Boardgamers who cannot cope with being attacked

[Martim Silva]

How do you handle this tendency?

I noticed for awhile that when I play boardgames, the other players simply CANNOT stomach being attacked, even if the game *is* supposed to be about Factions vying, often militarily, for supremacy.

For example, when we played Twilight Imperium (space dominance game between Empires where combat is a good part of the gameplay), a player moved is fleet to another's system, to take it.

The targeted player goes apeshit and starts to insult the other player at the top of his lungs, like "THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE! HOW CAN YOU ASSHOLE DO THIS! I WILL NEVER PLAY WITH YOU AGAIN! SUNOVABITCH, I'LL DEDICATE THE GAME TO DESTROY YOUR SHIT ASS! YOU ARE RUINING THE ENTIRE GAME, SHIT-FOR-BRAINS! MEGARETARDED MORON, YOU'RE HELPING [insert other player's name] WIN THIS! JERK!", and on and on and on for over half an hour, until the other player gives up on moving his large fleet (which he had been amassing for several turns on the border at the time).

NOBODY attacked anyone else in the game, except that a Borg-like race guy attacked me (I had a puny gollum-like race). As I don't complain when I'm the target of an invasion, I just slug it out with the big mean dude, stalling him during the entire game. That was ALL the conflict there was in the *entire* game.

(I actually won it, because the bevy of cards I got allowed for a sick combo that let me pull a win).

Another example was at a games club I played with a different group, where we set to play an Advanced Civilization game (the original one, no map extensions). EVERYBODY played very cordially:

- "Can I have this area? I need these extra pop units?"

- "Sure, you can have it".

- "Please don't take that city point, I'll need it"

- "OK, no problem"

Of course, playing the Italian (remember, no extension), I was in a place that had only 3 city points and I'd be crippling myself to build a fourth city in a no-city area. Not to mention 4 cities is too low a treshold to hope for a win.

So, when the Illyrian moves to found a city in Corfu, I move a couple of troops to thwart him, hoping to at least get that point in the next turn and see where I go from there (he only moved 6 units, so sure he was he wouldn't be attacked).

When I do this, the ENTIRE TABLE looks at me as if I was "THE MONSTER" and then they ALL go mega-hostile towards me. Nobody would even so much as to consider me as a trading partner, and ALL extra casualties from Famine/Epidemic from ALL other players are insta-targeted to me. Even from the players on the other side of the board!

FFS, to play like that you might as well just let the Egyptian and the Babylonian player toss a coin at the start of the game and be done with it! (the Babylonian won that game, due to having more cities and having some better trades than the Egyptian).

Or in a recent 'Runewars' game, I'm playing the Elves and the Undead player jumps me. Next turn, I convince the Human player to attack him, to get some pressure off me (the Undead guy was much stronger than any of the others).

When the Human moves to attack him, the Undead player [who was not the same guy of the 'Twilight Imperium' game] insta-goes "HOW CAN I PLAY THIS GAME? THIS SHIT IS ALWAYS LIKE THIS! ALWAYS ALL THE FUCKING ASSHOLE SHIT FAGS GANG UP ON ME! I'LL JUST GIVE UP, I CAN'T PLAY WITH THESE MORONS! YOU COCKSUCKERS CAN'T MAKE A DECENT PLAY! HOW CAN I DO ANYTHING WITH FUCKING RETARDS!"

And on, and on, and on, and on for about an hour until we all gave up.

The idea for this thread came from the fact that I have a game of "Here I Stand" set up in my games room (we are trying to have bi-weekly sessions), and I noticed that I am at war with no less than THREE other players - who ALL attacked me - and NOBODY else is at war. Even my "allies" are not at war with my enemies.

I suspect that this is exactly because people know I can handle being attacked, whereas an attack on any other player would result in a gigantic tantrum full of hysterical yelling and extremely offensive language by said player that would block the play of the game for hours.

Bear in mind that all this is played with different players, all aged between 36-55.

Does anybody has an idea on how can one deal with players who WANT to play games that encourage warfare between players, but who only concieve conflict if they're the ones starting the war, being unable to cope with the concept of others doing that to them?

[szmik]

play at Languish 

[The Brain]

Since your opponents are adults they are probably a lost cause. I can certainly remember instances where a player was more interested in empire building than game winning but I've never seen a whole culture of this like you describe. No offense but your players seem to be annoying retards. I sincerely hope you can find better ones.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I was shocked when you revealed the age of the gamers, I was hypothesising that maybe the players had been brought up on computer games and thus were not trained in how lethal human opponents can be. As The Brain says I think you need to find better players to spend your time with; with these guys it's like spending your time with vegan hunters or teetotaller drinking buddies.

[HisMajestyBOB]

Playing Diplomacy with that group would be fun

[Grey Fox]

It's a strategy, can't you see?

Also, the Civ players were just reproducing the current Civ V AI.

[Habbaku]

That is some pretty pathetic behavior by people of that age-range. 

The way I see it, you have a few options.  The first would be to rationally talk to them and ask why they are getting bent out of shape to such a degree over a game that allows conflict.  Presumably, they're aware they can be attacked.

The second option is to joyously use all your resources to beat up one of the guys you like the least in every game until he stops playing.

Lastly, and this might be the most likely one, just stop playing with those cretins and play online.  If your local players suck, why go through the angst of playing with them?  Let them enjoy their Candyland circle-jerks.

[Maximus]

It's been a peeve of mine in the MP games I've played online. If it's a stronger player beating up on a weaker one it's "bullying". If the weaker player puts together an alliance to beat the stronger player it's a "gangbang". Any time there's a resounding defeat it devolves into meta-game whining.

