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Dealing with the Duck :: Apr 16, 2007 @ 6:44pm
nanno Joined: Nov 30, 2006 Posts: 389 Location: Colorado	Here are some basic tips for all those who must deal with duckandcover when there are no admins around to banip him. First, learn to recognize the Duck. Duckandcover has a number of names that he plays under--usually something implying arrogance, nudity or desirability (a few past examples are Perfection, AbsoluteNude, TheNaked, Yumminess, Iwin, and currently PinkSpeedo). He shows preference for the color pink, next cyan. But his personality is his most consistent feature. He has a habit of calling everyone else "filthy inferiors" (particularly after he's just been crushed) and extolling his own numerous virtues. He will often give the call "free planets" when he retreats. But his most distict feature, and the one that causes so much anger in the community is his kamikaze approach to dealing with certain targeted players (there is usually a single target in each round, and that target may or may not change between rounds). He picks a particular player, and for no apparent reason will dive-bomb them, often from the complete opposite side of the screen. These attacks are often suicidal, frequently ending with the complete demise of both duckandcover and his victim. Fortunately there are ways of dealing with the duck. First off, give him no reasons to target you. DON'T give him tips on how to play! Ever! He believes himself to be God's gift to Galcon, so just humor him--even agree with him. And certainly don't ever criticize him or his "strategy" no matter how badly it turned out for him or you. Be nice to the guy (even if he's awful to you). Throwing duck a compliment is like giving a dog a bone. He's incredibly vain and one or two little compliments can go a long way toward appeasing the beast. He craves attention, but if you give him too much (particularly negative attention) then he's insufferable. On the other hand, you must not ignore him completely or he will target you just to make you holler at him. Despite evidence to the contrary, duck is actually quite a good player and can even be fun if you learn how to get along with him. Duck likes to threaten. If he tells you to retreat but you know you can take him, then defend and let him wipe himself out. If you can't win, then just do as he says and retreat. He'll rub it in your face, but don't worry about it--at least you're still alive and are possibly even in his good graces, a valuable place to be I assure you. You may have an opportunity later to get back at him. For the lucky players not under fire, it's good to help out whoever duck targets. If he suicides on someone, take duck's abandoned planets, but don't attack the victim while he is still weak from the blow. That will take duckandcover out of the game early, and then you won't have to deal with him again until next round. If duckandcover succeeds in wiping out his target, then take him out immediately afterwards while he is weak. If possible, give sanctuary to the one he targeted. Duckandcover does not care in the least whether he wins or loses. He lives to harrass and annoy other players. If you refuse to be annoyed by his behavior then you will find yourself having much more fun and perhaps even getting along with the Duck. Watch, now I'll be his favorite target. Or maybe we'll all get lucky and he'll change his "strategy" so we can't recognize him. Wouldn't that be a blessing. =) reply
Re: Dealing with the Duck :: Apr 16, 2007 @ 6:52pm
carn Joined: Dec 16, 2006 Posts: 74 Location: LA	Alternatively, you institute a duck patrol. When he joins, one of you leaves and rejoins as the name DuckPatrol. Your job is to do in the duck. That is, launch immediately and kill him early on if possible. There is no way he can survive a player suiciding on him if the rest of you finish him off. Every three to five rounds have another player sign on as DuckPatrol. Or, a much better approach, banip him from every server the moment he shows his face. He adds nothing; rather, he detracts from everyone's enjoyment. reply
Re: Dealing with the Duck :: Apr 16, 2007 @ 8:09pm
nanno Joined: Nov 30, 2006 Posts: 389 Location: Colorado	The DuckPatrol idea is pretty great. I like it. =) As far as banip goes, I'm sure we'd all love to do this if it didn't hurt other players, but unfortunately when we banip duck, we're also banip-ing all existing and potential players at the college where his ip address is currently from. Besides, he just proxies to another ip and comes right back anyway. Better to just get along with him (he can actually be very entertaining) or institute the DuckPatrol or move to a registered users only server. reply
