I was going to just lurk, but being a player that prefers the neutral
nations, I thought I would offer up my .02. Mr. Tilley's post seemed
a good place to start. My final comments are clear at the bottom of
this. I apologize for anyone counting bandwidth.
Do the words "chaotic neutral" mean anything to the people
complaining about neutrals being somewhat unpredictable, hard to
recruit, affecting game balance etc. etc.? As a neutral most often I
join the side that I think will be the most fun. Period. I think a
number of neutrals do this. For some people (not me), the "most fun"
is winning, all else excepted.
That's not what neutrals are. Neutrals in a war of Good vs Evil,
are
nations who are out for what they can get. Self
interested. Amoral. _Some_ might want to play the role of heroic
equalizer - like certain nations in WW1 and WW2 who "discovered" a
conscience half way through. But others, quite legitimately in
terms of
the game's story line, are simply out for what they can get,
waiting to see
what side looks like it's winning and then jumping on board - just
like in
real world history.
Idea b. Here is the worst idea for changing how the game works that I
have heard. There are two available options now, neutrals that really
are neutrals and aligned games with no neutrals. If you don't like
either of these options you might want to consider other games.
>b. Have games that enforce the idea of balance by making it
>impossible for more than (n/2)+1 neutrals to declare for any one
>allegiance (obviously they can remain neutral). This would require
>source code changes and I don't think it's as good as asking
players
>to be grown-up and declare to help balance a game.
If you want balanced games there's a long standing tried and tested
solution - pre-aligned neutrals. I think most pre-arranged team
games now
have pre-aligned neutrals. You should not have too much trouble
getting
into one of these games, or getting anew one set up.
I think that a lot of people like the "diplomacy" aspect of the game.
Some people seem to like the diplomacy aspect as long as it doesn't
affect game balance??? My speculation is that these players just
haven't done a good job of recruiting neutrals and would like to
change the game mechanics to compensate for that. The game was
designed with neutrals in mind. This makes diplomacy a very important
part of the game as designed so it stands to reason that the team
that does the best job of recruiting neutrals will win and that the
neutrals will have a large say in the course of the game.
>c. run 12v12 non-team games as suggested (but you lose one
position
>this way, and the diplomacy aspect - which a lot of people do
enjoy)
But apparently not, from what you (and the earlier writer in the
thread was
saying). What do you actually want? I play both types. I can see
the fun
of the diplomacy, I can see the beauty of the more
restricted, "tournament"
style rule of pre-aligned neutrals. But games in which you
negotiate with
the Easterling who's final decision is going to be forced upon him
eventually by what distant Cor Rhu and Har decide? No thanks. You
can't
have your cake and eat it.
I won't go here.
>d. don't allow people like me to run the diplomacy for a team as I
>am likely to really botch it up like I did in FA42... 
Ah. Now there's your best point. Too many people failing to win
over the
neutrals, and grumbling about it afterwards. I often play neutrals
in open
games. It's not unusual to get negligible communication from one
side,
sometimes both. It's not unusual to get communication which is SO
restricted, and SO cautious, that in the end it just bugs you so
much that
you DO decide to attack that allegiance.. It's not unusual to
declare, and
still get no communication from the team you've joined!
So when neutrals all go one way, they sometimes have a good reason.
mefacesmo.gif
Laurence G.Tilley
http://www.lgtilley.freeserve.co.uk
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
I do think that people have a point in being concerned about short
games. (A viable argument for what is "most fun.") I don't mind short
games, but I don't like the set up fee. One suggestion - do away with
the free turns and the set up fee. If a nation is dropped, whoever
picks it up would start paying for the turns otherwise, the nation is
just dropped. Maybe if people knew that they were going to leave
their team in a lurch they would be less likely to drop without
arranging for someone to pick up the nation. Maybe not. I think this
would balance out, but this way people would be paying for the turns
they run whether a game ran short or long. Short games might also
make the turn over for starting new games faster.
Kevin Brown
