roadkiehl wrote:

bridger wrote:

jc27141 wrote:I feel like people should be playing to win, not playing to make specific people lose. If his friends win, he still ends up in last place. It just seems spiteful and unsportsmanlike.

This is a "Vote Who Wins" game. When someone gifts all their drillers to your enemies, they are voting for everyone but you. That's the main mechanic of the game. Your goal is to convince everyone else to let you win. Failing that, punish the people who didn't work with you.

That's a good way of putting it. As Pmoney said earlier, it encourages people to ally with a losing player despite the inevitability of their defeat. I think it's actually good for the game atmosphere when attacking a weak player isn't a guaranteed way to launch yourself to victory.

I wholeheartedly agree. This is a game of diplomacy. If a player is giving up on a game, and believes they should give everything to a single player, then all other players have failed to give him a reason to do otherwise.

In a recent game I was in, a resigning player gave two of the remaining three players, half of their drillers, and left their specialists at abandoned factories. This was an immense amount of information. Cleary, those two players were loyal to him, but not so strongly to cause them to get everything. The third guy probably never talked to him.

The way a player leaves a game is a better judge of the people he's had interactions with than a judge of the leaving player. By the time they leave, they have zero vested interest in the game.

I think it's more fun to consolidate resources to a handful of strategic locations; making it near impossible for anyone get them.

Eg. an outpost with 150+ drills, shield, and lots of desirable specialists... anyone can capture them, but it's going to cost you a world of hurt.

I've done this (given other players a lot of my stuff -- so much that they accused me of committing suicide) as part of a bargaining strategy.

There was a huge power --the largest in the game at the time -- trying to bully their way to my queen. I tried to negotiate but I had very little leverage. So I told them that I'd do everything I could to make them lose if they continued to press. Had I let them do what they wanted I'd have lost anyway. He continued so I made good on my promise.

I started giving stuff to almost every other player. It worked great. I put powerful allies between myself and my enemies. I created a ton of goodwill between all of the other players and myself. And I showed everyone that I would follow through no matter what the cost. Eventually that juggernaut was destroyed and I was one of five to live until the end of the game. I had a real shot in getting into the top three.

He wasn't happy about it -- lots of cursing and such -- but, oh well.

It is just another tool in the diplomatic tool belt IMO.

I had a guy try to convince me he was 10 years old and had terminal Cancer just so I wouldn't take his Queen, after he spent the whole game boasting about how he was going to beat me.

He kept whinging right to the end!

One game I played I allied with my neighbor. Few days into the game he got betrayed by someone and started gifting me everything. (There really was no reason for it since he still had so much he could have fought back….)

It was a non-ranked 8 player game and we had two quitters I believe? Anyhow now only 5 players where left and 4 of them decided that since I was winning now having two mines and a big bunch of drillers and outposts it would be best to take me out.

I barely mad third place that game.

So being gifted a bunch does not mean much if everyone then turns against you. ; )