| Pathetic Sheep (Little Upsilon) | Monday, March 16, 2009 - 08:37 am 
Imagine a real world building. The sign on the front included the word "supermarket" and the door said "open". The door opened automatically when you entered. The building had isles of food and you filled a cart (available in rows at the door). You then wheeled it back towards the front door. When approaching the isle an angry young man in an apron scowls and shouts "HEY! IF YOU PUSH THAT CART IN MY LAIN I AM GOING TO CHARGE YOU FOR EVERY ITEM IN IT". After acknowledging and placing an item on the conveyor belt the man gets red in the face and screams "HEY A__HOLE I SAID IF YOU BRING THAT D__M CART IN MY LANE I WILL CHARGE YOU. NOW F__K OFF! Don't push me! I mean it!"
My dilemma is that I am not sure what the appropriate response would be. Where I come from, swearing and yelling at people is not appropriate public behavior. I do not go to supermarkets in order to annoy clerks. In the U.S. I normally expect that a clerk rings me up and says something like "thank you" and/or "have a nice day" with a smile. In Germany I expect the clerk will slap the change on the counter and say "your welcome" [bitte]. There is a range of possibilities but the example I gave above is way out of that range.
Last August I discovered Simcountry. I had some free time to check out a few games and the game I had been wasting time on got stale. The advertisement and the start pages looked like a war game. I tried playing for awhile, read documentation, got familiar with the game mechanics and it still looked like a war game to me. Things like the numerous pictures/icons of tanks and planes or maybe the fact that half the commodities are weapons help to create and maintain that impression.
By September I joined a large federation on White Giant expecting that federations would have wars. The federation had a web site with discussion boards. On those boards people talked about potential wars and preparing for wars and I remained under the impression that one might be imminent. I eventually realized that the fed I joined had a few people who were very good at negotiations. The foreign minister was especially fanatic about crushing every war opportunity that almost came our/my way.
Up to November I was entertaining myself sacking CCCs and assimilating the weapons and cash into my growing war machine. When W3C changed the reset rules, sacking CCC became useless. So I eventually broke ties with my fed. I took stations on most continents so I could prep for a good fight regardless of where it appeared. Eventually it became apparent that White Giant is not a good place to find competition. Reading the LU and general threads of the Simcountry forum gave me the impression that LU had a more active war gaming environment.
Shortly after xmas I set up a country on LU. I started putting effort into build up in late January and February. I had a forced break in mid to late February. I expected/hoped March would create some sort of interesting scenario.
I would like to spell this out in the hopes that it can be understood. I bought a country on LU in order to find "good wars". The purpose of my empire on LU is to house the military I intend to use in wars. The economies in the countries in my empire on LU are intended to facilitate the construction of armies that will be used in wars. The only value that my armies have is their function as pieces in a war game. Preservation of pieces in a war game makes sense only because that allows me to continue enjoying the game.
I understand that causing massive death in the real world is reprehensible. Throwing away lives for entertainment is unacceptable behavior. I also do not gain real satisfaction from ruining real people's day(s). However, Simpeople are expendable and I believe a competitive gaming environment is a good thing. The principle "do unto others as you would have them do" does, in fact, make me think I should prepare for war with other players who choose to play war games.
Having said that I would like to state that certain threats are simply not at all intimidating to me. If I go to the tennis courts I do not expect to have to negotiate at the net. I would actually hope the other player serves and/or returns the ball. Smacking tennis balls at paralyzed people would be less enjoyable than a well matched tennis game. If my opponent does not want to move pieces I do not see any reason to set up a chess board. I have never played a chess game where my opponent tried to intimidate me with vulgar language. I just try to take the center of the board. I expect, hope for, and enjoy vigorous opposition.
I have not intended to "call anyones bluff". I also have not intended to insult anyone's playing ability. Nor do I intend to dismiss or belittle the size of any pile you may have accumulated. I am not in the habit of deliberately harassing or annoying other players. However, my purpose for every asset I own on LU is to be used and probably destroyed in wars. If someone does not want to fight a war he/she is welcome to request that I do not attack him or her. The in-game message system is a good way to reach me.
I may eventually search for a new war game. If I leave Simcountry it will either be because of real world time pressure or I may leave when I find a game that has more competitive interaction. A vigorous assault on my LU empire would likely give me a good reasons to build a new one.
Where I grew up we tried to play hard. After athletic games we always shook hands and said "good game". I think the practice is highly appropriate in internet games. If we fight a war and you sincerely believe my opposition was too weak and unworthy of your time then I might feel the need to apologize. |
| Johanas Bilderburg (Little Upsilon) | Monday, March 16, 2009 - 02:25 pm
Well spoken. |
| FarmerBob | Monday, March 16, 2009 - 03:53 pm
I concur, but look again at what you have written.
Is it clear who the real enemy of your enjoyment of this game is? |
| Jojo the Hun (Fearless Blue) | Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - 03:52 am
P. Sheep and like-minded individuals, come to Fearless Blue. You're wanted here. |
| Pathetic Sheep (Little Upsilon) | Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - 08:39 am
Jojo,
When I first read the website I had planned on building on fearless blue after learning basics on WG. The basic setup on FB is not conducive to aggressive war gaming. If you have to heavily defend the leader country you also need to build a large economy to support the defense. A major portion of your efforts has to be the economic game.
