Game Settings Discussion Thread

[plako]

Sorry for interfering, but here I see so clear path to get this thing moving a tiny step forward so that I can't help myself.

Is 2d only part that you're not happy with ruff's suggestion? If it is, then saying it out publicly and declaring your acceptance to all other parts would let you to focus on real issues i.e. double move rule and disconnecting resources when acting last.

 

[Sommerswerd]

It is not a black and white selection between being douchebags or brownnosers.

cavscout made this point way back and I agree. It can be a complex, difficult balance at times. Generally, I prefer to come off as more dbag then brownnose, probably more of an ego thing TBH, but I also find it is usually more useful strategically. But the best as you point out is to come off as neither if you can.

Now, how do you think other six teams feel about this.

This is a very good point. Thanks for mentioning that. If I had to bet money, I would say the other Teams don't give a rat's @ss about the rules and just want to start.

You think it has no effect on diplo that team reps from RB and CFC has been fighting and bickering before the game even starts? Well let's hope you're right.

All your points are valid. I just want to point out that I don't believe (and never said IIRC) that it has NO impact. I just don't think it matters as much as you (and many others to be fair) think it does. Again, I can perfectly appreciate the reality that I might be wrong, which is a big part of the reason that I have not posted a single public post that any reasonable person could call provocative in at least a week, if not longer.

 

[Aivoturso]

It also makes you win the argument quicker. Especially when the argument is won when the silent, reading, majority votes.

This. It does not constitute a win if the other party gives up walks away. Not even in an internet fighting. And this time we're actually counting the votes later on.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Sorry for interfering, but here I see so clear path to get this thing moving a tiny step forward so that I can't help myself.

Is 2d only part that you're not happy with ruff's suggestion? If it is, then saying it out publicly and declaring your acceptance to all other parts would let you to focus on real issues i.e. double move rule and disconnecting resources when acting last.

Thanks plako and yes, I think that's correct. Anyone please correct me if I'm wrong.

And DaveShack (or tobiasn), if you want to state that as our official position (since I am still trying to keep quiet) I think plako is saying that will move things along nicely.

 

[Aivoturso]

Now, how do you think other six teams feel about this.

This is a very good point. Thanks for mentioning that. If I had to bet money, I would say the other Teams don't give a rat's @ss about the rules and just want to start.

My point exactly. And the notion that from their we and RB are stalling the game with petty bickering may come and bite us in the butt eventually.

Is 2d only part that you're not happy with ruff's suggestion? If it is, then saying it out publicly and declaring your acceptance to all other parts would let you to focus on real issues i.e. double move rule and disconnecting resources when acting last.

I believe too that this is our stand point. Though I believe, our aim was a leaner more streamlined ruleset, there is nothing we can't straight up agree with except for 2d in ruff's suggestion. And IMO even 2d is more of a fine tuning issue rather than fundamental disagreement. I also suggest either Dave or Tobias will explicitly state where we stand.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Hey everyone, ruff-hi just posted two long @ss messages that I havent even read yet but there is like 20 2metra quotes in them so I'm guessing there are some backhanded attacks in there.

Hopefully eveyone sees my post before his. Please everyone consider ignoring any blatant attacks. The only thing we really need to say at this point is "Hey whatevers, we accept you guys ruleset except for 2d. Delete that and we are ready to finish this thing up so we can start." ... or something along those lines. No more flame wars.

Again this is only my suggestion. You are all your own men and don't have to listen to me at all.

 

[tobiasn]

Cool. I'm on it.

 

[YossarianLives]

Where is all this ginger-stepping around the feelings of other Teams (RB in particular) coming from? Does it have something to do with several on this team having longstanding familiarity with the RB players/forum? This is a serious question. I am genuinely curious about this. Why are we so concerned about offending RB? (This is a completely irrelevant, philisophical and unimportant side-question BTW, so don't put too much thought into it)

As the RB "refugee", I'll put in my two cents.

I was accepted onto this team by sommers and 2metra, despite having no posting history at the time and concerns being raised by rb that new members might actually be spies for other teams. Because of this, I will always defer to those two and the other cfc "vets", while attempting to make useful contributions to the team. Having read tons of threads over at RB, I do feel a connection and loyalty to that site, and wish we could get along better with them. However, for this game, I am 100% CFC, and certainly understand the frustrations of sommers and 2metra (as well as some of the other teams' frustrations, but that's besides the point).

So, in short, I am totally in support of whatever the team thinks will put us in the best position in this game, whether that be making a strong argument behind our position, or giving ground to the other teams.

And yes, if everyone's on board, I definitely agree that we can accept RB's ruleset minus 2d to get things moving.

 

[Bowsling]

I'm thinking now that the refugee rule is incredibly unfair in this ISDG, and that we should scrap it and say that if your team is eliminated, you're out.

