Today, I lost a game in which I had, up to that point, been far ahead in individual VPs. I didn't see it coming. It was like Day 26, and I'd been in the #1 spot by a sizable margin for a long time. My coalition was also in the top position, and the strongest couple of nations who were not in my coalition were communicating with me regularly and amicably. It wasn't them who took me out. I started the game day feeling comfortable and confident. I went into a situation that I expected to win easily, and I came out decimated. An immediate combination of factors following that made it clear that I would not be able to recover. Game over. To be honest, I was deeply disappointed.
In the 60 days since I've started this game, two things have become glaringly apparent to me:
1) I really enjoy playing this game and learning how to get better at it. The competitive nature of it gives me a rush, and I love the challenge of puzzling out how to construct a slightly different dynamic strategy for each situation.
2) Almost as often as I'm thrilled with and entertained by the game, I'm going to face disappointment in each game at some point.
It is an overall net gain, but that second truth is still very difficult for me to swallow. So, I'm constantly faced with a decision: Keep enjoying the game when I can, or quit the game and save myself the disappointment. In my less emotional moments, I remember the net gain, and I resolve to keep playing. I also recognize, though, that it would be better if I found some way to mitigate the disappointment for myself. So, today I began doing something that I hope works for me and that I also hope could help some others.
With each active game I have going, I keep a running tally of the red flags I see popping up in that game that may later cause me a lot of disappointment. I then make myself realistic and achievable goals for that game (as opposed to always thinking "I'm going to win the whole thing!" despite clear indications that it will not happen) while taking those possibilities into consideration. That may seem fairly obvious, but actually going through the motions of typing out that information keeps me from allowing my optimism to become too unrealistic by default. Now, some disappointments (like the one this morning for instance) are not really foreseeable by looking at the map and other people's buildings/forces, so I'm bound to still get surprised sometimes, and those can be the most difficult ones to accept. However, if I can end up less disappointed by the ones that I COULD have seen coming, maybe that will make the game a little less disappointing as a whole.
I post this in the hopes that it helps someone else who may be feeling disappointed or frustrated by the game consider how they can more enjoy the game by remaining aware of and realistic about the potential for disappointment in a given game.
In the 60 days since I've started this game, two things have become glaringly apparent to me:
1) I really enjoy playing this game and learning how to get better at it. The competitive nature of it gives me a rush, and I love the challenge of puzzling out how to construct a slightly different dynamic strategy for each situation.
2) Almost as often as I'm thrilled with and entertained by the game, I'm going to face disappointment in each game at some point.
It is an overall net gain, but that second truth is still very difficult for me to swallow. So, I'm constantly faced with a decision: Keep enjoying the game when I can, or quit the game and save myself the disappointment. In my less emotional moments, I remember the net gain, and I resolve to keep playing. I also recognize, though, that it would be better if I found some way to mitigate the disappointment for myself. So, today I began doing something that I hope works for me and that I also hope could help some others.
With each active game I have going, I keep a running tally of the red flags I see popping up in that game that may later cause me a lot of disappointment. I then make myself realistic and achievable goals for that game (as opposed to always thinking "I'm going to win the whole thing!" despite clear indications that it will not happen) while taking those possibilities into consideration. That may seem fairly obvious, but actually going through the motions of typing out that information keeps me from allowing my optimism to become too unrealistic by default. Now, some disappointments (like the one this morning for instance) are not really foreseeable by looking at the map and other people's buildings/forces, so I'm bound to still get surprised sometimes, and those can be the most difficult ones to accept. However, if I can end up less disappointed by the ones that I COULD have seen coming, maybe that will make the game a little less disappointing as a whole.
I post this in the hopes that it helps someone else who may be feeling disappointed or frustrated by the game consider how they can more enjoy the game by remaining aware of and realistic about the potential for disappointment in a given game.