PBEM Age of Imperialism; 1895-1924, Deluxe Version

[Cyc]

I suggest you play it tomorrow night and send it forward. There are 11 players between you and Bowsling, so you have plenty of time to discuss his nation's slot.

Starting over seems like the best answer to me. The internal stats may be a little lop-sided, out of kilter? If you start over, maybe I will play. Or maybe I can be your administrator, while not playing in-game.

I believe everyone should have their own password. I would never suggest to any player that they just press enter when the password screen comes up. Save security should be part of your strategy for winning. I would also require an admin password.

As I mentioned before, I really enjoyed reading this game, but that's not to say that the next game couldn't be even better.

 

[RickFGS]

On the first turn everyone had their own password, but as the save started to be passed around, the password insertion menu disapeers from player to player, player 1 for example doesn´t even have the chance to have password from turn 0. If Sima can look into this super, if not, it´s playable as it is.

I will redo the turn, delete units and treasury to zero, remove me from human seat and leat the AI takeover Portugal, i will leave 12 units of infantry alive in key locations.

 

[RickFGS]

Portugal AI GPS to Bengal Tiger, France

Disbanded all infantry, cav and art units except for 12 colonial infantry in key locations.

Spain will be sending it´s save directly to France now, mail is in social group.

 

[aksully]

If by chance a new game starts then I'll be glad to play..just email me.

 

[AnthonyBoscia]

Well that worked out well. What happened to getting a neutral third party to open the save and confirm or discredit our suspicions so that none of the active players would have to compromise themselves by accessing other player data?

As Jureil said, he first started getting curious through circumstancial evidence, such as the great powers' military advisors mentioning that Portugal was their equal in military strength. We had hoped to get someone outside the game to look at the thing, but never heard from the mods and hadn't had a chance to get an observer to help. Well, what's done is done. Rick, I'm familiar with the inter-turn process, but without being able to see things on your side of the globe, it's pretty hard to verify anything. As Cyc said, that level of micromanagement is a little more hard core than many of us want to invest in a game, though it was never expressly forbidden. In any case, I do appreciate your decision to bow out gracefully.

At this point, I'd be happy if we can just pick up the pieces and drive on with the game. Starting over sounds like a waste of 4 months of effort.

 

[RickFGS]

Portugal treasury was reduced to potatos, pre-builds were set to AI management and the faction only has like 10ish infantry units now.

Of course, take note, that the economy is on war-time and some of the cities are already making outputs of 100ish shields per turn, so don´t blame me if the AI does well with the civ.

 

[Bengal Tiger]

French Indochina Fleet sinks 2 Japanese PCs, another ship(sorry for not looking at what it was, it had 2hp and was rectangular) and a Steam transport, does one damage to another PC off of HK and Macau.

Seeing that Indochina is indefensible, France parcels the land out as follows:
Saigon and Phom Penh to Portugal.
Hanoi to Tibet.
Hue to Filipino natives
Haiphong to Abyssinia
Macau to Boers.
And Hong Kong is returned to China over 100 years early...

However the French General in charge of Indochina promises: "We'll be back."

Naval bombardment on Freetown does one damage.


I think we should vote if we start over or not(with people involved in a war unable to vote). Personally I don't relish the prospect that anyone who wants can see my turn. I'm not saying that anyone would do this, but I'd rather make sure to nip this in the bud, especially while the game is relatively new. While this may mean 4 months were "for nothing"(although personally I enjoyed it), It's better than if in a year or two from now we find out that someone is cheating the entire time. This will also give Eclipse, aksully, and maybe Cyc the ability to start from the beginning. Portugal and the Lowlands are now options if we do start over. I've sent it forward anyways, though.

Anyways, just my 2 cents worth.

Oh, and a picture of the French evacuation:

 

[Sima Qian]

Frankly, I believe this ultimately boils down to trusting people to play fairly. It's unfortunate that sometimes there are people who don't do this, but please understand that whenever it happens, it just ruins the experience for everyone, honest players and cheaters alike. Whenever possible, this sort of dispute should be resolved through a third party with no stake in the game outcome.

Any protective measure taken in this game can be trivially circumvented by someone with enough technical sophistication, passwords notwithstanding. (General warning: don't share passwords for Civ games with any other accounts you have elsewhere -- the security afforded is practically nonexistent.)

If I were to release a tool that could set a master password for this PBEM game, there's nothing that would prevent someone else from using the same tool to change it, rendering the entire effort moot.

