Ruleset Discussion

[Kloreep]

Any other ways to precisely describe the map should be consider as cheating the rule. In my opinion, it's the intentions behind the rules that must be respected.

How precise is precise?

 

[Majic]

Teams should be allowed to discuss settling agreements before the discovery of paper.. In my experience these agreements often includes some rivers x tiles from cap, or resources, or whatever terrain tiles. Would be silly to consider talking about the map cheating imo..

 

[Lord Parkin]

City gifting should be allowed only at the end of a war, as a peace condition. Of course fake war should be forbidden.

Note that you'd have to define exactly what constitutes a "fake war". And it's difficult to do that without creating loopholes (e.g. something like "X number of battles have to take place" is not foolproof).

Simpler to ban it outright... if you want to lay claim a city, go out and earn it militarily.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Spoiler Quoted Posts :

In my opinion not all decisions should be decided by simple majority. Suppose there is a majority alliance in the game and a rule violation happens. According to 4.5 punishment would be decided by team vote. Even if people try to be just, ingame allegiances can have impact on severity of the punishment.

For that matter, if any decisions that impact directly the game are put to vote (punishments, rule set amendments etc.), the vote cannot happen completely outside the diplomacy. IMO, even if the voting system would not get abused, even a suspicion that it may have can be enough to severely disrupt the game.

IMO, game impacting decisions should be decided so that there is no room for in-game manouvering. Basically I see two options here. First is that any game impacting decisions will be decided by unanimous team vote (or possibly by decisive majority, traditionally 5/6 in many national parliaments). Second option is to leave these to be decided by sole Admin decision. Combinations of these methods are also possible e.g. punishments by Admin decision, rule set amendments by unanimous vote.

On the other hand, decisions that do not really impact the game, could be put to majority vote (e.g. will the game be paused for the Holidays).

In a nutshell, I believe that making major game changing decisions should not be left to simple majority. Minor decision however can be.

As for what constitutes a majority. I prefer having a single definition of this, so there is no debate about if a vote is 'major' or 'minor' a simple majority should be sufficient for any issue that arises. I expect that most teams will act fairly on these votes, because even if their ally breaks a rule, they won't want to give them a pass and invite people to break that rule again to their team's detriment.

A high requirement for a vote to pass (5/6) will create more problems than it solves, especially with the number of teams we have. 5/6 is 7.5 teams out of 9. Meaning at most we could have 1 dissenting vote in such a structure. I think it's more likely that 2 teams will vote to prevent a fair ruling, than 5 teams will vote in favor of an unfair one.

The two major issues where I see simple majority vote is problematic are punishments for rule violations and any ruleset amendments. Honestly, I feel that any majority rule for both is inherently risky idea.

I believe that it is quite unfair to leave deciding judgements on rule violations to players at all. If severity of punishment is voted for by the teams, there is always going to be diplomatic repercussions. That is how human mind works. Even when trying conciously avoid your judgement being clouded by these kinds of things, your subconcious does not listen. And as I said before, it is not actually necessary for any such decision to be unfair. Just the doubt that it might have been can seriously damage the game. That's why I'd rather leave judgements to Admin(s) if possible. Obviously we can, before the game begins, agree on a general guideline to help admins on the decision.

As for ruleset amendments, I am tempted to say that I'd rather not change rules at all during the game. However, I am aware that unexpected things tend to happen. Especially if you're counting it not to happen. Therefore I believe we should prepare for that eventuality. IMO, any change to rules is not fair unless everyone playing does not agree it is fair. Hence, my preference would be that changes to the ruleset are to be decided by unanimous decision. 5/6 or 3/4 majority or such is IMO also bearable. Though, even if one team feels wronged by the change in or addition to pre-agreed rules, it can hurt the game.

Regarding team voting decisions (e.g. for a rule change mid-game, or a decision to reload): I think the simplest solution is to require all votes to be unanimous, or else go to the admin.

- If all teams vote the same way, then the decision goes ahead.
- If there is any dissent from even one team, then the decision goes entirely to the admin. Whatever the admin's decision is, all teams abide by it.

That seems the fairest way to go about it.

 

[Kloreep]

Regarding team voting decisions (e.g. for a rule change mid-game, or a decision to reload): I think the simplest solution is to require all votes to be unanimous, or else go to the admin.

- If all teams vote the same way, then the decision goes ahead.
- If there is any dissent from even one team, then the decision goes entirely to the admin. Whatever the admin's decision is, all teams abide by it.

That seems the fairest way to go about it.

