You must sign in to post. | post-game analysis :: Feb 23, 2007 @ 2:19am |
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 thirdparty
Joined: Dec 20, 2006
Posts: 279
Location: Eastern U.S.A. | I like to analyze each game after it happens, figure out where the critical point was and what I could have done differently. It improves my game and makes it a richer experience.
Unfortunately, this appears to drive everyone else crazy. Instead of contributing by pointing out things I missed, it's much more common for them to say something like "it's just a game, let it go" or "stop making excuses" or "please just shut up".
Is there a polite way to solicit people's impressions of what happened, find out what they would have done if I'd done something different, etc.? Or should I just cultivate silence? | | Re: post-game analysis :: Feb 23, 2007 @ 9:19am |
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Valkery Joined: Feb 22, 2007
Posts: 1 | I suppose this post is a response to some ribbing you got from me last night? Please don't take it personally--I like to give people a hard time, and I actually quite enjoy your in-game and post-game analyses, although admittedly they do sometimes come out very like "whining" and "bellyaching" (I believe those were the terms I used?). You have to admit it ThirdPary--you are very good at drawing attention away from yourself by saying things like "Look at red!!! He's far more dangerous than me!" In effect: "I'm sweet and innocent and I could never possibly hurt you so go kill someone else now." Then you go on to sweep the field magnificently. I don't know how you do it, but you've got a very irritating (I use that word in a very complimentary sense) knack for surviving when you should be dead and for making spectacular comebacks long after everyone thought you were a thing of the past. It's amazing, but it means that your plees for mercy are falling on increasingly deaf ears.
And as for truces, well, perhaps you take them a bit too seriously. I like to honor my truces too, but I recall a very LONG session last night in which you complained non-stop to Martian about how he hadn't followed some agreement over the equal division of planets. That came about because: a) you two didn't calculate my movements into your plans, b) I thought Martian would be noble, c) TOS said he would defend his cluster but didn't, and in short, everyone was mistaken about a whole lot of things. But it worked out well for you anyway, so in the end it really didn't matter. It just wasted a whole lot of time. You could have won immediately after I made my move because I had left MANY ships on those original planets and Martian took a big loss to gain them. I told you that but you didn't seem to catch the tip-off. Instead you insisted on quibbling endlessly over the exact rules of the original contract (which had been changed because of my own movements which had been left out of said contract and which had put you decidedly in the lead). This was where the whining and bellyaching comments came into play. Sorry if I offended. It was all in good fun--I was laughing while I typed them and not the least irritated. But perhaps you could stand to occassionally be quiet and just play the game. Especially when it's very late at night. ;)
P.S. You're one of my favorite people to play against because you a) are very good, b) are not rude, c) are critical, d) have a very noble sense of fair play (even if you do go overboard sometimes).
P.P.S. I like your new avatar. | | Re: post-game analysis :: Feb 23, 2007 @ 9:22am |
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nanno 
Joined: Nov 30, 2006
Posts: 389
Location: Colorado | Oops! That last post was mine. I didn't realize that my friend here was still signed in on this computer. She wasn't even playing last night. =) | | Re: post-game analysis :: Feb 23, 2007 @ 11:32am |
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thirdparty
Joined: Dec 20, 2006
Posts: 279
Location: Eastern U.S.A. | Nanno: my post wasn't especially in response to your comments last night; more of a cumulative thing.
Of course, there's a distinction between post-game analysis and in-game diplomacy. In the game you're talking about (by the way, game analysis on the forums is also helpful; thanks!), here was the situation from my perspective:
- I had concluded an alliance with Martian only a moment before all the plans fell apart, and he'd kept to his side of it flawlessly except for getting attacked by you, so I judged that it would be a backstab to hit him at once. (I also didn't see how many ships he'd lost against you.)
- I judged that I had (just barely) more productivity than everyone else combined, but that I was the only player who thought so. (Even if I was wrong about that, I judged that because of TOS's retreat and notwithstanding your battle, my ratio of ships-to-productivity was lower than the combined ratio of everyone else.) So if I wasn't going to attack at once, I wanted to keep everybody talking rather than counting, and to waste a few minutes.
So the goal was to end the alliance in a way that I wouldn't feel bad about, and to delay. I think my string of warnings to Martian, about how the situation wasn't the one covered by our alliance, achieved this beautifully. I even managed to bully Martian into giving up some of his planets to you. (One of the nice things about having an alliance is that one can issue ultimatums threatening to end it.)
P.S.: When I say "aagh! look at red! look at red!", it's almost always true that if the player attacking me continues that attack, the player I'm pointing at will win. I think what tends to happen is that people correctly estimate how few ships I have, but overestimate how long it will take me to build a new force. |
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