[LURKERS] Sweet 16: Civ Party Fun Time and Philosophical Debate

[mackoti]

Well i think if wanst clear, peace between gaspar and gavagai sealed the gave for seven, as gavagai will destroy bantams so no more land for mikendy, and knowing gaspar he might feel the need to ruin someone else game(mike)

[Old Harry]

Won't Gasplium just wait ten turns and go for Gavagai again? Just to set an example...

[Lewwyn]

Game over soon I think.

[Catwalk]

Moving a good discussion with WilliamLP here to avoid threadjacking Gavagai further:

I feel it's an ethical issue. I enjoy games the most when everybody tries to win the current game. Throwing away your game for revenge turns you into a king maker. I'd even go so far as playing for #2 or #3 even if I know I can't win, rather than treating everything but victory as failure.

That's the crux of it, what does "throwing your game" mean when you sincerely think (correctly or not) you have no chance to be number 1?

What to play for seems more a matter of taste to me than ethics. There certainly isn't a consensus, and probably couldn't be.

What does playing for #2 or #3 even mean? Is it according to Civ scoring metrics when the game is conceded? Playing for that might reward a style of play that isn't fun or might not be what makes someone think "that player was the second best in this game".

For some, revenge or playing more like a duel when you aren't going to win the whole thing isn't throwing away the game, it is the game. This, because it's something exciting, something that can be won (in the short term), and even something that's entertaining to report and read. See most Commodore games ever.

Personally, I don't know but it seems unclear. And you might not be able to infer an "is" from the "ought" you feel, so if you're playing to win even a single game, knowing players' past behaviors and reputations is still going to benefit you. And of course this is enough to create the situation you don't like in the first place.

So I can respect not playing against reputation because you don't want to play in the environment that creates. On the other hand, knowing someone doesn't play the metagame is also knowledge, and if two of me start next to each other, and two of you do in the same game, the two of me are each going to be at quite an advantage.

I worded that very poorly, ethical was the wrong word to use there. It is indeed a matter of taste, not ethics. Finishing #2 wasn't meant literally, as that can't be measured properly. I basically meant that I'll keep on playing to finish in as strong a position as possible, rather than disregarding the outcome completely if I can't win.

Ideally, I'd personally prefer a game being played as if it were anonymous with noone fighting for reputation for future games. I'd also prefer some means of limited diplo being possible, in order to deal with your ABC situation.

[Jowy]

Seems to be a hot subject I baited some lurker comments in my PB17 thread with the same sort of theory crafting. There definitely isn't any consensus, in fact we are very confused about it as a community. The best thing you can do is to adopt a thinking that every player is a bittercunt who is ready to wreck their own game to destroy yours. Then you'll be ready for it when it inevitably happens, and you don't have to put faith in others playing "fair" - which is also subjective as these discussions show. Personally I don't think there's any difference between a loser in war gifting all his remaining cities to his conqueror's opponent, and a loser after a war devoting the rest of his game on trying to make his conqueror lose the game. Both have the same reason and effect, but only one is looked down on by everyone.

[WilliamLP]

I worded that very poorly, ethical was the wrong word to use there. It is indeed a matter of taste, not ethics. Finishing #2 wasn't meant literally, as that can't be measured properly. I basically meant that I'll keep on playing to finish in as strong a position as possible, rather than disregarding the outcome completely if I can't win.

If someone stabs you in the early game, do you really not want to hurt them back, even a little? You're able to hold your calm and play to maximize your position relative to the world as your sole objective? I'm not.

Ideally, I'd personally prefer a game being played as if it were anonymous with noone fighting for reputation for future games. I'd also prefer some means of limited diplo being possible, in order to deal with your ABC situation.

I think we agree here. In practice it would be hard to be anonymous though, since even after the fact players will learn who you were and give you a reputation for it. There are also so many little cues that could give you away like RB login times and thread updates, forgetting to change your name for CivStats, and things like that.

Did you see my thread from a few months back on this in the general forum? There was some interesting discussion there.

I don't know if it isn't a situation where we're playing the worst possible way, except everything else that's been tried.

Personally I don't think there's any difference between a loser in war gifting all his remaining cities to his conqueror's opponent, and a loser after a war devoting the rest of his game on trying to make his conqueror lose the game.

I certainly share the distaste for the first, but I don't know if I can defend it on pure logic. It's the size of speed of the power swing and how effortless it is, maybe.

[Ichabod]

Seems to be a hot subject I baited some lurker comments in my PB17 thread with the same sort of theory crafting. There definitely isn't any consensus, in fact we are very confused about it as a community. The best thing you can do is to adopt a thinking that every player is a bittercunt who is ready to wreck their own game to destroy yours. Then you'll be ready for it when it inevitably happens, and you don't have to put faith in others playing "fair" - which is also subjective as these discussions show. Personally I don't think there's any difference between a loser in war gifting all his remaining cities to his conqueror's opponent, and a loser after a war devoting the rest of his game on trying to make his conqueror lose the game. Both have the same reason and effect, but only one is looked down on by everyone.

