Hello,
I recently started playing Neptune’s Pride with a friend, its been a blast. We like to discuss strategy and how we are approaching our games.
Recently, in a game I had, I allied with a couple of neighbours right from the start, and around 3-4 days in the game we attacked from both sides and wiped out one of our mutual neighbours.
My friend found that terrible. He called people who do that fascists, and the tactic disgusting. We ruined that guy’s game because we decided to attack him after seeing he wasn’t gonna join us. I have received over 100+ messages of how terrible this is. My reply is simply “welcome to Neptune’s Pride, this is how this game is played”. He refuses to listen, and tells me you should have the balls and fight 1v1.
My question is, how often do you gang up on someone from the first turns? Do you usually wait it out? Do you find such reactions normal? I am really at a loss on what to reply lol.
That’s pretty normal. I wouldn’t see that as a significant issue. What game type was this? Private games are different than public games though and sometimes different behavior is expected. But unless the game creator expressly asked for that to not occur, you seem to be within your rights there. There’s nothing in np that encourages 1v1 gameplay. The whole trade thing specifically sets up cooperation. The entire game is essentially a bisection or capitalism… doing good things to benefit myself kinda thing…
The problem some people have is allying before they join a game. It’s hard not to do once you’ve got buddies in lots of games. But a healthy np friendship should have two players be allies and enemies in different games. Also, it seems wrong to give the victory to one player so they’ll support you in the next game type of stuff.
I will, however, say that there is an observable difference in gameplay between the large game players/recurring “veterans” who play lots of games and those individuals who really enjoy the game (especially the double crossing, cutthroat savagery it can provide) so they play exclusively to win. When you’re concerned about your reputation, you modify your behavior so you only push for victory when it makes sense. Otherwise, you’ll never get allies of they know you’ll always double cross them and do whatever it takes to achieve a personal victory. I think the argument could be made that the win at all costs philosophy is actually more in keeping with the ethos of the game, but most players I know would tend to view such a person playing that way as selfish and difficult to work with.
As @panblanco says, it’s part of the game, whether 1v1, 2v1, 3v1, 3v2, etc. It’s also why diplomacy is so important, you need to get a team or partnership(s) together quickly, or at the very least some non-aggression pacts in place. The player who shuns diplomacy will not survive very long. And yes, it sucks to be on the receiving end of this, but there’s always the next game…
However, if it’s a new player, then maybe it would be worth bringing them onboard and “show them the ropes” instead of destroying them mercilessly. But it is by no means an obligation, destroying them may well be “showing them the ropes” in a less subtle way 
Anyway, it sounds like your mate needs to get over it.
2 Likes