In a message dated 10/23/2001 3:44:43 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
kingoftherill@yahoo.com writes:
I would only advocate moderator intervention when it is proven that
one player is intentionally betraying another player on his own team
to the opposition by giving them confidential information on his
allies troop and character movement orders so that they can then
ambush said targets. This I believe is an attack on the integrity of
the game itself. If someone is guilty of such an infraction I think
there should be a stiff penalty.
I couldn't disagree more. I don't feel giving information to the enemy is
cheating. I wouldn't normally advise it at all, and think 99% of time it is
stupid as it hurts your chance of winning the end game; but it is definitely
not cheating. In the FA 1000 game, players are free to downgrade with their
own allegiance to Disliked and then attack them. This is not cheating, as
the FA 1000 scenario was made to allow members of the same allegiance to
attack each other, as crazy as it sounds against the big picture. If the
game is created to allow attacks on members of the same allegiance, and a
player does this, he would be a fool not to give information to other
allegiances. The thing is, some players join FA 1000 to play a different
style game and may not be looking at the traditional big picture (I had a
group of 4 friends join an FA 1000 game, deciding before hand they were going
after a strategic victory by gaining the key pop centers, and planned to turn
against everybody else in the game to see if they had the skill to win as the
lone wolves). Besides cases like this, there are moments when attacking
someone in your allegiance is completely warranted and very intelligent
strategy.
In 2 separate games I have seen first hand the following scenario:
An aligned nation attacks a nearby neutral very early in the game without
provocation. All the neutrals rally around this other neutral and claim that
they will turn to the opposing alliance unless they receive help from the
aggressors "teammates" to topple this dictator. The members of the
aggressors' allegiance are not too thrilled with their teammates' actions
either, so to insure that all the neutrals do not turn against them, they let
their 'not so bright' ally fall, and even assist in his nations demise
(especially when a few of the neutrals promise to join the allegiance once
the aggressor has been eliminated). The aggressor is slain, the neutrals are
happy and feel inclined to join the allegiance that valued their freedom, and
the allegiance in question got rid of a loose cannon.
Just because you share an allegiance with several nations does not insure
that all the players on that allegiance are cooperative or intelligent
players. And sometimes in war it is better to give up a weak member to gain
a few stronger ones.
The only real cheating I can ever see occurring is when false information is
sent to Harley themselves...such as a player dishonestly playing multiple
nations, or another player using someone else's security code to alter a
player's orders. Anything else, such as attacking a member of the same
allegiance, may be considered dishonorable/insane/stupid/amoral....but it is
not cheating as long as the rules allow such actions to take place. In fact,
if a player joins this game because of the role-playing aspects (instead of
playing a war-game), then he may wish his Dark Servant nation to be
dishonorable/insane/stupid/amoral. The player should not be punished by
Harley for acting within the rules...let that be up to his peers that also
play. They will teach him a lesson in game that a verbal "you can't do that"
would fail to accomplish.
Shawn
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