A Common Discussion Denominator

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    • A Common Discussion Denominator

      Comparatively, we don't have that many people who regularly use the Forums to discuss things. Yet, I still feel like people in the same discussions are often approaching them from wildly different places, and I think that causes some unnecessary confusion for people seeking information/guidance. I think it would help if we had kind of an unofficial agreement to discuss things from a certain "baseline" or to at least acknowledge explicitly and clearly when we're not. I'll give a hypothetical example to hopefully keep from upsetting anyone:

      Let's say we're talking about early game homeland city build order/strategy and someone says, "By the end of Day 3, if I'm playing a five or six city nation, I usually try to have a Recruiting Office in every city, at least a Level 1 Arms Industry in every city, and then hopefully have or be in the process of building a military base of some sort in every city." Then someone else comments and says, "I do better than that. By the end of Day 3, I always have a Level 5 Arms Industry in my Rare Materials city."

      ...ummmmm. Then you're clearly speeding up the build, bud. Does it not occur to you that's not really the general discussion we're intending to have here? In order for the conversation to be the most useful to the greatest number of players, it needs to be generally applicable, not the result of the exceptional thing you do to gain a unique advantage.

      When I suggest or comment on something, I always assume the baseline for the playing is assumed to be the baseline for the discussion, unless otherwise stated. When I was in status where I retained Seasonal units permanently, if I was going to include their use in my discussion (which I tried not to do), I would point that out and acknowledge that not everyone may have that advantage,... rather than acting like having those units at my permanent disposal was the norm for all players.

      Does that make sense? I don't know. I just saw something in a conversation a couple of weeks ago where a player was trying to get some advice, and they got an answer that clearly was not within the bounds of "unenhanced" play, and I was like "I'm not sure that player was asking for that sort of advice..."
    • I don't know. Maybe I'm just sore because I was traumatized at an early "Conflict of Nations age". When I was a brand new player, I didn't know how everything worked, and I was trying to really hard to figure out efficiency and effectiveness, and I was playing this game in which I felt like I was doing really well. Then I ran up against this guy who was super far ahead of me, and I was really disappointed with myself. So, I asked the guy (nicely) what he had done to achieve what he had by that point in the game. Now, he was an opponent and a random player, and he didn't owe me any truth or explanation, but he ended up basically claiming that it was just the result of being really good at the game. I poured over it and poured over it until I finally figured out that there hadn't even been enough game time for him to build what he had built without speeding it up.

      Maybe that's why it bothers me now when I feel like players are trying to come across as "Lol, I guess I'm just really good" when what they really should be saying is, "What I'm actually 'really good at' is just speeding up build times, research times, and resource totals."
    • I agree 100%

      I think there is a thread unto itself about how to use gold most effectively... or how players like to use it.
      It is it's own world of game-play... I don't use gold myself but I'm interested in the topic... because it's like its own game mode... one that might be fun if "everyone" did it in a particular map.

      Furthermore, I'm interested to see gold-strategies so as to have a better idea of how to counter them as a typical peasant-player.

      From what I've gathered/deduced (some of this is common sense)...

      The earlier you use gold, the more advantage you gain throughout the game with the "snowball effect"
      Expediting is the most powerful unbalancer.
      In a gold game, the moment a unit is available to research, one must assume that it is not only already researched, but already mobilized
      MAAV becomes way more viable due to being available on day 1... and the golden gunships + airmobile are a crazy blitz.
      Lowering morale of a capitol with gold is devastating.
      Melee becomes the king of combat because you can't gold-heal units while in melee... thus, melee has a new importance in gold-games.
      Home cities become even more important to damage/cease mobilization, repeatedly.
      Any occupied city may become annexed at any moment and start spamming units.

      ...I'm sure others have things to add to this list of observations/ pseudo-strategies...
      It's an interesting topic... but when someone uses gold in a game, and then discusses that game within the forum, I agree they should at least announce it for continuity purposes... nobodies going to "shame" them.. just we want our study/improvement/discussions of the game to be accurate so they may be fruitful.
    • Exactly, it's not that it shouldn't be discussed (it definitely should!); it's just that it's a completely different discussion.