This is because if an anglophone team is eliminated, the four non-English teams will receive the bulk of the "refugees". This will be an even more noticeable difference if RB or us are eliminated. Likewise, most Civfr players will "emigrate" to UniversCiv and vice versa if one is eliminated. If Spanish Apolyton or Civforum.de are eliminated, the monolingual members of those teams would be forced to sit the rest of the game out.

So imagine if Spanish Apolyton comes out of the blue and Impi-rushes RB, destroying them early on. A lot of prominent RB members (Sullla, SevenSpirits, ruff_hi) have already established themselves here, and will likely come play here. Others, with their inbred hate of CFC, may choose to go to WPC, Apolyton or CivPlayers. Only a small minority, if any, will go to the other four. This will mean that the we will receive a huge advantage compared to the other four, who will not have the benefit of of having the extra information, man-hours and opinions that the RB players would bring with them.

Especially if the elimination comes early, the extra knowledge of the map and such could be a game-breaking advantage. All for the sake of being an anglophone forum. Not very fair, is it?

 

[Sommerswerd]

When a team is elimminated there are usually only 1 or 2 refugees. Refugees have very little "say" in what goes on because they're... well... refugees. "If your team got elimminated then obviously you don't know what you're doing" is the general attitude towards them or the way they feel about themselves without anyone actually saying it.

But all that unqualified opinion that I just spouted doesn't matter. The main point is we don't want to bring up any new side issues on the rules. We should stay focused on the one issue, get it resolved and start. Right?

 

[talonschild]

Absolutely correct. I feel that while Bowsling has something of a point, it would be too much fuss. let's just play the damn game.

 

[Bowsling]

I don't imagine there will be too much opposition to it - as you said already, there isn't a huge amount of refugees in the first place, so removing the rule won't have too much of an effect on the game. It is merely to avoid a situation where one team could gain an in-game advantage simply due to their forum's language.

 

[talonschild]

Any fuss, right now, is too much.

 

[tobiasn]

Speaking about fuss, we've yet to win the debate on the resource denial Lex Espy rule.

I was re-reading the public thread, and I saw this post by apy guy mzprox, that no-one even answered to.

If this was possible, isn't this a pretty good compromise? That any team at war occupying first spot can allow (well.. for it to be effective it needs to be force) the other team to double move, thus being able to stop the perpetual denial, at least for one turn - in the case that other team also wants to force double move.

It removes un-enforceable rules (unless the APT mod doesn't allow this..), and it puts a considerable tactical "cost" to the team that wants the second spot.

For me it sounds like a really good idea. But I don't know for sure, can anyone give some input on this?

 

[DaveShack]

I still think the resource denial thing is a bit of a red herring to begin with. If a team puts so much work into building spies so they can have a perpetual line of them running across the map, they have left themselves open to attack along other avenues. I think the RB team just consider it dishonorable to play that way, so they will do what they can to ensure nobody else can do it.

 

[Bowsling]

I'm going to post my personal opinion about the refugee rule in the rules discussion thread. If the other teams make a fuss about it, I'll drop it.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I still think the resource denial thing is a bit of a red herring to begin with.

And as I think it was HUSch pointed out, the house rules forbid any restrictions on espionage anyway. IIRC DNK basically admitted that he didn't care a whit about bombardment or other forms of resource denial... he just wanted to nerf espionage because he was so sure that CFC was going to run an espionage economy... so yea, this whole issue is a big fat (well actually a tiny small) red herring that just needs to be thrown back.

I think the RB team just consider it dishonorable to play that way, so they will do what they can to ensure nobody else can do it.

Exactly. I think I am starting to understand the RB guys thinking a little better. When they say that something is OP, unbalanced, unfair, etc, what they mean is OP, unfair etc *. The "*" meaning:

* - "Given the house rules that RB Generally uses"

So when someone says "There is no counter to resource denial through spy sabotage," What they really mean is "There is no counter to resource denial through spy sabotage, given the house rules that RB generally uses." When you think of it this way, alot of the things they say that seem absurd, unreasonable, etc make more sense. For example:

Since RB likes to play their games with the NCTON house rule (basically, no diplo allowed), they can't accept solutions that rely on diplo, as they see diplo as an exploitative, undesireable, inferior way of playing. To them, diplo is basically cheating, and so suggesting that they use diplo (ie get the Oil from an ally so you cant have it denied by spies) to counter resource denial is totally unacceptable to them. It's like telling them to counter cheating with more cheating.

Or if you say "Use counter-espionage and stationary spies" or "run the espy slider so your opponent does not get so heavy a discount against you" they can not accept such a thing, because they think using spies in the first place is heresey in the highest degree, so using spies to counter spies ??? Oh the humantity! What blasphemy! We would rather commit sepuku :suicide:than add blasphemies on top of blasphemies!

