Scorched earth

[OmikronWarrior]

BigandScary said:
But do they try to take out the knee of the other team's top player so the team that beats them loses in the end?

You mean horror mark the SC pretender whose leading the charge? Uh, yeah, of course you do that.

[PyroStock]

Baalz said:
I see it as bad sportsmanship to try to sabotage the guy I lost to so he subsequently loses.

He's sabotaging his own provinces, labs and castles. I don't see much difference between this and the guy who "sabotages" you to lose by fighting you to the bitter end.

Overly offensive posts, hacking turn files, taking down the server when the host is eliminated, and secretly playing more than one nation are all completely intolerable

...because those are all situations where the player isn't following the rules and/or attempt to do harm via means outside context of the game. The scorched earth tactic is within the context of the game. I never posted in the Dark Knight thread because others there all covered my points. A clever quote from that thread that holds true here too...

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.

[NTJedi]

Baalz said:
I’m curious as to what people’s take on scorched earth tactics are in MP? Specifically I’m referring to actions taken for no reason other that to hurt your opponent after the point you’ve given up any hope of holding them off. Destroying labs/castles, setting tax rates up and pillaging your own population, inviting other uninvolved people to please take your provinces – I’m not talking about raiding, I’m talking about just trying to do your best to screw the guy who’s beat you so that he’ll be weaker against the next guy he fights.

Within multiplayer you want to do whatever is possible so other players will not go to war with you in future games. This means being a great ally and being a dreaded enemy. If your enemy has you thinking, "I REALLY don't like conquering you" then he's doing a good job of convincing you not to attack him in future games.
And in regards to your opponent giving provinces to other players... well this relates to the quote, "My enemies enemy is my ally". He knows your future enemies and will give them provinces... another way to make you remember how it's not fun conquering him.

Consider future games against opponents... you want other gamers thinking they'll receive lots of spoils of war battling you OR very few spoils of war? Personally I want other gamers thinking they'll receive very little... anything to discourage them declaring war on me in future games.

** If you're truly into capturing spoils of war... then when you go to war strike fast and hard! March all front line armies into his nearby provinces. Have flyers and/or stealthy armies strike and capture the provinces behind the front line provinces. Then have Thugs, SCs, and teleporting armies strike and capture other key provinces which can be easily secured.

One Final Thought... when you are at war with your clever enemies they will try and make sure you don't gain anything by winning.
"Don't fight a battle if you don't gain anything by winning. -- -- General George S. Patton "

[sum1lost]

NTJedi said:

Within multiplayer you want to do whatever is possible so other players will not go to war with you in future games. This means being a great ally and being a dreaded enemy. If your enemy has you thinking, "I REALLY don't like conquering you" then he's doing a good job of convincing you not to attack him in future games.
And in regards to your opponent giving provinces to other players... well this relates to the quote, "My enemies enemy is my ally". He knows your future enemies and will give them provinces... another way to make you remember how it's not fun conquering him.

Consider future games against opponents... you want other gamers thinking they'll receive lots of spoils of war battling you OR very few spoils of war? Personally I want other gamers thinking they'll receive very little... anything to discourage them declaring war on me in future games.

** If you're truly into capturing spoils of war... then when you go to war strike fast and hard! March all front line armies into his nearby provinces. Have flyers and/or stealthy armies strike and capture the provinces behind the front line provinces. Then have Thugs, SCs, and teleporting armies strike and capture other key provinces which can be easily secured.

One Final Thought... when you are at war with your clever enemies they will try and make sure you don't gain anything by winning.
"Don't fight a battle if you don't gain anything by winning. -- -- General George S. Patton "

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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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".