Planning cIV BTS MTDG III

[SevenSpirits]

Originally Posted by astrologix

No solution. Once war is declared between teams A and B, the game acts like a PBEM for them.

Obviously not, since the eot processing (unit builds etc) don't happen until all civs have moved. Sequential turns seems a lot better to me than this (since it actually plays like a PBEM and also doesn't stop you logging in just to check out how things are going). So does having a less viciously enforced double-move rule.

Originally Posted by wolfman1234

We are playing advanced wars that way and there isnt any problem with that, simultaneous turns are worse, belive me. A coastal civ cant survive a double turn in a modern warfare. Quite worse than having to found a city over an oil resource.

Saying it's better than simultaneous turns with double moves allowed and happening willy-nilly is like saying that I am more beautiful than a cockroach.

I will say though the mod is a very clever idea and I wish it didn't have what I consider to be quite a serious problem in the strict locked turn order which blocks even domestic actions.

[wolfman1234]

And how are you sure that people use the double turn only to move workers? People goodwill?

[Lord Parkin]

Originally Posted by wolfman1234

I think you dont understand the full idea, or we doesnt explain it very well. The double-turn thing is a very little advantage of the mod-web, you can see all the events of your civ in the web without loging in the game, i mean all of them.

I must say we are playing 1 year with the mod-bug-web pack, but more than 4 years with a previous mod that doesnt allow double turn, we have a championship of 4 games of 18 players at year for 4 years using it and it works, belive me.

It does sound like a very cool mod, with all the web info and such. Like Seven, I think parts of it seem awesome and very inspired. Is it perhaps possible to customise, for instance to keep the web info but remove the forced turn order?

[Lord Parkin]

Originally Posted by wolfman1234

And how are you sure that people use the double turn only to move workers? People goodwill?

Any obvious illegal moves would be noticed quickly. Aside from that, we'd have admins to check things if necessary. Though personally I'd like to think goodwill would be enough.

[2metraninja]

Originally Posted by Lord Parkin

Disadvantage of permanently lacking e.g. Oil >>>> advantage of promoting units first. This isn't a solution at all. Destroy all the trade connections to the city and Team A still can't build units needing the resource. Plus, most of the time you're lucky to even have the one resource, and sometimes it isn't even possible to found a city on top of it after revealing it (e.g. due to existing cities blocking it). And even if you can do it, it's a set of hoops for one team to have to jump through that the other doesn't have to.

Far better, IMHO, to stick with regular simultaneous turns - and at this point of the game, allow both teams to log in only to use their Workers at the end of the turn, after all military movements.

The whole thing with "I will just log in your part of the timer to look around and move workers" most of the time doesnt work quite good as intended. I remember in the Maverick pitboss where you were using this to make close in - blockade at end of the turn - login in the beginning of turn - run away tactic on Irgy for number of turns before he noticed whats going on and brought the question in public.

Also, in the last MTDG, the turnplayer of Sirius was loging in and out at each time despite I have politely asking him not to do it with the excuse: "I am only loging to see whats going on, I have this right"! And then we caught him with screenshots moving and upgrading units to reinforce weak positions after he sees where we move, as he played in the first half of the timer.

And once caught, he started to blame everyone, threaten to quit and after all he quit almost ruining the game. All this from allowing joining the game during your opponent's part of the timer.

Not that I am saying those two things are equal, but just showing that entering at all in your opponent's half gives opportunities considered unfair and game ruining.

So I am not sure which is worst - to have this "sabotage resource while playing last tactic" opportunity or to give whole lot of seducing opportunities of misbehavior to possibly lead to ruining the game.

[wolfman1234]

And production changes? Well, there are a lot of things that arent so easily noticed. The best way is an automated one, no goodwill, no greek tragedies and that kind of things.

I think is all the same think, not sure if it could be customizable, but that is a question that must be answered by Manolo or Magno.

[wolfman1234]

Originally Posted by 2metraninja

The whole thing with "I will just log in your part of the timer to look around and move workers" most of the time doesnt work quite good as intended. I remember in the Maverick pitboss where you were using this to make close in - blockade at end of the turn - login in the beginning of turn - run away tactic on Irgy for number of turns before he noticed whats going on and brought the question in public.

Also, in the last MTDG, the turnplayer of Sirius was loging in and out at each time despite I have politely asking him not to do it with the excuse: "I am only loging to see whats going on, I have this right"! And then we caught him with screenshots moving and upgrading units to reinforce weak positions after he sees where we move, as he played in the first half of the timer.

And once caught, he started to blame everyone, threaten to quit and after all he quit almost ruining the game. All this from allowing joining the game during your opponent's part of the timer.

