When should one concede?

[Banedon]

I'm posting this as a new topic so as not to shift the focus of the Balance in H2 - H4 topic too far off. The question is: when should a player concede?

I personally think a player should yield when he realizes he has little or no chance to win the game. This generally happens once a player loses the final battle, with his opponent reaping all the benefits of resources and mines. Even if a player wins the final battle but cannot push into the loser's castle, he would still hold a game-winning advantage: he has all the resources, he can hire more and more heroes, he can kill the neutrals that spwan every month, and so on and so forth. He will win eventually. It just takes time.

You never win a game by giving up, no, but if you persist in holding on to a game which you have no chance of winning, you're wasting time.

@Pacifist - I don't think it's reasonable that a player can lose a game-winning advantage in a game of Heroes. After all, if there's no AI, he's still not going to lose anything to neutrals or anything.

[Campaigner]

I thought the saying in everything was: "Never give up! Never surrender!"
Playing to win is natural and holing up in your castle is your only means of doing that when you've lost the big battle. It's the logical thing to do....

Regarding sportsmanship and the like, I'd say it's unsportsmanlike to tell someone to give up when they still got a (ever so small) chance of winning.

The way to solve this issue though, is through objectives.
Eliminating your opponents is ofcourse always an option but conquering a specific town, finding a certain artifact or reaching a certain area should always be viable ways to win the map.

This problem exists in Age of Wonders 2: Shadow Magic as well, were you can hole up in your last city (with a Wizard Tower) and delay the inevitable end.

The problem there too is lack of alternative objectives to win.

In RTS games it has also been like this, but the opponent with mapcontrol will eventually win. It's the same in TBS games.

I remember reading that the Star Wars RTS game is designflawed in that you can defend a small area of a map and not lose anything. Just like C&C 2: Tiberian Sun....

Warhammer 40.000 Dark Crusade solved the problem of camping with default winning conditions of holding 66% of the strategic points for or over 50% of the critical locations on the map for 6min, making camping a gauranteed loss.


For those who haven't played Dark Crusade, I'll explain here.
Strategic and critical points are spread out evenly on the maps (which are all symmetric) and generate the primary resource to the player that holds them.

[Jolly Joker]

Well, you know my opinion here. You can concede if you lost your last town and see no way to get one back. Likewise if you lost your main hero for good, once the game has reached a certain level you won't come back from it.
Other than that, the flawless game will be a rare occasion. There will always come a point (more than once) when you have to decide to take a risky move or not. If a desperately needed mine guarded by a heavy stack that you CAN beat, but only just, when creature numbers are at the limit of what they can possibly have you'll probably always go for it, and when it turns out they indeed ARE at the limit and you lose a sizable chunk of your army that sense of urgency and having to play REALLY tight game now when you want to have a chance to win will be doubtlessly there. Of course in reality chances are the opponent just happened to run into the same trouble and is even more desperate right now.
Just remembering now, I even undid my stat-boosting artifacts as long it was safe to do so before I passed my turn to not give away my real hero stats in H 3. *shakes head* Fond memories, indeed.
Anyway, just a short walk on memory lane.
No, conceding the game doesn't pay. As long as there is hope, fight on. I think that's true for Single Play as well, by the way. It's a lot more fun beating a tough map when after some initial or even later mishap you claw yourself back into the game.

I agree about the additional objectives, I already wrote about it. The map must provide alternative objectives or the means to finish things somewhere on the map.
Not in AoW, though, Campaigner, because the units cost upkeep there and if you have only one town there your army is limited. A nice little siege may be funny once in a while, but of course, if you always have to play another 4 weeks to create your siege army it's getting dull and an exercise in logistics. That said the map should generate enough income outside the minimum of the necessary two starting towns to enable a player with map control to supply a sufficiently bigger army.

[Silence]

I'm posting this as a new topic so as not to shift the focus of the Balance in H2 - H4 topic too far off. The question is: when should a player concede?

I think there are 2 questions a player has to ask himself when facing a difficult (a la kinght vs queen) situation:

Do I wish to resist? (the moral state of the player)

Do I see a strategy that could bring me out from the hole?

The second question consist of subquestions:

Do I have some kind of advantage? (better economics, faster heroes to outmaneuver the opponent and keep a guerilla war)

Is there a strategy to victory that is honorable enough for me to actually use it? (guerilla war, refusing to end your turn so that the sure winner finally gets bored and dissconnects giving you the victory or draw, hit'n'run, suicide bombers etc)

I would concede when I do not have the will to resist (bored of the game) or I do not see any usable strategy (including waiting for ideas and blind chances) for gaining a new advantage.

