seethestar wrote:My logic says the path to greatness through "making lots of friends" is flawed - you can't possibly make friends with everyone and if they also act logically they will eventually see that
You can make friends with everyone, especially when everyone also thinks they need to make friends with everyone. -- in fact the prevailing philosophy people take on is that they MUST do this, or eventually be destroyed by the gang of friends, probably not in this game, but in future games (that's why you see these very direct threats from queen and 6pay that your time is coming).
seethestar wrote:their interests are not best served by helping someone else.. I'm a student of Game Theory - and this game (particularly in anon mode) is about as pure an example of that as you can get.
Key point is that whilst your goals are aligned with mine, it makes absolute sense to work together with someone - once that state of affairs is no longer the case then I will expect you to betray me - and I will then also look to do the same.
I see your point here, but I think there is a strong counter-argument to this. Human societies are built on notions of cooperation. Darwin, natural selection, etc, has focused us toward this. Betrayals and acts of pure self interest happen, but they are the exception that stand out because of how contrary they are to our perspective of cooperation. You might point at the rich who have no problems taking from the poor, but this lends itself to the "us vs. them" mentality. My group is more important than your group. Those rich people are extremely cooperative with each other, or at least with their own family. If they arnt, again they are the extreme minority.
The reason concepts of morality, nobility, loyalty, ethics, are valued is not because society can take from people with these traits and then cast them aside. They are valued because it works. If everyone we interact with shares these traits, everyone gains. In terms of Subterfuge- if you trust me to turn my drills away from your border, whilst I trust you to do the same, we BOTH gain. The entire system (both in life and in Subterfuge) breaks down if either side is not loyal to their agreement.
In life, we have a lifetime to seek people out and punish them, socially or legally. Whats fascinating about Subterfuge is that we only have 8ish days, then we move on to a new society (game). People cling to the idea of future games, long term reputation, etc, in order to enforce our ideals like we do in society- and I think queen and 6pay are right, in standard games you are going to run out a new people to play against, and be forced to play with people who know what you represent. To me, this is boring and removes the subterfuge from Subterfuge.
This is why I think anonymous mode (if it were working properly and was actually anonymous) is the best way to play the game, because it is actually more challenging to play as the good guy. And because there is so much more incentive to be the bad guy, good guys have an easier time finding them and seeking to destroy them, but only so much time to do it in. And maybe if things look bleak for the good guy, he turns bad to seek a better outcome, or maybe he sticks to his principles. Its an inherently more interesting way to play the game.
^this is fun. Joining a room with named friends and figuring out which of your friends are better friends than your other friends... is so boring, and even the people who end up at the top of the friends list will get tired of it.