High Or Low: Who Faces More Hostility?

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    • High Or Low: Who Faces More Hostility?

      Just a quick question to yack about for no real reason other than conversation:

      Who faces more hostility in a game: High-Ranking accounts or Low-Ranking accounts?

      I've heard players say that they feel they attract more negative attention as a result of playing on high-ranking accounts. The idea is that other players see them as more of a threat and feel a greater urgency to oppose them. What's more, more experienced/skilled players say they themselves tend to gun for the stronger-looking opponents more often and more quickly, because they tend to pose the bigger threat than a new player who doesn't appear to know what they are doing.

      I understand every one of those points, and I agree that they are all present in the game to some degree, but I still think that, all things considered, High-Rank accounts receive a more positive response from other players.

      I play Low-Ranking accounts often. Usually, it's because I'm testing something and I want to see what it looks like without the perks of High Rank and account age. Sometimes it's because I want clear results on my current single-game stats (KDR, etc.). Every now and then, it's for a more novel reason like I want to play under a specific name or I want an account where I always play the same country. The point is: I play Low Rank (Rank 1) accounts often and have very recently (I am right now, in fact).

      I also have a High Rank account that serves as my main. It's the one that I used when I was helping out as a moderator, and I've had it for years. It's got hundreds of started games on its stats and double digit coalition and solo wins. Because I've started and left so many games, the stats on that account certainly aren't impressive, but they also shouldn't give anyone the idea that I'm a bad player.

      Yesterday I started a new game on a brand new Rank 1 Account. I selected Chile (I'd recently heard people calling it a bad country to play). Before the first day was half over, Bolivia and Peru both started attacking me. They are in a coalition together with Brasil, Veneuela, and Cuba. No one spoke to me or invited me. They all joined a coalition and two of them started attacking me together before I even knew there was a coalition started. I feel like this is pretty representative of the treatment that Rank 1 players get. No, my enemies weren't High Ranking players, so I'm not claiming that High Ranking players were preying on me, but I also didn't hear from any. I didn't hear from anyone at all.

      A couple of days ago I started a game with my High Rank account. I didn't have my first research finished or my first buildings built before I had three different invitations to join coalitions. One of those was from another High Rank account more than an ocean away. When I politely declined all of the invitations, a number of countries automatically changed their status toward me to Right of Way (without me asking and without us discussing it). It's day 16 in that game; I'm a defensive player; and I haven't been able to coax anyone into attacking me yet.

      Does anyone EVER attack me on my High Rank account? Sure. Brand new players who haven't figured out that they should check out Ranks and Stats sometimes blindly attack me. High Rank players who are confident they can beat me and who don't want to deal with me later in the game sometimes attack me. And Mid-/Mixed Rank coalitions attack me together in every single game. I mean, it's a war game; I'm going to get attacked by someone at some point. If we're comparing how other players respond to High Rank versus Low Rank accounts, though, my personal belief (based on frequent experience) is that most players are more aggressive toward Low Rank accounts and more cooperative toward High Rank accounts.

      P.S. I think this is supported by the fact that Low Rank accounts will often message me that they have High Rank accounts because they want me to think they're competent. No High Rank account ever messages me that they are really a new player on someone else's High Rank account. I.E. Other players seem to see High Rank accounts as desirable and Low Rank accounts as less appealing.
    • JimmyMaestro wrote:

      ???? Does this make you a Multi account player? I thought the game only let you have one account?
      One account per game I think
      I am Aeneas, duty-bound and known above high air of heaven by my fame, carrying with me in my ships our gods of hearth and home, saved from the foe. I look for Italy to be my fatherland, and my descent is from all-highest Jove.
    • JimmyMaestro wrote:

      ???? Does this make you a Multi account player? I thought the game only let you have one account?
      Aeneas is correct.

      @'JimmyMaestro , you can create as many accounts as you want (although I think they have to each have separate emails). The restriction is that you can't play on more than one account in the same game.

      So, let's say you had played a few dozen games or whatever, and you were concerned about your stats now, and you were like, "This stinks! I didn't know what I was doing back when I first started. Now I have to live with those awful stats forever." No, you don't. You can start all over with a new account if you like. You just can't use it in the same game as your old account.
    • High rank doesnt matter. I look at people win/loss and prov won/lossed more than rank. Ive seen some bad high ranked players who have high rank based on spawning 20 games and bob the builder.

      But being a high rep player can be a mixed bag. It can help you align with other good players (The emperor ...."Join me or you shall die young skywalker!!"".

      On other hand can put target on your back. The smart move on a map would be to team up against me but they rarely do as human nature is self preservation. Last apocalypse x 4 map I just took out Indonesia (I was NZ) while 3 of his partners just watched and they were high ranked players. coalition leader was ranked 105 and coattail rider but didnt realize at time. so I reached out to other 3 and said im taking indonesia out and it would be natural for us (japan, china, Vietnam) join up.

      End of day Leader was a jackwagon so left and took him out.

      ---

      Current game I threw out a "Join me if you want to survive and win msg " on CoN day 1 and had 3 newbs declare war on me and 1 put agents day 2 (first time i saw that but could be a good strategy). If 5 or 6 countries all ponied up 1 or 2 agents they could stifle me pretty good or at least force me to spend money on agents instead of buying resources; builds; mobilizations.
      "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him "

      aka ...The killer formerly known as BuckeyeChamp

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

    • Hmm,

      I have seen players team up against those who have the hand of god, but, not just because of rank (yet).

