TGR wrote:OpenFlow wrote:TGR wrote:OpenFlow wrote:Pacman wrote:Hello everyone.
I would like to simply state that I am getting better at this game, an I have hopes if being one of the
big names in Defcon someday. To be honest, my win count is much much less than my loss count, but I keep playing. I do not rage quit, and I play fairly, In hopes of learning new techniques and ideas from the experienced people I play. I really hope y'all understand that I am not a snot nosed punk, like others I have come across in the past. People that can't take a loss or get upset when something goes wrong, or decide to use profanity to intimidate others. I am not like them, I just want to play the game and get better.
An that is all I have to say.
big names in Defcon someday. ?Are you kidding? Defcon is dead or dying. No one plays this anymore. The only thing it is still good for is modding to make it more realistic for quasi deterrence emulation purposes.
Your mod is not realistic. It's pish. Calm yer jets.
Maybe you need to read this:
http://forums.introversion.co.uk/defcon ... php?t=8434
I don't read spam posts.
I will quote myself on the underlying reasons that I believe some members of the legacy Defcon community take a hostile view towards what I perceive to be enhanced realism....::
"Defcon, like most other games, is structured from the top-down to pit players into adversarial conflict with one another and through its gaming mechanics affords to the more skilled players (in general) the opportunity to come up on top (in terms of scoring) at the direct expense of the less skilled players (it is - more or less - a zero sum game). However, unlike a lot of simulation or even quasi-simulation games, Defcon rewards skill of a very particular kind. (ie Even something as silly as The Sims offers a functional emulation of real life) Defcon is the type of game where much of the strategic advantage is gained through knowing certain "tricks" that happen to be actually quirks or bugs in the game themselves. Long time players know what I am talking about so I do not need to elaborate on this part. Also,
much of what is referred to "skill" in gameplay can simply be reduced to muscle-memory and a piece-wise combination set of repetitive "going through the motion" tactics micromanaged and executed at or about near real-time to gain an upper hand in positioning and unit retention for the ultimate goal of optimizing one's own nuclear platform delivery options at the expense of one's opponent(s). But much of what is considered as "skill" and many of the so-called strategies and tactics employed throughout the game are the direct result of emergent properties from the structural confines and through the reductive limitations of the game itself - and these strategies and tactics are only valid within the limited confines of Defcon's game mechanics and bears no resemblance and offers neither simulation nor emulation nor even a functional model of the sort of real world nuclear situations that the core of the game was trying to model. After all, the core theme of Defcon is nuclear warfare. But the aforementioned "tricks" (cheats?) and silly gameplay mechanics combine together to compound and made the matter worse - effectively overshadowing any element of true nuclear warfare - such as nuclear deterrence, credible second-strike capability, mutually assured destruction, asymmetric warfare, etc - and thereby take the "nuclear" component out of a nuclear themed game.... where it reverts and reduces to just another "Age of Empires".
Ironically, an exhilarating nuclear game doesn't have to have any nuclear weapons go off at all. The critically acclaimed "Crimson Tide" movie had no "nuclear action", and unlike "Broken Arrow" it didn't even see a single detention of a nuclear weapon at all. Quoting Lt. Commander Ron Hunter in Crimson Tide, "in the nuclear world, war is the enemy"... It is the simulation and emulation of nuclear tension brought about by the prospects of nuclear annihilation and other elements such as nuclear deterrence, credible second-strike capability, mutually assured destruction, asymmetric warfare, etc etc that make a nuclear themed movie or game so enticing... This to me is far preferable to a so-called nuclear game that reductively and functionally plays like an "Age of Empires" strategy game with a bunch of nukes going off in the background and thrown in for kicks.
But on the bright side, Defcon source code can easily be tweaked, values changed, functionality added, etc to highlight and to simulate and/or emulate the more "nuclear" aspects (including the psychological aspects of nuclear warfare and nuclear deterrence) to emphasize more on credible deterrence, second-strike retaliation and less on all the aforementioned issues above that in my opinion do nothing but take away from a true DEFCON type of game.
Now I understand that people like to win. The difference between real-life and a game (other than the obvious difference) is that real-life is open ended. For all intends and purposes real life goes on into perpetuity. A game on the other hand has to have a reasonable "time limit" and a reasonable "end in sight".. It can't last forever. Defcon isn't "correspondence chess" where a long match can last several months to a year, etc. So it is structured around a limited time frame per game session. Even a heavily modified version of Defcon would still be bound by the same structural limitations.
But I would assert that in a nuclear game, the normal definition of "winning" does not apply. Winning does not necessarily have to mean "losing the least" nor does it have to become the typical "winner scores points at losers expense" type of scenario. There is another way to win, and that is for everyone to win. No nuclear weapons need ever go off. But human nature dictates that seldom no people like this type of "winning"... You see, SJ,
when people say to you they "want to win", they don't REALLY want to win. Let me rephrase that, they don't really JUST want to WIN. What they really want is to win by standing out, to win by putting their opponent down, to win by contrast, to win by burying their opponents score to the ground and zero-ing their population, and it is the precise contrasting juxtaposition (winner : 250+ points, loser : -150 points) that most people find so gratifying and satisfying. Equity does not mean equality. More skilled players find it inequitable for "everyone to win", and they probably feel that it is more fair and more equitable that they are rewarded (via points and bragging rights) by being more skillful and they demand the sort of platform that allows their skills to really shine and "make a difference" in a recognizable way.
The problem with that is, in a nuclear themed game, the normal definition and connotation of "winning" SHOULD NOT apply here. This isn't after all a game of Age of Empires . Again, and indeed, those aforementioned "skills" that I referred to in the paragraphs above should not have even made it in the game if Defcon was really serious about simulating the dynamics and emulating the "feeling" of nuclear warfare.
So in a real game of DEFCON, what I see is there comes a point in each game, call it the bifurcation point, where either the balance of power is maintained and the game ends with everyone more or less with perfect scores, OR alternatively, at this critical bifurcation junction point there is a spontaneous breakdown of order and symmetry and the true meaning of "mutually assured destruction" is brought to light. No more half-way scenarios where elite players totally own or pawn a noob... no... in real-life all major nuclear powers have credible second-strike deterrence and that is the way the game dynamics should have been configured in Defcon. I readily concede that in this more realistic style of nuclear warfare gameplay that the "default" scoring mode would be largely meaningless and redundant and would likely need to be taken out altogether. This more realistic configuration of Defcon would only work against online players (AI/CPU is not smart enough to appreciate and understand many of the nuances and psychological effects of nuclear warfare and such and a lot of time chatting determines a different outcome in a game of diplo and CPU can't chat, it can't vote and it can't backstab, etc) and it would only make sense in a game of 6-player diplomacy with the survivor scoring mode. However, I do believe that the tension, the psychological effects and the elements of nuclear deterrence, credible second-strike capability, mutually assured destruction, asymmetric warfare, etc would be rightfully highlighted, emphasized and brought to the forefront, and all this combined would make for a much more realistic and enjoyable game of true DEFCON."
