CHEAT>>> PLZ PUT STOP TO THIS

[flatrick]

I'd say you are playing with some crappy players - you might be better off with AI.

Could you at least try not to be so condescending on this board?

Thank you.

A lot of people here are jerks, who (funnily enough) like to enforce some code of good behaviour.

[Mclucky]

Won two games as Europe. The trick is to make Russia my meat shield. Sneakily take down their silos while there's chaos elsewhere and then nuke the bloody hell out of him.

Oh yeah, and get Cairo and New York before everyone else.

a really nasty configuration is a Europe/Russia/Asia alliance. Russia's effectively untouchable, played a Diplomacy survivor game where I was Aisa, and down to about 70, Europe was on 65, and Russia was on 100. o_O

The real problem also comes from that if Russia and Europe are not allied, then their silos are still going to help each other out from any incoming nukes. Really, if you want to have your best at cracking this Russia/Europe alliance, then sneak in from the east against russia, take out siberia and most importantly HIS SCANNERS! With Europe, take out all the Iceland Scanners, then work your way from the west, or if you're Africa, start taking out their southernmost scanners and installations. Guaranteed to make life a lot harder.

Also, sneak your submarines in along with a group of battleships and maybe a carrier or two. In the confusion that starts when there's a fight on, get your subs to launch them nukes!

Europe + Russia is not untouchable, my game of survivor was a very hard struggle with me launching at whoever was ahead of me, (which was changing between Africa, North America and Russia.. Asia got it bombed to hell within seconds of DEFCON 1) and trying to explot every weakness I saw in any countries' defences. (ie. NA had all it's silos north of the cities... So I got subs in to bomb from the south, Cairo was reduced to rubble as there was only one silo near it, which also got punished. And I backstabbed Russia by taking out his silos while still allied.) Russia tried to use me as a meatshield. But I used Russia as my meatshield while systematically taking out their defences, hohoho!

[flatrick]

I already found it quite ridiculous to see that air defense systems can so easily shoot down ICBM warheads in this game; that, plus the 'Fortress'-cheat, do not make this game a lot of fun to play on.

I have to agree that it sucks when some kind of tactic overthrows too easily other strategies. It isn't a cheat though, but unlike most of the people here I agree with you that this should be fixed.
It doesn't matter if this tactic can be cracked; the fact is europe and russia have an advantage on other players.

[prozachar]

My bugbear with a lot of strategy games is that armies don't need to be resupplied and have infinite ammo, and that damaged or injured units generally have the same capabilities as healthy ones. This usually favours endless streams of expendable soldiers, and strategy goes out of the window. It's a battle of hitpoints versus damage points.

The thing is, resupplying units is boring. In my opinion, fun > realism. I worked on a military command and control simulation (military-speak for "wargame") for 2 years. Sending a wave of M1A1's against a wave of T90's? Fun. Setting up supply routes for food, fuel and ammo trucks? Booooring. Mircoing the repair of damaged equipment and the medical care of injured dudes (and I really mean micro, as in "does this maintenance unit have the parts on hand to repair this HMMWV", and "does this hospital's highest level of care accomodate this soldier's injuries")? Booooooring. But it was very realistic. Now, I don't claim to be the ultimate arbiter of fun, but based on the lack of this kind of stuff in commercial games, I get the feeling that I'm in the majority here.

But sirlin hates scrubs because he isn't one and doesn't understand that for most people winning a game of Street Fighter isn't the answer to one's insufficiencies. Remember Competitive Dad on the Fast Show? He was the butt of the joke, I'm afraid, not the hero. Also, if you think everyone is fine with the state of football you mustn't have watched a single post-match analysis or read a newspaper in the past few years. Cheating is rife, and every time a loophole is closed another opens.