Not that I am saying those two things are equal, but just showing that entering at all in your opponent's half gives opportunities considered unfair and game ruining.

So I am not sure which is worst - to have this "sabotage resource while playing last tactic" opportunity or to give whole lot of seducing opportunities of misbehavior to possibly lead to ruining the game.

That.

2metraninja explains it better than me. The sabotage resource isnt a great issue, you can found over a resource if its very important, and playing first gives you other big advantages. Really we consider its better to play first, and that is the attacker option usually.

[Sommerswerd]

Originally Posted by wolfman1234

And how are you sure that people use the double turn only to move workers? People goodwill?

This.

2metra already captured it, so I won't repeat it all, but yea... I don't believe in "player honor" anymore, at least not when it comes to players I don't know, and when it comes to stuff that has an impact on winning/losing. Sorry, but the truth is, SOME, maybe even MOST players can be trusted, but it only takes ONE player to ruin the game and there is always at least ONE player who will break rules if he thinks he can get away with it.

So to me, we should not make rules against things that can't be verified, and we should really try to have as few rules as possible in a pure MP game where winning is the only goal. Game with roleplaying (like Diplogames) are something different, but it seems like RB has no use for roleplay so we really need to limit rules.

That being said, I really respect the experience of RB and I am willing to defer to them on most things, as long as I can find a well reasoned explanation for it somewhere on their forum.

[nabaxo]

Originally Posted by astrologix

Well, it's very simple:

- RB will not play WITH the BUG mod
- Spanish speaking team will not play WITHOUT their mod and dedicated web site.

No solution.

Don't miss the opportunity of knowing a new great way to play pitboss games

Disclaimer: I'm not speaking for RB, but this is what I've sensed there.

[Lord Parkin]

Originally Posted by Sommerswerd

...there is always at least ONE player who will break rules if he thinks he can get away with it.

Girls don't break rules?

The problem is neither of the alternatives (sequential turns or the mod) are particularly viable - the former because it horrendously increases turn length to the point of disinterest and boredom for many players, and the latter because it creates new problems even as it partially solves others.

I really do think that simultaneous turns combined with a clear and concise ruleset is our best bet moving forward. If necessary, when the game gets to that stage, it could be a requirement to screenshot your empire after all military moves (before the other team plays), and again after all Worker moves (after the other team plays). Whatever it is, I'm sure we can work something out. The minor inconvenience of taking and posting extra screenshots every turn, for instance, is far less than the major inconvenience of turns taking 3-4 times longer to tick over or having a mod force a permanent handicap on one side.

[plako]

I've joined to lurk team RB and I don't think there is a strong consensus against BUG mod. At least I wouldn't mind using it here. However I'm a bit worried that this might not be a right place to introduce the mod internationally. Something that doesn't happen in normal pitboss games might happen, ruining the game from hundreds of people.

Nevertheless, if we assume the mod would be used we would still need to handle the issues already mentioned. Multiway wars are definately the most trickier ones and I don't have good idea what to do there or quite sufficient understanding how the mod would work in every case where clever players exploit the system to the fullest. However I've wittnessed cases where humans will declare wars to assist allies and force others to pick the unfavourable turn order that potentially leads to silly turn orders splitting allies to play e.g. 1st and last. This is very detrimental for the game, even if potentially beneficial for the players/allies involved.

So there needs to be double move rules, even if we would use the mod. For resource pillaging I suggest that if there are sufficient number of workers parked to the resource to improve it in 1T it is not allowed to pillage it with spy or Flight Bombardement.

[wolfman1234]

Its not a handicap, each side has with advanages, we are playing that way 4 years and there isnt any problem with oil or resources. We have a chanpionship playing that way and never ever somebody has complained against the use of the mod.

I think its the only fair and aumomated way of playing a pitboss.

Its easier to forbid sabotage oil that all the other things.

[astrologix]

@Lord Parkin,

Please, consider that our mod will not necessarily increase the turn lenght.

Lets say we have 5 players in a game. The time turn is 24 hours. Player A declares war on player B. The mod allows them 24 hours each. The other player can play when they want in this gap of maximum 48 hours lenght.

Exemple A:
The turns begins at 0h00. Player C and D (not at war) enter simultaneously at 01h00 and play their turn. Player A enter at 4h00, play and finishes his turn at 5h00. Player D enter at 4h30 and play (simultaneously with A, but not at war with him). Player B enter at 9h00, plays until 10h30, finishes his turn and the new turn begins.

Total time for this turn: 10 hours, 30 minutes.