      But to your other point. As part of my strategy I do prey on the lower ranked, lesser skilled to gain resources and territory. Furthermore, if I see some one is a threat (rank, skill or growth wise) I want to attack them sooner or later.

      I have also played RT games where I was not in a coalition with another player they gave me ROW & shared intelligence b/c I was winning. They came in third.

      Good cooperation and lots of fun.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Im On Smoko ().

    • TBH havent really experienced anything like that on any consistent scale; but then again I rarely am the one to initiate diplomacy to begin with (maybe some taunting the other guy if i feel particular funny but thats kinda it)
      Only thing that i could really point out is that (as you already said yourself) if you're high level it seems to happen more often that ppl will try to initiate diplomacy and get you on their side even the first couple days; with a low level people are more likely to ignore you and only talk to you if youre in a really strong position.
      Makes sense from my perspective tho, the high level players already have proven that they're somewhat comitted to the game (maybe not that map in particular) ofc also the fact that ppl seem to be easily impressed/scared by high lvl adds onto that

      Never seen ppl go "ha this isnt even my final form main account, in truth I'm a Major General Level 69420 player"; not really sure who would believe them anyway
      I am The Baseline for opinions
    • Teburu wrote:

      Never seen ppl go "ha this isnt even my final form main account, in truth I'm a Major General Level 69420 player"; not really sure who would believe them anyway
      Right. Never believe them. I've never seen an actual good/skilled/experienced player say that. Most of the time the people who say this are outright lying. It's possible that a small percentage of them have higher Rank accounts, but if they do it's probably because they were doing things like building buildings to increase Rank points; they're never actually good players.

      When I'm on a new account, I never say anything about previous experience until someone inevitably asks me.
    • To be fair... I just started a game on my highest Ranked account as Ukraine, and the Russia player immediately RUSHED (like actually used the RUSH button) every western Russia unit they had at me.

      I honestly don't know why.

      I don't know if that means that they quit the game (but they have buildings still being actively constructed) because they didn't want to share a border with a high rank player.

      I don't know if they thought that was going to work, and they were going to beat the high ranking guy by surprise.

      I don't get it. I mean, I can see trying to take the high rank guy by surprise if they left themselves vulnerable, but I would think you'd at least have checked that first. This guy just ran all of the units he could find directly into my defenses full speed. It doesn't make much sense to me.

      Added: I think he might have actually been trying to win this way. It appears that he "hid" just a couple of units, stalled them, then restarted them after my defenses had passed him by. I wasn't online at the time, and I logged back in to find this unit of his magically behind my defenses without having recently conquered any territory on the way there. Thankfully, I got my defenses back in time to deal with those two units too, but it was close.

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

    • PerigeeNil wrote:

      To be fair... I just started a game on my highest Ranked account as Ukraine, and the Russia player immediately RUSHED (like actually used the RUSH button) every western Russia unit they had at me.

      I honestly don't know why.

      I don't know if that means that they quit the game (but they have buildings still being actively constructed) because they didn't want to share a border with a high rank player.

      I don't know if they thought that was going to work, and they were going to beat the high ranking guy by surprise.

      I don't get it. I mean, I can see trying to take the high rank guy by surprise if they left themselves vulnerable, but I would think you'd at least have checked that first. This guy just ran all of the units he could find directly into my defenses full speed. It doesn't make much sense to me.

      Added: I think he might have actually been trying to win this way. It appears that he "hid" just a couple of units, stalled them, then restarted them after my defenses had passed him by. I wasn't online at the time, and I logged back in to find this unit of his magically behind my defenses without having recently conquered any territory on the way there. Thankfully, I got my defenses back in time to deal with those two units too, but it was close.
      I'll bet ya it was a 'USERXXXXXXX' player.
      "CoN is a game of 80% skill and 20% luck" - Tifo_14

      "I don't get paid enough to do anything" - Germanico

      Nothing stops the Tifo :thumbup:
    • Stuff happens

      One of my games I was rushed in the same way, by a new account that had nearly zero XP and was in about 8 games.

      I'm not, and wasn't highly-ranked.

      My guess was that the new account joined the 8 games, launched a rush in all 8, and planned to play the one(s) where the rush was most successful.

      Or that instead of picking the wings off of a few more flies that day, they instead got an immature endorphin rush by trying hurt 8 other players in 8 games, and then never looked at the games again.

      Or ...

      Stuff/coincidences happen
    • Just on Rising tides map and australia. Victory site in New guinea. have had China try to bum rush me.. well he was probably going for Victory site before I took it.

      But Madagascar sent 15 units .. must have been whole army to 1 port. luckily had a corvette. took a day to kill them all...lol. then about ready to rush across ocean to smoke his ass and he went vacant and AI took over.

      Some people just want to quit and send stack and biggest dog in neighborhood. Just helping my stats ;) But day 5 I am at war with 6 countries... 2 so far away cant finish without compromising self.

      But # 2 in VPs and tied with #1 for number of cities.
      "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him "

      aka ...The killer formerly known as BuckeyeChamp
    • It's all circumstantial. If there I have a high ranking player and a low ranking player around me, on day 1 I will try to work with the high ranking player, especially if there are many other high ranking players. No point in demolishing each other and then a lower rank coming for both when you're vulnerable. But if the high ranking player doesn't want to work with me, I would definitely take them out ASAP. Depends on the player, game day, location, built s, and so much more unique features of every game