Fantastic question!foodcoats wrote: ↑Mon Aug 12, 2019 10:59 amPerhaps the professors are avoiding addressing this directly, but I am very curious to hear which factors they believe "the rest" of the players should consider when determining whether a coalition is necessary against a "big alliance," or even just one big player.
There’s many times in a game where you’re trading punches with your immediate neighbour and you turn to look over your shoulder to see this looming storm heading directly at you both. What to do? That is a dangerously big storm and it’s only getting closer, it’s time to drop everything and go react!
In terms of deciding whether it’s time or not, you just need to look at the map and do your best to forecast where the next few years are going. How long until this problem is on your doorstep and will you have the capability at that time to do anything about it or will it be too late? In a lot of ways this is a game of numbers. If you are going to spend the next three years fighting an evenly matched neighbour while you likely are just going to swap 1-2 centres back and forth while another alliance gobbles up much easier territories and sprints across stalemate lines then it’s probably a good idea to update your priorities.
Easier said then done however, which brings me to my latest lecture.
Know how to be a General
The ability to rally others is an incredibly useful skill to have albeit a very challenging one to master. It's one thing to seek out and recruit a like minded ally and maintain a relationship on a one-on-one basis but one of the biggest challenges (and headaches) I ever come across in these games is when you are forced into the task to unify players to collaborate towards the common goal of halting somebody on the path to achieving a solo. I find less successful players don't even think about this need, they get so wrapped up in their immediate conflicts that they ignore the all too important big picture.
Successful players are capable of uniting a coalition and acting as General for it. No easy task as it often involves working with very different personalities, a lot of times with those you've been fighting with throughout the game. Once formed, you need to take on the exhausting task of maintaining it. This requires facilitating a lot of communication, soliciting input and laying out plans, and ensuring everything is set to execute well. To make things worse this often is burdened with personality clashes, ego stroking, differing needs for security or ambition, time zones, and sometimes heated debates on how to proceed. It can drain the best of them.
To do well in this situation it takes immense diplomacy skills and patience and helps to be generally regarded as a strong strategist. Overly committee-based strategy rarely works out so you need a strong vision and you need to be able to make people feel comfortable their interests are all being adequately considered. You need to be able to sell people on the idea that the good of the many needs to take priority over the good of the individual, very often not an easy sell. In these situations your coalition is often only as strong as it's weakest link, players that are poor communicators, unreliable, or high risk for straying for personal greed are the biggest threats to success and require special attention when they are identified. Occasionally this may even require cutting the throat of a weak link if an opportunity presents itself for the greater good.
It's a tough gig, but it's certainly helped me survive many a certain loss to a solo. No matter how big a game leader is until he gets to 17 he's still in the minority, all it typically takes is the ability to work together to be able to be able to stop them. This applies the same to a power alliance. Until they own half the board or more then they’re a minority alliance. These coalitions may not have to last forever, just long enough to break up a run. There’s no bigger fear to an ambitious minded player in a drivers seat then the threat of suddenly getting stuck in a 5wd stalemate. This can be a very effective means to encourage a power alliance breakup and redraw some alliance lines.