Sirlin uses Street Fighter as an allegory. It's a game that he's familiar with, and it's one that he can effectively use to illustrate his points. I don't know that one needs to be intimately familiar with the game to understand the articles (in fact, in part 2 he mentions how he gets lots of emails basically saying "I don't play Street Fighter but I do play Game X. What you described about Street Fighter is exactly the same for Game X that I play.") As for football, I don't watch it at all (you can blame part of that on me being American, but I don't watch many sports in the first place), but I know that while the World Cup was going on, it was all the rage, even here in the "soccer-disliking" States. And, at least here in the States, sports that have the impression of foul play lose their popularity pretty quick. Boxing was very popular here in the era of Muhammad Ali, but now, with all the accusations of corruption surrounding it, it's lost a lot of its popularity. Major League Baseball has never been the same since the players' strike of 1994, and the steroid issue of today certainly isn't helping it. And, as Sirlin says in Part 1:

The point is that if a game becomes “no fun” at high levels of play, then it’s the game’s fault, not the player’s. Unfortunately, a game becoming less fun because it’s poorly designed and you just losing because you’re a scrub kind of look alike. You’ll have to play some top players and do some soul searching to decide which is which. But if it really is the game’s fault, there are plenty of other games that are excellent at a high level of play. For games that truly aren’t good at a high level, the only winning move is not to play.

It doesn't matter if this tactic can be cracked; the fact is europe and russia have an advantage on other players.

In fact, all that matters is that it can be cracked. If it can be cracked, that means that Europe and Russia now have to defend against that crack, which in itself will probably open up other cracks, which good players will exploit, and so on. Good players will find and exploit cracks, and good players will defend against those cracks.

[Daxx]

I'd like to give an example from Diplomacy (the board game). This particular example has been around for a very very long time, and thus demonstrates how imbalances in the game and so-called "game winning" strategies actually work in top-level play.

There is an alliance in Diplomacy called the Juggernaut. It is aptly named, for it has the capacity to sweep the board if the other players aren't careful. It is an alliance between Turkey and Russia. Controlling two corners (and essentially linking the north and south board edges), overlapping the major stalemate lines, access to the Med and the North Atlantic, and the potential for developing an iron curtain of provinces makes this alliance very powerful indeed. The Russian player will roll through northern Europe and Scandinavia whilst Turkey takes the Balkans and southern Europe.

Here's an article which describes it better: http://www.diplomacy-archive.com/resour ... ernaut.htm

Now people have learnt to fear this alliance. It can be "game breaking" if done properly. However, the lesson learnt from years of postal play is that the Juggernaut can be stopped. It is not all powerful, especially if all the other players get together and stop it early. More importantly, people have learnt to recognise the Juggernaut as it forms. A Russo-Turkish alliance can be fairly obvious, and this allows people to get together and take it out pre-emptively. At the top level, it does not necessarily constitute a good strategy to form a juggernaut because a) it makes you a target and b) the other players know how to take you down.

So how does this relate to DEFCON?

Well, use the Juggernaut as an analogy to the alliance between Europe and Russia. Undeniably, this is a powerful alliance. However, it is again not invulnerable. The same problems apply to Europe/Russia as to the Juggernaut, namely - people recognise it and it provides a good motive to get together to take it out, and at top-flight play this is not only possible but easy and sensible. Players will recognise the alliance (more easily even than in Diplomacy) and will know what they must do if they don't want to let it dominate the game. In the end, whilst it is a very viable and powerful strategy, it becomes no more useful in top-level games than any other, because it puts a big red sign over your two countries saying "TARGET". And you don't want that in nuclear warfare.

Is it cheating? Obviously not. Is it easy to win with? Certainly, in lower level games. In higher level games, we don't really know. Is it game breaking (and by this I mean at the top level it almost guarantees a win for one of those two countries)? Not at all. Should it be changed or removed from the game? Not in my opinion. DEFCON would be boring if it were symmetrical, part of the interest comes from the fact that each player has different strengths and weaknesses. The variants of Diplomacy which provide symmetrical play are very boring indeed.

[Soldant]

All of this aside, exactly what way can you possibly stop this from actually occuring?

Stop a USSR-Euro alliance? How the hell does that make sense? Sure some people might like that, but why should only USSR and Europe be affected? Why not tell NA and SA they can't ally and combine naval/radar might?

What other solutions do you have? None. It's not like you can separate the two.

