[OT] The Art of Winning Games

[Puke]

Originally posted by Narratio:
Cannibalism is held to be evil by our western cultures, the cannibal cultures think there is a reason for it though, otherwise they wouldn't do it. For them it's not evil, it's a religious experience and thus "good".

im behind you 110%, but i just thought i would offer some edification on canibalism for everyone. it was predominantly found on island cultures in the pacific, prior to the New Zeland natives (forgot what they were called) conquering most of them and baning canibalism.

when you are on a very small scrap of land, with limited resources, and you lack contraceptive technology, you are going to quickly have population problems. New Zeland had enough land and resources to develop an agrarian culture, and keep their population down throug warfare. most other islanders could never develop that far, because they lacked the land and resources to do so.

they had two options to save themselves from overpopulation and the resulting famine: infanticide, or canibalism. it was one of the two, and various island cultures went either way. religious ideas about it cropped up after the fact, in order to maintain it as a sociological institution.

oh yeah, except for the Aztecs. they had plenty of land and resources. those guys were just sick ****s.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

there's another option for population control: self-control.

i'm still a virgin. it wasn't that hard. it just takes a lot of self-control. my opinion is, your self-control should at least match that of your worse vice. perferably, it should be half again as strong. mine matches my anger, but barely when it peaks.

and on a side note, there's the possibility that with our technology, our supply of food can actually rise faster than our population. asteriod farming, among other things.

and P, just because someone beleive's something doesn't make it right or wrong. i see no reason to respect a beleif just because someone beleives it. i do respect the right of other people to choose what they beleive, but if someone chooses to murder random passerby, if i have a gun, i'm going to choose to shoot the murderer. that's called discrimination - used right, a good thing, no matter what the media says.

[ December 11, 2003, 07:39: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[Starhawk]

Well my opinion on games is this I play to win and often times I am "evil" when I play because I will slaughter thousands or millions or billions in strategy games, I have scored over 11,000 kills with Delta Force Land Warrior (have had it for 6 years) and done it all without the least bit of remorse or hesitation yet I would never seek to kill another person unless they threatened the life of a person I loved or myself and even then I would most likely try and just disable them instead of kill them.

Okay if your first and only impression of me was playing a wargame against me you'd think I was evil and sadistic because I do brutal things to win games such as the wholesale slaughter of entire cities (Civ2) or leaving no survivors from an enemy army (Medieval Total War) or destroying whole planets (SEIV) for the sake of WINNING! (P.S. brutal game tactics I don't actually pull out a crobar and hit my apponent).

In SEIV I blow entire enemy colonies and even homeworlds to peices (mainly because I don't have the full game and can't get troops in time to make it worth it) without remorse killing millions if not billions of the enemy in a single shot. Even though it's a game I've heard people complain that this makes me a brutal person (not directly me but people who play games like that) which is utter BS because in real life I am extremely compassionate and can barely stand to see an animal suffer much less a fellow human being and would probobly do anything I could to prevent another person from being hurt or killed.

Same goes for FPS games I will without a doubt kill a team mate or two to save my own arse....especially if it is a CTF game and they are in my way and keeping me from scoring for the team. But on the other hand I have played "operation shield" for other players who have the flag and will readily let my character die for the greater good of the team. Yeah it pisses people off when I throw a hand grenade to clear out a bunker that has six enemy troops and two friendlies that are pinned down but my whole opinion is you had no hope to begin with and at least I got the bad guys too right and I'd expect them to do the same to me in order to win the game?

I hear people say that by basic nature humans are killers far too often and quite frankly it is a stereotype as most humans can't even stand the site of a corpse in RL (I've seen a few in my short time on earth and almost threw up even though they were in a medical school type environment). I mean humans are not naturally KILLERS we are naturally competitors which leads to a brutal form of game called war. The AVERAGEindividual is not a killer and would never think of killing another human being.

I am a Christian so I have the inharent beleif that God made no evil when he made the universe, however he gave his creation a choice to be evil or good, and sadly many things choose the side of evil and thus MANKIND is neither evil nor good as a species but it comes down to the individual person to choose what they will be.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

i once made a list in my head of all the crimes i'd approximitly be guily of if the games were real. from genocide(strategy games), to petty theft(adventure games).

