Ruleset Discussion

[Sommerswerd]

It's just stupid.

Now I said that I would let you have the last word on this not several last words (ie. multiple posts). But I will stick by what I said (for now) and not talk anymore about the merits of the issue.

However, I would like to point out that when you brought up the "double-civs" idea, Slaze said:

Stupid, stupid idea to have 2 civs.

And while I did not like the idea either, I said:

Ouch, Harsh... Calling someones idea "stupid" (or "silly" for that matter) might start a flame war.(I learned alot about this on team Kaz in the last MTDG) And afterall it is basically the same as just saying... I am against/don't like that idea...I am much more interested in the reasons someone does not like (or likes) an idea...

And you agreed, saying:

So you'd prefer not to play this particular variant. There's absolutely no reason to start throwing personal insults around.

So I can't understand why you would go back to calling people's ideas "stupid" and "ridiculous." Now you can say "I was talking about the option not you or your idea," but that is just a cop-out. I was advocating the option, and you called it "stupid."

Forgive me, but it just seems unfair to complain when somebody does that to you, and then turn around and do the same thing to others.

 

[Snaaty]

ABOUT SPY POINTS AND MISSION COSTS

WITH THE RIGHT PREPARATIONS AND SETTINGS, YOU CAN DROP THE COSTS OF SPY MISSIONS VERY VERY LOW, LIKE 10% AT ALMOST NO RISK OF LOOSING THE SPY. but to do that, the spy and the "host" have to work together and to know the mechanics a little also helps (=more or less every mission succeeds and almost no spy gets discovered, like 1 out of 10)... ...on the other side, you can make COSTS OF AN ENEMY VERY VERY HIGH WITH A VERY HIGH RISK OF LOOSING THE SPY (missions have a much higher failure rate and 3 out of 4 spies get discovered anyways)... ...then you can even DOUBLE the costs of enemy missions with the very very cheap counterespionage mission

to speak in numbers:
a civic switching mission costs 600 spoints i think

your enemy looses heaps of spies and thanks to counterespionage it costs him 1200 spoints, maybe he can drop it to half price, say 600

your alley can switch your civics back for someting like 60-120 spoints (not including all modifieres, so let the final costs be 10%+ of original)

pay him 1 gold per spoint and he should be fine... ...i dont see neither a problem in finding an alley to do so, nor do i see "heaps and heaps of spoints spent"

i would call these 60-120 spoints from an alley: friendly spoint spending, and ususally around the point in the game when this gets important, raising the slider 1 turn does the trick, and since its so cheap for your alley, pay him and your fine... ...besides that ist a win-win situation:
you let an emergency spy rest in a bordercity of your alley an he does the same in your bordercity, so if you or your alley need a switch... ...go for it

banning spies completely is also an interesting concept

what about that:
i would like to ban charriots, cause usually I loose to them with my axmen and warriors, so the must be overpowered (and i absolutely dont see a connection between that and the fact that i usually cant build spears, cause i dont research hunting to keep building these nice and cheap warriors for city MP)

 

[Sherlock613]

A short aside- sorry to have started a new thread, when the discussions are going on here.

I have a proposal- NO GIFTING OF HEROIC EPIC UNITS. Each team should be forced to get there on their own. It's the same idea as not gifting a city with Mausoleum or with Criste Redentor.

 

[grant2004]

It seems like this civic revolt thing can be fought, if you focus a large ammount of effort on it and have an ally willing to do the same, but why should we? We can ban this tactic very easily and we won't have to worry about all these workarounds.

It's my opinion that the change civic espionage mission was intended as a way to get an AI to adopt civics that you considered helpful, not as a way to keep a civ in near constant anarchy. Otherwise they would have scaled the cost of the mission to reflect its power.

Generally espionage missions that don't gain you much are cheap, and ones that are effective are expensive, why would civic change be an exception? An espionage mission that can deny a civ half of their production and research outright due to anarchy, and can take a smaller portion of production and research away through forced inefficiency should have a huge cost associated with it. A mission intended to give your missionaries, or executives access to another civ would have a more moderate cost, in line with what the civic change mission does actually cost.

I never knew about the potential for this exploit before, if a rule isn't added to prevent it, the best course of action would be for us to disable espionage entirely. Is it too late to have a team vote on that?

 

[Lord Parkin]

Forgive me, but it just seems unfair to complain when somebody does that to you, and then turn around and do the same thing to others.

The difference is that I was not calling someone's idea stupid. I was calling the ridiculously low cost of the espionage mission stupid. Now I agree that calling something "stupid" isn't the best argument, but please don't try to pretend I was insulting anyone.

