Haha, well put, Ivo!

You have to be somewhat suicidal to even join a 1500 point buy-in game, which is the main reason I gave the game that name. Reminds me of a line in the U2 song called So Cruel: "I'm only hanging on, to watch you go down, my love." Brings a smile to my face and a tear to my eye everytime I hear that beautiful line since that's EXACTLY how I feel when stabbed by an ally I have been extremely loyal to, though I suppose I digress.

Anyway, Dunecat, in my humble opinion, it only takes one bad seed to ruin an otherwise great game. I'll leave it at that. ;-)

I think that suicidal tendencies are valid tactics. In a game with two clear leaders and a 3rd underdog, it is completely viable strategy to threat to throw a game to either side if both continue to fight you. If this does not help, you actually have to execute the threat, or nobody will take your threats seriously next time.

when you have nothing left with which to bluff or negotiate, that's basically your only tool avaliable. I agree with Baskinell.
This game only clarifies the rules for movement and builds and so on. But it gives total freedom for people to do whatever they want. That why it's great!!

I have never threatened it or done it yet. But I am in a game now, where I think its my only choice, otherwise those 2 will kill me. Yuk!

Yes it's viable to threaten it, I've done it before to great effect.

But when you can tell it's not just like "next time take me seriously" but instead a sort of: "fuckkkkkk you and your allies you fuckin bitch"

then it's kind of... shitty. the chances they are just acting and those are their thought-out tactics are at that point low.

but yes it can work to great effect sometimes if you have a cool head about it

I agree with Thucy. Furthermore, what's the use of such slash and burn tactics in anonymous games? Nobody else knows who you are and you're not necessarily playing with the same people so why would anyone take you seriously if you started making threats?

The name of the game is Diplomacy, not "I'm cranky so I'm going to make poor decisions out of spite."

@Marx: you remember the Dune series of games I've hosted in the past. I'm no stranger to high-pot games. There's nothing suicidal (for you) in joining a high-pot game. If anything, I'd gather that having so many points frees you from worrying about the points anymore.

i have to say i've never thrown a game, nor have i NMR'd (excepting that i still blame me sitter who failed to enter ordeers for me during two league games this summer) I take every game i enter seriously. (and i consider it perfectly fine to suicide against someone and give the victory to another player - once you're guarenteed to not win you still try to influence the game, and vengance is always worth it...)

However, I don't think high points nor WTA would have any effect on my quality of game-play. I enjoy non-anon games because i know many of the people i'm playing agianst. Real people who i've gotten to know, of real friends who i've gotten to paly webdip.

I fully reccomend that you find some people by reputation and play them, passworded games, whether anon or not, with a list of players who you know.

Create your own list of personal friends if you need to, accept that they may pass any password onto their trusted friends... use the forum to find people who take games seriously... I just don't see high point or WTa as an incentive (actually i will almost certainly refuse to play ppsc on principle, so that's a seperate issue in my mind... i don't think i've told my mates about ppsc, but they don't care, each plays to win cause the don't care about points. They just care about the individual game they are playing...)

Shit. I scored bit time on a WTA gunboat, so I'm willing to blow my points in a high stakes game with some people.

Dunecat, the Dune series of games are one of the highlights on this site for me, they were always great games that I really enjoyed. I think throwing 1500 into a single game is pretty crazy and you might as well expect to never see any of those points coming back to you. I think if you are crazy enough to put 1500 into a single game, then you are likely crazy enough to go suicidal in the game as well, since you clearly don't care too much about those points. I still think points are kind of fun and I do enjoy collecting them, even if just as a sort of party trick, but you are right in that I'm not worried about the points anymore.

I remember joining a Dune series game or two. Rough playing with that high caliber.

As far as the suicide tactic, I've seen it done to perfection... in that I called the bluff and they actually threw the game. Rough game, but if it's your last chip to use...