The game of Diplomacy I won, I won through an enforceable side contract (which lost me a friend and got me some accusations of cheating, but this is par for the course for a good Diplomacy game). I was Britain; my friend H was France… A lot of people made fun of me for this, including H, but in my defense I did end up winning the game.
You must always play each game fairly to give each player an equal opportunity to do well… don’t sign up for a game with your best friend and have an unbreakable alliance from turn one… winning in these situations does not say anything about your skills as a Diplomacy player, only that you can win by cheating (well duh).
If contracts using outside resources were legitimate it would also be okay for players to (consistently) offer cash rewards for cooperation. That would break the game pretty badly.
Doesn’t iteration cause this strategy to be balanced out? After it becomes clear that two players have an unbreakable alliance, it’s in the best interest of the rest of the players to destroy those two first in all future games.
The mistake the Scrub often makes is making up rules too soon. The Metagame can often turn an apparent imbalance on its head. A lower tier character can become a higher tier one, or vice versa. Or something that seemed initially very unbalanced can be countered with time and effort at learning the tactic. The Scrub circumvents this by simply banning the practice without making a good faith effort in actually getting around it with the in-game rules.
In Risk, iteration will cause the player who always rolls 4-6 on all their dice to lose, because everyone will think they’re an annoying cheater.
Doesn’t make it not cheating to use dice which only have 4-6 written twice.
If you’re playing a different game to the one people agreed to play, even if the game you’re playing can be considered as metagame balanced, you’re cheating.
Doesn’t iteration cause this strategy to be balanced out?
The games described in the post were online—they’re normally played against different opponents each time. The game that’s about to start is only planned to happen once.
After it becomes clear that two players have an unbreakable alliance, it’s in the best interest of the rest of the players to destroy those two first in all future games.
Only if iteration was a factor, and even then, that argument could be applied to most forms of cheating.
This passage from the TV Tropes page on the Scrub is relevant
Only if iteration was a factor, and even then, only in a sense that could be applied to most forms of cheating.
It’s really only applicable to forms of cheating which can be countered by non-cheaters ganging up on the cheaters. If the cheat causes an automatic win in every game, the scrub argument against its banning doesn’t apply.
But I agree, I was assuming iteration. Obviously, the scrubbiness of the rule against unbreakable alliances (and thus the cheatiness of the tactic), would depend on metagame circumstances.
I strongly agree with this Newbies’ Guide:
If contracts using outside resources were legitimate it would also be okay for players to (consistently) offer cash rewards for cooperation. That would break the game pretty badly.
Doesn’t iteration cause this strategy to be balanced out? After it becomes clear that two players have an unbreakable alliance, it’s in the best interest of the rest of the players to destroy those two first in all future games.
This passage from the TV Tropes page on the Scrub is relevant:
In Risk, iteration will cause the player who always rolls 4-6 on all their dice to lose, because everyone will think they’re an annoying cheater.
Doesn’t make it not cheating to use dice which only have 4-6 written twice.
If you’re playing a different game to the one people agreed to play, even if the game you’re playing can be considered as metagame balanced, you’re cheating.
The games described in the post were online—they’re normally played against different opponents each time. The game that’s about to start is only planned to happen once.
Only if iteration was a factor, and even then, that argument could be applied to most forms of cheating.
Only if iteration was a factor, and even then, only in a sense that could be applied to most forms of cheating.
It’s really only applicable to forms of cheating which can be countered by non-cheaters ganging up on the cheaters. If the cheat causes an automatic win in every game, the scrub argument against its banning doesn’t apply.
But I agree, I was assuming iteration. Obviously, the scrubbiness of the rule against unbreakable alliances (and thus the cheatiness of the tactic), would depend on metagame circumstances.