A Discussion on kingmaking and community standards.

[DonCorazon]

I didn't prove your point at all Wraith. I said only that when you take gem giving to ad absurdem levels, does it even come close and even then it still falls completely short of a game ending suicide move as we just saw. Recent real world example: Did my gem giving end the game? No. Did another players surrendering of VPs? Absolutely. Could I have given my VPs to another player and ended it? Yes. Does that totally defy my sense of honor? Absolutely.

Ultimately, I'd like to rely on players sense of judgment, in the same way the legal system has abstract standards such as reasonable care that are used to determine if someone was negligent. Your arguments are destroying my worldview, however, that I can rely on such standards since you are an expert player and we clearly do not see eye to eye on what I once thought was fundamental.

What I thought was common sense, clearly is not. Ultimately it leads me to the conclusion that I need to make sure I am playing with players who share my own standards of good sportsmanship and honor, which don't include suicidal moves that hand another player a victory, among other things.

So I will drop out of this debate and heed the lessons that this discussion has taught me.

[WraithLord]

Originally Posted by DonCorazon

...
I would not waste 3-4 hours to play a board game where one player was just going to quit, by granting his points to another as the game neared its conclusion. Why should I waste 12 months and 100s of hours to do so in Dominions?

Hey, b/c this is a war game. War is not fair and diplomacy plays a crucial part in wars. If said scenario happened to you then it represents a failure on your part on the diplomatic front and this can lead to you losing a war, in dominions same as in RL.

I can also say the same see if you find the difference "I would not waste 3-4 hours to play a board game where one player was just going to quit, by granting his 3k gems to another as the game neared its conclusion. Why should I waste 12 months and 100s of hours to do so in Dominions?"

Bottom line, if you want more "fairness" then either remove diplo or prohibit king making acts altogether. I personally like the former while thinking the latter would end up being boring.

[WraithLord]

Originally Posted by DonCorazon

I didn't prove your point at all Wraith. I said only that when you take gem giving to ad absurdem levels, does it even come close and even then it still falls completely short of a game ending suicide move as we just saw. Recent real world example: Did my gem giving end the game? No. Did another players surrendering of VPs? Absolutely. Could I have given my VPs to another player and ended it? Yes. Does that totally defy my sense of honor? Absolutely.

Ultimately, I'd like to rely on players sense of judgment, in the same way the legal system has abstract standards such as reasonable care that are used to determine if someone was negligent. Your arguments are destroying my worldview, however, that I can rely on such standards since you are an expert player and we clearly do not see eye to eye on what I once thought was fundamental.

What I thought was common sense, clearly is not. Ultimately it leads me to the conclusion that I need to make sure I am playing with players who share my own standards of good sportsmanship and honor, which don't include suicidal moves that hand another player a victory, among other things.

So I will drop out of this debate and heed the lessons that this discussion has taught me.

DonC, you proved my point by your very adamant disagreement with me as that was my point exactly

Why are you always going back to that same example? I'm trying to bring a broad perspective to the discussion and limiting to one example does, well, limit the discussion.

you said: "What I thought was common sense, clearly is not."
and I couldn't agree more. My personal experience leaves a very bad taste of gem/items transfer as I lost games directly to these king making acts. So I personally very much dislike that part although I am forced to "play the game" in diplo game since everybody does.

Then:
" Ultimately it leads me to the conclusion that I need to make sure I am playing with players who share my own standards of good sportsmanship and honor, which don't include suicidal moves that hand another player a victory, among other things.
"
I think this will work. However this will not help all the good players who are not "on par" with these said standards or not included in this select hypothetical group you refer to.

I have the same advice for that larger audience. Either accept king making is part of diplomacy games or prohibit it altogether or don't play diplo games. I think this is a constructive advice. If you disagree with that as well I'd be interested in hearing why.

[DonCorazon]

Originally Posted by WraithLord

DonC, you proved my point by your very adamant disagreement with me as that was my point exactly

What? So by disagreeing with you I proved your point. That makes any further use of my time debating you pointless.

[Micah]

Wrath - Pardon my phrasing, but I'm having trouble with the idea that an experienced player such as yourself can really and truly believe that a third party can reasonably do anything about a well-executed VP gift.

I'll spell it out for you. First turn the gifting player drops any domes on their VP by suiciding the casters. There is no way to know this without witnessing an attack or launching a spell at the province the same turn. The next turn the attacker teleports in with a good-sized force including a few good anti-SC units and drops a crumble at the VP. The turn after that the attacker storms the fort while the gifting nation casts domes with a few units that remained in the VP province, scripted to retreat.

A third party seeing the teleported attack squad now has to throw his army at a wall of domes with no way of properly scripting his forces to account for the units that will be picked off by them. Additionally, the person being gifted with the VPs has the powerful first-turn advantage as they are defending from the third party. Plus, of course, all of this requires that the third party has forces on-hand to respond to an attack immediately, so they have to be equipped and sitting on a lab, ready to go.

