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

[Catwalk]

Also, I agree completely with Serdoa's points.

[Bobchillingworth]

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.

Well, yeah I would be really upset if someone sniped a bunch of my workers, because they sniped a bunch of my workers. I'm not going to go victim-blaming on myself; sure, leaving those workers exposed was in retrospect a bad idea, but it's not like the aggressor was incapable of controlling himself. There is also the fact that in these AI-diplo games doing stuff like keeping a few workers exposed on a border carries a lot of unspoken significance. If my opponent leaves the bait alone, then I currently have a friend, or at least someone who would rather not fight me. If they go for it, then clearly sustained peace is unlikely, because I border an opportunist and/or someone who is prepared to fight me. If they capture the workers but for some reason AREN'T prepared for retribution, then it is my solemn duty to invade and punish them for their indolence.


There is indeed also the reputation factor- if everyone and their cousin can get away with stealing workers from me, then I'm going to be the next Nakor or Sareln with a reputation as a human goody hut for aggressive players. If I go nuts and turn my empire into a screaming revenge machine then I could instead be like Commodore and benefit from Reputation Armor regardless of whether my civ has an actual army or cardboard cutouts. I often don't agree with how RB places a great value on reputation, but enough players place stock in past performance in deciding how they approach contemporary games that you can't ignore it.


Finally, if I lose three workers or whatever on turn 50 I'm probably screwed anyway from a competitive standpoint, so I might as well have fun dueling the guy who wrecked my game. It's only fair

[Bobchillingworth]

When playing board games, I've almost always played with a house rule that everybody plays to win first and foremost.

Hah, I learned the hard way years ago that when playing Risk it is vital to come to a consensus before the game starts whether the last person to be eliminated is "second place" or "first loser"

[mackoti]

I think is important to realise that the saying 'playing to win' has no cover in a game of civ after some number turns,but everyone wants to do good, and if someone spoils theyr game ,players have 2 choises mail the game or find new objectives, so playing to finish in front of the guy who atacked him so there you go, a good reason.I toataly agree what Bob said someweree is not my concern to gave same chanses to win to the front runners.

[scooter]

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).

Seriously this. You are playing a game with humans. Humans generally become unhappy when you kick over their sand castle for no real gain. Part of making smart decisions is making sure that you only kick over the sandcastle if you stand to gain enough from kicking it more than it costs you to make the person upset. If they succeed in ruining your game because you kicked it, then that's your own poor decision to blame, not their dumb bitterness or however you want to label it.

[Catwalk]

Seriously this. You are playing a game with humans. Humans generally become unhappy when you kick over their sand castle for no real gain. Part of making smart decisions is making sure that you only kick over the sandcastle if you stand to gain enough from kicking it more than it costs you to make the person upset. If they succeed in ruining your game because you kicked it, then that's your own poor decision to blame, not their dumb bitterness or however you want to label it.

People also get unhappy when you kick over their sand castle for real gain. Do you think that for every offensive maneuver, you should be in the mindset of "Am I ready for this guy to spend the rest of his game trying to ruin mine if he gets the slightest opportunity?"

[Bobchillingworth]

You had sure as heck better be building up military if someone kicks down your sandcastle for real gain, since that implies they are in the process of conquering you :P


Obviously this all depends on the situation. If someone captures three workers on T50, I'm probably out of the game and should strongly consider focusing on obtaining retribution- but only if I'm reasonably sure that attacking could hurt my opponent and not just feed them buckets of exp. If someone captures one worker on T170 I might let it slide if it isn't part of a larger offensive, since I don't want to deal with the horrors of machine gun-and-infantry warfare over a single worker.


Opportunistically razing one of my cities will very likely set me off. Opportunistically popping a scout will mildly annoy me. Context matters.

[zakalwe]

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.

I nominate this as post of the year.

[Fintourist]

I guess one always takes the risk when one upsets a person and he is in position to harm you if he devotes his whole game to hurting you. I simplify a bit, let's say there are 6 different levels of upsetting an opponent:

1. Upsetting him in a non-military way (not trading with him, winning a wonder race he considers important, whatever that makes him feel he lost the game/got screwed)
2. Planting an aggressive/annoying city on your mutual border
3. Sniping/killing a unit or few units
4. Razing one of his border cities
5. Capturing a part of his empire
6. Capturing a majority of his empire

Now where do you think goes your line? What level needs to be reached that you decide to dedicate your game for fighting a single opponent? I'm pretty sure that level 1 is in 99 % of cases not enough, but at level 6 you forget all the other goals and just fight until the end (mostly not your own choice). Although PB8 Commodore-Pindicooter case is an example that proves that even at level 5-6 it does not necessarily happen (and proves it in a spectacular way). However, what about levels 2-5? What level makes it justified to just drop the game and focus on that one asshole who kicked your castle?

Well, what I'm trying to say: Situations are always different and also, some people just react stronger than others in similar situations. Always when you upset somebody you are taking a risk that your action creates a grudge war. Obviously it's really annoying if a small spark is enough to cause a fire that burns also your world, but it's just impossible to set any behavior rules that would prevent such a situation. Whether we like it or not, this is a part of civ metagame and I doubt there is any way around it as long as we are playing against humans and not an AI.

Another dimension of this is how to deal with 3rd parties while you are in grudge war with somebody. We have agreed that city gifts are banned, but anything below that is again a grey area where there are as many ways to behave as there are players. Aaand I think it's again pretty much impossible to create any clear rules.

[Jowy]

Ichabod looks like you missed the entire point :P My post was about expecting the worst every time. Just need to accept that there are a lot of people who don't play with the same definition of fair play, and you need to accept that it's part of the game. You can't just put faith in your neighbor to be a reasonable guy, you need to assume that they'll be bitter and mad and will fuck you over given the chance. That's the only way to deal with this meta game, just live with it.