SUBTERFUGE Forums

Those who participated in Experiment Game 01, please put your thoughts as to why you and/or other players behaved differently as to a normal game.
How were strategies, diplomacy, and subterfuge changed?

I think that diplomacy changed a lot because you had to be honest. What you said would either put a target on your back or remove the target. Instead on making a shady deal with an opponent who you can backstab you would not be able to do that because if you back stabbed him everyone knows it and will start supporting the underdog. Diplomacy was also way different because you didn't have allies just dust peace treaties. Overal I think it was interesting once but I doubt I would do it again. But I guess that that was the point of the game. It was FOR SCIENCE. I think we all learned that this does not work as well as we had hoped.

Behavior changes:
1. I'm normally a very friendly player, but this game made me go quiet. There's something about talking to the crowd that made me more careful.
2. I wasn't nearly as aggressive as I like to be. The fact that I didn't know if I could trust my neighbors or not made me hesitant.

General Comments:
It was an interesting challenge. I definitely enjoyed it, but I don't think I'd play again. It felt more like I was playing Solitaire than Subterfuge, since I couldn't coordinate with anybody.

Considering everything was supposed to be more open, this modification actually made me feel more isolated. No one was ready to go all in on a deal because everyone else would know what was going to happen. I feel that a lot of people kept quiet mostly, just so that they wouldn't have a target on their heads. This game seemed very slow and stagnated. While it was an interesting experience, I would not recommend it. Also, the hundred plus notifications a day was annoying as hell, and seemed to lag the game. Perhaps this modification would be more enjoyable with a smaller group of players, or if everyone actually knew each other in real life. While the conversation was enjoyable at times, the game itself was probably the least entertaining game of Subterfuge I've ever played. It just seemed to remove the interesting part of the game, which is all of the deceit and uncertainty that is involved in not knowing what's happening.

Agreed, felt like there was too little commitment because if you declared that you were attacking someone on one side, the people on the opposite side might just attack you for free territory. Thus it did feel pretty lonely and long. I too would probably not play this type of game again

Mathwhiz started another game with the same experiment, but just in the public lobby.
Out of the 8 people who joined:
- 2 players autoresigned
- 2 almost never spoke
- Mathwhiz, me and another player (let's call him Jacques) did speak from the start, so we formed an alliance
- The other player started cursing, it was his first game as well, so he got several outposts taken as reprimand but also several actions explained/demonstrated so he could learn from it.

In this game, the 'public chat' didn't really make for an interesting game. Mathwhiz, Jacques and me were able to discuss our plans, and everybody could read along, but since the other players didn't form an alliance against us, the three of us took the medals.

So there's a slight difference between a game with regular players, mostly L1 clearance and also 1 or 2 first timers, and a game organized with experienced and committed players from a more tight community (the forums).