Blocking in 2p

[wortsenawl]

Hi all

I have played a few games of Azul and lately seem to be getting lots of irritated players messaging me if I take a move to block - messages tend to come if they win, though not always. Just now had someone unhappy at me playing "the dirtiest game ever." I did point out that the first "dirty" move was played by them taking a colour to block me (and tying up their bottom row).

I often find myself on the end of blocks and swallowing points if I am not careful, and have always taken it as part of the 2p game. Am I mistaken and should I be playing less "dirty?"

I should point out that I wouldn't, for example, drop 5 tiles on an opponent (to be binned) if they were of use to me, unless it's a single point on the bottom row and for them it is -8 (I mean, that is simlple maths right there, why would I take a single point when I can effectively get 8 from you losing them).

just wondered
Worts

[thoun]

Blocking in 2p is a real part of the game, in a competitive point of view at least. Don't listen to players saying you shouldn't do it. Never heard of things like these in Arena mode, where competitors play

[MrBeardy]

It's satisfying when you do it others, sucks when they do it to you, and is totally part of the game. It's like snooker: if you can't play a good shot, make sure they can't either.

[bananasplay]

Hi all

I have played a few games of Azul and lately seem to be getting lots of irritated players messaging me if I take a move to block - messages tend to come if they win, though not always. Just now had someone unhappy at me playing "the dirtiest game ever." I did point out that the first "dirty" move was played by them taking a colour to block me (and tying up their bottom row).

I often find myself on the end of blocks and swallowing points if I am not careful, and have always taken it as part of the 2p game. Am I mistaken and should I be playing less "dirty?"

I should point out that I wouldn't, for example, drop 5 tiles on an opponent (to be binned) if they were of use to me, unless it's a single point on the bottom row and for them it is -8 (I mean, that is simlple maths right there, why would I take a single point when I can effectively get 8 from you losing them).

just wondered
Worts

The object of the game is to win: it is therefore a mystery to me why some players complain about the legal, strategic moves of their opponents in pursuit of that end. Over the years, I have encountered this very same sort of complaint in Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, Power Grid... the list goes on.

My theory so far is that this sort of whining comes either from a place of emotional weakness (i.e., such players can't handle losing or even merely being disadvantaged, as is typical of very young children) or from a more sinister motivation: since the whiners obviously can't prevent legal moves, perhaps they attempt psychological manipulation in order to preempt such moves in the future.

In any event, I don't believe that you're mistaken. May the better player win! :-)

[Meeplelowda]

I mean, that is simlple maths right there, why would I take a single point when I can effectively get 8 from you losing them

That right there is the problem. I've seen several examples in forums for many different games on here of people complaining about someone blocking them when their opponent had a move to gain points, ignoring the fact that the points their opponent would have gained are fewer than the points they were prevented from getting. You can tell they truly don't understand that it's how your score changes relative to your opponent that matters, and that can happen either by you gaining points or by them *not* gaining points. It is mathematically the same, but they have some infantile notion that you must always be trying to make your own score go up no matter what. They will accuse you of not playing "the right way" or playing "dirty."

There is nothing you can do to educate them. I wouldn't bother trying. Private red thumb them if they are annoying. Report them if they are abusive. Do not waste any emotional energy on them.

[Romain672]

My theory so far is that this sort of whining comes either from a place of emotional weakness (i.e., such players can't handle losing or even merely being disadvantaged, as is typical of very young children) or from a more sinister motivation: since the whiners obviously can't prevent legal moves, perhaps they attempt psychological manipulation in order to preempt such moves in the future.

No, you can think of it of some gentleman's rules.

There is lots of examples, but I will take one I can explain well. In competitive civilisation 6 with 4 players versus 4 players, there was a strategy available which was around having lots of luxurious ressources early, give all of those to a specific player and nation (which in normal circonstances is really bad), and then have a quick cultural victory (at around turn 30, while a really fast game is won at turn ~70, and an average one at turn ~100).
This strategy is available, but no one use it.
Then come the finale. One team decide to use it and win with it.

The other team said about "We didn't think that they will use that strategy. But it's our fault, we should have banned it instead of banning something else. But we wouldn't have used it yourself.".
The second part look normal: it's competitive, the strategy is available, so everyone agree it's possible to use it.
But the first part is the most interresting. They assumed the other team would not use something as 'dirty' to win. It can be think as 'we will not do it because of ethical reason, and we assume the other team will do the same.'. At this point, when they don't, you can assume it's not ethical, and share it.