Exemple B.
Turn begins at 0h00. Player A enter at 1h00 and plays until 3h00 (the counter time for B begins to run: he can play until 27h00). Players C and D enter at 19h00 and play. First 24h00 finished, but turn continues to run. Player E was late but can still play at 25h00 (ouf!!). Player B enter at 26h00 (he has 1 hour left to play!). He plays until 26h30, hits the end turn button, the mod rejects him out of the game. The turn time is set 0h00 again and the new turn begins.

Total time for this turn : 26 hours 30 minutes.

[2metraninja]

Originally Posted by Lord Parkin

Girls don't break rules?

Sommers uses the political correct male variant (player and not playeress or however female player would be written in English if there was such variant. In the English language the gender creating opportunities are limited to my best knowing. In maky of the Slavic languages there is a way to tell gender from one word without the need of telling additional words like "male" or "female")

So girls and boys / women and man are both considered player, which word originally comes in male gender I think and thats why he says "he" instead of "she".

Apparently girls who play competitive Civ4 MP are so rarest that they statistically does not exist at all

(WPC team have one of them, I can tell )

[2metraninja]

However I'm a bit worried that this might not be a right place to introduce the mod internationally. Something that doesn't happen in normal pitboss games might happen, ruining the game from hundreds of people.

This is my consideration too.

So there needs to be double move rules, even if we would use the mod. For resource pillaging I suggest that if there are sufficient number of workers parked to the resource to improve it in 1T it is not allowed to pillage it with spy or Flight Bombardement.

Sounds good as a rule proposal.

Can you think are there other turn order exploits to be considered except for the "first in the order upgrade/heal and attacks the unupgraded/unhealed enemy units"?

[plako]

Originally Posted by wolfman1234

Its not a handicap, each side has with advanages, we are playing that way 4 years and there isnt any problem with oil or resources. We have a chanpionship playing that way and never ever somebody has complained against the use of the mod.

I think its the only fair and aumomated way of playing a pitboss.

It is a big problem, if you can't finish a single Fighter, Destroyer or Pikeman just because your opponent is pillaging the resource every turn. There is no comparable benefit, when you act 1st. Especially when planes are coming in the field, pillaging countryside is easy. If your only oil happens to be in range of enemy planes, you'll be pretty happy to have an additional rule. Granted using spies is a lot more expensive to continuosuly deny resources, but temporarily losing iron might have devastating effects when you can't e.g. whip pikes to fight against Knight stack.

As most of the games are probably decided before modern age, this isn't normally a big issue, but it is wise to discuss and handle the situation beforehand.

[2metraninja]

BTW, worker moves during war time are also double- moves in my opinion

What if workers build road after the opponent is done with the turn and the next turn you use those roads and extend them to hit his stack?

Simply no loging after you are done and before your opponent is done and doing nothing is the best solution to the problems which come with the nature of turn- based game.

cases where humans will declare wars to assist allies and force others to pick the unfavourable turn order that potentially leads to silly turn orders splitting allies to play e.g. 1st and last. This is very detrimental for the game, even if potentially beneficial for the players/allies involved.

I have seen this. Also the trick of no-rule-breaking double- move: Your ally plays, then your enemy, then you play last. You see where he heads, you send your units to there, despite you cant reach him this turn and gift them to your ally. Turn switches and your ally have units which were moved after your opponent and will be moved second time before your opponent can react to them, so you hit the invading stack and destroy it, which otherwise would have been impossible.

In WPC there was attempt to solve this by a simple rule - if you want to declare war to someone already in war, you must do it in the half of the timer, which belongs to his opponents. Not that there cant be cases, where one nation is at war with 1 nation which is at war with another and those cant be combined correct anymore...

[astrologix]

Let's have a look on our website main page.

In this particular game, playing with te Next War mod, with avanced start, all the players play with the same civ, the germans.

Notice the right frame, which shows, from the outside of the game, in real time, the events occured in it.

And we have many menus for monitor several things: cities, units, techs, treaties, etc.



We have even the possibility to establish treaties out of the game, like "non aggression pacts". Or to communicate with other player by message, like CivStats does.

In addition, the mod sends warning messages in case of war, diplo proposals in game, or when "your ennemy has played, it's your turn!"

This is only a sample. We have much more things to show if you like it!

[mzprox]

Seems like a nice mod, but still I have my concerns about making this automated (see in details here : 174

[Lord Dami]

Hello everyone,
I am a regular player pitboss forum in Spanish.
I assure you there is a before and after the mod, not to look if a potential enemy entered the game 1 minute before or after the end of the turn. calculate the passing time of the day to stay awake, not life.
with this mod avoided, if we add the website which gives all the data without entering the game ... Excellent ... when you play well, because otherwise you do not play

our pitboss have 18 players (initially at least) and generated several wars at once, I assure you that the duration of the shift does not extend unreasonably.