ISDG 2012 - Server Announcements, Connection Issues and Questions

[YossarianLives]

Oxy has stated he will take over:

I probably can't do it: I'll have at least one 5-day absence where I won't have good enough internet for pitboss. I can play for a couple weeks if you need somebody to keep the game running until a more permanent sub is found.

On a second thought, I can do it for most of the time. I'll just be unable to play from April 9-16, so I'll need a sub/pause then. Obviously, if there's someone more willing/able to play, I'll bow out.

Caledorn, do you have the Maya password to give him?

 

[Veter]

i think UCiv need paused game for CFC.

 

[2metraninja]

My main computer is somewhat broke (random HDD failures when he decides) but I got to play.

 

[Caledorn]

I am taking the game down for approximately 30 minutes now.

 

[Caledorn]

-redundant- so removed.

 

[Caledorn]

Okay - the game is back up, as I found a way to change the pass by turning to AI without the AI being able to end turn. Oxyphenbutazone is now in control of Maya.

The game is paused, and I will let Oxyphenbutazone unpause the game and play the turn. I reloaded the game to the Hulkmusclor autosave-on-login last turn, so he gets to play the turn that HulkMusclor played previously.

I realise this is a harsh admin ruling, and I don't expect HulkMusclor nor CivFR is happy with it. It was a decision that I am 100% certain is needed for the game to progress in a better manner, as CivFR has been given several warnings about missed turns. CivFR: If you have a problem with my decision then please keep it out of this thread. If you feel the need to rage at me, then do so in a private message - my ruling and decision stands however, no matter how much you rage at me. Given the number of warnings and the chances you got to rectify the missed turns etc, there is no way I am allowing you to retake control of the Maya, and Oxyphenbutazone will play the rest of the game on behalf of the Maya.

Nonetheless; Thank you for your participation in the game, CivFR!

 

[Hulkmusclor]

Delicious to see that the admin is a part of a team.

It's the bigger scandale that I have seen in the Pitboss's game history.

 

[Caledorn]

Delicious to see that the admin is a part of a team.

It's the bigger scandale that I have seen in the Pitboss's game history.

I am not part of any team. Like I have explained you were issued several warnings about missed turns, and you spent 5-10 minutes max per turn. In a war situation that speaks volumes about your commitment to the game at this point, and it's grossly unfair to the teams that are still heavily committed to the game that you play critical war turns in such a manner.

Like I also said, I expect you are very unhappy with my ruling, but this is far from a scandal given the number of warnings I gave you and the fact that I even had to go to your (French) private forum to attract your team's attention since none of your responded here in this thread which is an absolute minimum expectation that the participants keep up to date on.

Now, this is my final word on the matter in the public thread, and if you have any more to say on the matter please take it into private messages with me, or don't post at all.

 

[Hulkmusclor]

I am not part of any team.

Ah ? You are not PROUD to be a member of CFC ?

Like I have explained you were issued several warnings about missed turns,

And so what ? I missed maxi 4 turns. I have an IRL and I'm alone. I know that in a teamer, pauses are abusives so here we go.

However, I see two points :

- More civs paused the game.

- All civs except maybe Uciv don't push enter.

The slowing down isn't an argument.

and you spent 5-10 minutes max per turn. In a war situation that speaks volumes about your commitment to the game at this point, and it's grossly unfair to the teams that are still heavily committed to the game that you play critical war turns in such a manner.

Sorry, I'm a not a noob, I know what I have to do in 10 mn. Sorry if it isn't your case.

Funny argument, thanks. I laughed.

Like I also said, I expect you are very unhappy with my ruling, but this is far from a scandal given the number of warnings I gave you and the fact that I even had to go to your (French) private forum to attract your team's attention since none of your responded here in this thread which is an absolute minimum expectation that the participants keep up to date on.

It's imparable. "How to compromite himself his decision" in one lesson.

Now, this is my final word on the matter in the public thread, and if you have any more to say on the matter please take it into private messages with me, or don't post at all.

Sir, yes, sir.

See you, marionette.

 

[Arabplayer]

Hi,

As a member of the uciv forum (Mehmed) and after having seen what battle just took place in game this is simply unacceptable without consulting any team of the ISDG or without understanding all the reasons why they managed the way they managed their timer. As a member of uciv, Hulkmusclor never stopped any pitboss he played in the past and civfr certainly doesn't deserve to be eliminated this way. I hope Caldedorn you understood that this decision is destroying this pitboss and as an admin your only right is to punish a cheating team not taking unilateral decisions like this. This thread is also here for us to say what we think publicly even if this is against your opinion. I don't know if my team will also continue to play if this unbearable decision doesn't change also a lot of people made a lot of efforts into it and this kinda choice simply kills any will to continue this game seriously and with simply fun + it impacted too much the game and you exactly know what i mean...

