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This is a reaction to this post in "Ancient Empires" PBEM, but reading that post/thread is not required for this topic.
Peaster, when you came to the "Ancient Empires" PBEM you asked if there was any ethical code in our game. The answer was: no, you can be good, bad, machiavelian, you can act any way.
I may be mistaken, but I felt you didn't grasp it fully, and you usually mixed two points of view: Player's one and Leader's one. I think you do it again now.
IMO there is a clear difference between the following levels:
Player's level:
here you can speculate whether a turn conforms game rules, what is a very unnatural exploit and what is not, if a player is congenial (for example because he accepts that a damage caused to a civilization of his rival by a Civ2 bug is repaired, or because he continues to play although his civ will be clearly destroyed in several turns) etc.
Leader's level:
here you can say that another Leader is not very congenial because he "stole" all remaining city slots, or you can say he is unethical because he sneak-attacked right after he signed an alliance treaty (or you can even contend he is ethical because of that!).
Anyway you should never judge a behaviour/morality of a Leader from a position of a Player. (Similarly you don't judge a morality of weather.)
One of fun thing of PBEMing is you never know if your opponents will behave ethically or not. Imagine a game where Leaders would be obliged to behave only ethicaly, sneak-attack or treachery would be impossible. Such a game would be boring.
I remember in past you appreciatively mentioned a player of your another PBEM played always "ethically" (you meant he always played an ethical Leader). But such a player was foreseeable and so boring (from this aspect, of course a play with him could be fun from other aspects).
(BTW similarly a player that ALWAYS plays like a pig is boring too, in this aspect)
Originally posted by Peaster
So anyway, I don't blame him much for that move, but he obviously won't be winning the "Miss Congeniality" Prize for it.
So anyway, I don't blame him much for that move, but he obviously won't be winning the "Miss Congeniality" Prize for it.
I may be mistaken, but I felt you didn't grasp it fully, and you usually mixed two points of view: Player's one and Leader's one. I think you do it again now.
IMO there is a clear difference between the following levels:
Player's level:
here you can speculate whether a turn conforms game rules, what is a very unnatural exploit and what is not, if a player is congenial (for example because he accepts that a damage caused to a civilization of his rival by a Civ2 bug is repaired, or because he continues to play although his civ will be clearly destroyed in several turns) etc.
Leader's level:
here you can say that another Leader is not very congenial because he "stole" all remaining city slots, or you can say he is unethical because he sneak-attacked right after he signed an alliance treaty (or you can even contend he is ethical because of that!).
Anyway you should never judge a behaviour/morality of a Leader from a position of a Player. (Similarly you don't judge a morality of weather.)
One of fun thing of PBEMing is you never know if your opponents will behave ethically or not. Imagine a game where Leaders would be obliged to behave only ethicaly, sneak-attack or treachery would be impossible. Such a game would be boring.
I remember in past you appreciatively mentioned a player of your another PBEM played always "ethically" (you meant he always played an ethical Leader). But such a player was foreseeable and so boring (from this aspect, of course a play with him could be fun from other aspects).
(BTW similarly a player that ALWAYS plays like a pig is boring too, in this aspect)