What happen here is the same thing. You can decide to not block the other player, and assume the other player will do the same. If you only play with family and friend, it can be assumed the norm. So when you come online, and someone play like that, that can be pretty surprising, and you can write it on chat.

It's a complicated question. Way harder than it look.
If you imagine that no one was doing it, then the normal behaviour would be to be slightly angry in chat, and red thumb the person in question. At one point, since that person will be red thumb by most top players, he will be forced to play against player which block too.
If enough players red thumb those players, that incentive others players to not play like that.
And you finish with a community of top players who doesn't block each other.

I believe it's done with chess with bots. You find players which uses bot, which is legal, but which finish by being red thumb by non bot players, and you have a division of the community. Even if it's hard to see if a player use a bot or not.
Connect 4 6x6 and others game could have that same thing happening.

Another one is in werewolves or saboteur, where you can decide to share information or not.

One further would be to share cards in hanabi, or give unknown information in chat, I think there was a post about it on the forum a while ago. Can you said things like 'I have X in hand. If you play against X player, I will do Y.'. These kind of questions are always limit, and causes others problems.
Or a backseat. Someone has two choices: finishing 2nd and making you 1st. Or finishing 3rd and making you 2nd. But finishing 2nd for him is really hard and require lots of specific actions. Can you tell him what he should do?

Or can you use a known bug? There was a problem for some weeks/months in room25, think it was during beta.

Or can you expel someone which is 21s out of time, even if he tell in chat he has an emergency and will came back in 30s? I think that last example is the best one. To quote you again

The object of the game is to win: it is therefore a mystery to me why some players complain about the legal, strategic moves of their opponents in pursuit of that end.

So go for it, expel him, take your elo, and your red thumb.


But in most cases, it's more clear: the normal behaviour on this site is to block the other player. So go ahead

[Silene]

I believe it's done with chess with bots. You find players which uses bot, which is legal, but which finish by being blocked (red thumb) by non bot players, and you have a division of the community. Even if it's hard to see if a player use a bot or not.
Connect 4 6x6 and others game could have that same thing happening.

What are you talking about? The thread is about "blocking" as in "taking something that your opponnent wants". It has nothing to do with expelling or red-thumbing and is in no way comparable to cheating on chess or connect 4 by using bots.

If you want a chess comparison, you can call it unethical to use scholar's mate on your opponent (which obviously is rediculous) - that would be more comparable

[Romain672]

What are you talking about? The thread is about "blocking" as in "taking something that your opponnent wants". It has nothing to do with expelling or red-thumbing and is in no way comparable to cheating on chess or connect 4 by using bots.

Hum, I though bots were legal. But it look like they aren't. Just there is no checking at this moment. So yeah forget that part.


I was answering banana who wanted reasons for that to be done. I want to show him that playing for the win and ignoring anything else lead to some atrocity.

For me all of those are strongly linked. It's just a limit on where you want to play to win.
- It start with blocking the opponent,
- then using potential known bug
- then using chat to do something not defined by the rules/by bga,
- then expelling players

It's not a defined order, that can change, but if you want to win and maximise your gains, and don't care about anything else, you should expel someone 21s out of time.
That don't look ethical. And that's the point, you should stop at one point.

(I feel like while writing this second post that I'm trying to force arguments, and that's usually a strong sign I'm wrong, so meh. I still put that post anyway)

[Meeplelowda]

For me all of those are strongly linked. It's just a limit on where you want to play to win.
- It start with not blocking the opponent,
- then pass by blocking them,
- then using potential known bug
- then using chat to do something not defined by the rules/by bga,
- then expelling players

The fact that you listed these all together shows that there is an error in translation.

The OP is not talking about "blocking" by using red thumbs so that you do not have to play someone (in Arena, for example). The OP is talking about "blocking" an opponent in a game by taking tiles they want (in Azul) or in general taking spaces on a board or cards that the other player needs/wants or making it impossible to play in a desired space (e.g., in Carcassonne). Same word, two entirely different contexts.

[pjt33]

The fact that you listed these all together shows that there is an error in translation.

I think Romain may have introduced an extra negation in the first point and I'm not entirely sure what the second point means, but it's clear to me that he is drawing up a list of behaviours which are playing the game as implemented by BGA but which people might consider to be unsportsmanlike and might think that there's an implicit agreement not to exploit.

FWIW my position is that I don't like how important dumping a pile of stuff for the opponent's floor is in 2-player Azul, but I solve that by playing with higher player counts where it's much less frequent. I don't think that Worts needs to play "less dirty".