The Third Languish Sunday EU3 MP Game Thread

[Berkut]

Ideally, in a game like this, everyone playing would have a reputation of "rational self interest". Basically like Habs plays - he isn't going to stab you for giggles, but on the other hand, you should not really trust him any further than doing so furthers his own interests]/i].

Like he has said before - you should play this like experienced Diplomacy players. It works in Diplomacy because you *can't* win at Diplomacy without being willing to stab. But in EU3, *never* betraying someone is certainly possible - it could even be a smart move, but IMO, it probably makes for a poorer game.

[DGuller]

I wasn't talking about reputation, though, but rather grudge-holding. If someone backstabs you once in one game, it doesn't mean you must hate them forever after through every subsequent game, or that you cannot ally with them later if it benefits you. Obviously, if someone betrays people constantly for little reason, that's different, but I don't think there's anyone like that here.

I wasn't talking about grudge-holding either when I originally brought up the point.  I was just talking about the fact that the reputation that you developed in prior games is going to follow you to the next game.  Even if you're the most rational player ever, knowing that someone made a backstab in the prior game is something that you must keep in mind.  It doesn't matter if there was a good reason or not for it, it's in your rational interest to take past history into account.

[katmai]

I would never backstab any of you as I love you all


Well maybe berkut as he is a wildcat, and tamas as he is a gypsy, and of course Sol is a Finn.
Not to mention the vile dguller and his Slavic ways.

[Berkut]

Habs and his brother are both Southerners. A stab at them is a stab at Lettow.

[Kleves]

The problem seems to be that playing "rationally" leads to stalemate. Alliances are a good example; no one wants to fight an "even" war, they will always want to fight a war that they will win. So they get allies. The other player is thinking the same thing, so they get allies. Eventually two evenly-matched blocs form, and we have stalemate.

I also don't think it is realistic to both play "cutthroat" and to allow one-on-one wars. Cutthroat means each war could potentially cripple you. You don't want to fight such a war if you can't win, which leads to the situation described above.

There is too great an incentive for peace, and too little for war. My idea in limiting the number of provinces that can be taken in a war is to reduce the risk of war, and so make it more attractive.

Also, I think we should ban province sales. They make it too easy to resolve exactly the kind of limited-war scenarios that we want to foster.

[Tamas]

Austria's advantage in 1492: thats none with the latest patch. If you want to stay HRE emperor you can forget non-core provinces, at least nothing above 2 every 50 years. But 1453 it is.

And we better differentiate between switching alliance and backstabbing. The two are different. Backstabbing is when you say to a country "sure go ahead attack I will guard your back" then deny the alliance call, declare war, and move in. This should not be verboten either.

But a change of alliance is like when Slargos tried to strongarm my France into protecting his ass while he stampeded around in Central Asia showing the finger to every other players, and Habbaku approached me with a very lucrative offer to switch camps. So I did, and I never agreed to help Slargos. Now this should be perfectly fine and no one should get a grudge over it, let alone a ragequit like he did.

[Habbaku]

I think Kleves' proposal to ban province sales is a good one and will second it heartily.  We should, of course, be allowed to sell provinces to come to compliance with peace treaties (as selling them is often the only way to actually agree with player-made terms due to the retarded peace-system of the game), but otherwise they should be completely banned.  This will, hopefully, lead to a situation in which people actually view the "Colonialism" CB as something to be used.

[DGuller]

I think Kleves' proposal to ban province sales is a good one and will second it heartily.  We should, of course, be allowed to sell provinces to come to compliance with peace treaties (as selling them is often the only way to actually agree with player-made terms due to the retarded peace-system of the game), but otherwise they should be completely banned.  This will, hopefully, lead to a situation in which people actually view the "Colonialism" CB as something to be used.

What's to stop players from entering into phony wars to accomplish the same thing?

The problem seems to be that everyone realizes that you can accomplish more with diplomacy than with guns.  I don't see what can be done to change that.

[Kleves]

What's to stop players from entering into phony wars to accomplish the same thing?

Gentlemen's agreement?

I actually think we look at a game like this too rationally. What we need is a little irrational roleplaying. Like the Brits trying to stay on the Continent, or squabbles over religion.

[Habbaku]

I actually think we look at a game like this too rationally. What we need is a little irrational roleplaying. Like the Brits trying to stay on the Continent, or squabbles over religion.

Considering the benefits that one can reap within the HRE for having others be of your religion, I can assure you that I'm going to fight it out if anyone tries to bully other German Protestants.

[Habbaku]

What's to stop players from entering into phony wars to accomplish the same thing?

The problem seems to be that everyone realizes that you can accomplish more with diplomacy than with guns.  I don't see what can be done to change that.

The wrath of the GM (I nominate myself), primarily.  Phony wars are not to be accepted by anyone and I don't think anyone's honestly going to enter into them to cheat the system.  We're all pretty honest about following out-of-game constraints, I would think.

[DGuller]

Gentlemen's agreement?

Of course, but still, you can't force someone to fight when they're in the mood to make a deal.  Even if you force the two countries to go to war to settle the ownership of one province in question, you can't force them to bash each other's armies and navies over it if they don't want to.  How many dead do there have to be before gentlemen's agreement is considered to be abided by?

[HVC]

The only way you'll get away from the normal trend of EU MP games is to have a random round robin where everyone gets a new nation for each session... but that would not be fun at all lol

[Tamas]

I am fine with banning province sale, and a gentlemen's agreement over no phony wars, but having a GM decide what war is just and what phony is not a good idea.

And Brandenburg is Catholic, and a member of the Holy Roman Empire, so I expect them to act in accordance with their Habsburg Emperor's interests

[DGuller]

I personally don't like the "no selling" idea.  I don't like house rules that have a lot of gray area to them.  No spies, no conquering China, that's easy to enforce, because it's easy to detect.  "No selling" is a lot harder to enforce, because there are ways around it, both explicitly and implicitly. 

As I said earlier, the real problem is that there are usually very good incentives to handle everything peacefully, and to change the outcome you have to change the incentives.  Changing the tools with which you act upon the incentives is more often annoying than effective.