by Ranior
gmg159 wrote:
But if nobody is doing it versus everyone doing it, would your chances really change?
To me it would create a meta game that is bad for the game experience. Alliances would carry over from game to game...and you end up with you help me win this game, I'll help you win that other game. And those not a part of your meta game lose out in the experience and the placement in the game.
Edit: And to be clear if you are playing as a group in person and all agree to it, then go for it, nothing wrong with that. As for online rated play, no thank you.
No, that's a good point. In the game above it's entirely possible that the cultists take me up my offer, but then later build next to say the Darkligns who promise to take the leech if Cultists move up the Air cult. And if that's really the cult the Cultists want to go up, now I'm not even getting the leech opportunity which might overall be bad for me. You're quite right that it sets up a different meta to the whole game and is probably best avoided--particularly in tournament conditions where alliances could develop and carry over from game to game. (Which would get extremely annoying and quickly ruin the experience).
Burning wrote:
I have another somewhat similar situation to consider. On the base game map, yellow and blue can often share the west, leeching from each other. Some time ago I was playing nomads, with among others a first-time player playing mermaids. When, do you think, it's okay to mention the possible partnership, if at all?
As I recall I didn't mention anything until some way into the game when we had both built a few things in the west and another player was complaining about a lack of power. But from then on me and the mermaids player high-fived each other when building there. (Well, that stopped after I took an obvious connection hex from mermaids and she was forced to tripe-dig with workers.)
And yet another similar situation which I've certainly been tempted to speak up recently. I've played on BGA with some players that really don't know what they are doing. And it can get extremely annoying. A recent example is similar to what you're describing. I figured for sure the player would put a starting dwelling near one of mine. We'd both have a great place to build a town with basically no competition between hexes. (Might have been something like Black/Grey in the east, I don't really remember).
Of course, they didn't do it. And I was left with little leech and no good TP neighbors. It really impacted me. They wound up having hexes constantly stole from them where they went and we both suffered in standing for it.
In a real life game I'd certainly point these things out to a newer player as I know my group and these type of things are okay. (I remember a particularly vivid example where a Chaos Magicians player was contemplating starting I12 next to a Witches who started I11. I kindly pointed out how if the witches hard dug H8 on turn one before they got to act that they'd literally never have expansion room...) Once again it really does depend on the players though. I mostly agree with sprockitz that it's best to let your play and moves speak for themselves but in a game like Terra Mystica that really only works if you can assume your opponents can read the board like you can. In the case of newer players they obviously cannot see the "obvious" synergy you are offering them in starting dwelling location, so is it alright to point it out? Again in person I have no issue. Online it's much harder to know if that person wants that, how the other players will react, etc and so I probably wouldn't.