Scorched earth

[Reverend Zombie]

Shorter Original Post?:

"I'm entitled to everything you own in pristine condition because I attacked you."

[Morkilus]

I don't consider the analogy to a tournament sports player valid at all. A tournament is by definition NOT a multiplayer game, and almost all non-duel, non-team Dominions games are. The point of a multiplayer game is to do the best you can, and maybe be the one on top when it ends; it is not a series of matches. There are alliances, 2-on-1's and 3-on-1's, and so on.

Besides, if a player wants to have fun and keep playing, there's no reason he should give up at any point just so the dominant player can have an easier time beating others. If you aren't having fun losing or see a point to it (roleplaying, "honor", or otherwise), find a replacement or simply go AI. Under ridiculously overbalanced circumstances such as 4-man pile-ons, I've gone AI when reduced to a few provinces, but I also think it's fun to give a dominant opponent as much hell as I can in the off chance that he'll leave me alone for a minute out of frustration. Otherwise I feel like it's throwing the game for no particular reason.

[konming]

Just a few random thoughts:

About "sore loser". While he may be sore because you attacked him and he lost, you are certainly also sore because he scorthed earth and cause you to lose as well. Do I sense another sore loser?

About "deter aggression". Losing an all powerful, artifact ladden SC to some soul slay or life for a life is frustrating. So you will think carefully before you do this again, although you are still going to use SC anyway. Losing a game when you beat up a much weaker guy or gang up on some poor soul, and got scorth earth, is also frustrating. And maybe that will teach you something - maybe next time you should try to befriend some weaker nation instead of beating them to death.

About "sportsmanship". Well, this is a sport that you mercilessly beat up weak guys and have shadowy alliance coming down on other players. It is certainly valid to "injure" the other player as long as you are in the game because "injure" each other is what you do in this game. Really I do not see anyone complaining seriously about an opponent being more of a cakewalk than he should be. So I guess this has much more to do with losing than with "sportmanship".

[Baalz]

Reverend Zombie said:
Shorter Original Post?:

"I'm entitled to everything you own in pristine condition because I attacked you."

Really, there's no need to make such an inflammatory and blatantly misrepresentative statement. I view Dominions as primarily a strategy game played by all for fun, and when I lose I congratulate my opponent and honestly wish him luck in the rest of the game. If the response is a screw you, I hope you die and get eliminated next, I don't think its too hard to see how some would view that as bad sportsmanship. My point is *so* not about being entitled to anything, I may be a bit biased but I think that's pretty obvious by my posts if you're not trying to deliberately misunderstand me.

Stryke11 said:
You see, if you are going to lose, and therefore by definition cannot win, you cannot derive satisfaction from winning, BUT, you can derive satisfaction by causing the person who denyed you the win a denial of their own chances to win. You see this as "bad sportsmanship," and I see it as you being a wuss.

....

The answer is that YOU are the one who is attacking Player A, not Player C. That's good enough justification for me.

Yep, you hit the nail on the head, I see it as bad sportsmanship to try to sabotage the guy I lost to so he subsequently loses. I don't get upset when somebody attacks me in a war game, and I don't bear them bad will if they do it successfully. I'm not sure why this causes you to claim I'm a "wuss", it's kinda the definition of poor sportsmanship. From wikipedia: "Poor sportsmanship can either be the winners "rubbing salt in the wounds" of the losers, or the losers expressing their frustration at not winning, even to the point of holding a grudge." The only real justifications for it I've seen on this thread are basically that people don't view it as a sport/competition/game, but rather a simulation/roleplaying experience. That's a valid position I guess, though I tend to see little enough roleplaying up until that point.

[Forrest]

You should not be mad at the person when the game is over because it is just a game.

If you brag when I hand you a easy win then you should brag when I bite your ear off and hand it back. If it kills you to kill me then I guess I fought the good fight. If you can't stand to have your body found laying next to mine then don't attack.

There are lots of terrible things put in this game just so you can spit at your killer from death's door. The point is to have fun winning or to have fun loosing.

[Reverend Zombie]

Baalz said:
I view Dominions as primarily a strategy game played by all for fun...

What if the thing that brings your beaten opponent the most fun, at that point, is bringing you down with him?

The only real justifications for it I've seen on this thread are basically that people don't view it as a sport/competition/game, but rather a simulation/roleplaying experience.

Here's a sport analogy for you: teams that are hopelessly behind in games don't just walk off the court or field--they continue trying to score against their opponent.

[BigandScary]

But do they try to take out the knee of the other team's top player so the team that beats them loses in the end?

[OmikronWarrior]

BigandScary said:
But do they try to take out the knee of the other team's top player so the team that beats them loses in the end?

You mean horror mark the SC pretender whose leading the charge? Uh, yeah, of course you do that.

[PyroStock]

Baalz said:
I see it as bad sportsmanship to try to sabotage the guy I lost to so he subsequently loses.

He's sabotaging his own provinces, labs and castles. I don't see much difference between this and the guy who "sabotages" you to lose by fighting you to the bitter end.

Overly offensive posts, hacking turn files, taking down the server when the host is eliminated, and secretly playing more than one nation are all completely intolerable

...because those are all situations where the player isn't following the rules and/or attempt to do harm via means outside context of the game. The scorched earth tactic is within the context of the game. I never posted in the Dark Knight thread because others there all covered my points. A clever quote from that thread that holds true here too...

I don't have a lot of patience for trying to figure out what "acceptable" tactics are - if I can do it within the context of the game then it's fair play.