So I just have to plead with you all -- be fair to each other, and remember, it's just a game!

 

[Jureil]

French Indochina Fleet sinks 2 Japanese PCs, another ship(sorry for not looking at what it was, it had 2hp and was rectangular) and a Steam transport, does one damage to another PC off of HK and Macau.

Seeing that Indochina is indefensible, France parcels the land out as follows:
Saigon and Phom Penh to Portugal.
Hanoi to Tibet.
Hue to Filipino natives
Haiphong to Abyssinia
Macau to Boers.
And Hong Kong is returned to China over 100 years early...

However the French General in charge of Indochina promises: "We'll be back."

Naval bombardment on Freetown does one damage.


I think we should vote if we start over or not(with people involved in a war unable to vote). Personally I don't relish the prospect that anyone who wants can see my turn. I'm not saying that anyone would do this, but I'd rather make sure to nip this in the bud, especially while the game is relatively new. While this may mean 4 months were "for nothing"(although personally I enjoyed it), It's better than if in a year or two from now we find out that someone is cheating the entire time. This will also give Eclipse, aksully, and maybe Cyc the ability to start from the beginning. Portugal and the Lowlands are now options if we do start over. I've sent it forward anyways, though.

Anyways, just my 2 cents worth.

Oh, and a picture of the French evacuation:

Well looks like the game is over, I would like to continue but a lot of the players have not posted or said what they want to do. It would be nice to get input from all current players involved as to what to do from here on out.

Also gifting cities that will be hard to defend kind of makes what Rick did not look so bad anymore!

 

[kleinerheldt]

Sorry for being quiet the last days.
For me it is still unclear what really happened in Portugal, but I haven't the time nor desire to check up on it. What will come next? I'm afraid I don't know. This game with the missing of an admin password needs a lot of trust between all players. I'ld like to continue this game, because of the time it already costs. But I would also participate in a restarted game if most of you wants to.
But we should decide now, playing an other turn and them restart the game will be more annoying than restart it right now.

 

[eazyhasaids]

I want to keep playing. It's taken too long to get to this point as it is. I wouldn't be against starting over if enough people wanted to.

Also i think gifting cities to the AI is in poor taste

 

[Bengal Tiger]

Apologies then, I didn't know that was the etiquette. In my defense I am currently outnumbered 4-1, and need every advantage I can get. Should we make a rule banning it from now on(if we restart or not)? I'm fine with that.
Again, sorry for exhibiting poor judgement on that.

 

[eazyhasaids]

sent forward

 

[Eclipse4449]

I'm ok with restarting or going on although I was a bit shocked at not having a password, but I did read Ricks comment about the program not allowing it. so actually my comment is null

 

[Cyc]

I think if Rick had hit enter without entering a password for the Admin, it didn't matter who initiated a password, hitting enter at the password screen would get you in as the Admin. Starting over would, if a valid Admin password were entered, allow everyone else to enter a valid password. I wasn't following closely at the begining of the game. Not sure what happened.

 

[Eclipse4449]

The thing is, this is one of the best freaken mods out there hands down!!! and add to that the ability to add more players, WOW!

 

[Bengal Tiger]

So do people want to start over then? It might also be easier to keep track of who is in still. There's a few people who we haven't heard from yet, and we need people for Austria Hungary(if Bowsling is set on leaving) and Portugal. Also, if we start over we can have a competent player take over Lowlands from the beginning, so they're not just a dummy state. No one has been firm one way or another, so if we don't hear from everyone then maybe Rick or Sima Qian can make an arbitrary decision. While I agree that if someone is determined to cheat, and have programming skills, it will be almost impossible to stop them, simply putting a minor safeguard will be enough to deter people who might momentarily give in to temptation, or "accidently" press continue game. I do agree with Kleinerheldt that a decision should be made now rather than later.

 

[Bowsling]

A little while ago Jureil explained to me the situation. Makes a lot more sense now. I'll keep playing (I thought I had already said that, but apparently not.)

 

[RickFGS]

I think the game is still very much playable as it is now, play on.

 

[Glasnost]

As a peaceful Scandinavian nation I have been following things quietly from the far north. If it is decided to restart this game I will probably skip it. Too many players/things to look up for my taste but I'll play happily this one to end if we decide to continue.

As for the gifting cities thing. It's against the good taste indeed but not against the rules if not stated at the OP imo.

"So I just have to plead with you all -- be fair to each other, and remember, it's just a game!"

agreed!