sides of war as part of the game.

Long long long ago I've known when conquering an enemy the only guaranteed spoils of war are the magic sites... praise your lucky astral stars Illwinter did not allow the pillaging of magic sites.

Bottomline: If you cannot accept the ugly sides of war which exist within this games context then you either need to find players willing to play by your "DIFFERENT" set of rules, play solo against the AI or switch games.

[sum1lost]

NTJedi said:

See your internal issue is that you believe you are 100% entitled to the ownership of the labs, castles, and gold income of your dying enemies. As a result you are annoyed when an opponent denies you of possible spoils of war. However you fail to understand this is a game of war where pillaging, destruction, disease and scorched earth is part of the game. The developers provided these ugly sides of war as part of the game.

Not really, but thanks for attempting to tell me that I have issues, and what they are. Clearly, anyone who holds a different view to yours must have 'issues'.
Scorched earth is a tactic meant to ensure a nation's survival by preventing opponents from continuing an attack. I can accept that. I've set my lands on fire to prevent attack. But doing it to discourage attacks in what is meant to be a separate game- in a way that discourages survival- I'm not so hip with that attitude.
And, yes, I do feel that I am entitled to a fun game. I find fun games online. You probably think that you, too, are 'entitled' to a game in which scorched earth is cool bannanas. Okay- so go and play in matches where everyone recognizes that as a legitimate tactic, whiel I go play in the matches where it isn't. Not playing me won't kill you, you know.

NTJedi said:
Long long long ago I've known when conquering an enemy the only guaranteed spoils of war are the magic sites... praise your lucky astral stars Illwinter did not allow the pillaging of magic sites.

I'm not sure how this is neccasary or constructive in any way. To be honest, it seems rather pompous and condescending, while little of value. Perhaps you will explain to me why I am wrong in thinking this.

NTJedi said:
Bottomline: If you cannot accept the ugly sides of war which exist within this games context then you either need to find players willing to play by your "DIFFERENT" set of rules, play solo against the AI or switch games.

I think I made it pretty clear that I have no problem finding players willing to play nice. My rules aren't different. They aren't even rules. They're a set of agreements in which the different players ensure that they want to play the same sort of game. I'm not sure why this is so terrible by your lights. You like scorched earth, so you use it. I don't, so I find games where people are less likely to use it. Problem solved. No need to get pissy and tell me to leave the MP community over it.

[KissBlade]

I would actually be quite frustrated if the player gave as little fight as you proposed Baalz. War is suppose to be taxing and expensive. Say you play in a game against a similarly skilled opponent. You take one of his provinces and you KNOW you can't hold it. There's a lab there. What'd you do? Burn it down obviously. Raise taxes to 200, etc. The fact that you are picking on a nation that you expected to just "roll over and die" and then whining that they're not rolling over the way you want is silly IMO. I deal with scorched earth very simply. If I war, I expect to wipe them out before they know what's going on. If a nation is going to scorched earth itself while fighting, all the easier since I'll just let him self destruct. Gold isn't even that relevant in the game compared to gem income anyway. The reason I'm so flustered at this topic is that you don't realize it's VERY VERY ANNOYING when a weak player just rolls over and dies because that upsets game dynamic even MORE. There were MP games I've played where I literally predicted, "if player A starts next to player B, player A will win the game".

[NTJedi]

sum1lost said:
Scorched earth is a tactic meant to ensure a nation's survival by preventing opponents from continuing an attack. I can accept that. I've set my lands on fire to prevent attack. But doing it to discourage attacks in what is meant to be a separate game- in a way that discourages survival- I'm not so hip with that attitude.

Frequent gamers in multiplayer games have traits they'll be known to do either common or frequently. For example some gamers are known to not be trusted while others trusted. If I'm known to pillage my lands that's one more reason not to declare war on me within future games. My actions are completely within the context of the game, expecting someone to limit their options during a game is as you would say "not so hip".

sum1lost said:
And, yes, I do feel that I am entitled to a fun game. I find fun games online. You probably think that you, too, are 'entitled' to a game in which scorched earth is cool bannanas. Okay- so go and play in matches where everyone recognizes that as a legitimate tactic, whiel I go play in the matches where it isn't. Not playing me won't kill you, you know.

Methods for a scorched earth were provided by the developers and have been around since the original game. You have fun in the limited games where scorched earth is banned, effectively policed by the host and one or more gamers defends questionable scorched earth actions.

sum1lost said:

I'm not sure how this is neccasary or constructive in any way. To be honest, it seems rather pompous and condescending, while little of value. Perhaps you will explain to me why I am wrong in thinking this.