 

[mzprox]

Maya player gave me an impression that they don't care about the game (and not just during the war, but by their certain dealings and actions (or lack of) with other players which actually made us to attack them).
It is against sportmanship not to reload a game when someone misses it during war, and it happened more than once and when I complained all i got to mind my own buisness, this is not the way to act in a team game. Yet in my last post I said that I'm fine with continue as we were, though i don't understand why maya did not ask for sub if they had no intention to play seriously.

 

[Caledorn]

You are all free to voice your opinions as long as you keep the discussion civil. My decision stands, though.

Part of being an admin also means making sure the game does not die because of one weak link, even if some of you may disagree with that.

Hulkmusclor: I used to be part of Team CFC back even before RB was eliminated. I left that behind when I took on the role as admin. My former participation in that team has nothing to do with this decision, and I have thoroughly explained why I made this decision. If you choose to believe otherwise, then that is your prerogative, and there is absolutely nothing I can do to change that anyways, so I don't see any reason to attempt to convince you otherwise if you've decided that is the case.

 

[Arabplayer]

nothing proves that they didn't take the game seriously i am sorry...

missing 3 or 4 turns during an entire game (what they told) and playing 10 minutes per turn (wich is "seen" as a lack of serious) is far from behing a real reason to kick an entire team who is in a middle of a war and where they just won a big battle...

 

[zioun]

Hello guys,

I'm sorry : i don't read this forum very often, but i was alerted on what its going on...

I don't speak here for UCIV but personnaly (as arabplayer does).

It is true that turns are often too long, and that the game is losing some interest cause of this....It is also true that sometimes Civfr is the civ which don't end turns but they are not alone. Except us (but we have no war and that change a lot for sure), i think all civs could make an effort. That said, i know Hulkmusclor and i don't suspect him to have a will to ruin the game or to slow it on purpose. Maybe you can imply some others players in your team Hulk ?

Anyway, on the decision made by Caledorn, i'm able to understand the will of our admin but i really think it happens too soon and that the decision is too hard !

A reasonnable way is to give all of us some time : lets maintain Civfr as they are today for some times (for 2 weeks for example) just to see if we are all able to make an effort to end turns quickly.

If this experience failed, then we could think about other measures but i say that it is really too soon to take so harsch measures now...Please lets all think about the interest of the game and the investment of all !

PS : the 10 minutes are really not an argument...it happens very often for me to play in less than that and that don't mean i don't care of the game...

 

[mzprox]

nothing proves that they didn't take the game seriously i am sorry...

missing 3 or 4 turns during an entire game (what they told) and playing 10 minutes per turn (wich is "seen" as a lack of serious) is far from behing some real reasons to kick an entire team who is in a middle of a war where they just won a big battle...

Your perspective is wrong, i'm sorry. the problem is not missing 3-4 turns and playing only 10 mins/turn..
the problem is:
-neglecting the game. I had visibility, i saw what was going on (some slave/draft here and there, but for example for long many units stayed way behind the front line istead to stop our invasion. sometimes the play time was 1-2 mins altogether.), BUT this is the lesser problem.. quite unfortunate and bad for the game, but I wouldn't had complained just for this. And tbh this neglect is not unique to the mayan team.. not wana name others. (and i stress i talk about during war-time now)
-The real problem is staying away from the game during war and not even giving a notice or later an apology or something.. I don't want to wage war against someone who misses turns..what's the point. But then always waiting/reloading is also bad.

 

[Caledorn]

Anyway, on the decision made by Caledorn, i'm able to understand the will of our admin but i really think it happens too soon and that the decision is too hard !

A reasonnable way is to give all of us some time : lets maintain Civfr as they are today for some times (for 2 weeks for example) just to see if we are all able to make an effort to end turns quickly.

If this experience failed, then we could think about other measures but i say that it is really too soon to take so harsch measures now...Please lets all think about the interest of the game and the investment of all !

PS : the 10 minutes are really not an argument...it happens very often for me to play in less than that and that don't mean i don't care of the game...

My first warning to CivFR was issued in December in their private forums - we are now in March. So they have been given 3 months to rectify these problems. If my decision is too harsh based on that, I am open to change my decision - but keep in mind that we are in the position where we now have a sub who is willing to take over the gameplay for the team now. In two weeks we may have lost that option, and we may have problems finding another willing sub. Then we will be left with a game that will definitely die because the problems is not resolved, as retiring Maya to AI will severely unbalance the game. And this is my main reason for taking this rather stern action as the game admin: I consider it highly unfair for all the other teams that are heavily invested in this game to let the game die because one team does not enjoy the game enough to even bother playing their turns in a timely fashion.

As for the 10 minute thing; It is highly uncommon for an experienced player in a war situation to spend 5-10 minutes to play his turns. Of course, this is not a universal truth, so this part of the problem is a rather minor one. It has very little weight on why I made my decision compared to the warnings that have been issued about lost turns, where the first warning was issued 3 months ago as stated above.

