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Thread: How "No Bullies" fails as often as it succeeds

  1. #1

    Default How "No Bullies" fails as often as it succeeds

    Outside your city, just a few miles away is a nice Level 10 lake which, unfortunately, is owned by a big and fearsome player who is using that lake to help feed his or her army. You, on the other hand, do not have a big army and, in fact, have been colonized. However, you do like that valley so you take it.

    In Age I, this type of action would be labeled DNR for "Do Not Recommend" because the big and fearsome player would likely visit your city, attack it, take it over and barb it so it could be the latest biker bar. In Age II, there is absolutely nothing the big fearsome player can do. To say the least, a player who has gone through the effort to BE fearsome would find that to be a suboptimal situation.

    Now consider the game of space and distance. A player with strong survival instincts will attempt to keep cities around him from becoming "too big" because everyone needs to sleep and big cities can eventually mean big armies that sneak up in the middle of the night. In Age I, a player with a highly developed sense of self preservation could "encourage" his or her neighbors to move and, in the case of obstinate refusal, simply conquer the city and turn it into a biker bar. In Age II, a player can be forced to watch a city get bigger because - surprise - it's already been colonized and there is nothing you can do. It's amazing how quickly that city can become uncolonized and attacking.

    Look, I get the whole kinder, gentler world but this is really starting to grind. You basically just gave every player carte blanche to act with impunity because there just isn't a big stick anymore. Sure, that big stick was used in ways that made many players not want to play. Removing it, however, didn't improve things. The mechanisms that lead to "bullies" is also the mechanism that "keeps people honest." Maybe we could all watch the Lion King and find some way to embrace the Circle of Life and allow just a little bit of all the bad and icky stuff into the game because the current situation is really not leading anywhere good.

  2. #2
    Join Date
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    Rarely do I say this to a rambling complaining post, but solid thread. I agree about the whole "no bullying" thing. + rep added for you.

  3. #3

  4. #4
    Join Date
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    Quote Originally Posted by egami View Post
    Outside your city, just a few miles away is a nice Level 10 lake which, unfortunately, is owned by a big and fearsome player who is using that lake to help feed his or her army.
    You sure that player in Age I is as big and fearsome as you make it sound?
    Tiger Brand Coffee is a real treat. Even tigers prefer a cup of it to real meat.

  5. #5

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    The thread started has options. Crying about nothing he can do is just wrong.

    The proposed fixes by Dawnseekers are also fairly lame. Once I get the approval for that forum I will post why.

  6. #6

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    I saw the post on Conquest, Dawnseeker. It would not address either of these issues. You do not need to declare to attack a valley so you are still left with a situation where the "weak" can act with impunity against the "strong." At the same time, you would have "untouchable" cities that would remain that way.

    If you want players to have the option of being "safe", give them a diplomacy mode with reduced resource gathering and increased build times to offset that safety. If you don't think it's "fair" to have players who don't attack get less, think of it as giving players who risk more for doing so.

    There are fundamental dynamics that are undermined by the current situation and aren't adequately addressed in Conquest. First, a player needs to be able to affect another player's ability to remain in a location. The threat of "teleport or be barbed" may not be pretty but it was effective in doing that. Second, a player needs to be able to affect another player's ability to gather and use resources. Transports carting everything away did exactly that (while actually giving you a reason for things like a Warehouse). Third, the game meta needs to create the ability to prosecute unacceptable behavior. Think, "If you don't want to do the time, don't do the time." Age II gets rid of all those nasty consequences that might make a player think twice with their mouth or their actions.

  7. #7

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    ^ +1

    The linked thread does not address this "exact issue," it addresses an issue which is tangentially related to this issue.

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