BlogNomic: The First Dynasty of Desertfrog

I agree that things are getting very fractious at the moment, and it’s getting quite upsetting for me too, especially because I can’t see any reason why they should be getting fractious. In this post, I’d like to explain the situation as I see it: often a misunderstanding can easily be cleared up by understanding the other person’s point of view!

From my point of view, the situation is effectively this: I don’t want this dynasty to be determined by pooling, because in a lot of dynasties I’ve played in in the past, a pooling win cut off what could otherwise have been interesting gameplay. Games like this are often the most interesting when each player is trying their best to win individually. (I cooperated with Josh on Race 4 primarily because it seemed like it would be the best way to get the race to actually end, as the gamestate was otherwise very favourable to waiting rather than acting.) Even though I’m starting from a fairly weak position, I still think I have at least some chance of winning this dynasty if it’s played as a solo game.

Meanwhile, there’s an obvious pooling loophole in which two conspiring Snails can cooperate with each other to completely ignore the timing rules of the dynasty and ensure that they finish before anyone else gets a chance to play. If the leaders do that, it makes it effectively impossible for anyone else to catch up as they don’t get any opportunity to use most of the timing mechanics of the dynasty. The non-leaders do not have any opportunity to use the loophole themselves, because if they tried to do so, they would simply be overtaken later in the race.

So I thought “let’s close this loophole: not only will it lead to a more fun style of play in which I get to actually participate in the dynastic mechanics for once rather than having a pool shut off the game, I’ll probably be able to figure out who’s conspiring with each other – those are the only players who will vote AGAINST, as the proposal is so beneficial for most Snails”.

When I dis so, the proposal ended up being pushed back against surprisingly hard by Josh, with reasons that don’t make any sense to me and that (as far as I can tell) are inconsistent with each other – it’s some of the hardest pushing against a proposal I think I’ve ever seen. So from my point of view, the only logical explanations are either a) Josh is part of a conspiracy, or planning to be; or b) Josh is trying to sink my proposal for no good reason, sabotaging his own win chances (and those of everyone else who isn’t involved in a conspiracy) in the process.

I think it’s reasonable for me and everyone else to assume that the explanation is a), rather than b). Not only does a) seem much more likely, it would be very contrary to the Community Guidelines to assume bad faith on the part of someone else when there’s a much more logical explanation (i.e. that they’re trying to protect a win). We’ve had situations in past dynasties (the dynasty that lead to the guidelines’ creation, in fact) where players were underexplaining votes and making apparently inexplicable proposal actions because they were trying to protect a win, so “a player is trying to protect a win” is the first conclusion that anyone should jump to upon seeing a player acting in apparently irrational ways.

Note that I haven’t accused Josh of lying. This is because Josh hasn’t stated at any point that he isn’t planning to be part of a conspiracy, so he could easily be part of a conspiracy without having lied. Being mildly misleading in order to protect a win is just good nomic play, which I am totally fine with trying. However, the best nomic counterplay to that play is to point out the potential deceit – it isn’t an attack on the person, but rather a case of “this person has a potential incentive to lie in this situation and may have to do so in order to protect a win; if you want a chance of winning yourself, you may have to stop their win attempt, which may mean unravelling the lie”.

In particular, it is very common at BlogNomic to be misleading about the reason for a proposal, or the reason for a vote, because revealing the real reason would reveal your plans to win. As such, accusing people of doing that shouldn’t be taken of any sign of bad faith or personal animosity; it’s something that people have to do sometimes, and pointing out that they may be in a situation where doing it is their best move shouldn’t be distressing or contentious. It’s not like they wouldn’t have a good reason to lie about it. But other players need to be able to say “this player’s voting patterns probably imply that they’re in a conspiracy” because that is one of the only available forms of counterplay to conspiracies. (The alternative of “form a bigger pool and outpool them” isn’t a sort of gameplay I enjoy, and also probably isn’t viable this dynasty because even a bigger pool couldn’t stop a smaller pool doing the timing scam.)

I think the misunderstanding here is partly based on a faulty assumption! You assume that because you dislike cooperative play everybody else does, and that the only reasons for opposing a measure that limits cooperative play are tactical; I happen to like cooperative play, I like that it’s an option in this dynasty and I see it as a way to defray/undermine mechanical advantages. If I lose to it then that’s fine. I would rather the have was won in an exciting single-shot play by a cabal that didn’t include me than that I win it by grinding everyone else behind the slug and then turgidity crawling to a boring victory.

Cooperation is, to me, a valid tactical measure and taking it off the table is akin to arbitrarily removing one of the Plays or repealing the Items rule. It’s not so dominant a strat that it can’t be beaten. And I do believe very strongly that it’s better for players with lower TRs than higher, especially given that Habanero has very little incentive to cooperate.

It is wrong to say that this game is made up frontrunners and a pack. There is Habanero and the rest of us. Under the status quo either Habanero is boringly likely to win, or it’s a coin flip; as a member of the not-Habanero cohort, the strategy that improves my chances the most is not to turn it all over to chance and hope I’m not the one who gets squished, it’s to keep my option space open, keep Habanero afraid of the possibilities that he can’t control, and find a lane that I *can* control that gets my equity above 50%. All of these proposals cut my opportunity space down, so yeah, I oppose them.

I’m not saying I’m not going to cooperate because if it ends up being legal then I will retain the right to cooperate, and may or may not use it, as my game allows. I’m not adding you to declare which items you’re going to use; blurting strategy in public is silly.

So perhaps it’s good that we cleared up the misunderstanding. I’m against the proposal ideologically, not tactically. Hope that helps.

It does help – I had a blind spot for the possibility of “nobody wins the race quickly through pooling, but a pool ends up winning the race more slowly over time”, partially because I am so concerned with the “a pool ends the race immediately” possibility. I agree with you that your scenario could be fun if it happened, but also think that it would be unlikely to happen; there is nothing to trade other than win share, and I really hate “roll a dice to see who wins” pooling, so the set of players who might participate in such a pool is very small. I have done win-for-mantle trades in past dynasties but that is no longer legal (a casualty of rules changes intended to stop roll-dice-for-mantle trades; those rule changes were probably necessary, this is just an unfortunate side effect).

I also should note that I completely disagree with you about the legality of the co-regency and so think that agreeing to split the win with a constructed tie is completely fine.