The secure country allows you to rapidly build a strong economy with much less effort. A strong economy can then crank out strategic weapons and purchase offense. I believe far more ammunition is in motion on LU.
I recently considered setting up a CEO of fearless so that I could profit off of paranoid countries. I don't want to put the time or gc into building another CEO.
Farmerbob,
I am enjoying the game fine. It was an MSN discussion that inspired the supermarket story. My MSN is off. |
| Jojo the Hun (Fearless Blue) | Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 02:52 am
Interesting. Is the basic setup on LU more conducive to aggressive war gaming? |
| TuCulo EsMio (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 05:10 am
The basic setup on LU makes aggressive wargaming possible on any world
A proper empire on LU means you can generaly make an ass of yourself anywhere and be effective.
Not that any of you are being an ass, I refer mainly to myself quite frankly...
An LU empire is truely a gem. |
| Pathetic Sheep (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 07:24 am
The perception of the opposite is created mostly by W3C. On the world descriptions they emphasize fearless Blue as a war world. The reason they emphasize FB as a war world is because players can lose the leader country. W3C is covering itself so that players ejected from FB will try again on planets were the leader country is secure.
If you want to spend your time fighting wars the other 4 planets are better [assuming you can find opponents]. You can build a large leader country and pile offensive weapons. Then you could conquer and liquidate or not. Either way you do not have to rebuild the leader country. If building an economy is a chore that prevents you from playing then LU is a much better choice. Even if you win on FB you will end up with a seriously depleted offense which will require an extended period of time for reloading.
I think the FB set up might be ideal for players interested in diplomacy.
A setup W3C should consider is a small world that resets every 90 days and has CCCs with populations around 25M. |
| illuminatus | Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 07:58 am
Correct me if I'm wrong, but couldn't a person just buy war protection for their leader country on FB? Since WP is a booster, and boosters used on the main country extend registration, the actual cost of buying WP for a leader country on fearless blue is nothing.
The 90 day reset thing could be interesting. Other browser games use that setup to get around the problem of older players vs. newer players and it works well there. |
| ShcyzMattiCa (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 05:11 pm
"A setup W3C should consider is a small world that resets every 90 days and has CCCs with populations around 25M."
Interesting, but the incentive to build is taken away with resets. For example, If I wanted to build a nice empire and wage a war here and there; the reset would destroy my work.
It could still be interesting *IF*, you maintained your positive growth after a reset.
If person A.- played three months conquered or earned 200T in assets, then maybe it would be converted to GC and credited directly upon reset.
If person B._ played three months and fell below 30T in assets his/her debt should be converted to GC and debited from his/her account upon reset.
I think war gaming would be alot more fun *IF* the cost of war reduces as it has been, ammo is even more readily available, and MIB didn't just defend tagrets they are deployed to, but act as the def interceptors do when an attack is coming. The one thing that is bothersome to me about the war game is when I fire LBC missiles from 3500 km away, but Def batts with a range of 2000 KM (I think) destroy some of my batts. These batts are located in a military base. If I shoot from a range that is outside the range of these def weapons, how do they manage to kill some of my batts? Also, when I fire my LBC batts or conventional batts, I could understand my missiles maybe being taken out, but why do my own def and Mib batts do nothing as they watch missiles coming inbound and do NOTHING. If I have radar planes available, I should be able to defend against weapons from another country responding to my offensive attacks and greatly reduce my losses if not altogether. Done.
Also it is my belief that over time, the price of GC *should* go up, rather than down. This will happen as the GM has stopped offering GC on the cash market. But it makes it incredibly hard to get gc now, especially when the increase in value isn't real, but it is a supply and demand issue. The "real" value should be going up over time because the real value of the gold coin is going up, not because of some inflationary response due to supply and demand issues.
What I didn't get a month or two ago was that some vets don't want to convert to gc. As some may have many trillions of cash or more, the problem becomes very clear. If they convert to gc now, in large sums, it will be quite near impossible to switch back to cash without taking a loss on the backside of the trade. The GM's I think said in a game news that they hoped to see gc price go down, and down further in the future. This presents a major loss to the player involved in this type of trade.
Gc Values must go higher and follow a trend of gaining value not devaluation over time. If not all your liquid or hard assets will be worth nothing by the time you are ready to turn it into something to cash out with.
With all that being said, the game has shown improvement. I hope to see you guys stay on track. GL with that. Bring LG back to MOD the forums. |
| Jojo the Hun (Fearless Blue) | Friday, March 20, 2009 - 02:31 am
Oh. What a #*?!ing stupid loophole. We Huns slow sometimes. But wouldn't it be even cheaper not to play the game at all? |
| Pathetic Sheep (White Giant) | Monday, March 30, 2009 - 07:01 am
Shcyzmatica,
Yes, once the reset date was approaching it would be a total waste building up a long term economy. In the last weeks your weapons would only have value if you fire them. That would make it a better setup for war gaming.
I thought there was a limit on how long you can sustain war protection. I've never bought war protection. |
