FG: Nuclear War XXII - Nuclear Proliferation!

[Hercules]

I side with DrSpike and Ljcvetko on this issue. Large alliances (more than three) would spoil the fun. For most of the last Go game people played as individuals or in alliances of short duration and hence the game was full of surprises.

I think any alliances I've been in have been initiated in game and as a reaction to ongoing events (no pun intended).

Perhaps players should only be permitted to co-ordinate attacks in alliances once every 2/3 turns starting from turn 4 say.

A player could choose not to be of an alliance until turn 5 but would need to find some one or two other people with the same option (a player who was part of an alliance in turn 4 would be ineligible). This would give rise to some interesting and complicated practical politics.


Small scale and short duration alliances are good fun. Larger alliances (4 upwards) are not fun.

[Ljube]

There is no need for such complications Hercules. Having a rule that the winner can be only one is enough to reduce the power and the duration of all alliances.

[Skanky Burns]

We need to decide what limits, if any, we place on alliances and add them to the official rules. This way the whiners can be happy, we can get on with the game, and our victory (if we do manage to achieve it again - there is every chance that non-allied members can win) will not be cheapened by claims of "cheating" against "unwritten rules".

[Ljube]

Comrade Tass, it would be pointless to reply to so many perversions of truth in your very long post which honestly made me laugh.

I'll just say this: Your victory is worthless in the eyes of the majority of players in this forum no matter how hard you try to make it different. And the games you GMed as God-GM collapsed because such games suck.

I'll just go back to playing games with rules which don't change in the middle of it. Chess comes in mind.

[Kuciwalker]

Happy Twinkle Fairy is right

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Ljube-ljcvetko
I'll just go back to playing games with rules which don't change in the middle of it. Chess comes in mind.

That's nice to know, but how does that help in the current arguement? Unless you can point out a rule that happened to be changed this game.

[snoopy369]

Sheesh, miss a day and you miss everything ...

Originally posted by Ljube-ljcvetko
Co-op victories are not in the spirit of NW. Furthermore, the rest of the players played the game with the idea only one can win. Rules of a game, particularly the rule determining the winner, cannot be changed after the game has already started, because it puts most of the players in an unequal situation. If the vanquished players had known that co-op victories were allowed, they would have played differently from the beginning. They would have formed strong alliances and possibly won.

No, you must play it out until only one of you remains.

Bold is mine. This is the part of this whole discussion that determines my stance on the matter - well, that and the spirit of NW.

Admittedly only having personally played one game, I don't necessarily feel right in saying that I understand the spirit of NW; but I certainly could tell watching the previous round and reading another that the spirit is not about cooperation, except in small and quickly changing doses. Admittedly it'd be impossible to prevent alliances of some nature in this game, but allowing coop victory requires alliances, and makes this game a faction game, not a forum game.

I entered NW XXII with the idea that I was supposed to go it alone, occasionally cooperating with other folk. I thought about making deals proactively, but decided I would forgo making any myself as I was too new to the game to know all of you and your ... quirks.

Nonetheless, had I understood cooperation to be allowed, I certainly would have immediately found a few friends to cooperate with, knowing that otherwise i'd be so much ground beef.

That said, a rule should certainly be in place for XXIII (hopefully starting up soon!!!) to this effect.

Edit: I want to make clear that I have no specific care about the results of XXIII, but about future games. I lost to LordNuke, who was not to my knowledge part of any vast alliance, but simply saw someone who he could wipe out. I don't want to see allied victories as options in future games, for reasons stated above; and regardless of the rule or not rule in the previous game, I don't think any of that matters any more. Unless you keep track of who wins each game, in which case it's up to you to determine the winner.

[Ljube]

The rule changed is the rule about victory conditions. Since NW 1 the rule has been only one can win the game.

Now, if that rule was changed in the meantime, this change would need to be posted. We don't want to see NW deteriorating into some disease, now do we?


Only one point in Tass’s post deserves a reply and that is the issue of the rules of Chess. They are determined by the authority for the rules and printed for everybody’s knowledge. When a game starts the rules that were valid at the beginning of the game are also valid at its end. The rule about a maximum of one queen has never been valid, neither in the printed official ruleset nor in tradition.

[Kuciwalker]

Admittedly only having personally played one game, I don't necessarily feel right in saying that I understand the spirit of NW; but I certainly could tell watching the previous round and reading another that the spirit is not about cooperation, except in small and quickly changing doses. Admittedly it'd be impossible to prevent alliances of some nature in this game, but allowing coop victory requires alliances, and makes this game a faction game, not a forum game.

Not true. Since our alliance will probably be #1 on everyone's hit list next turn, I doubt one of us will win. And once the alliances are visible, an intelligent player would be trying like hell to break it up. I still don't believe that only one event died and another lost a few cities.

[Shogun Gunner]

I look forward to tracking everyone's future law careers. Nice work finding legal loopholes...omission versus comission...etc etc etc

I've taken the liberty of fowarding the rules to my lawyer asking him to help me win next time. What fun.

[Ljube]

First there is a rule that allied victories are not permitted. Then this rule mysteriously disappears but everybody keeps playing like it still exists. Does this make allied victories allowed? I don't think so.

I don't like games where I don't have set rules before they start. That's just my preference. But what is even worse is a game that presumably has set rules before it starts and turns out to be a game without set rules.

Regarding Chess, of course you can have variations, but you would have to agree upon the rules before the game starts and you couldn't change the rules during the game - that's my point. Also, anything different from the official ruleset and the allowed variations is not called chess anymore.

[Ljube]

And I resisted the urge to say that it is called The Disease.

[Shogun Gunner]

Comrade,

I'm not whining, I don't care that much.

I congratulated the alliance immediately after the declaration of victory was made.

I stated that discussions of cooperation, etc on other forums was okay.

The legalistic debating isn't going to solve this difference of opinion. Does it really matter what anyone thought before the game started? Let's just repair the unclear wording in the rules and start another game.

Oh my.

[Ljube]

Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
A) Accept that the rules for this game allow such action or
B) Point out where in the opening post it prohibits such action.

A) They do not because it is not explicitly stated that they do, and
B) Because the previously explicitly stated rule was that allied victories were not allowed.

I don't know which GM and when screwed up and didn't copy and paste this particular rule, but even you must agree it's pointless to play a game without winning conditions. The generally accepted victory conditions by the majority of players are that allied victories are not allowed. If you want to change that put it to vote, don't change it arbitrarily.

I will never accept your victory, not in a million years. I believe most of other players won’t either. So what did you accomplish playing this way? What kind of hollow victory is that? Instead of a recognised victory you have a disputed one. Instead of triumph you have bitter argument.

I’m not going to debate about this any more. However I would like to see the rule about victory conditions back.

[Spaced Cowboy]

This whole topic is FUBAR, plain and simple:

1. This game is over...the event alliance wins. Wheeeee!
2. Alliances cannot be policed and will be allowed in any type of manner in future games.
3. The rules need to be refreshed to clearly state "one" winner.

Jag found a loophole in the rules and broke the game somewhat especially for some of us; what is left to do now is to redefine the ruleset to prevent such allied victories.

Can't we just get back to dogpiling Tass on turn 1 like in the old days?