[Fyron]

I hear people say that by basic nature humans are killers far too often and quite frankly it is a stereotype as most humans can't even stand the site of a corpse in RL (I've seen a few in my short time on earth and almost threw up even though they were in a medical school type environment). I mean humans are not naturally KILLERS we are naturally competitors which leads to a brutal form of game called war. The AVERAGEindividual is not a killer and would never think of killing another human being.

That would be based off of a narrow slice of the world that is not representative of people in general.

[geoschmo]

I think by and large most people are basically "good" as individuals, and treat other individuals well an with respect. But it is when we get together in Groups that we tend to lose it. Even among petty criminals and stickup men, they often work in at least pairs. The murderer who kills alone is typically the psyochotic individual who has something wrong with him and so doesn't fit the normal human pattern. The human race has a nasty tendancy to sink to the basest level of any particular group. I don't know why, but I think it's because when we start thinking of ourself as part of a group, and others as part of a different group, we start to see them as objects rather then people.

[Stone Mill]

If you'll allow, I'll stick more to the "winning games" topic, rather than winning and losing in real life, which is somewhat subjective and relative to personal experience and the situation.

When it comes to playing games, I enage with the attitude that I'm going try and win; giving my opponents hell by leveraging any legal asset at hand.

I find they appreciate me for it, as much as I love someone throwing their best at me.

"I like a man who smiles when he fights" -Winston Churchill

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Self Control is and illusion. The effect you are actually describing is an effect of peer pressure and so depends heavily on the folk to which you peer. After all, I call it Self Control when I get my inhibitions under control enough to do the sorts of things that rid one of one's virginity.

while my morales and my actions may be influenced by the people i'm around, there's plenty of times when those people are not around. if nothing else, i'm pretty sure i could find some private time in the bathroom - and clean up after myself.

[Slynky]

Originally posted by Stone Mill:
If you'll allow, I'll stick more to the "winning games" topic, rather than winning and losing in real life, which is somewhat subjective and relative to personal experience and the situation.

When it comes to playing games, I enage with the attitude that I'm going try and win; giving my opponents hell by leveraging any legal asset at hand.

I find they appreciate me for it, as much as I love someone throwing their best at me.

I'll stick to the topic as well:

I agree with the "King". I'll add another thought, though, since I have a suspicion this thread started as a result of the Mediocrity posting (and because this thread seems civil enough):

I don't believe in doing ANYTHING legal, though, because I prefer to have my reputation follow me from game to game. I don't believe in dropping any kind of treaty the same turn as I attack. I don't believe in, for example, agreeing to 5 turn notice of impending attack when dropping a treaty with someone and then attacking before the 5 turns is up. Why? Winning is not as important as keeping my reputation. What reputation is that? One that follows me from game to game. I want anyone I have a treaty with to know they can trust what I agree to in future games. That's just me. I just want people to know they have a treaty they can depend on and if they know the way I play, then they will know they can trust what I say and I wan't jeopardize that for a siingle win in a single game and put future games at risk. Those who have played with me also know I don't mind taking a "backseat" in an alliance. I did it in the infamous "Challenge" game. I had planned to do it with Lord Chane in Mediocrity (but the attack came and Lord Chane dropped the game keeping the Stellar Manipulation ships we had built for deep attacks). And who knows what roll I'll take in Anklebiters (it's still shaping up) but I want people to know what they can expect from my reputation.

As to other people who disagree...that's up to them. They may make and break treaties as they see fit for that game. All it means to me is that THEIR reputation has followed them to any game I find myself in with them. While I realize (according to a poll I conducted some time back) that some people do things like that from game to game and don't carry the events from one game to another but I find it hard to trust those kinds of people when I find them in a future game. Just me. Perhaps I'm wrong but it's just my personality.

In the end, it's just a game, they are most always fun, and I don't really get angry when someone plays in a way I don't agree with. I just remember them for future games.

[spoon]

Originally posted by Slynky:
I don't believe in doing ANYTHING legal, though, because I prefer to have my reputation follow me from game to game.

What happens is people confuse doing this with being honorable. It's not being honorable, per se, it is more of a metagame behavior aimed at winning you more games.

I do the same thing, mostly. I'll "backstab" someone who irks me, but I won't go back on my word. For me, making a T&R agreement with someone, for example, does not include with it any promise to not attack the same turn it is dropped. However, if I had made a "gentleman's" pact with that person, such as the five-turn warning you mentioned, then I will always wait the five turns, for the reasons you state (reputation).