Even backstabbing "carefully" (only every few games when it makes really sense) will probably earn you a bad reputation with some players.

Just find like-minded people, which can accept that a game session is a somewhat contained entity.
There are enough people who have no problem with well done backstabs.
It only becomes a problem if you backstab without much reason or simply for the sake of it all the time.

I can understand "honourable" players, who wont even break a cease fire.
However, why not simply play team games then?
Everyone who plays FFAs should be ready to be backstabbed, backstab themselfs, be ganged up upon and being lied to in a single game session.

Guess that means you have to make a new game name every time you've been playing dirty right?

Even if it's FFA and it's supposed to be everyone for him/her self, not everyone takes lightly to getting backstabbed.

"keep your friends close & your enemies closer", does that help?

lol, sounds like a good time. Sounds like good old diplomacy to me (and very poor scouting on your behalf). "Dragging out the game" seems like an excuse, to be honest. Momentum can shift and games can take longer, that's just how it is, it wouldn't be fun if one team could just snowball their advantage and walk over everything. The only reason you could be pissed is because you got backstabbed, but that's the main reason open diplomacy is in the game in the first place.

Not sure what you're whining about. I'm sorry this isn't Blizzard RTS clone #3235?

You knew going in it was going to take a while. A big FFA with teams unlocked is the longest mode of play possible.

I've gotta agree. While I understand why the guy is pissed, going into a 10-man FFA in a huge galaxy is pretty much guaranteed to eat up many, many hours. The only time I play 10-man FFA is if it's one average-sized solar system where the game is more of a deathmatch than a huge galaxy-wide slogfest.

hehe, I'm afraid that wansn't the game I used as an example. Mine wasn't so corrupt on the backstabbing as your game, but it still got my mind going after I watched the replay to see what actually went down. (You get to see all the chat between the players.)

I sorta played like this. In the game I was called Cruiser and was red. I allied with orange early on since we were right next to eachother. Two people from our solar sytem later on lagged out, which only left one player in our galaxy, dark blue.

In another solar system where all the other players where, things were a bit different. Two players had allied somewhat before middlegame, to try and take on the rest. The two players almost thrashed a third player and then told him "Pay us all your money and we will let your few puny planets live". He was later bullied into their alliance.

The 4th player in their system lagged out. That left only the 5th player. The 5th was ganged by the first 3 players, and he lived out the remainder of his playtime in exile with a planet in the corner of the system.

Now me and orange have taken some 60% of our own system, and dark blue has a good corner as well. Unfortunately, Dark blue only really have the economy part down and not so much the fighting, so she (litterally she) tries a culture attack on my allie (she doesn't know we were allies), and that basically prompts both me and orange to attack her.

Now here the problem starts for us. Dark blue get's so terrified about us both comming down on her, that she initiates contact with the team in the other system. They advice her to evacuate to their system for protection, and provide planet and ship sight so they can see what's going on.The now 4 man alliance preps for an invasion by spamming bounty on my buddy, (he had some 50.000 on his head at all times). Dark blue, which had a huge economy system, posts close to 100.000 into her new mates, allowing them to build a even more huge fleet than they already have.

Best as me and orange have half-way eaten through Dark blues empire (She had started spamming LRM's on the advice of her team mates, those things can be really had to stop when massivly spammed), a huge fleeet along with two support fleets arrives in our system and starts moving in on me.
Me and my buddy had been totally oblivious to what was going on in the other system, we had just concentrated on taking down Dark blue, so the arrival of a fleet that was bigger than both our fleets combined, with no warning was something of a huge shock.

Best thing is that shortly after the alliances arrival, my buddy tries to sell me out to them, by offering to join them and gang on me. Luckily the "leader" of their team didn't really see the fun in that so he refused. Keep in mind that I didn't know about any of this untill I watched the replay.

Downhill from there. Got my fleet together and reinforced, and went headon with the invasion fleet at my capital planet. My buddy was regouping his fleet and trying to fend off the pirates, so by the time his fleet arrived my fleet was pretty much already dead. I had managed to take down the main fleet of the invasion force, but I couldn't post up any more resistance.
After that we all pretty much had a laugh about it all and shared all the info about how the game had went, who did what and why.

Like I said, not an incredible ammount of backstabbing, and the game only lasted some 3 hours, but it got me wondering about how much the diplomatic relations could get out of hand if someone played both teams at the same time, and what the possible conseqences could be.

I've always thought that if people come into a game with the preconcieved notion to stay teamed the entire time, they should just set up a team game and stick with that, because it's otherwise frustrating to everyone else.

This is great. Anyone who hasnt played a game of Diplomacy before might be a little bit shocked. For those of us who are old hands at it however this is one of the best features of sins.

The game is slow enough to evaluate situations and form stronger opinions as to who can be trusted and to what extent. I for one cant wait to play a long 10 player ffa with tons of intrigue.

I believe you should not hold a grudge against players if you run into them again in another game.

This sort of reminds me of the classic world domination game RISK. You should expect opponents to make alliances to serve their own best interest.

However, I'm sure the element of real-world friendship will affect the game with unspoken alliances. Especially for clans.

[MAGOG]Kruelgor

See this game was built for this exact purpose. Hidden bounties by pirates, a complicated diplomacy system, long games, all equal a diplomacy central game. This is why I play FFA's almost exclusively. How can someone not get excited by the thought of a temporary alliance of 1 stronger person and you the weaker person ending with the stronger player getting backstabbed before he can backstab his ally. And for kicks the previous ally forming up a coalition of former enemies to destroy said player.

The whole situation makes it so weaker players stand a chance. It really does make for some exceedingly interestingly strategic situations. I do understand being backstabbed can be frustrating, but whats more glorious then coming back from a backstab and cleansing the the backstabber and his ally of his planets. Thus leaving them with nothing else they can do but try and seek a third alliance mate.

I will admit there are some pretty "low" playstyles in ffa even by my standards. I played an ffa where the game was a 6v1.25. The massive gang rape wasn't even warranted as the 1.25 (1 decent player and a newbie) weren't even strong enough to kill the other 3 players in their system. But it was entertaining to pretty much destroy 2 of the players of the 6 player alliance before I fell. And yes I was part of that 1.25 player alliance.

If it's a FFA game then anything goes, the entire point of a diplomacy system like we have. The most basic thing is never ever trust anyone you don't know in real life and even those people should only be trusted as much as absolutely necessary.

The point of the game after all is to win, and yes have fun doing it. However if you are in a FFA game you should expect that everyone is going to be working to achieve victory, however they can. As long as you choose to play games without locked teams that is the risk you take, if that effects enjoyment for you don't play FFA. I'm sure that you can find plenty of people who are of a like mind and want Team games