Slynky's Demise

[Atrocities]

Backstabbing allies, hum, sounds like the real world.

[tesco samoa]

Geo I did not say i was leaving pbw... just that it was my Last seiv pbw game.

Slynky as for backstabbing and multiplayer games. This is all part of multiplayer games when only one player can win.

Hence why many games have the allied victory or when people feel it is time to end the game.

Take ankle. You have given the game to rex. The combination of you and rex and atom cannot be stopped. I say end the game. YOu 3 can figure out what you want to do with the victory. Judging by the post. Atom would go down next then you would surrender to rex. So lets end that game as the rest of us cannot stop that.

Now I know your at the point where this is causing you to hate the game.

You need to walk away from it for a few weeks.

Your a good player and a good member of the se community who has put alot of effort into this community. Do not let ingame experience ruin this envolvement with the community. I personally would be disappointed if you left or if you stopped doing a pasttime that you enjoyed. There are still aspects of it that you enjoy so take a breather. Your talking about it. Thats good. Go enjoy the long weekend and do not look at se or think about it.

Then on tuesday read this thread over and carry on with what parts you enjoy.

[Slick]

I for one enjoy playing multiplayer, although lately I haven't had time. Slynky, I just though you would like to know that when such events as you describe happen, I expect them and have fun with them as part of the game. SE4 is, after all, a 4X game and sooner or later, empires will start knocking each other off. I do enjoy getting my butt kicked as much as any other part of the game. I learn new tactics and gameplay this way. In no way would I think lesser of someone for turning on my empire unless there was a specific arrangement agreed to ahead of time and not followed.

I'm not talking about bailing out, which I sincerely appologize for doing in Anklebiters - it was necessary for RL reasons - that game was my idea in the first place and I still feel bad about it, both because I really wanted to see how it turned out, and also because I broke a commitment to finish the game. I should have stuck to my original post on the subject where I said that I didn't have time to play that one. Geo eventually convinced me to join, which I wasn't unhappy about at the time, but it was a poor decision on my part.

In closing, I'd say don't give up totally. By reading your various Posts (yes, I follow the KOTH and Ratings games even though I don't play in those games), it is clear you really like this game. By its nature, 4X, there usually is just 1 winner. And I am happy no matter how I finish because, for me, it is the experience of the game that I enjoy. I'd go so far as to say to you that you are suffering from an attack of concience where you shouldn't because most mature players wouldn't be upset at you personally for playing the game the way it was intended.

*gets off of soap box*

Slick.

[Alneyan]

I can concur with you Slynky. It always bothers me when I have to consider going to war without somewhat valid reasons, and very few Empires have the luxury to gain supremacy without expanding military (it only happens when you have neighbours not too eager to expand and/or AI players nearby). I know I tend to allow for a way out of the war when I have this luxury (I am thinking of TGE3 mostly; it would be closer to a suicide in most other games), but it is unlikely to benefit me later on.

I find that the pace of most wars is also too hectic to truly allow an Empire to survive a losing war. Five turns is all that is needed to bring the riot runs, ruining the targetted Empire in the process. Perhaps reducing the happiness hit for losing planets would help in giving the attacked player a chance at survival, and/or leaving this player with at least one planet for treaty purposes. But I am digressing.

So I understand you, and will be reducing my number of games in the future for pretty much the same reason (well, no withdrawals after my DSL downfall, but no new games either). And speaking of the Grudgematch, why not remove this game from the Ratings system altogether? I see no reason why you would be more penalised for leaving than I (I have been away for the whole month of August), or for my leaving of TGE3.

[AMF]

I must say that what Slynky wrote is how I often feel – it was like reading something I could have written myself. I have contemplated getting out on occasion, but I think I my enjoyment of the politics of it has saved me from getting out. That is, I almost always play either very cooperative non-zero sum empires, or isolationist ones, and part of my fun derives from when such empires as mine try to deal with zero-sum or expansionistic empires. But, if you don’t like politics, or if you don’t like losing, then this approach will in the end just be annoying as heck. I’ve never won a PBW game – but I have enjoyed the heck out of most of them.

My personal solution to these problems has also been that I try to only play role-playing oriented games or games that are “scenario-like” (Star Trek)…and for those games I am in that are not explicitly role-playing in orientation, I have tried to make them such (TGE3, JJPEAR, Proportions games, etc&#8230. If you find you’re still enamoured of the game, maybe try only games like that.

The one exception to this “rule” of mine is the Race to SEV tourney. But I am playing that in order to get better at the game and test out what I’ve learned. And, ironically enough, I am still playing that in a cooperative mindset. I’ll probably lose that one too!