 

[Sommerswerd]

Anyway the point is... They want to nerf espionage so they dont have to worry about it, and they can maximize their efforts without the burden of worrying about espionage...

But I dont want them to be able to forget about espionage. I want them to be having nightmares about us switching their civics every 5 turns and sabotaging their Iron and their copper and their Oil every single turn at the end of the turn so that they can never ever build a single solitary Destroyer or Frigate or Maceman. I want them tossing and turning about how they are going to stop us from stealing every single thing they tech and seeing all their cities and every move they make.

I want this because it will screw up their focus and distract them into wasting time trying to build an impenatrable anti-espionage defense, while we slowly but surely get ahead of them.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I have posted above a break down of the turns that (I think) remove all disadvantages / advantages to going 1st or 2nd.

Did anyone see this "break down"? I couldnt find it

And I literally laughed out loud at this...

I've also said there is another option - use the civ4 simultaneous engine while everyone is at peace and the civ4 sequential engine while at least 2 teams are at war. Can someone with pitboss experience tell me if this is actually possible?

YES!!! ITS CALLED THE SPANISH MOD!

Another thing that is super rich I keep hearing people talk about how this is only a problem in simultaneous turns not sequential. Why do people keep saying that?

If we are playing sequential and you are first to move and I am last to move I will ALWAYS be able to destroy your resource at the end of the turn, no matter who declares war first. The build phase still does not happen until the turn roll anyway, regardless of whether it is sequential or simultaneous turns. So with "sequential" movement the last guy to move still has the power of perpetual resource denial.

EDIT: So all this just to nerf one espy mission

Spoiler :

03. In Game Actions (sequential game items)

Ok, I said I wasn't going to cover this ... and I won't (with rules). However, that won't stop me from pointing a few things out.

All of the rules about this item are only required because we don't want to fight a war simultaneously - we want to fight it sequentially. The reasons are pretty clear (for example: people with faster connections / quicker fingers win and that doesn't reflect better civ ability). The mod we have voted to play under forces the two opponents into individual segments of the turn. It does nothing during non-war.

DaveShack has suggested a three way split ...... but that still leaves some pretty big holes open. I actually posted a 6 way split that does get a little ridiculous but I think it doesn't have any holes in it ...

Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveShack
As I understand it, the mod can be set up to only log possible DM activity, while not preventing the login. If we went that route, with a clear understanding that movement in the wrong part of the turn is prohibited but other actions are not, then we could adopt my proposal of having 3 periods in the turn:

Team A moves and does other actions
Team B moves and does other actions
Both team A and B can do post-movement actions

... but that still leaves some pretty big holes open. I actually posted a 6 way split that does get a little ridiculous but I think it doesn't have any holes in it ...

Quote:
Segment 1 - player playing first can take non-unit moving, non worker actions
Segment 2 - player playing second can take non-unit moving, non worker actions
Segment 3 - player playing first can take unit moving actions
Segment 4 - player playing second can take unit moving actions
Segment 5 - player playing first can take worker actions
Segment 6 - player playing second can take worker actions

I am pretty sure that all of the above can actually be coded with a mixture of the DLL and Python.

That said, I am also pretty sure that no one would actually want to go to the effort of having to play each turn 3 times.

Another option is that we play a simultaneous pitboss game that is flipped to sequential pitboss game if someone declares war. Can that be done? And to overcome the issues of the pre-war turn ... if you want to declare war, you wait until everyone has played the turn, then announce that you are declaring war, the game is converted to a sequential pitboss game and everyone gets to play that turn again (with exactly the same moves). That last bit is unenforceable but we can trust people to execute it (can't we?).

I'm not sure if I need the next bit as this is something that I could be argued is Ruff posting and not RB Ruff Rule Debater posting ... but oh well ...

Spoiler My nic is Ruff and I endorse this message :

Please Note: This post is posted while wearing my official 'RB Rule Discussion' hat. The views, opinions and comments expressed in this post represent my views while wearing said hat. I am not authorized to bind RB to any decision, conclusion, concession or agreement that I might endorse while acting in this particular role. I am authorized to push forward the rule discussion.

So yea like I said ... God... what is this argument even ABOUT?

 

[DaveShack]

What do y'all think about this?

What if the player in the second half refuses to double move in order to maintain the resource denial advantage?

Again calling them A and B for brevity.

1. Turn order is A, B
2. B is denying A's resource
3. A demands a swap of turn orders
4. Turn order swap
5. Turn order B, A
6. (optional step) B does not want to double move, so skips turn (this is their only recourse within the mod, as the mod will end turn automatically)
7. A takes turn -- absolute turn order is preserved but relative turn order is swapped.

Proposal: A team at war may demand a turn order swap after 3 turns in their current turn order position. (The number 3 is arbitrary, if you want it higher or lower that's easily negotiable)

I will also put this before CFC to see if we can agree on it officially.