Is this gamey?

[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 ]