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Adrian Grant Baker wrote:

The FP and DS have organisation, But the Neutrals don't need
this because No one bothers Neutrals.

Ha ha ha! You have got to be joking!

Well personally I was pleased to hear Adrian's "no" contribution to the
debate! At least one more sane man in Middle Earth! ;-0

I've been in games where the first
order of business was, " Let's take xxx out of the equation before they turn
yyy". My teammates preferred to aliena te the neutrals rather than risk
seeing them go to the other side. And they were experienced players.
Which is another argument for giving out the names.

That does happen, though quite occasionally. I can't however see how
you can use it as an argument for giving out neutral names to neutrals.
If Eas is jumped early by a Kamikaze Nor, then Eas should be screaming
injustice to the DS, not to, say Rhu or Cor. I could see how you might
use the above paragraph as an argument for giving out neutral details to
all, and FP/DS details to the neutrals. Personally, I would not support
that though.

Nations who are neutral on turn 0 are those who have not made an ethical
decision regarding the war. They should be deemed not to have
established war time alliances, not the diplomatic arrangements
necessary to fight together. On the very rare occasions that a neutral
is attacked on turn 1, a flurry of diplomacy should take place, and a
neutral who hasn't bothered (or deliberately planned not to for his own
nefarious purposes) should suffer accordingly.

Which brings up the final point. If you play a neutral as a neutral, you get
stomped because very few players are prepared to trust a true neutral in
this game. Sad state of affairs, but true.

I disagree. In my games, neutrals are hardly ever attacked until they
attack first, or until fairly strong evidence comes to light that they
are about to go "the other way". I would say that most experienced
players work hard to court the neutrals, and would not attack them.
It's in games of inexperienced players, or games where you have a "lone
wolf" member that neutrals get attacked early. Then there's the neutral
who doesn't declare all the way through. Sure, he gets attacked, who
wants a guy who stays neutral all the way through, then declares and
takes all the VPs? If that's who you mean by the "true neutral", then
sure, mostly everyone hates 'em.

Regards,

Laurence G. Tilley http://www.lgtilley.freeserve.co.uk/

···

Gavinwj <gavinwj@compuserve.com> wrote

Laurence G. Tilley wrote:

Sure, he gets attacked, who
wants a guy who stays neutral all the way through, then declares and
takes all the VPs? If that's who you mean by the "true neutral", then
sure, mostly everyone hates 'em.

I'm not going down that path again. You should know from previous posts
exactly what I mean by a true neutral. Your description covers an
opportunist, not a neutral.

Gavin

Adrian,

In all the games I played as a neutral, I received missives in the first
couple of turns from the other neutrals along the lines of "I plan to
declare for xx on turn yy, what are your plans?". That's not being neutral,
that's being unethical, for want of a better term.

The idea of neutrals is great. The reality, as these discussions show, is
something else entirely.

Gavin

A quick postscript... Either your system clock is wrong, or you just set a
record for the longest time taken for a message to hit the list! Your
message was dated 6:47pm on December 7, 2000 and I received it at 02:07 on
January 9, 2001!

Mind you, it could be. I've seen the replies to "Neutral neutrals" but have
yet to see the original post.

Gavin

There are two things continually nit picked about in ME: Agents and Curse
Squads. Lets take a look:
1) Agents can DEVASTATE your enemy: Take a look at 1st turn kills in 4th age
2) Curse Squads can DEVASTATE your enemy: Take a look at 1650 or 2950. Plus
they can do it from one hex away...

Ok, this all looks doom and gloom. Many are here for the military victories,
some for the diplomatic coup. Either of these are in complete jeopardy from
agents and cursers. However, lets look at the practicals.

1st, keep in mind that Agents are countered by Cursers and Emissaries.
Emissaries are on "per nation" cure (i.e. my doubling an agent does not
directly help my team mate). Cursers are a 4:1 cure (I.E. takes
approximately 4 mages, as few as 3, to take out 1 character). Agents are a
1:1 threat.
2nd, 1 Agent can neutralize 1 enemy character.

What does this mean for play balance? It means that if you are plagued by
cursers, get your agents together and find that nest of cursers. You will
lose 1 agent per four cursers. They will lose 1 curser per agent. I think
the two balance out.
HOWEVER I would suggest the following tweaks be EXPERIMENTED with...

1) make the "Learn Curses" ability give a 5 point additional negative to the
learned rank. That will make a HUGE difference on effectiveness.
2) make "Learn Sickness" an ability in 4th age. Say for 8000 gold. This
would mean you would spend 4000 on Learn Weakness to be able to spend 8000
on Learn Sickness.

Just my thoughts.
Good luck!
Jeff