Friends = Failure

Today concludes our three part series on the effects of friendship on the success of alliances.

Playing the Hunger Games with friends can cause an individual tribute to become complacent. Tributes start to think as a group instead of an individual. This is not an effective mentality because only an individual can win the Hunger Games.

For example, consider a situation where the only tributes remaining are a 5 tribute alliance and an individual tribute. The individual tribute likely knows the location of the alliance because large alliances tend to lack stealth. In this situation, each alliance member can maximize his or her chance of winning by breaking the alliance. A tribute could kill some of the alliance members to directly move up the final standings (3rd place or better gets money). If the tribute kills all of their alliance members, then they could be in a one on one fight for the championship.

A tribute could also take some supplies and quietly leave the alliance. The other individual tribute will remain focused on the (still large) alliance while the former alliance member can easily hide elsewhere in the arena.

These decisions are rarely made because tributes have more fun with friends and often refuse to betray their friends. Friends cause tributes to make decisions that lower their odds of winning the Hunger Games.

We still encourage you to recruit your friends; however, don't get too attached to them when you are trying to win.