Is this gamey?

[DavidG]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
I don't have a problem with a little wheeling and dealing. But when it gets to the point where you have two or three empires and one is researching ships, one is researching weapons and one is researching shields and all trading what each of them gets, I have a problem.

First of all it's incredibly tedious and boring to me to do this.

Ditto. I find this tedious too because do to this requires way more time put into a game planning the tech each will do than I want to do. (if a turn takes me more than 15 or 30 mintues I'll just end it and hell with what I forgot)
The reason I like to ban it is to prevent 2 or 3 players from allying and trading tech like crazy and forgetting that it is a "Last man standing game" I suspect if players accepted that is was actually a Last man standing game then tech trading would not really be a problem.

It actually never really occured to me that players would think a game wasn't Last man standing if those were the victory conditions. I mean ganging up on one player is OK to a point. But ganging up on him and ending the game when he's done, well that's gamey (nudge nudge wink wink )

[teal]

I never really understood the idea that "if people understood that it was a Last man standing game they would be more hesitant to trade technology".

Assume there is a game with 4 players: A, B, C, and D. Further assume that in any conflict a player with superior skills and superior technology will defeat a player with inferior skill and technology (i.e. luck plays no part).

Now say A and B decide to form an alliance and trade technology. They will quickly defeat C and D who have poorer technology and then face off against each other. Since A and B have the same level of technology the one with the greater skill will win.

So the question of whether or not to trade technology with your ally boils down to one of skill. Do you think you are more skilled than your ally (or perhaps in a more favorable situation). If the answer is yes then you should trade and if the answer is no you should not. (actually you should trade anyways because C and D are going to trade anyways and you need to keep up with them, but let's not get into that). Due to some strange quirk of psychology most people feel that they are more skilled than their allies (although Garrison Kiellor might say something funny about that). So psychologically speaking most people will want to trade in this situation. Because this is so C and D are forced into trading with each other if they want to survive at all, much less be the Last one standing.

Also people who tend to think that they are unskilled (i.e. beginners) usually will not play to "win" the game via the Last man standing victory condition but rather rationalize that they are "winning" if they survive as long as possible against the others. So they will gladly trade even with an ally who is more skilled than them because it helps them survive longer than C and D even if they know they will eventually "lose" because of it.

So I don't think the Last man standing victory condition has anything to do with people's desire to tech trade or not. If tech trading is allowed a competitve player must do as much of it as they absolutely can in order to even have a shot at winning. And I agree that this aspect of the game is one that I really don't like and tend to avoid doing as much of it as I should even if I know it will mean I will lose.

[ July 30, 2003, 18:09: Message edited by: teal ]

[Loser]

Garrison Kielor?

[teal]

Back to the original question: Is gifting a planet to a doomed ally a gamey move?

I am with Geo on this. A lot depends on what the motivations and reasons for this are. If it is psychological in nature (for example if the game involves a group of friends playing who will have "bragging rights" and will relentlessly rib anyone who is eliminated then perhaps a subset of this group will act to avoid letting their ally be eliminated because they don't want to see their friend insulted outside of the game). In these sorts of cases I don't see anything wrong with the gifting of a planet.

Gifting the trade income back to the player who gifted you the planets is extremely gamey and exploiting an "unrealistic" bug and is not something that I would condone.

The whole problem here is not actually the gifting of planets, but is the way trade income works. The way it should work is the income derived should be the percentage of the smaller empires income, not each member of a trade alliance taking a percentage of their partners income. If it wasn't for the screwy way trade is implemented in SEIV then this whole thing wouldn't even be an issue. Also it is theoretically possible that someone had a wide ranging intercolonization agreement with their ally and because of this you are able to virtually wipe out an empire except for one or two planets which were deep in their allies space. Practically speaking, this is the same situation, but it is 100% not gamey.

Lastly to anyone who is listening... A game is certainly Last man standing unless explicitly discribed otherwise. However, I do wish that there was a way to end a game with a mutually agreed upon single winner say when one empire takes over 3/4 of the known galaxy and it is only a matter of time before the others fall.

[teal]

Originally posted by Loser:
Garrison Kielor?

I shouldn't refer to cultural icons since this is a worldwide forum. My apologies. I might have spelled his name wrong. He is the host of "A Prarie Home Companion" on National Public Radio in the U.S. where "All the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average"

[Fyron]

A game is certainly Last man standing unless explicitly discribed otherwise.

In your opinion, yes. That opinion is not shared by a very large portion of PBW players (perhaps 50/50). So, this is why things like this MUST be stated at game creation.

[teal]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:

quote:

---

A game is certainly Last man standing unless explicitly discribed otherwise.

In your opinion, yes. That opinion is not shared by a very large portion of PBW players (perhaps 50/50). So, this is why things like this MUST be stated at game creation.

---

Actually if it is not stated in the game description then the default position is what the game itself describes. If you do not put in another victory condition then Last man standing is when the SEIV program will declare one person to have won. The fact that the majority of the PBW community (myself included by the way) would rather call a game a draw than drag it out to its inevitable conclusion and waste hours and hours of their life on the game does not change the fact that, unless stated otherwise, the rules of the game are the default rules for basic SEIV, and those are Last man standing.

[ July 30, 2003, 19:06: Message edited by: teal ]