I can't fathom how you could begin to say that this is in any way a preventable tactic, and hence the strong phrasing of my position. If you had simply failed to properly consider your position I apologize for my vehemence.

As to the gem issue, clearly the nation sending the gems must be getting them from somewhere, and sending them means not spending them. It's the same as ganging. A good player can overcome a 2:1 war (which is essentially what gifting gems to one player results in) or being set back a few turns of gem income, and in fact where their superior skill really can shine through.

By contrast, VP gifting is the equivalent of informing them that their nation is now dead because they were outnumbered and removing them from the game, since it happens too fast to be countered and there is not interactivity. Gem gifting is, of course, non-interactive, but it must be turned into interactive units and spells to be of value. Obviously, as with ganging, there is a point at which even the best player cannot hope to compete with enough pressure, but that's a situation that shouldn't arise if people are playing to win, as nations will either want to remain sovereign since they are still contenders, or else will have too few gems to have more of an impact on the outcome than player skill.

[KissBlade]

Giving up your last VP is pretty stupid IMO. I do find other forms of scorched earth fair game because IMO as long as you have your capital standing, (sometimes even less) you have a shot at winning the game. it may be slim but 0.00001 > 0. Pooling gems to someone to support their win is kind of weak but honestly, I think pooling gems to global dispel is weak so meh. (mostly cause I like to gem whore and cast huge globals ...)

[vfb]

Okay, I admit, RP can interfere with my philosophy of acting in the best interest of either achieving victory for my pretender, or maximizing my nation's long-term survival. I'm sure I'm guilty of this! But if my nation is going to exact revenge on another nation, for me that revenge has got to be delivered personally. It makes a nicer story if I blow my nation up while destroying my tormentor. I wouldn't get any satisfaction from going AI and giving all my gems to the game leader, even though the result is the same in the end.

And if I hypothetically survive to the end-game as a weak little nation of Man, with no hope for victory, I could see myself actively supporting a Marignon in his war against Ermor, if Ermor had at one point cast BoT and made a bunch of my guys old and dead. I guess that would make me Marignon's vassal. :shudder: I still wouldn't try to end the game by giving Marignon one of my VPs though.

Crap, now that I think about it, I do a whole bunch of dumb non-optimal stuff for RP reasons! And it's not likely I'm going to stop either, since I play more to escape the drudgery of reality, rather than engaging in some sort of intellectual competition.

Originally Posted by thejeff

Spirit of the game can be interpreted many ways. Many of the pretenders served or were banished or imprisoned by the previous Pantokrator, why should they not except the new one to fall and to have another chance in time?
The mechanics of actually being defeated (province loss or dominion death) seem to rule against it, but does ascending actually rule out bringing former allies back as servants?
Or if they expect this ruler to fall eventually as well, then perhaps favors or enmities will be remembered when they return from this next imprisonment?

Even without that, once you start basing decisions on how the pretenders feel anything is justifiable. Bringing the hated rival down with me. Some pretenders might even feel concern for their subjects and hope their last act of generosity will lead the eventual ruler to treat them more kindly or ensure a kinder ruler. Come up with your own justification!

Sure, they may all be enemies in the end, but there's still a difference between the theoretical enemy you've been, temporarily, allied with and the hated foe who's been hounding you since your return.

Originally Posted by WraithLord

I think this cuts to the heart of matter. Your assertion completely disregards that the other player may not share your sentiment. Perhaps he is a newb and is content to follow a vet. Perhaps he received so much help during all the game from his ally that he is willing to make all sacrifice for him and so on and so forth.
The fact of the matter is that different players have different personalities and get their kick out of the game in different manner.
I personally would always fight to last drop of blood. I would never bow to another player.
I am aware however that we are not all the same. I think we - the die hard, alpha types need to show more respect and understanding of different personalities.
If we want to eliminate kingmaking as a source of unbalance we either prohibit diplo or prohibit all kingmaking acts is what I think.

[Illuminated One]

Originally Posted by vfb

Crap, now that I think about it, I do a whole bunch of dumb non-optimal stuff for RP reasons! And it's not likely I'm going to stop either, since I play more to escape the drudgery of reality, rather than engaging in some sort of intellectual competition.

He, I'm always annoyed at how I stop doing stupid RP stuff for the sake of min maxing.

[archaeolept]

luckily, my nations seem to be blessed that way, and adhere to the 7th protocol of Endservedness

"and follow thee to the smaller as to the larger, as to the most low and the most high, and adhere to the MinMax, guideline of the faithful"

[Omnirizon]

what a riveting *yawn* dialogue that was. I think we have a potential broadway hit on our hands here.