      I think the confusion comes partially from some folks convincing themselves, "Well, if I don't use that much, then it's not worth noting the difference. It's not like I made stacks of maxed out units; I just sped up a couple of buildings." Yeah, but you sped up an Arms Industry which allowed you to get more resources faster and allowed you to get your ships built faster, which you then used to destroy the other guy's unfinished Naval Base city so they couldn't catch up...

      To me, the big difference in the two types of play is "planning and strategy". If I can predict what a player is capable of possessing, building, etc., then I can craft an informed strategy for beating them. All of that goes entirely out the window when it can be instantly changed. Basically, it nullifies the penalty for poor planning. I once surprise attacked the homeland of an opponent who I knew to have no air defense with a couple of stacks of Strikers. He then immediately built and upgraded a bunch of stacks of SAMs. Lol... ummm... alright? So,... I don't... are we just not playing this game then, or...?

      Anyway, I'm not complaining about that style of play. It's a valid and valuable part of the game. It's just a different discussion when we're talking about piecing out progressive strategy.
    • I want to be clear, though: it's not just about gold. I'm saying, in a more general sense, that when discussing strategy in general, it might be clearest to stick to what anyone/everyone can do unless we're going to be clear that what we're saying only applies to some people and circumstances.

      For instance, when I'm trying to test or demonstrate something, I often create a new account just so the Rank on my main account won't affect how other players in the game react to me (i.e. scared to attack, eager to team up, etc.).

      "When I join a game, I just join the strongest coalition and then it's easy." Yeah, because you're Rank 115, you have great profile stats, and maybe you even know people. That's not helpful advice for a new player trying to figure out how to survive.
    • Hm...
      I guess I'm more of a big game hunter when I enter games...

      I think having a high rank/good stats just puts you on top of the hit list.

      A new player mentality might be a little stripe-struck with rank... but perhaps it's good advice to take it with a grain of salt.

      If there is a player gaining too much advantage too early, I focus my entire build to be ready for them ... or to stifle them... I pick my allies according to who might be useful to this end.

      I always recommend alliances based on geography and activity... never on rank.... rank just gives me the opportunity to look over that players stats and deduce what I can from what I see... melee much? AIr power heavy? etc etc etc.

      The only other time rank comes into play for me is with officers... T2 officers are game make/breakers
    • Smallsword, I hear you, but I play a lot of both (low and high rank accounts), and I'm confident that more people try to prey on low Rank players. I'm a defensive player and I like to draw players to attack me, and I'll tell you that nothing draws most players in as quickly as a low-Rank account with no Army Bases built.

      Now, SOME people - like you and like me - prefer to oppose the stronger/strongest players. Maybe that's even what all the good players do. That's not how most people in a public game play, though. Most players aren't good/smart players. They're looking to attack someone weaker than them and get help from someone stronger than them.

      And I get many more coalition invites much faster on my highest Rank account. Not long ago I made a brand new account to play as Philippines to test something here on the Forums. As I documented, no one even spoke to me until after I took the points lead on Day 6. On my high ranking account, I'm not in a game 5 or 10 minutes before I have multiple requests to join people's coalitions.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by PerigeeNil ().

    • Is this discussion already going off the rails?

      The opening post clearly encourages forum-users to write better advice by explicitly identifying advice that involves using Gold to carry out the advice.

      Now we're talking about something other than encouraging posters to write better advice.

      @PerigeeNil for exactly this ^ reason, I'm not optimistic your good suggestion will ever get carried out consistently.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by KFGauss ().

    • I hear that.
      I've noticed that once I lead in VP I can pick my alliance... before that I don't get responses.

      I never assume someone is new or weak because they're a rank 2 or whatever...
      I just try to have the map inform me first and foremost... and I think a lot of players new and old do that.

