Letter to Friedo

[Nathan]

I guess it could also interest some other players by the way:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/56898171/FA/A%2 ... eneral.pdf

[noobymcnoobcake]

This is why i dont like FFAs. Through no fault of thier own players will gang up on each other. The logical thing to do. But it aint fun, you got no chance. Then later in the game the guy they left alone is gonna finish everyone off with nukes and the 20 GCs they built when everyone was killing each other.

So instead I like phantom games. People do gang up on each other but then you got resorce bounuses when that happens and you dont know who you gotta kill either. I have not played murder party but will try it sometime

[uberge3k]

A very wise person once said "FFAs are never FFAs".

[Nathan]

Obviously those who don't like FFAs shouldn't play it. I actually enjoy what you describe ! The more people you have in a FFA, the more complex the game become because you cannot just hope to win by crushing your neighbours, you have to think more globally. I find this really challenging and this is what FFA is all about

It's foolish to think that FFA equals rolling a dice to choose which player you want to attack each time you're ready to make a move. I'm sure Friedo himself didn't make his moves randomly, it's thus very intriguing that he expected us to do so.

[Plasma_Wolf]

I've played several FFA games with players that are far better than me.

The strategy I used was simple. Sit around, don't be annoying and wait for your chance. Now if everyone would be doing that, you'd have a problem, but I like the idea very much. However, if you're doing battle in FFA games and suddenly (when the second to last player dies), your final opponent appears to have 20 GCs or a lot of soul rippers, then you haven't really been paying attention. If you're fighting against your best rival, then he won't be your best rival at some point any. That's the moment you're going to have to be careful for because changing targets before that is too early, but after that may be too late.

I've got an example here, but it's from the ancient pre-FAF period, so if you want to watch the replay, you'll have to do that with the old FA client (Rock and me are with FAF currently but I have no idea whether the other two are still around). Additionally, several critical mistakes were made (The UEF player not building T3 PD to completely annihilate me being one of them) but I think this game is still very enjoyable.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/80253546/FFA%20HH%20Rock%20Sifnoc%20Plasma_Wolf.SCFAReplay
Note: the file is 2.5 MB (the fafreplay sizes are much better), which is why I couldn't upload it here as an attachment (2 MB limit).

On the other hand, I must say that there's a big chance sludge won't be fun playing as FFA because it's so small. If you're playing an 1v1v1 on a larger map, the best player might be able to withstand the two lesser ones. On sludge, he just doesn't have the time.

[Gowerly]

Some of my most fun games were 8-way FFAs on Desert Arena. If I can find that map again I may host some up. They're ridiculous and as the map is so small, the alliances don't really matter so much as you can never just leave someone alone.