Some people have taken umbrage over my response to Sea Biscuit's Tips for playing koreans. He said this:

i dont play them much so i dont know. let me know

My response was short:

ROFL! You should probably play them some before posting anymore "tips."

I followed it with an explanation:

"Tips" are generally considered as "here's something that has worked for me, give it a try" or "here's my well-thought out analysis, see how this works for you."

If you're just guessing what works for a civ that you don't play much at all then you should be posing questions, such as "What do you guys think of this?" Don't go posting tips. You don't see ME posting the authoritative how-to-play-Aztec guide, cuz I don't play Aztec. If I do, I'll be sure to let me peopel know what I learned.

There are a lot of people who might read that and think because it's a "tip" that it might be a good idea, and they might try it in a game and discouraged when they get their head handed to them.

This was apparently offensive to Sea Biscuit who responded:

O4B- Do you have a psychiatrist??? you need one!

and

I am not sure what you are trying to contribute to this discussion.

Here was my response to that:

I take strategy pretty seriously. Whether it be for games, economics, negotiations, or plain old office politics. I enjoy game theory and the search for the Nash equilibrium. I believe that it is important for strategy development for strategies to be published so that others can improve them or refute them. Publishing strategies, tips, and techniques helps the community as a whole improve and increases the talent available for pushing the strategic envelope. Another role for helping the community is commentary on strategies so that newer players can get a sense for whether a strategy is worth pursuing or not. To cultivate a garden, you have to pull some weeds. That's all I'm doing. Pulling weeds.

If you have serious strategy to contribute, fine. Post it up and let it stand on its own merits. But if it is not serious, you can expect some negative responses, particularly when it pretends to be serious. I read almost all strategy-related posts on all related websites. I link to the good ones, ignore the obvious trash (My expansion pack wish list!), and refute the not-so obvious trash. Yours is the latter case. You purport to having insight on Koreans, yet claim you don't play them much. Based on your comments alone, I'm gonna call bullsh1t. If only to help newer readers who might not know that the "latest tip" is rather controversial and apparently untested.

If you want more positive replies, then take an example from HalfLotus on how to post your strategies and tips. It's one thing to post garbage strategy as a joke, and quite another to post it in the guise of serious "tips."

Now you can come back with more name calling and insults (no, I don't need a psychiatrist), or you can come back with some serious analysis or some recorded games of you performing these "tips" against good players.

Other than that, I stand by what I said. Don't assume that I think everything you post is bad. I've linked to you in the past. I just think this was a Bad Post, and I said so. Just so you know, I don't presume to know everything. Which is why I often ask questions of my own.

I sure this will end on a positive note.
posted by Tim at 10:35 AM