[SPOILERS] Scooticator and Pindooter give a sporting try

[Ceiliazul]

Gaspar

[Bobchillingworth]

I don't know, "assholish" plays have been something of an RB tradition. Espionage civics switching abuse in PBEM 1, mass troop-gifting and associated betrayals in PB2, Ruff doing the whip-to-nothing trick in one of the early PBEMs, various NAP-stabs, spite wars, deliberate king-making, smurfs, the list goes on. Every few games someone does something another team (or two) finds questionable / exploitive, there's a lot of talk and debate, and then everyone stops caring a few weeks later. I'm not saying there's no such thing as underhanded play, just that RB has never really had a code of gameplay conduct which extended much past "don't cheat, and don't intentionally behave in such as way as to make the game a farce", and even that last point is contentious. For the record, I don't see anything objectionable about Bacchus's play.

[spacetyrantxenu]

IIRC Xenu was doing spite-whipping in PB8 during his war with Brick, no protest was voiced.

I disagree, I posted a reply in the lurker thread since it went too far afield for a player's thread in an ongoing game.

[scooter]

I don't know, "assholish" plays have been something of an RB tradition. Espionage civics switching abuse in PBEM 1, mass troop-gifting and associated betrayals in PB2, Ruff doing the whip-to-nothing trick in one of the early PBEMs, various NAP-stabs, spite wars, deliberate king-making, smurfs, the list goes on. Every few games someone does something another team (or two) finds questionable / exploitive, there's a lot of talk and debate, and then everyone stops caring a few weeks later. I'm not saying there's no such thing as underhanded play, just that RB has never really had a code of gameplay conduct which extended much past "don't cheat, and don't intentionally behave in such as way as to make the game a farce", and even that last point is contentious.

Eh, most of those examples you're citing are from older games. And I specifically remember people thinking Ruff's whipping was pretty lame at the time. I hope this doesn't come across condescendingly (seriously not meant that way) - but you weren't around here when PB5 and PB8 happened, right? The guiding principle behind those games were "don't do mean things to people that you wouldn't want them to do to you" - and that worked perfectly. That just seems to be fading a tad here, and that's disappointing to me, because I don't want to go back to the days where we had to make a rule for everything.

Although I honestly thought the lurkers would be pretty strongly against this too (and kinda assumed a discussion to that effect was going on in the lurker thread at times), so I guess Gaspar is right that I'm actually in the minority.


Anyway, to get back to the game - Lewwyn logged in and played. Now I have to wait a couple agonizing hours before I can log in and see what he did. Trailblazers did not fall unsurprisingly. Guess I just hope that he suicided.

[pindicator]

I've mentioned in the lurker thread that I don't think it was a sporting move. I think because this happened on the other continent you're seeing more discussion in the lurker thread than here, just to protect against possible spoilers

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Scooter, I agree with most of your response to Barry's post. We've kind of moved past a lot of those rules-lawyering issues but recently it seems (maybe just to me) that the community has celebrated hard core, never, ever, ever give up strategies, and perhaps it is possible to misinterpret that by taking that attitude/mantra to its ultimate, most far reaching limit, which is basically anything mechanically possible in the game engine is fair, so long as I'm defending my land, scorched earth, never war with me in the next game meta, etc.

So long as the furthest limit that we reach is "would I enjoy this being done to me?", we can't really go wrong. Not surprisingly, a little empathy for your opponent is a good thing for everyone. Scooter, I don't really think that you are in the minority, we just haven't articulated this much lately.

[scooter]

I've mentioned in the lurker thread that I don't think it was a sporting move. I think because this happened on the other continent you're seeing more discussion in the lurker thread than here, just to protect against possible spoilers

Gotcha, makes sense. Guess this discussion may have to wait until post-game to really be expanded.

Scooter, I agree with most of your response to Barry's post.

Ohhhhhhsnap.

We've kind of moved past a lot of those rules-lawyering issues but recently it seems (maybe just to me) that the community has celebrated hard core, never, ever, ever give up strategies, and perhaps it is possible to misinterpret that by taking that attitude/mantra to its ultimate, most far reaching limit, which is basically anything mechanically possible in the game engine is fair, so long as I'm defending my land, scorched earth, never war with me in the next game meta, etc.

So long as the furthest limit that we reach is "would I enjoy this being done to me?", we can't really go wrong. Not surprisingly, a little empathy for your opponent is a good thing for everyone. Scooter, I don't really think that you are in the minority, we just haven't articulated this much lately.

Thanks for the thoughts, very well-put. I think you hit it that the "never-ever-give up" attitude being taken to its extreme is probably a root here. However, if someone with a straight face says "I totally wouldn't mind the guy I'm attacking spiting me in all ways possible" then I think we're back at square one, at which point I don't know what the solution is.


Side-note: Bacchus, why wasn't that pop you whipped all on the last turn not, like, whipped into actual units during all those turns Plako was invading you? The fact that you had that much pop a dozen turns into a war you knew you were going to lose is actually half of what's puzzling to me. If all you cared about was hurting Plako, surely whipping units like a crazy person would be the better approach rather than not whipping until it's too late for the whips to matter for any reason other than spite. Also, I realize there's a strong chance that cannot be answered in this thread without spoilers, so maybe that answer should go in the lurker thread.

[BaII]

Scooter, how many units could u have gotton into the city if Lewyen had not waited to heal?

[Gavagai]

So long as the furthest limit that we reach is "would I enjoy this being done to me?", we can't really go wrong.

Of course, we can. As I explained elsewhere, it means that we shouldn't be defending at all.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

So long as the furthest limit that we reach is "would I enjoy this being done to me?", we can't really go wrong.

Of course, we can. As I explained elsewhere, it means that we shouldn't be defending at all.

Cool. I hope I'm your neighbor in that case.