Can You Destroy My Enemy's Units So I Can Claim Their Land and Cities?

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    • Can You Destroy My Enemy's Units So I Can Claim Their Land and Cities?

      In a lot of ways, I'm a terrible coalition mate. However, there are some reasons for alleging this with which I agree, and some with which I do not agree. I do not agree that my opposition to the request "Can you kill my enemies so I can get all their land and cities?" is grounds for labeling me a bad coalition mate.

      I'm currently in four games, and, in two of those, I was essentially asked this today.

      In one game, a coalition mate (Indonesia) asked if I (Japan) could clear out the abandoned navy ships of an inactive enemy (Philippines). "Could you send your task force along the Philippines coasts and clear out their ships so I can get my troops in there?"

      In another game, a coalition mate called for immediate help from me. He was working on a completely different continent. I look over there to see what''s going on. Nothing's really wrong. He's just having trouble conquering some cities because his opponent has some units in his cities. He's not in trouble, he's just not winning quickly.

      Look, I'm not against teamwork or assisting in defending someone. That's what coalitions are for, right? We have to take on a big, bad opponent? Okay, let's plan it together and do it together, if you want to. You're a poor little country and some big bully is trying to invade you just because they can? I'm on my way to help defend you. But this whole, "I'm in over my head in a fight that I picked on my own" thing, or the "I didn't build the right military to take this guy out" thing? I'm not super excited to help out with those two.

      Why? Why do I have to be such a selfish jerk? Why can't I just help out a coalition mate? All the VPs are going to the coalition anyway, right? Who cares where they come from?

      Well, because I'm tired of playing everyone's game for them. You're Indonesia, I'm Japan, and your inactive opponent is the Philippines. If you can't beat their navy yourself at some point, you're doing it wrong. Why am I taking time away from MY progress and beating up MY ships that I spent time and resources building so that YOU can get cities and territories? Because YOU didn't focus enough on navy? How did that become MY debt to pay? The enemy player is inactive, and I have other stuff to do, so just make your own ships and go take Philippines if you want to. OR don't take Philippines because you don't have the ships and you don't want to build them, and *I* will come over there and take Philippines for myself when I have time.

      Why can't I come destroy your enemy's defenses in their cities that you can't get through on a completely different continent? Because I'm doing my own stuff, man. I'm not your reserve force just sitting around waiting for you to need extra troops. I have battles and wars of my own, and my forces are committed to those. So I'm supposed to stop my own progress now to come over there and make sure you succeed at yours? You decided to attack that person, you figure out how to beat them, OR give up and wait until we're all ready to perform a joint attack. BUT, if I can take that enemy out on my own, I don't want/need you lurking over my shoulder during the fights and then jumping forward to claim land and cities (saying, "Well, I was the one fighting them; I just needed some help.") after I win those fights. Handle yo bidness or get out the way, and I'll handle it without you.
    • Right. It's an entirely different dynamic if you're talking about going in with a pre-set team of five players who all know their agreed role, or even if a group of random players decides to assign specific roles to specific countries. This isn't what this is. This is people expecting a stronger player to not only get them a win, but to make sure that each individual nation in the coalition also gets to pretend they are really kicking butt.

      Also, in a situation where different teammates have agreed to specialize in different areas, there's going to be an exchange of assistance between all players in that group. That's also not what this is. The ASF guy that you mentioned may need help getting the ground cleared, but he's also going to be clearing the skies for me throughout the game. These people that I'm talking about aren't contributing any help to me at all. They always need assistance, but they never have any USEFUL assistance to offer. (I capitalized USEFUL there, because they'll constant offer to "help [me] too", but really what's going to end up happening is that I'm going to be fighting everything while they run around and gobble up the land I cleared.)

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

    • Difficult to answer you, because depending on the perspective, i would say "don't worry", and "worry".

      Globally, though, be careful with who you ally ^^.

      As Kalrakh said, we alliance players have a mindset of total cooperation on those matters because we heavily specialise builds.
      In those situations,it's a bit like in a RPG where you know the Healer can't deal damage, so you deal damages for him ^^.

      The matter is a bit more difficult in pubs where everyone does a bit of everything without coherence. If you manage to convince a teammate that for the good of the team, he needs to specialise in something that complements your own build, then yeah... do assist him in all matters that he can't deal with properly because it's your specialty.

      For the others, that just don't want to deal with the consequences of their own acts, i follow your reasoning
      Running an online alliance is pretty much like running a small company, except you need to find other way than money to keep your employees productive. May they play or work, they are humans.