spline wrote:This is actually a well-defined strategy, called Turtling. A player simply collect 3 every turn, no fighting and no card, so in a sense he stays from conflicts and would not become a target for cards either. As he grows, the cost of removing him becomes more and more expensive for any single player until he becomes so powerful that can be a threat to any other player. In other words, he can now suicide on anyone he likes and remove the other player and himself from the game. Because of this suicidal ability, no player dares to attack the Turtle, which means the Turtle will simply grow bigger and bigger all the time until he can actually go on to win the game.
This is a much discussed topic and I have written a lot about it in various forms in the past. This was just the problem. The solution isn't always as simple and requires cooperation from all the players involved. In other words, you can only beat it by diplomacy.
Interestingly you can see this phenomenon all around us in the real world, that the selfish choice which is beneficial to one can be disastrous to everyone. This is beautifully demonstrated by the Tragedy of the Commons. If you don't know about it, look into it.
1. That isn't even viable in escalating and a poor strategy in flat rate/no cards, unless you're forced into that position by circumstance (as yes, it's better than just randomly attacking others and trying to secure a bonus you'll never take).
2. The turtle will be vastly outpaced as he's growing at a rate of 3 armies per turn, while often in these no card/flat rate games, at this point in time, stalemates have occured and everyone else is increasing at a steady rate of 5-8 armies per turn. So you're incorrect in your philosophy there.
3. Incorrect, you'll see very rarely do high players use any form of diplomacy. It's generally obvious to those who are aware of the game (which I would say most players are not) what one should or should not do. There's never any cooperation needed to stop someone using your "turtling" strategy unless someone else is an idiot and is suiciding or wiping out massive armies on the board. This rarely happens.
4. The example you're portraying is not an accurate portrayal of the Tragedy of the Commons. TotC states that if people are sharing some common good, whether it be land or whatnot, selfish interests of the individual will cause negative long term effects to everyone using that common good, even the person with the selfish interest. This is because everyone acts out in their own selfish interests, over using whatever that common good is simply because they know if they don't use it, others will just take advantage of it.
Similar to an water well that lots of people may share; they know that the well will be replenished if only a marginal amount of water is taken out. Yet, each individual knows that there's a vast amount of water in the well and they could make a killer profit selling as much of it as possible (pretend they're in a desert where water is extremely valuable) and simply look to a new well for new profits later. Knowing that although they could be provided with a relatively steady income if they all just took out a small amount of water each month, they also know that if any other person decides to withdraw a lot of water at once to sell they'll be left with the short end of the stick and an empty water well that wont' replenish. So everyone decides to draw extra water for insurance purposes not to be left out, and thus the water well is eventually drained, detrimental to everyone else's long term welfare.
I am curious how many newbees you have slaughtered just because you were adjacent to their territories and you had a agenda that made it very nice to take them out in a few moves as not to cramp your style? 