      I was also thinking that in the same vein as gold... there is activity level and security council membership.

      Like I said, I don't use gold... and I don't have the SC membership... but I compensate with activity...
      I think those other 2 factors are just as worthy to note when talking about meta-strategies.
    • RadioActive wrote:

      Like what @Clock said, there isnt a 'good or bad' way to use gold, some people embrace golding, while others simply brand it cheating.

      Yeah, the point of the thread wasn't to brand anything "good" or "bad". The point was that in order to have informative, constructive discussions about strategy, we have to start with an understanding of "common ground". It can be confusing for a new player if two experienced players are suggesting two wildly different things and no one mentions that they're basing their suggestions on two completely different timelines or sets of resources.
    • Smallsword wrote:

      Melee becomes the king of combat because you can't gold-heal units while in melee... thus, melee has a new importance in gold-games.
      Ha you wish! Actually just being in combat (and getting targeted by ranged attacks does count as combat last time i checked) is enough to not have gold heal available; its why Aircraft are so utterly frustrating to deal with, they never are in combat in the sense that you cant heal them back up

      PerigeeNil wrote:

      I want to be clear, though: it's not just about gold. I'm saying, in a more general sense, that when discussing strategy in general, it might be clearest to stick to what anyone/everyone can do unless we're going to be clear that what we're saying only applies to some people and circumstances.

      For instance, when I'm trying to test or demonstrate something, I often create a new account just so the Rank on my main account won't affect how other players in the game react to me (i.e. scared to attack, eager to team up, etc.).

      "When I join a game, I just join the strongest coalition and then it's easy." Yeah, because you're Rank 115, you have great profile stats, and maybe you even know people. That's not helpful advice for a new player trying to figure out how to survive.
      Would argue thats a general issue of ppl wanting to say "I'm better than you"; kinda similar to how some discussions on discord tend to spiral into a silly "but i will kill your unit x with my counter z" and then ofc "but i will counter your z with having every unit in the game"
      IMO its at least somewhat job of the guy making the thread to make clear that its not a contest but more about looking at the problem from a general pov; probably be easiest if the guy also establishes where exactly that "common ground" is
      I am The Baseline for opinions
    • I mostly agree. I definitely agree with the "I'm better than you" tendency.

      As for the person making the post being clear about what the "common ground" is? Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I kind of assume that most discussions on strategy, build, etc. aren't asking "Which button do I push to speed up my timers?" Again, I don't want to call out anything specifically, so this is a purely hypothetical example, but:

      When someone says something like, "I'm trying to figure out how to get an early jump on Navy," it should be understood (in my opinion) that "Just upgrade your Naval Bases to Level 4 on Day 1, then buy a couple of stacks of maxed out Destroyers and Cruisers" isn't really the type of solution they're looking for. Now, obviously that's hyperbole, but you understand what I'm saying. It's pretty likely in most cases they're not asking how they can purchase an advantage, but some of the answers they get definitely involve making purchases.

      Again, it doesn't have to just be about purchases, though. It would be the same as if someone posted, "Hey, I'm new to the game and trying to figure out how to more effectively defend my coasts," and I was like, "Well, I like to use Elite AIP Subs and Railguns". That may very well be what I always do, but that's not super helpful information for someone who doesn't have access to those units. That's why, like I said, when I know I'm going to write about trying something, I'll start with a brand new account. The other level 100+ folks out there who have been around since Season 3 probably don't need my advice on how to defend their coasts.
    • @PerigeeNil (and others) This ^ is why I created the "Different Lens" thread and might be why a few of us liked that idea behind it.

      It's about actual results and can help create a reality check for the players who are giving and receiving advice.

      I'm glad you're contributing to that thread. If a few more people make some deposits in it I'll be interested to see how it all nets out. I'll be putting more into once I start my next game (in Feb?).

      I'm wondering if a useful guide(s) to a (public game, ordinary-map) beginner's first 20 days emerge?