How to play when you have no chance of winning?

[Bigger]

Ah yes, the intersite project.. Could I inquire whether the Realms Beyond group of players is big or not? If it is, which is what I kinda feared, it would definitely explain why sign ups for a new PB have been slow. We might have to wait until that is all over in order to start a new PB.

Well, depends. The number of lurkers and commenters is great. The number of really active contributors is not that large - I'd currently peg it at five peop. I think it's more that the RB demogame soaked up a lot of players, but then experienced a large level of dropouts and so on. People have learned to ration their commitments.

its more pb8 than the intersite game. there's only 2-3 people that log into the ISDG, and half a dozen or so that are putting a ton of work into it (Sulla the most). There are plenty lurking and putting in an occaisonal comment/vote (like me) but that doesnt take much time at all.

OTOH, pb8 only started a couple of months ago, has 11 teams, several with 3-4 players.

[Tasunke]

Things I think that SHOULD happen. I mean why the hell not?

-> Dog piles on a significant leader

-> playing for 2nd place, or 3rd place, or ect ect ect ... consider it ranked gods damn you :D .... no such thing as 2nd place is the last loser, you were the second fucking winner! XD

I mean yes, yes of course, there can only be one winner ... but 2nd place is a hell of a lot better than 8th. I see no reason not to consider this as a goal. In many of my simul turn games it boiled down to a collective of 2 - 3 players against another collective of 2-3 players, and occasionally you have a player or two remaining neutral (at least in the bigger games). Then there would be some grand battle, or two, or six, and eventually a winning 'team' was declared.

(sure these were 'RP' games, but still. I think its an effective concept to make the games more fun. I mean, in the games where we DID have collective vs collective 'no official teams btw' it was a LOT more fun XD)

[Tasunke]

Twinkletoes brings up a good point. When tech trading is on, excluding really cheesy deals between the two highest GNPs on the map, it generally leads to a more level playing field.

(or maybe we could just mod in tech leaks like some modmods have?)

[Tasunke]

btw, Sulla you played an awesome game in that PB2 :D

And yes, I agree, that dogpile of theirs was organized TERRIBLY!!!!

If I was in that PitBoss, I would have tried to keep everyone more organized ... hopefully making for a better overall Dogpile ^_^ (and, perhaps, a more interesting game)

I mean hell, we'd be able to swap Screenshots back n forth in Skype, keep track of how many turns our armies were from the front, etc, etc, etc.

Then at the end, the 'winners' of the dogpile would pay gold to the 'losers' of the dogpile to thank them for their efforts. (in terms of who gained the most from the dogpile, add in how many units lost, stuff like that. A person with only 5 units that sends in 4, and loses all of them, would be considered a loser of the dogpile even after the enemy is crushed, meaning they should get a hefty sum of gold)

So end the end, everyone wins! :D (well, except for the person dogpiled of course).

And THAT is how you dogpile against a leader

[Dantski]

theorycrafting is great isn't it?

[Tasunke]

CERTAINLY!

[Speaker]

btw, Sulla you played an awesome game in that PB2 :D

And yes, I agree, that dogpile of theirs was organized TERRIBLY!!!!

If I was in that PitBoss, I would have tried to keep everyone more organized ... hopefully making for a better overall Dogpile ^_^ (and, perhaps, a more interesting game)

I mean hell, we'd be able to swap Screenshots back n forth in Skype, keep track of how many turns our armies were from the front, etc, etc, etc.

Then at the end, the 'winners' of the dogpile would pay gold to the 'losers' of the dogpile to thank them for their efforts. (in terms of who gained the most from the dogpile, add in how many units lost, stuff like that. A person with only 5 units that sends in 4, and loses all of them, would be considered a loser of the dogpile even after the enemy is crushed, meaning they should get a hefty sum of gold)

So end the end, everyone wins! :D (well, except for the person dogpiled of course).

And THAT is how you dogpile against a leader

You'd still have to get through me.

[superjm]

btw, Sulla you played an awesome game in that PB2 :D

And yes, I agree, that dogpile of theirs was organized TERRIBLY!!!!

If I was in that PitBoss, I would have tried to keep everyone more organized ... hopefully making for a better overall Dogpile ^_^ (and, perhaps, a more interesting game)

I mean hell, we'd be able to swap Screenshots back n forth in Skype, keep track of how many turns our armies were from the front, etc, etc, etc.

Then at the end, the 'winners' of the dogpile would pay gold to the 'losers' of the dogpile to thank them for their efforts. (in terms of who gained the most from the dogpile, add in how many units lost, stuff like that. A person with only 5 units that sends in 4, and loses all of them, would be considered a loser of the dogpile even after the enemy is crushed, meaning they should get a hefty sum of gold)

So end the end, everyone wins! :D (well, except for the person dogpiled of course).

And THAT is how you dogpile against a leader

Meanwhile I would happily ignore the dogpile and take advantage of everyone directing their attention towards Sulla/Speaker to tech in peace and build an insurmountable lead when the dust clears on everyone else!

Well that's what I would do if I were any good at this game, but you get the idea. Prisoner's Dilemma and all that jazz, you know?

[Tasunke]

yep


When you get down to it, its hard to know what you'd do in a given situation ... but if you ARE going to dogpile, might as well try to be as organized as possible

I mean, dogpiles organized by the leader against one of their weak neighbors seems quite effective, so I do not agree that dogpiles against the leader should be stigmatized, especially since they are harder to pull off.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

I honestly think Sulla/Speaker will not get dogpiled from T0 because they are not the most terrifying players out there these days.