Administrator Ruling #2 - COMPLETE.

Case: Several teams at this point have contacted RegentMan and myself about a challenge to Team TNT over Rule 2.4 and the 'spirit of the game'. For reference, the rule is below.

2.4 - Misleading through Renaming

Description: No team or individual is permitted to rename a unit or city with the intent of misleading or confusing opponents.

Definition: Cities can be renamed to names of tech or sums of gold or anything else in an effort to not trade what that opponent agreed to. Units can be renamed to other units and appear to be something else entirely.

Purpose: To prevent the misleading or confusion of another team through malicious use of in-game features.

Verdict: Using this 'feature' or any other feature or exploit that allows misleading or confusing another team is a violation of this rule.

Punishment Level: Once – Red (5-Expulsion and forfeiture of double what was not legally traded)

Interpreting the Rule: The rule states, simply, renaming units or cities with the intent (very subjective) of confusion on the part of the other teams is against the rules. However, late in the rule, under the definition, it indicates this rule is for trading and diplomacy, not the general naming of cities or units.

Verdict: See post #34.

Feel free to make arguments.

Thank you.

the idiots (i.e. team KISS) are p.o'd about:

the palace jump and the fact that they attempted to disguise it by renaming the city to the original. Please advise if more details are needed.

I will leave this to our UN Representative VBraun, and I have no comments to teams we have not met, as in the spirit of the game, we can have no such dealings.

just cause our shamans are idiots don't mean we're stupid, u ....

Let us talk when we have actually met, and you guys invented Code of Laws.

AS MIA UN rep, reflecting full or partial consensus:

This renaming violated the spirit of the rules. The lack of notification to the other teams shows a lack of respect for the other teams, and no desire to keep a level of good faith with the other teams.

That being said, TNT did not do any actions that severely affected the outcome of the game, and we can be sensible, and understand that this should not be treated outside of the realm of reason.

we agree with MIA.

A palace jump this early? Why would you do that?

we know. what's it worth to u own?

we know. what's it worth to u own?
:confused: Was that sarcasm? I don't get why it would be smart to jump your palace this early.

I don't get why it would be smart to jump your palace this early.

It's fairly simple, it wasn't smart. :rolleyes:

Needless to say, this entire thread is idoitic.

Was that sarcasm? I don't get why it would be smart to jump your palace this early.

@own - yes, that was sarcasm, but IIRC u r on our team. return prodigal and we'll share

@ provo -Maybe u need therapy dude?

I AM the therapy dude :)

I very strongly recommend you all keep it civil. The MTDG is under CFC forum rules, same as the rest of the site.

@own - yes, that was sarcasm, but IIRC u r on our team. return prodigal and we'll share

@ provo -Maybe u need therapy dude?

That last comment was not needed Admiral Kutzov. I wonder if you are a turnplayer or Team representative? If that is the case, Team TNT expect an explanation on who is representing the team.

K.I.S.S. is an anarchy. As a bunch of idiots, we pretty much do what we like. Sometimes it makes diplomacy really bad, because we have way too many people in charge.

That solved the diplomatic accusations of accountability between teams, thank you. We know pretty much where Team KISS stands. No written rule has been broken, and I think we should continue the game.

That last comment was not needed Admiral Kutzov. I wonder if you are a turnplayer or Team representative? If that is the case,
Team TNT expect an explanation on who is representing the team.
Feel free to make arguments. Sounds like an open discussion to me. Adm. K., like any member of our team, is open to offer his views as far as I'm concerned.

I believe the biggest issue on many of our minds is how this renaming trickery was in the "spirit of the game"? It is clear it was not. Not gamebreaking but simply an attempt at trickery.

My personal feelings on this issue is it initially slowed the game down to a grind and now we are completely halted. The best word I can use to describe this situation is disappointment. What a colossal waste of time. :sad:

If there are nothing but spurious references to "spirit" and a rule we did not break, I suggest we end this one sided flaming from Team KISS and get on with the game.

I suggest we end this one sided flaming from Team KISS and get on with the game.
apologies to the people of TNT, we aren't the ones that have been late, twice

This is enough. No more mudslinging.

You can freely discuss the ruling and the rules, but you can't continue this mudslinging.

That is all they can offer in this case , mudslinging. No rule improvement has been presented, no law has been broken. The Moderators know exactly what happened within Team TNT, and they knew what really took place.

I like "mudslinging" better than "flaming." Can you change the terms in the forum rules :) ?

I'm with my team about the "spirit of the game." You obviously thought you were doing something "iffy" and instead of consulting GA or RM, you tried to hide it.

This is also definately misleading. So no more "no laws were broken" because the one on the first post has been.

Sorry Own, you are wrong - it isn't your fault, however, just you could not see that RM and I were in full knowledge of the plans and at the time discussed them and agreed that their intent upon renaming cities was not for trickery, it was for strategy. Unfortunately it seems it came across as part trickery.

To all: Please do not post in this thread unless it is strictly on the topic of: spirit of the game, rule 2.4, rule change proposals (though we will have a new thread on this soon), or something related to the first post.

Uh, this is sorta on topic, what did you mean by "it isn't your fault"?

You are wrong because based on the info you had, but "it isn't your fault" because you didn't have access to info for the whole picture.

I meant it isn't your fault that you were wrong in your assumption. No worries. :)

Ok, I should have researched before typing. <steps out of argument slowly>

reading through everything.....The first person to publicly accuse TNT of renaming a city was......Provolution here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3108523&postcount=25). Gasp..... Is that a sign of a guilty conscience. I regret that by delving into the numbers of the game that certain teams came to this conclusion, but we didn't publicly accuse anyone in case we were wrong.