Part of all this, too, as others have pointed out is that the SE4 universe is always limited. Malthus and Ken Waltz sort of dictate that when all the space is used up, conflict is inevitable. I put no stock in it, really, but SE4 games often reach a point at which the majroity of people find nothing else to do except take over the universe. In some games, at that point, role-playing and politics can become paramount - but it's rare.

In any case, good luck, and I hope you stick with us/SE4.

If you want to get in some role-playing type games, let me know - I'd be glad to participate.

Thanks,

Alarik

[Captain Kwok]

Initiate role-play games with similarily-minded players where the object of the game is to generate new roleplays and not anhilate each other.

[Gryphin]

It could be you are just getting burned out. Maybe you need a break. Drop me a line, maybe we can work something out.
gryph AT windingstream.com
YIM: gryphin_rampant

The Gryphin
PS: I have some other news.

[AMF]

Yeah, I'm not sure that it is just a matter of "being the kind of person that can separate what happens in the game from what is outside of the game..."

I would say it's more fundamental than that. I really, honestly, would feel bad if I backstabbed someone. Just not something I can do, even in a game. I did it once, in another game, ten years ago and I was good at it - and I used to love the game Diplomacy and was great at that - but to this day I feel bad about what I did. I mean, I would play Diplomacy with my best friends and screw them just to win. That seems, well, wrong. And over time, I have gotten to the point where (forgive what may sound melodramatic) the psychic or ethical cost to acting that way tires me out way too much. As Slynky said, why play a game if you feel bummed out/can't sleep/etc...afterwards?

It is related to what I think of as a fundamental aspect of human perception: I think that, deep down, people expect other people to behave as they behave. I expect that people would help me if they saw me by the side of the road with a flat tire. So, when they go driving on by, then I am, first, very confused. Then angry, etc...It's just hard to understand someone else's motivations, becuase we're all different, eh? (to continue with the driving metaphor, I still cannot, for the life of me, get into the mindset of someone who would own a hummer, but nevermind)...when a person betrays me in a game, I sometimes think I have a hard time not taking it personally. Like it's some personal failing of theirs - when in reality, it is an inevitable result of the nature and structure of the game.

Perhaps, just perhaps, if SE5 has unlimited technologies - as advertised - and if it might have MASSIVE universese - like thousands of stars - then the scope might be so vast that this becomes less of a problem. Things tend to fall down in the endgame - when there is nothing left to do, after you built those ten ringworlds, and every single planet is breathable, then you might as well go to war to see who is burliest. But, given a massive universe, that might take so long to get to that it becomes irrelevant. Maybe.

Thanks for listening to my babbling.

And, I did have a question: how the heck can I get my Posts to stop putting – in them? I know it's from the quotation marks I tend to use too often, but how can I still use quotes but get rid of the resulting –?

Thanks for listening to my babbling...

Alarik

Ps: I still highly reccomend Proportions games for people to RP in...

[geoschmo]

Do you play Poker? Do you tell your opponents what cards you have? Do you bet when you have nothing in the hopes that they will fold? It's called a bluff, but it's a lie.

Do you play chess? Do you announce to your opponent that you plans ahead of time? Do you move your Bishop into a position to take one piece when in fact you are trying to take another? It's called a feint, but it's a lie. If your opponent unknowingly makes a move that puts an valuable piece at risk do you point it out to him? If you don't you are being less then honest. Perhaps you can parse this and say you aren't lying, but it's semantics.

If you are having trouble with your concience when you've done nothing wrong, or getting upset at what other players do to you when they've done nothing wrong, it's because as I said, you cannot separate what happens in the game from what is out of the game.

It's a game.

[Alneyan]

There is one major difference between poker (or chess) and SEIV: in chess, you cannot possibly think of roleplaying being a Bishop (or you truly have nothing better to do with your free time). On the other hand, SEIV offers another dimension besides its strategical side, and this is roleplaying, diplomacy, politics, and so on.

So, while in chess the goal of the game is straightforward (or in KOTH, if you want to keep it to SEIV), a game such as Proportions at PBW does not offer an obvious goal. Instead, your Empire is left to choose something to do, and seek to accomplish that.

I would say you may be annoyed by something if it goes against how you play the game yourself. I guess players that play SEIV only for strategical reasons are also bothered (or at least don't give it any thought) by the political side of the game. The same argument could probably be raised about economical development, but since I am not fond of that part of the game, I will leave it to someone who loves Empire building (Ruatha?).

Alarikf, I have been contemplating lowering the efficiency of your whole Empire as you grow bigger and bigger (as in Europa Universalis for example); it would lower the focus on expansion, either through colonisation or through war. Would you think it could lessen that endgame feeling, where there is just nothing more to do except fight it out? It would obviously be an option and not a standard setting, as along with the changes you would like, it would change the whole scope of the game.

If you don't feel like deciphering my whole babbling: in short, I would say it depends on what exactly you expect from the game, or the reason why you play SEIV.