I've noticed there's a bit of disparity in the way we refer to/think about other players in public games and the actual current allotment of players in public games.
Not too long ago, I joined a game and a neighboring country was invading my homeland with multiple 10-stacks of Infantry and MBT combos on Day 1 just past 0300hrs. In addition to his multiple Level 2 Army Bases, he also already had Level 2 Air Bases (but I didn't stay long enough to see what aircraft he was building; I assume strikers). It was an unlucky coincidence that I found myself beside him and unable to match his forces at the very beginning of the game when he started invading.
That happens sometimes, but it doesn't happen most of the time. In this case, I was a unlucky.
In the game I am currently about to finish, my very first enemy was a neighboring nation and was the best opponent I faced all game and the best opponent I had faced in a large number of games. I enventually beat them, but it was an intense exchange for awhile, and I lost some troops.
That happens sometimes, but it doesn't happen most of the time. In this case, I was a little unlucky to even have another decent player in my game.
I've noticed that on the Forums we tend to say, "You must have gotten lucky" if the other players in our public games aren't very good, and we say "If you get lucky,..." when we're talking about hypothetical scenarios in which the other players in public games aren't very skilled. Saying it like that makes it sound as if it's a rare occasion that none of the other players in a public game will be very good/eperienced at playing CoN.
It's not at all rare, though. In MOST CoN public games, not one of our opponents is a very good player. In MOST public games, a good player is going to end up in the #1 spot by 500, 800, 1000, or more VPs. We see screenshots that prove it all the time, and yet a good percentage of the time, someone makes a comment refering to the situation as "lucky".
Don't get me wrong: luck is an element in whether or not a strong player ends up in our game with us or ends up right beside us; that's not the part we're getting wrong. What we tend to misrepresent is the frequency with which that happens. It's more like entering the game is guessing a number between 1 and 10, and getting that number correct is having another good player in your game. We don't usually consider that "lucky" because it's more difficult to have to face them, but it is the more infrequent occurance.
So, I'm going to start refering to "luck" differently in the Forums, and I hope that you'll join me. Instead of saying "If you get lucky" or "you got lucky" every time I refer to someone not having strong competition in a public game, I'm going to assume that's the norm and refer to it as such. Additionally, when I mean to acknowledge that a situation could exist where more challenging competition might be present in a public game, I'm going to say, "Unless you get unlucky and... [there's another good player in your game, etc.]"
Not too long ago, I joined a game and a neighboring country was invading my homeland with multiple 10-stacks of Infantry and MBT combos on Day 1 just past 0300hrs. In addition to his multiple Level 2 Army Bases, he also already had Level 2 Air Bases (but I didn't stay long enough to see what aircraft he was building; I assume strikers). It was an unlucky coincidence that I found myself beside him and unable to match his forces at the very beginning of the game when he started invading.
That happens sometimes, but it doesn't happen most of the time. In this case, I was a unlucky.
In the game I am currently about to finish, my very first enemy was a neighboring nation and was the best opponent I faced all game and the best opponent I had faced in a large number of games. I enventually beat them, but it was an intense exchange for awhile, and I lost some troops.
That happens sometimes, but it doesn't happen most of the time. In this case, I was a little unlucky to even have another decent player in my game.
I've noticed that on the Forums we tend to say, "You must have gotten lucky" if the other players in our public games aren't very good, and we say "If you get lucky,..." when we're talking about hypothetical scenarios in which the other players in public games aren't very skilled. Saying it like that makes it sound as if it's a rare occasion that none of the other players in a public game will be very good/eperienced at playing CoN.
It's not at all rare, though. In MOST CoN public games, not one of our opponents is a very good player. In MOST public games, a good player is going to end up in the #1 spot by 500, 800, 1000, or more VPs. We see screenshots that prove it all the time, and yet a good percentage of the time, someone makes a comment refering to the situation as "lucky".
Don't get me wrong: luck is an element in whether or not a strong player ends up in our game with us or ends up right beside us; that's not the part we're getting wrong. What we tend to misrepresent is the frequency with which that happens. It's more like entering the game is guessing a number between 1 and 10, and getting that number correct is having another good player in your game. We don't usually consider that "lucky" because it's more difficult to have to face them, but it is the more infrequent occurance.
So, I'm going to start refering to "luck" differently in the Forums, and I hope that you'll join me. Instead of saying "If you get lucky" or "you got lucky" every time I refer to someone not having strong competition in a public game, I'm going to assume that's the norm and refer to it as such. Additionally, when I mean to acknowledge that a situation could exist where more challenging competition might be present in a public game, I'm going to say, "Unless you get unlucky and... [there's another good player in your game, etc.]"