Re: Dealing with the Duck :: Apr 16, 2007 @ 8:40pm
duckandcover Joined: Feb 7, 2007 Posts: 47	I do not proxy, I'm really not smart enough to set up Galcon to do so. If you go through the logs I imagine you'll see three IPs, seeing as summer is coming there probably will be one more. I'm considering posting a nice little ranking of people I plan to attack in comparison to others, that way it's even easier to figure where you stack up. The fact is though I attack in response to people attacking me. Don't attack me early on and I'm unlikely to do a thing. reply
Re: Dealing with the Duck :: Apr 16, 2007 @ 9:18pm
thirdparty Joined: Dec 20, 2006 Posts: 279 Location: Eastern U.S.A.	It helps to understand Duck's strategy. The idea: in a multiplayer position where an all-out conflict between two players would destroy them both, send a large fleet from many origin planets to a single distant enemy planet. The multiple origin planets ensures that the fleet cannot be turned around; i.e. that once the maneuver is performed, there's nothing Duck can do to prevent an all-out conflict. Therefore the victim has no (rational) option but to evacuate the target planet; anything else would be suicidal. It's like defenestrating your steering wheel during a game of "Chicken" to force the other car to swerve. Doing it from a distance assures that the victim has enough time to figure out what's happening and implement the (rationally) required response. The most important point here is that Duck is not actually trying to suicide. He doesn't want his fleet to collide with yours. If you evacuate the target planet but visibly defend all the ones around it, he won't take them (they're too close for him to credibly attack while still giving you time to evacuate, and the price of combat is too high). Do this right and you'll lose only the target. And you can get it back by doing the maneuver in reverse: once his ships are all landed, he has the ability to evacuate, so if you then swarm the planet, he'll have to leave. (Careful though: if you've let him have only one planet, he won't be able to repeat the maneuver, since it requires multiple origins; so he's likely to attack a nearby lightly-defended world instead. You may have to kind of herd him into someone else's territory.) Meanwhile, he's left a power vacuum in his former territory. (Free planets!) Try to take enough of them to compensate yourself for the single planet you lost. (Alternatively, evacuate all or most of your territory, and warn the other players in chat that an invasion of Duck's old territory will be a casus belli. Usually it's possible to swap territories with Duck, keep an outpost or two in your old territory so that you're better off than Duck had been before the swap, and leave Duck happy and ready to attack someone else.) reply
Re: Dealing with the Duck :: Apr 16, 2007 @ 9:39pm
duckandcover Joined: Feb 7, 2007 Posts: 47	This will get me to back down, but only works if you have physical access to me. "Touch my suitcase and I'll break your skull you fat ugly **** ***." That's Duck and Cover making friends from the peasants to the aristocracy! post updated on Apr 16, 2007 @ 10:09pm* reply
Re: Dealing with the Duck :: Apr 17, 2007 @ 2:36am
carn Joined: Dec 16, 2006 Posts: 74 Location: LA	Thirdparty, then there's the that other strategy he uses called suiciding. The round starts and he immediately hits 100% and attacks your home planet. Even if you're across the map and next to some nice cheap targets and will have no problem defending. He's hoping that after he loses someone will come kill you. Its called suiciding and there's no two ways around it. Its not a legitimate strategy to win. reply
Re: Dealing with the Duck :: Apr 17, 2007 @ 9:15am
duckandcover Joined: Feb 7, 2007 Posts: 47	Suiciding has nothing to do with winning the game I'm suiciding in. reply
Re: Dealing with the Duck :: Apr 17, 2007 @ 10:30am
assassin437 Joined: Jan 29, 2007 Posts: 117 Location: Quantification	There's a tautology if ever I heard one. reply
Re: Dealing with the Duck :: Apr 18, 2007 @ 3:28pm
prox Joined: Feb 10, 2007 Posts: 51 Location: Lugano	Today I did some patrol work: it worked! :P Carn very good Idea;) At the end the duck wanted to convince others I was the duck:P reply
Re: Dealing with the Duck :: Apr 18, 2007 @ 5:41pm
duckandcover Joined: Feb 7, 2007 Posts: 47	Yeah I was trying to convince others that Prox was Duck, which couldn't possible be true... no way no how. reply

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