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Crazyirishman wrote:So in essence Mr C, you enjoy playing the trips game and seeing it play out as if you were red, blue, and green, making it a more complicated type of 1v1, just with more nuances and possibilities than a regular 1v1 (assuming the other team has a dictator as well).
AndyDufresne wrote:Crazyirishman wrote:So in essence Mr C, you enjoy playing the trips game and seeing it play out as if you were red, blue, and green, making it a more complicated type of 1v1, just with more nuances and possibilities than a regular 1v1 (assuming the other team has a dictator as well).
I am not sure if this is the case for Mr. C, but I am curious if he would get the same feelings from playing in a '1vs1 Team Game' I.E. where say 1 person controls '3 in-game team players' and the other person controls the other '3 in-game team players.' Since this isn't yet a feature (though I keep wanting to see it!), it might be hard to gauge.
--Andy
Funkyterrance wrote:Dearest Mr.,
I myself have enjoyed a number of your threads and appreciate the fact that you take the time to formulate your ideas on here.
However...
The opening post of this thread gave me the willies. Maybe it was the overall tone that started my discomfort but it was your portrayal of the other players as mere hungry objects I found most disturbing. But perhaps this is the true mark of the dictator, to view your subjects as sheep to be forever puppeted?
But back to the point...
If not inflated ego, delusion of grandeur? These facets of dictating that you offer, while interesting and even possibly intriguing to the right person, are not nearly as profound/complex as you suggest. Is this all not ego-related?
Mr Changsha wrote:
But then just recently I played a trips game and was going through one of my disinterested periods. I had an incredibly light touch over the first 3 rounds. And what did I find when I finally paid attention to the game? All three players had created nice little empires for themselves.
So I speculate that the dictator model leads to a 'dominant player scenario', while the independent command is more likely to result in three viable empires.
Mr Changsha wrote:From there, I naturally began to wonder if in some situations it would be optimal for the dictator to actually call for independent play for a couple of rounds, but still of course be able to dictate when he chose. But in what situations/styles/maps etc would option two be preferable?
This seems very complicated to me indeed.
Mr Changsha wrote:I have always felt that one of the key principles of good strategy is unpredictability. I have numerous methods when I play standard or 8 man dubs...it is important to have this as well in trips and quads. So I am naturally attracted to a concept like this. For how can the opposition read my play if i am switching between a dictatorial model and an independent model within in the same game? Or maybe I play the first in a set as a dictator and the second using the independent command?
Mr Changsha wrote:So, is one model more suitable than another in certain situations?
If i am playing a fellow dictator which should I use?
If I am playing on a large, medium-sized or small map?
If I am behind on round 3?
If the map is bonus-driven or territory based?
If the opposition has played me before?
If it is a new map?
If it is one I am familiar with?
Finally, what do you think of the concept of SWITCHING between models? How effective would that be?
thegreekdog wrote:I admittedly didn't read every post here, so I caveat what I'm about to type with that.
If the ultimate goal in a team game is to win, one would assume that teammates would look to the most skilled player to direct their actions (I believe Changy referred to points as #5 on his list of five reasons for dictators, I believe points is likely numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4 as well). I digress. In the real world, if one wishes to succeed in a customer or client service line of business (for example law or accounting or engineering), one necessarily defers to those who have more experience, talent, and/or skill. This is a natural occurrence if a team wishes to be successful. For example, if I am in a meeting with a client regarding the reduction of their overall tax liability through planning in order to win work from the client, I will certainly not interject my thoughts on a tax technical item when someone with more experience, talent, and skill is in the room. We are more likely to win the work if the person with the most experience, talent, and skill talks about his or her area of expertise than if I interjected my own opinion, however valid that may be. There are likely many more examples of this phenomenon in real life.
In most CC games, I will defer to other players. I'm submissive, to borrow Mr. C's term, in CC games because my expertise in that area pales in comparison to those with whom I play games. Therefore, those of you who may be offended by Mr. C's use of certain terms, which imply a lack of assertiveness, shouldn't be. When my teammate has spent more time, energy, and intellect on the play of this game, I will defer to that teammate so that we can reach our ultimate goal of winning points. And that happens in real life too.
