Underdog wrote:Ask Hanibal, He probably hunted them all down just so nobody would be able to eat them later.
and Dameon's:
I've been lucky so far in that I am not surrounded by idiots, apparentely. The only other player I have run into is Validon and he apparentely has enough brains to realize this simple strategy. I just don't get it- if you restrain yourself you will have a lot more plants in the future. I am doing just fine using, and my original square still has over 1000 plants, and growing.
I feel like I and others are being unjustly criticised here! I'm not out to spoil anyone's game, and I'm certainly not out to win. I'm helping playtest it. It will prob be halted before an ending anyway, fine in playtesting. (With respect, Dameon, I have probably developed, playtested and invented far more games than you have, if only because I've probably been doing it for 20-30 years longer than you have). There were two key principles in playtesting: Test extremes where rules might break down or balance get screwed; and test what most future players would probably do, normals not us experts.
If everyone conserved, it would be a very poor indicator of how it would play in the mass market, and hence a very poor playtest. You seem to be in it for your own satisfaction and glory, even in a playtest. You'd have been dropped from our playtesting group.
And we're not necessarily idiots, nor spoilers.
My messages to Underdog were;
"Hi. If we don't eat it, someone else will happen by and eat it. Agree?"
and 3 turns later: "As far as I know, there's nothing we could do to manage and conserve the crop and repel a visitor from just arriving and eating it? Agree?"
2 turns later: "I'd be happy to starve my herd smaller, eat less, and conserve, but that strategy just lets you and others eat what's there? So gotta eat before others eat it all?"
And 2 turns later: "UD, your food's getting cold. My herd's getting hungry. Must disappear for hours and leave orders. So gotta start without you. Sorry." THEN I started eating, leaving orders, not checking back.
If UD was offline, or asleep at the time, he probably never saw that throughout this, there were question-marks on three sides of us. I honestly considered just sitting and dying, so as not to offend, but that wouldn't be helping playtest. I couldn't try for more dialogue, I was off away for 10 hours. I expected UD to join in eating when he caught up with messages. I was trying to share.
A day later I was in a square with lots of plant, and Hamster. I wrote: "I'll hold off and build inst/skill/fert if you will......?" He replied "Sure". When a fourth player entered our square, two players started eating - not me. Quite right too if they were starving, what choice do they have?
The characterisation of us as idiots or greedy or slash'n'burn is stupid. You were just very lucky if you were alone in a square to be able to choose crop-management, or with just one other player, or with a player you could message with if they were online at the same time.
Hey, it's only a game. And playTESTING.
There are two ways to write: Short-hand, and Long-Han'ed. ~ Han
"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs"......... it's probably just that you're the last person to appreciate the enormity of the catastrophe about to