If the teams unanimously states that they wish control of CivFR to be reinstated to CivFR, then I will of course respect that and reinstate control to CivFR - but before the teams voice their final word in the matter, please take what I have written above - especially the part about a sub being available right now, a situation that may change - into consideration first. Also take into consideration how many times in this thread other teams have asked for a sub to be found for CivFR because of their slowness to play their turns. And finally, I would like the teams to consider asking Team CivFR to promise that they will play their turns in a timely fashion if they get control of their civ back.

 

[Caledorn]

Here is a collection of all the posts in this very thread about the problems we've had with missed turns etc by CivFR (These date back to 20. Dec 2013):

I am going to pause game. Civfr has skipped last turn and now they are going to skip the 2nd one in a row. Game has passed the stage when 1 turn wasnt important. I hope we can keep this game going with full set of players. If Civfr cant provide necessary activeness lets find a sub for them.

Cal, can you warn them on their forum?

Btw, our team will probably be able to make next turn only at Monday (this one we are ready to finish), so we may need pause too. Sorry for delay.

What about increasing timer for holiday period?

I think by now it's safe to assume that maya has abandoned us without a notice... We will need someone to sub for them. I have a feeling we will not need a very long term sub

Not yet. I have received a response on civ.fr, and am awaiting another. Since it's the holiday anyways, it won't be a big deal if the game needs to wait for a few extra days. If I haven't received a response in a few days, I'll revisit the subject.

Keep quiet.

Hell Diplo screen Pause.

3 hour for end turn and civfrance again out. maybe we need regular paused for tham. but only one team what can do it now it is UCiv

I have reloaded from CFC's autosave.

CivFR: Please consider finding someone who can play your turns a bit quicker to avoid this in the future.

with the reload we lost two spies which we didn't at first

40 mins on the timer and maya hasn't played yet. Could someone do something? I can't log in now.

So what now? we just continue?
Someone has to take over the maya.. maybe from a team which is no longer in play. And I mean it.. I don't want to wait for team fr anymore hoping that they jump in for a minute in the last hour or not . If the game will stay on a one turn/week pace I will drop from it very soon.

I think it's up to admin's decision, if the mayan player wants to go on, fine, but must understand that there are other players/teams and their 'fun' depends on each other. If one neglects the game it can cause issues and caused already from other teams as well. I think it should be expected from all team to:
check on the game at least once a day
Log in and finish the turn within time frame,
if there is anything which prevents the above actions write here and explain the situation
bonus: try to play the game normally. spending an average 3mins/turn at this stage is not good.

This is actually against my interest, an inactive enemy is much better for my position ingame (but i just can't stand waiting almost 2 days and not a single log in from maya and when there is it's usually 1-5 mins spent ingame just before the clock ends)

About situation: I estimate the game will end between 40-80 turns, maya will not win the game, but still have considerable army and gnp

Note that as a result of one of the reloads one team lost two spies, which they otherwise wouldn't have lost because they didn't lose them before I had to reload the game. I don't know how much impact that had on said team's gameplay or strategy, but I am not happy about having had to reload the game this much because of lost turns - especially not when it impacts the other teams.

I have left out the tirade of insulting remarks that was thrown back and forth between two teams because of this, as I consider it a minor thing - but I have to add that insulting remarks like the ones that were given (you can go back a page or two if you want to see them - they're there) doesn't exactly speak in favour of changing my ruling.

 

[Caledorn]

Ah ? You are not PROUD to be a member of CFC ?

I should really not bother responding to this, but just so it's crystal clear: Yes, I was proud to be a member of Team CFC. But I am no longer a member of Team CFC. I am the Game Admin. Even Team RB, who was the arch-rival of Team CFC, had faith in my ability to separate my interests from my job.

If you believe I am biased towards supporting Team CFC, then you are wrong - but as I wrote earlier, it is your prerogative to believe that I am biased if you want to, and there is nothing more I can say about the subject.

And so what ? I missed maxi 4 turns. I have an IRL and I'm alone. I know that in a teamer, pauses are abusives so here we go.

However, I see two points :

- More civs paused the game.

I don't think you realise that a lot of the pauses we've been dealing with were made because you did not play your turns. I don't know an exact number of how many pauses were made on your behalf to make sure that your team played their turn, but I know it happened several times. Of course you can say that they shouldn't have paused the game on your behalf, because you don't think missing a turn is important - but then we're back at questioning your view on how important turnplaying is during wartime, as opposed to the view the other teams who are still heavily invested in the game.

 

[2metraninja]

Well, well, well...

And what we do now?

As personal opinion, I am in favor of CivFR playing their nation.

 

[Oxyphenbutazone]

I'm going to decline to play until a clearer decision has been come to. I agreed to do this because I have some free time and I know Cal is a solid guy, but I have no dog in this fight, nor any desire to get involved in this drama.

I will say that it's kind of ridiculous to be playing 5-minute turns and barely whipping and drafting while one is involved in a huge war in the late industrial era. I don't think the potential benefits that an incompetent Mayan defense would yield for some teams should be factored into the decision of ousting the current Maya player from the game.