by dyepbr
Dulkal wrote:
Not if he is winning anyway. If his targets are both focusing elsewhere, he will have an even easier time attacking.
As said before by turn 5, if two players are clear winners, above is moot, as 1 of the 2 alliance players that are dominating should win the game.
Edit: and if there is 1 clear winner anyway, alliance or not, he should be favored for victory.
By turn 5, almost every game is still up in the air, especially with hidden victory points, unspent resources etc. I've only played 1 game, where 1 player was clearly dominated by turn 5, nearly to the point of elimination, but ended up taking 2nd overall. Point is, by turn 5, as players play more with each other, the disparity between player states should be thinner by turn 5.
Dulkal wrote:
Huh? The two strongest players against the two weakest players sounds like it would be lopsided in any game. If the strongest player wants to dominate in a free-for-all, he has to be strong enough to dominate three other players. If two players want to dominate, they just have to be strong enough to dominate two other players. There is a big difference.
I understand what you are saying, but this is only a snapshot of a single point in time. This may be true if the game rule was to make alliances only possible after turn 5 (and if there were clearly 2 stronger and 2 weaker players).
This is not the case, as players could allie and unallie at any point in the game. In my games, the strongest players at turn 3 are different from those at turn 4, and again different at turn 5 etc. It's fluid.
Dulkal wrote:
But the point is that they are strong enough to beat both. Each of the players in the alliance is stronger than either of the players outside the alliance. So they don't need to focus, they just fight one war each. If the other players focus their defenses on one alliance player, the other just tramples over his target that much faster, and then its two against one.
If each alliance player are fighting 1 war each, this is no different than a 4-player free-for-all, where the two stronger players are beating on the two weaker players. Alliance or not, if the two weaker players are losing their 1 war each, then they deserve to be losing on the military VP. The losers are the same in both scenarios.
What would be different is the winners. With the alliance, the stronger players are avoiding/refusing sole victory, something that I would imagine would change in most gaming groups over time, otherwise I don't see Eclipse being that group's go-to game (50% of the gaming group would call the other 50% "bullies":))
Weaker players will round the curve overtime, stronger players will want to get better by challenging each other, player state disparity will be thinner by turn 5 and be more fluid throughout the entire game.