Re: What is to be done? From: Mark Hendrickson <eahg128@rigel.oac.uci.edu> Date: Sun, 03 Dec 1995 00:00:00 +0000 Not to take up too much more bandwidth.... Bob McLain writes that my suggestion that the AOO break itself up is just sour grapes of a second place (or more appropriately 20th place) faction wishing the cruel world of Olympia had dealt me a better hand. Hardly. My suggestions were a response to the boredom some AOO players have expressed. Their understanding, not necessarily mine, was that the AOO was so powerful they had no worthy opponents. To which I responded that if the AOO was weaker & their opponents stronger they might find the game more enjoyable. An utterly rational response, any reasonable person can see. :-) This has nothing to do with sour grapes--I'll continue playing as long as I'm having fun & for me I don't need to be in first place to have fun. Both yourself & David DesJardins (sp?) argue that it's "artificial" to break up the AOO. Perhaps, but the entire game, if you think about it, is pretty artificial. A good gamer is able to replace the artificiality of sending orders through e-mail into role-playing--i.e. to replace the artificial with the fantastic. It seems quite reasonable that one might be able to do this with breaking up an alliance which has, in _their_ own words, made the game boring. Certainly if we can imagine our screen pixles to be nobles, retainers, & monsters we can find some clever way to "artificially" break up an alliance. I think this logic applies to roleplayers & wargamers alike. Carl argues that it's bad manners not to recognize your opponents' victory. First, the Circle of Hope isn't at war with the AOO, & so I don't necessarily see them as opponents. Second, such logic implies that there can be a winner in an open ended game. Let me quote from the official Olympia rules: "Olympia has no victory conditions; no winner is ever declared." For those of us who signed up to play an open ended game as an open ended game, the AOO's declaration that the game is "over" rings hollow. Let's see if you're still in control on turn 200. As any historian knows, empires both rise _&_ fall: the greater the empire, the greater the fall. -Mark PS: as for my own bad manners, I treat people as they deserve. Children are treated like children, adults like adults. Referenced By Up