Of course there is a difference. Gifting all your cities to an opponent requires clicking a button 10 times or so, there's no way for your war adversary to counter it and it benefits a third party directly. Attacking someone that attacked you requires planning and competence, your adversary can react to it and it doesn't benefit a third party directly (it can indirectly benefits all the other players in the game, but there are loads of things with the same effect). Is one of these actions more morally defensible than the other? I don't know and I don't care. But they are not the same thing. Gifting cities to an opponent is closer to just breaking Sunrise's PC so that no one can keep on playing the game than it is to attack who attacked you.

If you are going to classify every player that tries to win rather than just losing for you to win as a "bittercunt", than obviously every player will be a "bittercunt".

My advice is this: pay attention to your game more than you do to the game of the other players and alwaysconsider other players as if you were playing against yourself, that is, their actions are not innately stupid and they are likely a reasonable human being too (i.e. try to get rid of the "everything the other players do is stupid, everything I do is right" mentality that seems to be spreading around). A little exercise in empathy can do wonders for understanding the reasons of others, way more than an a priori judgement that any action that doesn't benefit you is a stupid action.

Finally, on a personal level, I play games to get a break of the tough moral choices of life, not to indulge myself in them. There's only one moral rule I think should always be followed when playing a game: "do not act in a way that will make it impossible for the other players to have fun". Apart from that, I'll probably not consider if my actions are morally right or not, nor will I judge another player's actions.

[Serdoa]

If someone stabs you in the early game, do you really not want to hurt them back, even a little? You're able to hold your calm and play to maximize your position relative to the world as your sole objective? I'm not.

I want to hurt them, most definitely. But not if it hurts my game or makes my position worse. I had those situation now in a few games and I think in all of them I finally decided for the solution that benefitted me the most. Sometimes that even meant trading with the one who hurt me at the start.

I think that is actually one of the reasons why I don't enjoy games on RB any more. Players are so set in "hurting" someone that simply made a totally reasonable decision. If you put your workers on a spot that can be attacked from the fog and your opponent does so, why are you mad at him? It was your fault and letting it go unpunished would be stupid. But instead of that question, players now devote their game to make the culprit lose. Not make them win (and therefore show their superiority by overcoming the setback) but really just to make the other one lose. Often mixed in with "Even if it doesn't help me win this game, in future others will remember it and not snipe my workers". But imo what happens is simply that others at some point don't want to play in a game in which a player with that attitude plays.

I guess what I want to say is that I agree with Ichabod.

[mackoti]

If someone stabs you in the early game, do you really not want to hurt them back, even a little? You're able to hold your calm and play to maximize your position relative to the world as your sole objective? I'm not.

I want to hurt them, most definitely. But not if it hurts my game or makes my position worse. I had those situation now in a few games and I think in all of them I finally decided for the solution that benefitted me the most. Sometimes that even meant trading with the one who hurt me at the start.

I think that is actually one of the reasons why I don't enjoy games on RB any more. Players are so set in "hurting" someone that simply made a totally reasonable decision. If you put your workers on a spot that can be attacked from the fog and your opponent does so, why are you mad at him? It was your fault and letting it go unpunished would be stupid. But instead of that question, players now devote their game to make the culprit lose. Not make them win (and therefore show their superiority by overcoming the setback) but really just to make the other one lose. Often mixed in with "Even if it doesn't help me win this game, in future others will remember it and not snipe my workers". But imo what happens is simply that others at some point don't want to play in a game in which a player with that attitude plays.

I guess what I want to say is that I agree with Ichabod.

Well i let that kind of play many times unpunished so that was stupid,and if you should'punish' the player why he can just 'punish' your play too(atacking him was a play).

We must agree we see this game diferent.

[Catwalk]

William, revenge would be a minor consideration compared to what helps me get closer to a winning position. If I'm having a hard time deciding whether a war is a good move for me or not, grudges can certainly help make that decision. That said, it'd take quite a bit for me to hold a grudge over something that's strictly in-game. That would mostly be about breaking deals, and we don't have that problem without diplo.

I agree that actually playing anonymously is not an option, which is what I meant by saying that ideally, that's what I'd like. I do think it's realistic to get a small group of players who share the same mindset on what constitutes fair play and how they enjoy playing the game. It gets difficult if you want to align several factors, especially if you also want them to be around the same skill level and feel the same way on stuff like diplo and so on.

When playing board games, I've almost always played with a house rule that everybody plays to win first and foremost. Rarely do people disagree with that rule. Players who are behind are expected to make an effort not to be obvious king makers. Let's take Settlers as an example. When a runaway starts emerging, an alliance tends to form against them to make it more difficult for the leading player to get beneficial trades. The players who are behind will take advantage of the situation to extract benefits from the #2 player in order to play along. I know there's a huge difference between Civ and Settlers, but I have a feeling games can play out that way here too if people have the same mindset about games.

Take a game like Werewolf, for that matter. Anyone who doesn't play strictly for the victory of his faction is frowned upon. If anyone pursues personal vendettas, they're looked down on as being anti-town. It's super easy to agree on a simple codex of fair play in that game. I think it's a good subject to touch on before Civ games to get people to be at least remotely on the same page, especially for small games where you might be able to reach consensus.