competifia's blog

The competifia's blog

Posts 2 posts

Structuring Alliances Jul 13, 2016: How many games of fasting have you played, where the reason you lost was that your alliance simply fell apart?

There's 3 primary reasons for an alliance not to work:
1. There's a lack of trust, possibly because you aren't getting the votes requested.
2. Someone is found to be in another alliance secretly.
3. Logistics of who is going to be the final 3.

I recently played quite an astonishing game of fasting where decisions were based on something other than strategy and rational thinking.

The alliances I had set up had the structure shown in the image. The alliance between 2 and 4 was not initiated by me and was kept secret. The great thing about having multiple small alliances is that you don't put all your eggs in one basket. For instance in the diagram you can see that I have a plan to win with person 1 and 2, although at the same time I have 3 and 4 if someone tries to back-stab me.

That is just what happened, person 2 got into bed with 4 and I was alerted to this by person 3 as he served as a bit of an informant. This of course meant that I was forced to get either person 2 or 4 out, which I did successfully. Unfortunately it didn't transpire as you would expect, person 2 got POV and person 3 might have misunderstood the fact that he was definitely in my final 3 and so he voted me out with person 2.

From this experience it is clear that structuring the alliances well is important for catching dishonest people. There is a limit to how much alliances can help you though. In addition to the alliances you really need to find people who don't back-stab for fun, but rather only if they have to. People who are only out for themselves are people you can trust, but people who are there to put on a show, those are the dangerous ones.

Good luck in your next game and may your alliances be of success.; Points: 10 2 comments
First Few Games Jul 12, 2016: It's always interesting when you play a new game, learning the ins and outs. Before my previous game (at the time of writing), I don't think I quite understood the appeal of the tengaged games, you could say I wasn't very engaged (that's right). I realized something important, that the game is not about backstabbing, but rather about making everyone's needs accounted for.

From my limited experience it has always been imperative to be the active player. The player with the driving force in the game. The games where I have been the most successful were those where I was the most motivated and active player on the table. My primary concern was to keep all my partners and alliance members happy and satisfied.

The great thing about the game I just played was that I never at any point had to do any backstabbing or be dishonest (thanks to inactive players). At no point did I have to misrepresent my motives. It all fell into pieces because my primary concern was that my partners felt safe and taken care of.

I think this is an area of the game that is under appreciated in favor of backstabbing and logistics in terms of alliances. When it comes to it though, the team that wins is not necessarily the one that has the most dishonest players, but rather the few who are in trusting relationships, where everyone has an understanding of what the other players want.

=>; Points: 54 1 comments