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+--- Thread: Alamaze (/showthread.php?tid=682)
RE: Alamaze - ixnay - 05-20-2014
Alamaze players are very helpful and generally communicative. Far more so than I. In fact, I am planning an article at the end of this game called "How Not To Play Alamaze".
Some people dislike diplomacy-intensive games, including a chum of mine who is reluctant to try PBM games for this reason. I almost got him to join Alamaze with me. He said it's because he innately trusts everyone and can't see himself lying or otherwise tricking people through diplomatic contact. But I haven't seen any of that take place in this game AT ALL yet.
Deception isn't really baked into the game or the community. There are a great number of unknowns at any given point in the game, so you can conduct lots of useful diplomacy merely by trading "knowns" and fostering relationships. There isn't really a great need for deception, the way there is in, say, Diplomacy (the game), but there IS a fairly serious penalty for actively deceiving people -- players talk and post feedback on one another. And this being PBM, the player community is small enough that you are fairly certain to see familiar faces in your next game. So while there is no rule against lying, there is not much incentive to do it.
I can say more, but don't want to share while I'm still in the game.
I will say this -- I will probably sign up for another game after this one ends (or I get knocked out.) That's about as hearty a recommendation as you'll ever get for a PBM game!
RE: Alamaze - Rick McDowell - 05-21-2014
Alamaze has a cohort of players who favor Anonymous games, and we are generally starting about 1 Classic (full diplomacy, 15 player game) for about every 1 Anonymous (12 player, no diplomacy game where no one knows who is playing what position).
The Anonymous games avoid the near requirement for diplomacy, but then also forgo the chance for players to learn skill from their fellow competitors by communicating (via email), and also preclude players reporting on game progress on the forum.
We also have a 5 player, 5 kingdom game we call Primeval, both in anonymous and diplomacy formats, and Warlords games - where each of 4 players controls 3 kingdoms apiece.