There is proof that something fishy was going on. We were just wanting to make sure that nothing illicit was going on. I join Whomp in the sadness of the recent stopage that has come over the MTDG. :sad:

spirit of the game? Sorry to break it to everyone, but this is a Competition. The only spirit there is, is to win.

I did not accuse any team of anything, in particular not my own, I sense no guilt either. I did not answer anything either way. However, several things may actually have taken place on our side, and frankly, as no rule has been broken, this should end right here.

I see no posts from my side confirming or disconfirming the allegations. I am certain this was made public as a part of a defamation campaign for diplomatic purposes and as a joint intelligence gathering campaign on another continent before anyone met.

The Game moderators know the full story, and it is not what Team KISS in particular thinks. Frankly, I would rather question the motives of bringing this in a public thread. Team KISS has here proven an interest and willingness to change the outcome of the game based on false accusations and a strategy of seeking to provoke another team to disclose their domestic development.

However, I have no issues with Team MIA and Team Doughnut in this regard, they did not seek to spin this case for diplomatic gains, intelligence gathering or mudslinging. Bullying other teams like this to submit internal information will not be tolerated, and we will not give in to that cheap pressure.

Provo, for at least the third or fifth time, this is not an attempt to deface you or your team. Please do not be so paranoid.

And yes, we know the full story. Therefore, how do you know the full story is not what Team KISS thinks?

This was brought to public (as a request of two teams) to solve this problem and future ones that may be like it by editing the rules.

spirit of the game? Sorry to break it to everyone, but this is a Competition. The only spirit there is, is to win.
So editing the save, hexxing it, using disallowed utilities and sending spies to other forums is OK with you? Interesting.

Please stop the discussion of what OTHER teams have said. Make your case, simple. No need to say what the other teams have said / haven't said / have done / haven't done.

The real issue here is getting us to define "the spirit of the game".

This post is my personal opinion and not the views of team MIA.

I will leave this to our UN Representative Vbraun

Provolution, I really wish you had meant this. Every time you post, you come across as so arrogant that it really makes this game a lot more antagonistic than it should be.

Anyway, the question is, did TNT intend to mislead or confuse by renaming a town. I obviously cannot determine TNT’s intent, but it seems to me that it should have been obvious to them that it would mislead and confuse because people are watching F-11. It should have been equally obvious to them that it would be easily possible to avoid misleading and confusing by making it clear in the city name that it was renamed. The fact that they chose not to do this means that they even if it wasn’t their explicit intent, they certainly didn’t mind misleading and confusing. Therefore, I believe TNT clearly broke the spirit of the rule.

If there are nothing but spurious references to "spirit" and a rule we did not break,

And, yes, the “spirit” matters. In part it matters because we are not lawyers looking at a legal document for loopholes, we are playing a game that is meant to be fair and fun. If you must have a “legal” reason, then

.3 - Fairness Pledge

Every team must agree to the fairness pledge before the game starts:

“I pledge to compete fairly and within the rules of the game. I pledge to adhere not only to the written rules, but also to the unwritten, spirit of the rules. (emphasis added).

So, a rule is broken. The punishment given in that rule is way too severe for the circumstances. Personally I don’t believe any punishment is really necessary because no real harm was done (except the time we wasted on unnecessary speculation). I don’t want any team to win or lose because of rules violations, but I really would like to see some acknowledgment from TNT that what they did was wrong. If they can’t see that, then I think unfortunately that there must be some punishment to deter this type of behavior in the future.

Verdict: The challenge of this ruling is to see whether Team TNT intentionally tried to mislead opponents by changing, or switching, the names of some of their cities, and whether they broke the "spirit of the game" and fairness pledge by doing so.

After a review of the evidence, RegentMan and myself have concluded the following:

Team TNT did not rename their cities in order to cause confusion or to mislead their opponents. In hindsight, we can now see what has happened, but at the time of the decision, this was not apparent. It was not their intention to cause all this; they wanted to switch city names around. This was a legal action they took, as rule 2.4 pertains to diplomacy (it is unclear). As such, the following is the 'verdict' and result of this investigation:

-Team TNT suffers no in or out of game punishment or warning for their actions.
-A new discussion about the 'spirit of the game' and rule 2.4 will be started with the purpose of preventing this from happening again. One aim of it will be to decide if cities' name changes will be documented or not.
-A formal notice to clear this all up: Team TNT's cities' names have been switched around.

To all non-TNTers: Do not use this against them, confusion was not their goal from this process.

End of thread. If you have an appeal to this rule, please PM RegentMan and myself. The aim of this is to please everyone while being fair and rule-abiding.

With this very anticipated and fair ruling, Team TNT will shortly come with an announcement.

Here we go:

Team TNT had an internal poll twice confirming our capital should be Dancing Banana, this can be confirmed by game admins. This was done for team culture and identity reasons, and a vast majority confirmed this when the city was challenged. As F11 rightly shows the five highest ranked culturally cities, this information was open for everyone to see, and we never underestimated the other teams or ever considered to keep our dear original capital name, which was a domestic team culture issue.

Team TNT thought in fairness that renaming cities and units before ANY civilizations met was in the spirit of the game. It is certainly not in the spirit of TNT to initiate diplomacy like this prior to teams have met, in order to limit one teams diplomatic options on another continent. We do not apologize for the pre-meet city renaming as we did this for totally different intentions, which was team culture. However, the lesson we take from this, is that we will NEVER rename anything in the future but conquered cities and workers, and we consider this is a fair proposal for a new renaming law.

Now it in the spirit of the game lets move on! :)