Bottom line: it was in the game. It was intended. If somebody is winning because of that alliance, and you don't like that particular fact, go figure out a way to break down the wall. It's no good calling it a cheat because you have yet to find a way to destroy it.

[GeneticFreak]

I FOUND ANOTHER CHEAT IN GAME ITS WHENEVER IM EUROPE EVERYONE ALWAYS SHOOTS AT ME FIRST

[unseen]

[unseen]

How come every time the counter hits Defcon 3 everyone else`s navy starts shooting at me? I`m usually still picking my nose, or scratching my arse while waiting to launch my nukes. Cheatorzzzzzzz.

[dawnchorus]

The thing is, resupplying units is boring. In my opinion, fun > realism. I worked on a military command and control simulation (military-speak for "wargame") for 2 years. Sending a wave of M1A1's against a wave of T90's? Fun. Setting up supply routes for food, fuel and ammo trucks? Booooring. Mircoing the repair of damaged equipment and the medical care of injured dudes (and I really mean micro, as in "does this maintenance unit have the parts on hand to repair this HMMWV", and "does this hospital's highest level of care accomodate this soldier's injuries")? Booooooring. But it was very realistic. Now, I don't claim to be the ultimate arbiter of fun, but based on the lack of this kind of stuff in commercial games, I get the feeling that I'm in the majority here.

True, up to a point. We're talking games here. The games I have played where resupply is integral are indeed pretty fiddly and take away from the game. But that's down to game design. In a strategy game you're the general, not the maintenance guy, so a degree of automation is required. I think your idea of boooring is a bit different from mine, though! Some people, for sure, like games with lots of explosions and piles of bodies. Fine! There are dozens to choose from. I'm saying that there hasn't to my knowledge been a playable RTS where you have to look after every bullet/arrow/unit, and where injury or damage will result in a lack of performance. Excitement can come from knowing that if this little army you're sending into enemy teritory is killed or wounded, you've got problems. If you use up too many bullets on X, you'll be slaughtered by Y. You'll have to think about scouting, about hitting and running, about deception. There is a lack of RTS games where this is the case (although there are quite a few first-person games).

I think Defcon, with its precious nukes and irreplaceable units takes a step in the right direction - and you seem to like that, don't you?

[Zarkow]

The all caps subject-line of this topic needs to be dragged into the forrest and shot.

[GeneticFreak]

Nah we should sticky this or move to the goldmine (if introversion forums have any)

[prozachar]

I think Defcon, with its precious nukes and irreplaceable units takes a step in the right direction - and you seem to like that, don't you?

I like it, but I don't necessarily think that every RTS should follow in its footsteps. I think it's right for Defcon. Trying to transplant those concepts into other RTS's may not be a good idea. I think diversity within the genre is good. I like Defcon. I like the Command and Conquer series. I like Starcraft. I like Warcraft 2. I don't like Warcraft 3, but I do see how it would be appealing to other people (I dislike the hero concept in the game, because I really don't like (MMO)RPG's, and I have a lot of difficulty with levelling up the heroes while simultaneously doing "normal RTS stuff").

Basically, if I think a game is fun, I'll enjoy it.

[GeneticFreak]

I dislike the hero concept in the game

Too bad, DOTA is a good (if not the most popular) WC3 map on battle.net and you can only command 1 character per player there.

[dawnchorus]

I didn't say that ... how strange.

prozachar, my friend, I agree that every game should be different. Just that most RTS games (and now I mean a single play of the game) reach a point where both sides' production of units and their inevitable fate in the mincing machine attain equilibrium, and a huge queue of suicidal units is marching to a central battlefield simply to die while killing their counterparts. Any attempt to steer the battle elsewhere will result in your "village" or whatever being invaded. So the winner is usually the one who gets bored last.

Imagine if in 1588 the Spanish had had a galleon dockyard in on the Spanish north coast and the English likewise on its south, and they could build boats real quick and send them line astern to their doom, safe in the knowledge that they would also destoy an enemy one. The winner would be the one with the fastest dockyard.