Scorched earth

[Rytek]

I hope you are not refering to my fight to the last stand in Dolphin as Argatha vs your Sauromatia? I never overtaxed or burned down anything. But as you say, you did choke on Argatha while ULM eventually won. I had a horrible position stuck in the corner that game and missed several turns while at war with Yomi's fire 9 dragon from turn 4 or so. ULM provided me with some magic equipment, but I paid for them in gems.
I actually consider it poor sportsmanship when you are losing to turn your game over to the AI. Too many players roll over without trying to fight it out. You never get better if you don't play out your losing hand. If I had turned over to the AI in that game I would never had seen your defense 36 Sorcerors or some of our combats in the cave province vs your overwhelming numbers of archers.

[OmikronWarrior]

llamabeast said:
I think Baalz was really asking about (2). (1) seems obviously reasonable to me - (almost) any tactic is fine if it helps. (2) just seems spiteful though. If it is to discourage people attacking you in future games then I also don't like it - I don't think it's fair to carry things from one game to another.

Oh, no need to carry it from game to game, I think its realistic to want somebody who beats you to be in as weak a position as possible to win that game. Chalk it up to human nature. If you can't win yourself, you at least want to make a strong enough showing to stop your opponent. And realistically, how far can a player go in denying their enemy? Taxes at 200 will slowly increase unrest and lower population, but its nothing like LA Ermor's Dominion. Ditto with destroying castles and and labs. They can be rebuilt, or the attacker has enough for his own needs.

[Stryke11]

NOTE BEFORE YOU READ THIS POST:

I have never used the scorched earth tactics described by the original poster. I have given gems and items to the enemy of the person attacking me or people who have been honorable to me during games. Oh, and I'm no good at multiplayer, so YMMV. I'm the "set to AI" type because my I have enough to do that I'm not going to waste time on a losing battle when I can do something else.

OK:

Scorched earth is just as legitimate a tactic as a dual bless or any other implementation people get frustrated defending.

The way I see it, if someone attacks you and in so doing declares themselves your enemy, why on earth should you give them the benefit of your infrastructure? Spiteful? Sure, I mean, those guys just destroyed your empire, butchered you people, raped, pillaged. Why not be spiteful? Just bending over and not "scorching your earth" is weak, and if someone feels this tactic is bad sportsmanship then they are just whiny.

If you commit yourself to a war with someone, you are effectively committing yourself to any tactic they may choose to deploy. I don't feel scorched earth is any worse than ganging up on people via alliances, and no one has ever criticized that blatantly unfair tactic. Why? Because that's just life, dude. Honestly, complaining that you lost the game because someone used scorched earth tactics is bad sportsmanship in my opinion, not the tactics themselves. If you're going to beat someone up, you need to finish them - that is YOUR responsibility. They are under NO obligation to smooth the path of your victory over them and to suggest that they should be is absolutely ridiculous.

[RamsHead]

Stryke11 said:
NOTE BEFORE YOU READ THIS POST:

I have never used the scorched earth tactics described by the original poster. I have given gems and items to the enemy of the person attacking me or people who have been honorable to me during games. Oh, and I'm no good at multiplayer, so YMMV. I'm the "set to AI" type because my I have enough to do that I'm not going to waste time on a losing battle when I can do something else.

OK:

Scorched earth is just as legitimate a tactic as a dual bless or any other implementation people get frustrated defending.

The way I see it, if someone attacks you and in so doing declares themselves your enemy, why on earth should you give them the benefit of your infrastructure? Spiteful? Sure, I mean, those guys just destroyed your empire, butchered you people, raped, pillaged. Why not be spiteful? Just bending over and not "scorching your earth" is weak, and if someone feels this tactic is bad sportsmanship then they are just whiny.

If you commit yourself to a war with someone, you are effectively committing yourself to any tactic they may choose to deploy. I don't feel scorched earth is any worse than ganging up on people via alliances, and no one has ever criticized that blatantly unfair tactic. Why? Because that's just life, dude. Honestly, complaining that you lost the game because someone used scorched earth tactics is bad sportsmanship in my opinion, not the tactics themselves. If you're going to beat someone up, you need to finish them - that is YOUR responsibility. They are under NO obligation to smooth the path of your victory over them and to suggest that they should be is absolutely ridiculous.

I agree 100%.

I use scorched earth tactics when I feel I no longer have any chance of winning against someone. I prefer fighting to the bitter end and making my opponent's conquest of me as unpleasant as possible. I don't do it out of spite, and I don't do it to discourage people from attacking me in future games. I generally don't deconstruct forts though, because keeping them up will usually make them waste more time.

[konming]

I do not have a problem with this as long as it is given a warning first. Then it is your decision, whether to fight a costly war and gain very little or maintain the peace. After all, it is just a game, and anything within the rule certainly goes.

And I have to agree with the previous post. Why is this more "unsportmanship" than alliance beating up a single nation? If sportmanship is about fairness than this is just as unfair as it goes, certainly more than scorth earth tactics.

[IndyPendant]

Heh. Reading this thread is slowly changing my mind. Scorched earth as a discouraging diplomacy tactic. Hmmmmm... My fellow players in my MP game may be getting a message from me. *cough* : )

[Lingchih]

OK. Let's look at this from a realistic perspective. We may all say that we don't take each individual player into account, and are only roleplaying each nation. But really... so and so player may be subbing for me in some games. Or, so and so player may have helped me in past games. Or, so and so player may have ripped me in some past games.

I think that is why the Scorched Earth policy is employed. If you are friendly with they player that is beating you, you don't scorch earth. If you hate them, you do. Simple as that.

[Szumo]

I do scorched earth tactic when i'm ganged up upon so badly that i have no chance of surviving. Did it in Afterthought and in Nuance, both times Baalz was one of the people attacking me, so i might be the one who is he mainly referring too - or not

I'm not sure whether this is an effective discouraging tacting - i've had it used against me a few times and it didn't discourage me much . Annoying other player is not why i do it either. As for setting taxes and pillaging, this allows to stockpile a lot of gold quickly - which you can send to other player to bribe them to help by attacking your enemies. More often than not that help comes too late, but it's worth to try.

And when you're about to get defeated, it's IMO quite right to send whatever have left to whomever you perceive as greatest enemy of your enemies. Gods should not go down quietly and peacefully, but cursing those who kill them with spite and hate

[llamabeast]

Again, I think it's worth distinguishing between different policies:

a) Fighting your damnedest, and making your enemy pay in his soldiers' blood for every inch he gets off you, while burning the land you're about to lose.

b) Doing out of character things which are bad for your nation as well like giving land to a third party.

I don't think anyone disapproves of (a) do they? Seems to me that's a good way to play - and fun, and realistic too. You never know, you might manage to turn the war around, and while there's still any hope, keep fighting! I love these dramatic situations where someone manages to hang on with only one province for half the game, killing vast numbers of their enemy's soldiers.

(b) just seems mean though, to me.

[jimkehn]

I have and will use scorched earth. I am with Stryke11. I don't feel it is my responsibility to aid the enemy in defeating my allies and me. I don't feel I have an obligation to help him get stronger as he is gobbling me up.