Paranoia + Defcon

[defconner]

When playing, I've noticed that many people won't settle for second place. This game almost forces you to be paranoid about alliances. Remember, if your ally is in 2nd place, what reason does he have not to screw you over at the end. I believe that the players that go ALL IN before the end of the match are really just leaving themselves open for attack. The CPU is notorious about this. If you see the CPU nuke someone that isn't you, most likely he has about 3 nukes left over. Although many people playing now tend to stick to alliances, I think that once everyone figures out that there is only one true winner they will begin to ALWAYS double cross. Very interesting game!!!

[Archinerd]

I think I would even attack an ally if I was in third place. It hasn't happened yet.. or has it?

[unknown]

Exactly. You never know who your true allies are.

As others have stated,this game is about protecting your own interests. If, for the time being, those interests coincide with another player's, then go ahead and create an alliance. But don't feel like that alliance will hold up if your or their interests change.

[JaguarUSF]

I attack an ally no matter what place I am in _if_ the benefits (number of kills for me) outweigh the risks (number of deaths by me).

[Phrage]

attacking in the dying minutes of the game is brilliant, especially if the allie is adjacent to u as they won't have enough time to respond.

[Mas Tnega]

If I didn't much like them, I'd attack my ally if I just wanted to maintain 1st place.

[Soldant]

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I won't attack somebody for the pure fun of attacking someone (unless they're causing grief in the game) but if I'm separated by only a few points and I can backstab them, I'll seriously consider it.

[notforsale]

Unless Im in a silly mood (my most dangerous) I'll attack whomever will boost my score the most.

[Bas]

Only one person can win the game, so make sure it's you!

[[twisti]]

I once broke an alliance in a 2v2 where I was undisputed #1 at the end and he was #3, so he could score on my almost untouched cities. By the end of the game, I was still #1 and he was #2.

However when playing with strangers, I rarely let an alliance last past the naval warfare stage. In naval warfare, alliances are so much more useful than in the latter stage.

[70meters]

attacking in the dying minutes of the game is brilliant, especially if the allie is adjacent to u as they won't have enough time to respond.

That happened to me yesterday, I had an alliance with NA, I was SA. Was in the lead by about 75 points, with only 10 minuntes left on the victory timer. I wasn't even playing anymore, just chatting with the other 5 players, when all of a sudden 10 bomberes flew into mexico and northern SA. I lost by 25 points >.<

[pirate0r]

I played this sweet game of Diplomacy Survivor with some people today and damn, the wheelin, dealin and backstabbing was rampant. In fact the only territory i didn't backstab (because he wouldn't join my alliance) was africa and look how many kills he managed. It started out with Asia (me), Russia, EU and SA in the red alliance and Africa and NA as the blue. We destroyed ALL of Africa's silos and radar leaving Cairo and the east coast of africa wide open, we then turned on SA and kicked him out of the alliance. He wasnt happy and made craters out of bombay with subs while my subs destroyed the lower portion of SA; meanwhile the allies and NA killed his silos. Then we were left, the big three; Asia, Russia and Europe. We turned on Russia and let NA join the alliance (NA was friends with russia and wanted vengance) because we both had a better chance at killing russia than each other and finally while still in the alliance i sent the remainder of my nukes and bombers off to europe to finish out the game. The magic part was that the nukes going for europe were mixed with ones bombing moscow so he didn't know they were going a little high until the crossed into europe and me and NA kicked him out of the alliance. it was a bloodbath but his nukes didn't make it through (except for the ones that hit japan).

Here is a pic from after the game

[nimby]

People stick to alliances too much, it's killing me!

In a diplomacy game yesterday, I was NA, while Europe, Asia and Russia ended up allied at one point. Russia was winning, considering it had Europe and Asia as missile defense (and I had my west coast bombed severely by asia).

Anyway, Russia was at 100 points, Europe at 68 or something, me at 58. South America (the other remaining member of the green alliance) just got nuked bad and was below Europe somewhere. Instead of going for the win and bombing Russia really hard, Europe decided to waste all his nukes on pushing me down more! No fun in a game where people stick to alliances


Course, I made up for that by betraying Asia in a freeforall game. We both had 270 or so points, he a few more than me. Victory timer starts and I unload 50 nukes from my silos, ending the game with 320+ points. (we were playing with 200 mil pop)

[Corbeau]

"The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. No more, no less" - The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates

[Count Zero Interrupt]

Backstabbing is IMHO the best part of alliance games (besides the common paranoia of course ). Just a few hours ago I backstabbed two friends of mine, after assuring them the whole time over TS that I would secretly work together with them.
To quote another Introversion game: "Trust is a weakness."