ABOUT SPY POINTS AND MISSION COSTS

WITH THE RIGHT PREPARATIONS AND SETTINGS, YOU CAN DROP THE COSTS OF SPY MISSIONS VERY VERY LOW, LIKE 10% AT ALMOST NO RISK OF LOOSING THE SPY. but to do that, the spy and the "host" have to work together and to know the mechanics a little also helps (=more or less every mission succeeds and almost no spy gets discovered, like 1 out of 10)... ...on the other side, you can make COSTS OF AN ENEMY VERY VERY HIGH WITH A VERY HIGH RISK OF LOOSING THE SPY (missions have a much higher failure rate and 3 out of 4 spies get discovered anyways)... ...then you can even DOUBLE the costs of enemy missions with the very very cheap counterespionage mission

to speak in numbers:
a civic switching mission costs 600 spoints i think

your enemy looses heaps of spies and thanks to counterespionage it costs him 1200 spoints, maybe he can drop it to half price, say 600

your alley can switch your civics back for someting like 60-120 spoints (not including all modifieres, so let the final costs be 10%+ of original)

pay him 1 gold per spoint and he should be fine... ...i dont see neither a problem in finding an alley to do so, nor do i see "heaps and heaps of spoints spent"

i would call these 60-120 spoints from an alley: friendly spoint spending, and ususally around the point in the game when this gets important, raising the slider 1 turn does the trick, and since its so cheap for your alley, pay him and your fine... ...besides that ist a win-win situation:
you let an emergency spy rest in a bordercity of your alley an he does the same in your bordercity, so if you or your alley need a switch... ...go for it

Okay, if what you say is true then maybe there's a partial workaround to change civics back quickly. BUT, this still doesn't solve the fact that if BOTH of the allies' civics are changed by the sabotaging team, then one of them will still have to spend the turns in Anarchy to change back.

Generally espionage missions that don't gain you much are cheap, and ones that are effective are expensive, why would civic change be an exception? An espionage mission that can deny a civ half of their production and research outright due to anarchy, and can take a smaller portion of production and research away through forced inefficiency should have a huge cost associated with it.

Exactly.

I never knew about the potential for this exploit before, if a rule isn't added to prevent it, the best course of action would be for us to disable espionage entirely. Is it too late to have a team vote on that?

But turning off espionage altogether would affect the game too much. Even aside from the mess-ups with culture, the passive effects of espionage I consider very useful, and I wouldn't want to do away with them. It's just one particular mission that is too cheap, which unbalances espionage later on in the game.

 

[Sommerswerd]

The difference is that I was not calling someone's idea stupid. I was calling the ridiculously low cost of the espionage mission stupid. Now I agree that calling something "stupid" isn't the best argument, but please don't try to pretend I was insulting anyone.

I did not "pretend" that you were "insulting anyone"... YOU complained to slaze that he was "throwing around insults" when he said your idea was "stupid."

I guess slaze could have said "Hey I wasn't insulting anyone. I was just saying that the ridiculous option of playing the MTDG with 2 civs was "stupid." Somehow I don't think you would have been persuaded by this argument. I think you would have pointed out, as I already did, that:

you can say "I was talking about the option not you or your idea," but that is just a cop-out. I was advocating the option, and you called it "stupid."

The reality is, that I suggested playing the game a certain way, just like you did (with double-civs) and then you used the adjective "stupid" in your characterization of the method of playing that I just advocated, just like slaze did to you. I am a little puzzled by why you are trying to make a distinction. There really is no meaningful distinction.

Let me ask a rhetorical question... Why use the adjective (stupid) or the adverb (ridiculously)? The answer obviously, is to get across you sentiment of extreme distaste and disdain for the particular game option. Why not just say "I don't like it"... as you suggested to slaze. (Now this, I AM prepared to argue ad-nauseum)

 

[DaveShack]

Moderator Action: Please discuss the issue, not each other's posting styles

 

[azzaman333]

You can fight it, but you can't beat the civic changing.

Ultimately, if we don't ban it, it'll get messy.

 

[Aivoturso]

2.2 -- Reloads
In the event the game is reloaded to a previous point in time for any reason, each team must faithfully recreate any in-game actions they took after that point, to the best of their ability. Teams are encouraged to keep an explicit log of actions taken to facilitate the best recreation possible.

Are we going to have both this rule and new random seed on reload? Could someone explain to me how are those going to be compatible?

Suppose that for some reason game needs to be reloaded a few turns back during a war. Now if all parties involved try to replicate everything as the turns were played, things may start diverging drastically even after couple of first combats. For example if a defending unit that was originally used for counterattacking suffers significantly more damage than previously, it would make absolutely no sense to do that after reload. Plus it would not even help in recreating the desired end situation. The divergence from the original timeline would in a complex situations accumulate very rapidly.

This could actually happen in smaller scale even early in the game during peace. For example if an anti-barbarian troop loses a fight instead of winning it would not make any sense to continue building a mine or whatever with a now defenceless worker.

Please, tell me I've misunderstood something about the rule. I totally agree that we should have a new random seed to avoid any abuse or even suspicion of abuse on that part. I do see a potential for a whole lot of chaos if reload is ever required in war time.

 

[DaveMcW]

Suppose that for some reason game needs to be reloaded a few turns back...

I do see a potential for a whole lot of chaos

I agree, which is why I doubt I would ever order a multi-turn reload.

