I'm involved in Game 41 as well and am in full agreement with Ernie.
Where an enemy presents itself of any of the two opposing allegiences
a player is forced to act lest he be acted upon. This is of course a
function of the complete lack of communication between teams which I
agree ahould be standard for 3 way games. 41 has been a blast and
looks to have the legs to run awhile and I'll definitely be
interested in signing on for another when this one is through.
Greg
Hey Mike --
In general I have found 3-ways to be much as you describe. However
at least one exception seems to be occurring in game 41 right now --
not sure if you are in it or not -- where all three allegiances are
banging heads against each other in different ways in different parts
of the board. I think a large part of the reason for that is that
going into the game it was made an express condition of the game that
players ONLY communicate with other players of their own allegiance --
i.e. no communication between two groups in order to coordinate
ganging up on the third.
So while there may have been some in-team discussions of things
like "let's let them beat up on each other while we take care of this
guy over here", as far as I know there has been no communication or
coordination between teams. And in fact I know my own team has in a
few cases been so eager to get into the action that they have not
always let their opponents bludgeon each other significantly before
getting involved -- and they have gone after nations in both enemy
allegiances as the opportunity presented itself. (Or in some cases,
gone to the aid of some of our teammates who were being attacked by
multiple enemies -- those enemies not necessarily working together,
so much as both attacking targets of opportunity that happened to be
one of our guys.)
So it has really felt like a 3-way rather than a 2-on-1. (My own
personal situation was such that I and one enemy nation were tangled
up with each other and there was no ally willing or able to come to
my aid or his militarily -- so we slugged it out back and forth, and
only aid supplied by allied characters and resource shipments helped
to turn the tide in my favor.) The best part of course being that
there can be no "betrayals" of temporary alliances when there are no
sanctioned ways of making those alliances in the first place! Now, I
can only speak for my own allegiance plus what we have been able to
observe from what we see going on around our maps and with scrying
and such, but I have not observed any enemy actions by either other
allegiance to indicate that they were either trying to work together
or trying to work with our guys against each other -- basically it
has truly seemed to be a slugfest, the only "cooperating" being
within the team plus "accidental", such as when you attack someone
who happens to be fighting someone else already. No alliance, just
attacking the logical target -- and then if that target falls,
continuing on to fight the guy he was fighting.
Basically, game 41 seems to be what a 3-way should be. There are
places where a nation had more enemies than allies around him and as
a result that nation had a hard battle ahead, and places where
nations had to work a little harder to get involved due to lucky or
clever placement, but all the military action that has occurred has
been of the basic form "he's an enemy, fight him" without regard to
which allegiance that enemy might be, no strategy of "let's get rid
of the X allegiance first" which so often happens when the different
allegiances can talk to each other and make temporarily alliances. I
think that "no cross-allegiance communications" should therefore be a
standard rule for 3-way games in the future, the player base as a
whole really does seem mature enough to avoid talking to other
players about games that they shouldn't be discussing, I have been in
a couple gunboat games and in this 3-way game and in all three cases
haven't received any illegal communications.
-- Ernie III
From: Urzahil <urzahil@...>
To: mepbmlist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 14:35:18 -0600
Subject: [mepbmlist] 4th Age 3-ways
I've never found 3-way games very appealing. It usually winds up as
a 2-on-1
game until one team is crushed, (which isn't fun for the "1"), then
devolves
into a "who-stabs-who-first" between the remaining 2 sides. Even
though
everyone realizes that the 2 teams who ganged up must eventually
attack each
other, it still seems to wind up generating bad feelings when it
finally
happens.
Still, I enjoy 4th Age significantly more than 1650 or 2950. (So
much so
that I don't play those scenarios anymore.) Personally I find there
is more
of a challenge with 4th Age (which is probably why it is the least
recommended for new players), and nation designing is always
interesting.
Mike
From: mepbmlist@yahoogroups.com [mailto:mepbmlist@yahoogroups.com]
On Behalf
···
-----Original Message-----
-----Original Message-----
Of Ken Shannon
Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2006 1:33 PM
To: mepbmlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [mepbmlist] Digest Number 2113
Having now played both I think 2950 is more
interesting because your mages and other characters
are of more use in tactical battles.
But the downside (and it is a big one IMO) is that
most people do NOT move out and it does become a big
character war early.
I think gunboat in both games is most fun cause it
brings back mystery and suspense.
Trying out a 3 way 4th age game right now. Love the
new set-=up and nation design parameters, but not so
keen on the 4th age 3 way so far.
See ya,
Ken
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