Mr Changsha wrote:Of course you are well within your rights to claim my writing is not insightful. I do not doubt for a second that much of my writing on this game fails to enthuse the majority of people who read it. I accept that happily...like so many of my threads on this game I write them because I enjoy discussing Risk.
But ego-puffing? This I reject. It is a simple fact that I have led my team in a certain fashion since 2008 and am therefore qualified to write about the viability of this command structure. This thread has absolutely nothing to do with how well my teams play, it is analysing the effectiveness of various structures that can be employed for team games. That my team play is some way below the top level I have never hidden, though I continue to play team games in an effort to improve. Sadly (though perhaps inevitably) the very best players tend not to share their thoughts on strategy all that much. However, I have always believed there is value in discussing the game to improve our collective understanding and while every thread of mine in this area elicits at least one comment such as yours, you will be unsurprised to know that it doesn't affect my continuing determination to write about this game at a level beyond 'look at how many medals I got'.
BigBallinStalin wrote:thegreekdog wrote:I admittedly didn't read every post here, so I caveat what I'm about to type with that.
If the ultimate goal in a team game is to win, one would assume that teammates would look to the most skilled player to direct their actions (I believe Changy referred to points as #5 on his list of five reasons for dictators, I believe points is likely numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4 as well). I digress. In the real world, if one wishes to succeed in a customer or client service line of business (for example law or accounting or engineering), one necessarily defers to those who have more experience, talent, and/or skill. This is a natural occurrence if a team wishes to be successful. For example, if I am in a meeting with a client regarding the reduction of their overall tax liability through planning in order to win work from the client, I will certainly not interject my thoughts on a tax technical item when someone with more experience, talent, and skill is in the room. We are more likely to win the work if the person with the most experience, talent, and skill talks about his or her area of expertise than if I interjected my own opinion, however valid that may be. There are likely many more examples of this phenomenon in real life.
In most CC games, I will defer to other players. I'm submissive, to borrow Mr. C's term, in CC games because my expertise in that area pales in comparison to those with whom I play games. Therefore, those of you who may be offended by Mr. C's use of certain terms, which imply a lack of assertiveness, shouldn't be. When my teammate has spent more time, energy, and intellect on the play of this game, I will defer to that teammate so that we can reach our ultimate goal of winning points. And that happens in real life too.
But in some circumstances, you possess relevant knowledge which may be extremely useful for the team and which no one but you possess; however, since you feel inferior to the superior's "expertise," you'll fail to act on the incentive to disseminate such knowledge (of course, there are many other reasons/incentives too).
The last 3-4 paragraphs in this deal with the above in more detail.
I tend to disagree with this. A true dictator who finds himself much more often dominant than the others is playing his own pieces and missing his teammates'. It is the dice and the drop that decide which of the teammates' positions should be "dominant". The dictator in your model should find a random spread among his three with no significant tendency towards his own pieces being dominant or else he is not playing objectively and optimally. You shouldn't be dropping the aces out of player B's hand just so you can play the jacks in player A's hand when you are A. If you play optimally, then you should not (in your mind) HAVE the "A" hand. I always kept playing in team games when "my" pieces had all died, and I didn't have pieces to personally move from my account during most team games. I'm certain you don't stop when "your" pieces are gone. Unless your 3rd is truly an awful player (which is the antithesis of the model you propose- all must be very good even when not in the "dictator" role.), then the tide of the games should be determined much more by the drops, cards, and dice than by the quality of each teammate's individual turns which should be consistently high. My point, therefore, is that if your pieces were most often dominant, then in optimally played games it represents your random dominance, not a principal or pattern "important in itself"checked through my previous wins and found that almost always one of the three players became an overwhelming dominant force. Interestingly, it was a fairly even split between the first and the second as to who became the dominant force, while the third incredibly rarely took on that role. That is important in itself. So it seems to me that the dictator model works in that sense.
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