You never win a game by giving up

It is a nice saying, but I would kind of disagree with Pacifist. You never win the game that you give up, but you can win a game by giving another game up first.

if the opponent has outplayed me he shall have the pleasure to maul me on the battlefield.

You can fight the stronger player in order to show that you can a lot of his armies with you. Mauling an opponent who can barely scratch you is as pleasurable than mauling a cat with a hammer. IMO, not very pleasurable, but tastes differ.

[Jolly Joker]

You can fight the stronger player in order to show that you can a lot of his armies with you. Mauling an opponent who can barely scratch you is as pleasurable than mauling a cat with a hammer. IMO, not very pleasurable, but tastes differ.

If that happens you either shouldn't have played in the first place because playing abilities are too different or the map was terribly unbalanced or someone just had an extremely lucky streak. With a decisive fight at hand where it was clear beforehand that one opponent could scratch the other the whole game seems like a waste of time.
No, I mean those where you KNOW you will lose barring some miracle, but the fight will still have some interesting moments.

[BoardGuest808888]

IMO, one should concede only and only if he/she lost the will to continue the game. And by doing so, he/she should told his/her opponent beforehand honestly.

Any losing condition in-game, whatever dire the circumstance was, should never be an excuse for accepting defeat and conceded. I myself usually get disappointed when someone concede to me after losing a condition (especially when I haven't been told first).

Playing a game is not just about win-lose situation. That's just a natural outcome of any play. If you play a game, you should also learn something from that game. And you can learn as much (or often more) by losing as by winning.

If you concede and immediately stop the game, the only thing you learn is that you lose. You don't learn anything more to get you be a better player next time.

I've been through these people who can't stop complaining after losing a game, about their opponents being definitely better than they're. These are people who didn't learn from their mistakes. The only way to learn from your mistakes is to feel it. And the only way to feel it truly is to play to the very end.

[Pacifist]

@Pacifist - I don't think it's reasonable that a player can lose a game-winning advantage in a game of Heroes. After all, if there's no AI, he's still not going to lose anything to neutrals or anything.

The army is one thing but the hero is still a very important factor in the game. Ok, I lost the so called "last battle". Now I'm back in town with let's say 2 weeks of troops less than my opponent. I will not resist if I see no chance to win, my time is as important as the time of my opponent. So I build the magic tower and see one of the summon elementals spells. Humm, things get interesting no? I can capture castles with that, maybe some with a hero inside, maybe even main hero of opponent. Or I get dimension door and can start exploring parts of the map normally inaccessible in a mp game of human players, I can find dwellings where creatures have accumulated (genies, medusas, nomads,...?), artifacts, etc,... I will always have one objective in mind, if not I say good game to my opponent, I will not start fleeing and only that. All depends of course of the map. Do I play before my opponent? then I can capture castles and hire troops before him, if not I have to do it day 7 and hope main hero with main army is not too close...Possibilities are endless, I have to make work my imagination or say gg .

edit: Ah I remember one game where I had diplomacy (I made an excell sheet allowing me to know exactly the army I need to make join a stack in the map, remember in H2 there is no way to set to savage, diplomacy always works). I knew my army was strong enough to join a group of bone dragons, but my opponent had a stronger army than mine. So I lured him to try to catch me, what he did, then I attacked the bone dragons, they joined for a fee and suddenly I became the hunter . Diplomacy, join small stacks, then join middle strenght stacks then ... Only money is needed and good knowledge of how diplomacy works.

[gravyluvr]

One can concede at any time - however - the real question here is etiquette.

Before one concedes they should request it from the opponent.

The opponent should be obliged to grant the request.

The opponent may not be happy about it, but they have to learn that a two player game is only fun when both players are enjoying the game.

Poor winners - poor losers - make for poor games.

Should you concede? It's truly up to you. If you just went into battle with your "super hero" and got crushed by the opponent's super hero and you don't see any way to recover and you feel the remainder of the game will just be mop up then you should consider surrender. From playing HOMM, I remember Mop up to eventually wear on me (especially on the losing end).

[Banedon]

I thought the saying in everything was: "Never give up! Never surrender!"
Playing to win is natural and holing up in your castle is your only means of doing that when you've lost the big battle. It's the logical thing to do....

Yes, if you just lost the main (or final) battle then hiding in the castle is perhaps your best way of winning the game. It won't be very effective and unless your opponent rushes his offense and makes a mistake you can't count on anything. It's still your best bet, but nonetheless, I find it really frustrating when an opponent does that (especially if human; I can expect the AI to make mistakes). It reminds me of my own experiences with Chess, when an opponent that refuses to resign wastes a lot of my time.