 

[Sherlock613]

Sorry to bump this, but no one responded-

Can we ban the gifting of Heroic Epic units (as in, units of high enough experience level to get Heroic Epic)? It is something that should be earned through war, not gifted to friends, like a Mausoleum City. The reasoning is that a civilization with enough experience to get the HE had to go through war, and so deserves the advantage of the HE. Admins, could we make a quick poll to add this pretty standard rule into our official agreement?

 

[Lord Parkin]

Actually you can get the Heroic Epic simply by fighting barbs. Not that I disagree with your overall suggestion. You definitely have to go through a war to get West Point, and those level 6 units definitely shouldn't be gifted around to enable this national wonder if it wasn't already enabled for that civ.

Then again, on the other hand, you could argue that gifting these units is "at your own risk" because (a) they might not be gifted back, or (b) the units produced with the national wonders might be used against you.

 

[Earthling]

OOOHHH that's what was meant. The way things were worded, and the timing of the posts with posts about other issues, it was seeming the previous suggestion was over-the-top, or something nobody else would likely agree with.

Something like "I think we should ban the trading of Library techs. If one team has a Library, getting a bonus to research, they shouldn't be able to trade techs to others unless they also have libraries."

In other words, I thought someone was talking about "units built BY the Heroic Epic" which essentially is just someone who doesn't want unit gifting in general.

I am fine with unit gifting - but for the particular experience requirements, sure, don't let someone just hand a great general-boosted unit around to avoid limitations. HE is simple enough with barbs anyway so hopefully shouldn't be a problem, but if/when West Point becomes an issue then sure, that makes sense too.

 

[Irgy]

I agree that gifting a unit to unlock heroic epic/west point is a bit of an abuse and against the spirit of those restrictions, but at the same time I think it's just too much of a hassle to try to rule against. What if you haven't built and don't plan to build the heroic epic, but desperately need that experienced defender? I don't think there's a rule to prevent it that doesn't just create new problems. Plus it doesn't break the game, and isn't in anyway metagaming, so it fails my requirements for something to need a rule.

So I'd prefer there wasn't a rule. And if there isn't a rule against it, I'd prefer (and this goes for anything there isn't a rule against) that it was considered a perfectly acceptable thing to do. Just my personal opinions though.

 

[grant2004]

Couldn't we write the rule as: "A team may not construct the heroic epic using a unit gifted from another civ" Teams would still be able to gift high experience units to each other, but if they built the heroic epic after unit gifts they would have to show they possessed a unit of sufficient experience which had not been gifted to them.

This would be made easier if unit gifts were renamed with a tag so that even dozens of turns after a unit is gifted it will be clear which units are eligable for building the epic.

 

[Lord Parkin]

If we have that rule, once again I reiterate that it will be even more important to include "West Point" in the wording of the rule, as well as "Heroic Epic".

I'd also add "no team may gift the Mausoleum of Mausollus city back and forth to enhance the lengths of Golden Ages for non-building teams", and "no team may gift the Cristo Redentor city back and forth to allow easy civic changes for non-building teams".

 

[DaveShack]

These proposed restrictions on gifting are absurd. Not because the idea has no merit, but because they are completely unenforceable. Suppose team A gifts a unit to team B, who build HE. How does team C know that there has been a violation? More to the point, how do they even know a unit was gifted? And why would team C have a problem with this, if they have an ally team D who is willing to do the same thing?

Just play civ, leave the barracks lawyer crap alone please.

 

[SilentConfusion]

I agree that gifting a unit to unlock heroic epic/west point is a bit of an abuse and against the spirit of those restrictions, but at the same time I think it's just too much of a hassle to try to rule against. What if you haven't built and don't plan to build the heroic epic, but desperately need that experienced defender? I don't think there's a rule to prevent it that doesn't just create new problems. Plus it doesn't break the game, and isn't in anyway metagaming, so it fails my requirements for something to need a rule.

So I'd prefer there wasn't a rule. And if there isn't a rule against it, I'd prefer (and this goes for anything there isn't a rule against) that it was considered a perfectly acceptable thing to do. Just my personal opinions though.

I agree with this completely.

I would not want a rule that made it only legal to gift units with low experience. If there is no other way to rid ourselves of this potential abuse except to ban high experience units, I'd say don't make any rule and rely on the fact that teams will be reluctant to beef up another team's military capabilities in most situations.

 

[azzaman333]

These proposed restrictions on gifting are absurd. Not because the idea has no merit, but because they are completely unenforceable. Suppose team A gifts a unit to team B, who build HE. How does team C know that there has been a violation? More to the point, how do they even know a unit was gifted? And why would team C have a problem with this, if they have an ally team D who is willing to do the same thing?

Just play civ, leave the barracks lawyer crap alone please.

I agree.

 

[Indiansmoke]

These proposed restrictions on gifting are absurd. Not because the idea has no merit, but because they are completely unenforceable. Suppose team A gifts a unit to team B, who build HE. How does team C know that there has been a violation? More to the point, how do they even know a unit was gifted? And why would team C have a problem with this, if they have an ally team D who is willing to do the same thing?

Just play civ, leave the barracks lawyer crap alone please.

+1 as well.

Since we are playing with tech trading on, lets have a full on diplomacy game!