[Slargos]

I used to have that problem with my younger brother. For a period it was a pain in the ass to play any wargame with him because his overriding objective was "ensure Slargos does not win". If he ended up taking the game in the process that was an insignificant bonus.

Of course he was 13 years old and mostly did it because he knew it would piss me off.

Edit: Oh, and don't even get me started on the cooperative MP aspect some people seem to enjoy. The first time I witnessed a 400 year peace between OE and Russia in EU I knew I couldn't play that game anymore. At this point it's just self-flaggelation. Sure, it's entirely rational to avoid PvP war, since peaceful expansion is much more profitable, but why one would want to spend upwards of a hundred hours just chatting while playing PvE is beyond me. Fucking assholes. I'm getting angry just thinking about it.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Other people seldom hesitate to attack me.

[Barrister]

I really don't play a lot of FTF games (nor all that many wargames period).

I do remember one of my few FTF Diplomacy games.  I actually brought in a friend who wasn't a regular player.  Another fellow who I did know went absolutely ballistic at the thought of being stabbed, so much so that *my* friend was absolutely browbeaten into stabbing me, because he was physically afraid of this other fellow doing something.

That shit just isn't right.

Now don't get me wrong - I reserve the right to whine incessantly if I think it will help me... but refusals to continue the game, personal accusations, and the like are just right out.

[HisMajestyBOB]

That's why I prefer playing online. Easy to get replacements for quitters.
That, and I doubt I could get more than 1 or 2 others to place FtF

[Martim Silva]

Indeed, for our age-range, I do find most boardgamers in my city quite immature.

I'll give another example. I did not play in this game, but it was told to me by the game's owner: this couple played a game of 'Vampire: Prince of the City' [basically a gangster city-control game with vampire-ish overtones] with two other couples. One of the women had a deal made with another player. In the last turn - where she would win - that player backstabbed her to take the win (seems like something to be expected, in a game where backstabbing is quite encouraged).

She threw a HUGE tantrum, ended up leaving in fury and that couple cut off relations with them permanently in real life. How screwed is that?

We don't really play much with younger folks (i.e. those less than 30), except outside special conventions and things where the games' seats are arranged in no particular order. It seems to be an unspoken rule that it is 'embarrassing' to play with people almost half your age.

We do try to be reasonable: when those tantrumes take place, it's usual to say things like "you're 43, stop acting like if you were 15", or "It's just a GAME, for crissakes! We're not even playing for money!".

What happens is that players don't care and usually DEMAND justification for the attack (?). For some reason, they think attacking a small guy who is under pressure from a big guy is A-OK, but another player taking advantage of the fact that they're leaving their border undefended to grab some land is "unjustifiable". And they refuse to let the game proceed until the "RETARDED" move is undone.

Or, alternatively (more often), they just ragequit, removing ALL their pieces from the board and saying, "OK, I give up, you're all great, just carry on without me". This, of course, breaks the game, as a void of power allows for the neighbouring players to get too strong for the others that would not be able to grab land.

I have been trying new players (most of the games I indicated were with - mostly - different people), but this keeps happening.

Another issue we have is what I call the "Empires in Arms Syndrome": in a long, multiple-session game, players who are losing start to have "important things" to do in the night of the game, meaning we start to lose players.

So far, only me and one other guy stick to our guns no matter what happens. Everybody else I ever played with tries to skip sessions where they are losing/not doing spectacularly well.

(When I played Spain in Empires in Arms, I was the only spanish player to be present in all sessions. Every other EiA game we played, the Spaniard came the first session and then - maybe - just ONE more session. Then, they became 'too busy' to rejoin the game)

As for online play: first, I tried seting up a LAN system in my home (and a good thing, too, because whenever a player had connection problems everybody knew and could wait until everything was sorted out. It would have been a different story if he were not in each other's presence).

Main problem: MANY players REFUSE to accept any peace that isn't a "White Peace" or favourable to them. They simply WILL NOT accept a peace that has them ceding a province/area/whatever.

That means that their faction, instead of accepting a loss, rebuilding and expecting a better spot for a revenge, maybe with allies, will just keep getting pummelled and pummelled by a stronger foe, until it is utterly destroyed/crippled. Which often breaks the game balance.

Or, alternatively, they ragequit and leave everything to the AI.

Incidentally, some players are worse than the AI. We had a EU2 game going where we had a player for Portugal (to prevent the spaniard from diploannexing the country), and by 1439 he seemed in serious problems, having to surrender to the Algerian AI and complaining how he 'never had cash'.

I went to his PC to see what was wrong (I was the Ottoman), and saw he only had 3,000 troops and one ship, but still could barely make money, even setting the slider all to cash and with maintenance set to 50%.

I was "WTF?" and started to check the country... turns out he had FIVE outstanding 200 ducat loans at 33% interest each, who were eating away ALL his income. He had to go bust, but due to the setting to max cash, his inflation was at 40% already! I couldn't even believe someone could wreck a country this badly, and he only had faced the AI yet!

Also, I've noticed - in pure online play - that while some players are very good and enjoyable to play with, there are others who are filled with cheats, that allow them to get monstruosly strong out of the blue, destroying you in a seemingly impossible way (in Blood Bowl Legendary edition, I met players with teams full of level 6-7 players all with +1 strength and things that you need a pure 12 to get in levelling up, but with only two matches, or then level 1, no-skill, grunts who score a casualty every time they attack, ALWAYS).

[Martinus]

I think you should raise this topic during next meeting with the ambassador.

[Martinus]

Speaking of Portugal being fucked up, I had an opportunity recently to listen to some Portuguese dude explain some shareholder relations in a Portuguese company. Is it really the case that everything in this country is controlled by a network of political cronies and some shady guys from Angola?