I've been through these people who can't stop complaining after losing a game, about their opponents being definitely better than they're. These are people who didn't learn from their mistakes. The only way to learn from your mistakes is to feel it. And the only way to feel it truly is to play to the very end.

I can't understand that. The time to learn is in the resource-gathering phase, the expansion phase where one side builds an advantage. After the final battle, it's the mop-up phase where the winning side simply wins the game. There's not much, if anything, to learn.

@Pacifist - ingenious strategies Just that somehow after the final battles I always end up with a significantly (and I mean significantly) weaker army than my opponent, and no chance to play on barring imbalanced spells like Dimension Door. Spells like Summon Elementals won't work because the opponent simply concedes map parity a few more turns, waits a bit more - he does have two week's advantage after all - and then reasserts control. Of course, you might fool him into battle once...

I think most of us think the same way: concede when you cannot win anymore, which is (almost) equivalent to losing the will to continue. That solves things. As long as no one holes up in his castle with Titans waiting to be attacked, it proves my point

[UndeadHalfOrc]

>>> It reminds me of my own experiences with Chess, when an opponent that refuses to resign wastes a lot of my time.

I have to interject you there:

POSSIBLE STALEMATE.

I can't tell you how many chess games I've tied by sticking to the bitter end and making my opponent not be able to checkmate me by immobilizing my own king. Shamefully, I've become more good at this practice than actually *winning* by checkmating. Still, it did prevent me a lot of losses (and it did cost me many potential future opponents, which tend to get VERY bitter at me when they had the disctinct advantage, only to end up with a draw).

bottom line: NEVER, EVER CONCEDE A CHESS GAME. Period.

[ThunderTitan]

NEVER... otherwise life wins.

Of course if you have something better to do you can concede just fine.

[BoardGuest808888]

I can't understand that. The time to learn is in the resource-gathering phase, the expansion phase where one side builds an advantage. After the final battle, it's the mop-up phase where the winning side simply wins the game. There's not much, if anything, to learn.

Ah yes, that's because you've seen it from an experienced player's view. But you need to remember that however experienced a player has become, we'd had started it as a beginner. And back then, there were many mistakes made, decisions left, failures done, etc. Resource gathering just pit you against PC, but final battles (or any battles) against other players had potentials to disrupt your tactic, change your point of view, or gave alternatives. This is especially true when you're in the losing side, thus for inexperienced player, conceding the game would deny him/herself more understanding of the game (without him/her knowing why).

I'll give you one example :
This happen roughly 12 years ago, but still one of the most memorable play for me. I happen to be an observer of the game between my two friends. One of them had already played Heroes 2 for quite sometime then, while the other and me are just newbies. At the final battle, the two armies of them clashed, the experienced player using Barbarian to good use while the newbie use Warlock creatures minus Hydra because he deemed it unworthy to bring forth such slow creatures (what a mistake ).
The Warlock was defeated, while the Barbarian, despite suffering some magic damages, manage to keep his army nearly intact. Thus the Warlock player consider to concede at that point.
But then he reconsidered and decided to defend his last castle to the end using the last remaining of his horde of hydras. Thus the battle continues to this last castle. All things said, the Warlock was still defeated and the game ends there. However, this time the Barbarian's army was badly mauled to such that if the hydras was brought to play in the previous great battle, it would definitely change the story.
Later, the Warlock player admitted to me that had he not being such a headstrong and done that very last battle, he would never known the value of hydras in a siege or any other battles.
Note that I actually also joined that play as Necro, but was defeated first because I got ganked by them two, so I continue as observer

[Humakt]

bottom line: NEVER, EVER CONCEDE A CHESS GAME. Period.

You can't always stalemate. Especially if your opponent is good. There are some other cases that makes tie in chess as well: Three repetitive moves (on both players), or certain amount of moves without attacking pieces (can't remember the amount; it so rarely happens).

[Banedon]

Excellent anecdote BoardGuest808888, and very convincing. Though similar situations have never occured to me, I agree with you now Don't concede early if you're new to the game; play till the end.

I'd still say that after you gain a certain level of experience, the best learning experience comes from observing how your opponent builds up his advantage. How does he reach Phoenixes while you're still stuck with Champions? How does he somehow manage to capture more towns than you, or to always seem well-supplied? It is this phase of the game where true difference in skills can be soon.

@Humakt - it's 50 moves, though it's off-topic.

[BoardGuest808888]

Yeah, I'm one of those sad players that had far more loses than wins So I think losing is as important as winning.