How did it come to this?

I recently had to explain to a few players, why a move is considered as murder / suicide and realised that it is usually self inflicted why a player is in the position where they feel that this is their only option. It normally comes down to how they played prior to the murder / suicide move. It's all about not over-attacking. If a player over-attacks another player for whatever reasons that they believe are justified, they only succeed in weakening that player and their self. Then with the intention of winning or trying to win from this position, they feel that they are justified in risking everything to eliminate their weakened opponent for their cards. This is a misapprehension. If anyone over-attacks another player, two players become weakened, allowing other players to become stronger as a result. Over a few turns, the growth rate of players in the game, becomes greatly unbalanced and creates impending and almost certain doom to the weaker players. The weaker players then feel that their only remaining option to win the game is to kill the other weak player for their cards. This then usually results in an accusation of murder/suicide and is a correct accusation when it inevitably gives the game to the remaining stronger player/s. Points to note: 1) Over attacking reduces your troop count and reinforcements. 2) All-out-attacks to try to eliminate the next weakest player for their cards, usually fail. 3) Even if an all-out-attack succeeds, the amount of extra reinforcements received don't usually allow the player to be able to defend against the remaining stronger player/s. 4) When all-out-attacks fail, they give an easy win or elimination to the next player. The bottom line is, it's usually over-attacking through the early stages of the game which causes a player to eventually feel justified in doing an all-out-attack on the next weakest player to try and win, whereas it is actually causing them to commit an act of murder/suicide, ruining the game. [u]Experienced players:[/u] They mostly go for the easiest targets to gain a victory card, avoiding close numbered battles wherever possible and stopping the attack if losses are high or when they have taken one territory for a victory card. They reinforce their frontline and flanks to ward off counter attacks and to be ready for the next battle for a victory card. They don't fixate on Regions, meaning to keep trying to gain one, even when taking heavy losses. They always weigh up the cost and reward of Region Bonuses and of every territory and will often not attack during a turn. They will often use game chat diplomacy to try to get other players to engage in battles that will weaken them both or to create an easy attack route. They will try to be too big to be a target for cards if a rookie exchanges a set and feels the need to eliminate a player just because they can. They will add at least 1 to the troops in each territory when calculating if they can eliminate a player, due to expected losses and 1 troop left behind on each territory. They will stop an attack or elimination move if losses are abnormally high, before they will weaken their self and the target too much to become an easy target for other players. They will try to never cause their own demise by their playing technique. They will always expect inexperienced players to go for world domination before being strong enough to succeed or to eliminate the weakest player, just because they can and will try to accumulate a large attack force ready to monopolise at the right time. There are another hundred things that experienced players will do correctly to have the best chance of winning, without having to resort to a desperate suicidal move. Sometimes a player will do everything right and have high odds of winning a game and then poor dice luck will ruin a potentially game winning move. However, this is not a murder/suicide if the odds of the final attack were high, but it failed. I hope that this helps newer players understand why a move is considered as a murder/suicide and perhaps gives them insight into what to do, not to be in that desperate situation.