I will explain my quote with more detail for you to understand. When playing a game I know many gamers will scorch the earth as I conquer their empire and I'm happy just receiving the gem income while any extra gold income or structures are extra gravy... thus I conquer a scorched earth and see a glass as half full. When you conquer a scorched earth you are a sad panda for the lost structures and lost gold which leaves you feeling unhappy as you see the glass as half empty. This quote is constructive as I'm trying to make you understand that you should be happy with what you've captured instead of unhappy with what's been lost... hopefully now you see the value. No intentions of pompous and condescending.

sum1lost said:

I think I made it pretty clear that I have no problem finding players willing to play nice. My rules aren't different. They aren't even rules. They're a set of agreements in which the different players ensure that they want to play the same sort of game.

You are requesting limitations on gameplay... limitations which cannot be effectively monitored and policed. Not every player will know your exact boundaries and new players may not be aware what is outside of your expected boundaries. I'm glad you found a group of players for following a 'No Scorched Earth' set of rules.

sum1lost said:
I'm not sure why this is so terrible by your lights. You like scorched earth, so you use it. I don't, so I find games where people are less likely to use it. Problem solved. No need to get pissy and tell me to leave the MP community over it.

That's not what I said !! My final quote listed three options and you are currently using one of those options.
The only terrible side is by expecting players NOT to use scorched earth you are limiting their gameplay options... basically the games in your realm must all have pretenders who will not destroy it's own people and structures out of spite of another conquerer. This means no gamers with characteristics such as Khan Noonien Singh... who will sacrifice everything to bring down an enemy. I see no harm in a group of disgruntled Mr. Rogers fighting over territory in one big neighborhood.

[Baalz]

NTJedi said:
Consider future games against opponents...

I pretty much consider this a worse justification than "I'm a sore loser". This is no different than "I'll give you death gems in game A if you give me water gems in game B".

Reverend Zombie said:
What if the thing that brings your beaten opponent the most fun, at that point, is bringing you down with him?

Then, by definition they're a poor sport. Even in a game, not everything is justifiable by "I'm doing whatever brings me the most fun" because it's a MP game. That's why I feel sportsmanship factors in - I also feel like griefers in MP games are pretty much the scum of the earth.

sum1lost said:
I'm here to play a fun game first, win second. So, my behavior won't be to discourage them from attacking, but to encourage them to play again.

Yes, this is a good summation of my feelings, secondarily only to my own fun I feel an obligation to do whatever I reasonably can to facilitate the good time everyone is having - including whoever conquers me. That's why I don't understand the whole "I'm gonna make life as miserable as I can for whoever had the audacity to attack me in a war game, and hope they lose". Some of the people posting in this thread seem to legitimately have RP reasons for this behavior, but honestly the majority seem to be using the RP justification as a very thin excuse for poor behavior.

In response to several other posts, I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here, but there is a big difference between doing whatever you can to win, and after you've decided you've lost doing whatever you can to sabotage the guy who beat you. No one, in any context, is arguing that you shouldn't do everything you can to win and fight to the bitter end. Beating that straw man up is getting a bit tired.

[Sir_Dr_D]

People are motivated to receive rewards for their efforts. Part of the fun of conqueroring another persons territory is you then get there income and infrastructure. If everyone destroyed these as they are being conquered, there would be no gain for anything anybody acomplishes in the game. With no gain, there is less fun.

So by using scorched earth, you will be ruining the fun for everyone else.

[PyroStock]

pretty much consider this a worse justification than "I'm a sore loser". This is no different than "I'll give you death gems in game A if you give me water gems in game B".

No. Scorched Earth is more akin to "I know player X has used the copy-paste of Bogus' troops. I don't think that's fair and it ruins my fun, but since it's allowed on this server I must take that into consideration." Verbally offering a gift in one game to receive a favor in another is different... "If I scorch the earth in this game to minimize player A's spoils of war will you scorch the earth in game 2 to minimize player B's spoils of war?"

That aside, I would think one would be very careful whether they wanted to use scorched earth for that reason as it could backfire... "There's that guy who used scorched earth last game... I won't trade with him... I'm going to go elephant rush him now... I will ally with player C who I know can be trusted."

Sir_Dr_D said:
People are motivated to receive rewards for their efforts. Part of the fun of conqueroring another persons territory is you then get there income and infrastructure.
So by using scorched earth, you will be ruining the fun for everyone else.

Therefore, no one should play Ermor so there is more fun. In the Dark Knight thread it was clear some felt that that tactic ruined their fun. It's all subjective what each individual finds fun.

If all the players and/or whoever runs the server tells everyone the "unacceptable tactics" (like Velusion does on his servers) and what is banned that's fine. Otherwise,

Baalz said:
I don't have a lot of patience for trying to figure out what "acceptable" tactics are - if I can do it within the context of the game then it's fair play.