 

[Yuufo]

Is it planned to appoint a referee?

 

[Lord Parkin]

We have r_rolo1 at Civfanatics, who has volunteered for the job of admin/referee.

 

[Inao]

@Lord Parkin & Kloreep
Using loophole or lack of precision is just cheating the rule (this is the way the law work in my country; if you find a loophole in a law and take advantage of it, you may be sue and sentenced).

 

[Aivoturso]

Spoiler Quoted Posts :

Regarding team voting decisions (e.g. for a rule change mid-game, or a decision to reload): I think the simplest solution is to require all votes to be unanimous, or else go to the admin.

- If all teams vote the same way, then the decision goes ahead.
- If there is any dissent from even one team, then the decision goes entirely to the admin. Whatever the admin's decision is, all teams abide by it.

That seems the fairest way to go about it.

Fair and simple. I like that.

 

[Yuufo]

I see there are no Victory conditions discussions.
I assume all Victory types are on?

 

[Lord Parkin]

I see there are no Victory conditions discussions.
I assume all Victory types are on?

Yes, in the absence of any discussion all victory conditions will be on. If you would like to turn some off, you could vote for that in the settings thread.

 

[Kloreep]

@Lord Parkin & Kloreep
Using loophole or lack of precision is just cheating the rule (this is the way the law work in my country; if you find a loophole in a law and take advantage of it, you may be sue and sentenced).

There's loopholes, and then there's badly written rules.

As I said: while I appreciate the spirit, in practice it's going to be a PITA. If made strict enough to actually have more effect than making more work for teams that want to trade maps, I think it will be a cause for much legal wailing and gnashing of teeth, something I'm not really looking for in this game.

As written in the old CFC draft LP posted up, rule 1.2 only forbids in-game screenshots. Taken as-is, I would point out that this is easily circumvented by hand-drawing in Paint. Toothless rule, merely a pain.

Okay, so let's address that for this game: no trading of any images, whatsoever, until Paper. That's still clear enough as a rule, makes the intent clearer, and so solves the matter, right? Except now we trade ASCII maps instead, so it's still toothless so long as teams can find the labor to translate into an acceptable format.

Okay, so we forbid ASCII maps. Except now we're dictating the content of team's written messages, and this is a very fuzzy road to go down intent-wise. What if I say to the civ I just met "Hey, there's a wolf 8-8-9 of your scout, be careful." That's an awfully precise description for a pre-Paper civ; is that over the line? Probably not - though if we're forbidding precise text descriptions of the map someone could certainly argue that it is. What about: "Lets draw the border straight north/south past that mountain. What's east of it, you ask? Well, there's 4 grassland tiles in a square, with the northwest tile being 6 of the mountain. On the northeast grass tile is a cow. The two tiles 8 of the grass square are grass hills, 8 of those are coast. South/2 of the grass square is a plains tile in the west and a desert in the east. Then coast south of that. There's a forest with Spices on the plains tile" Not strictly an ASCII map, but I just gave the equivalent of a 10x2 ASCII map in prose. A larger grid could be described with full sentences by simply going on longer. Am I in trouble for that?

 

[Shoot the Moon]

Yeah, that's why I think screenshot trading should be allowed on contact. Otherwise you wind up either just making people go through a lot of extra hassle for no real reason or you make such a harsh rule that any diplo about even such things as settling discussions becomes questionable. I don't think we should so limit diplomacy especially in a game like this.

 

[DaveShack]

The things described so far in discussing screenshot trading are about the lands between two teams, or around their respective areas. The sticky point is trading images of another team's area. Team A meets Team B, who trade a screenshot showing exactly where Team C is. This may be OK or not depending on your preferences -- I don't have enough MP experience to say whether it matters. But the discussion needs to be about screenshots of a wider area than a 10x10 around an exploring unit.

 

[Aivoturso]

All suggestions for alterations should be made in this thread by 4 June 2012.

BTW, 4 June in what time zone? May I suggest that from now on any deadlines (e.g. for civ/leader selection) will be given in unambiguous format. Since the game is international, I believe UTC would be the logical reference time.

 

[Beto_civfr]

What about the timer duration and the way it should be managed in case of war (supposing that the double move mod is not used) ?

 

[Lord Parkin]

Yeah, that's why I think screenshot trading should be allowed on contact. Otherwise you wind up either just making people go through a lot of extra hassle for no real reason or you make such a harsh rule that any diplo about even such things as settling discussions becomes questionable. I don't think we should so limit diplomacy especially in a game like this.

Plus, it's a very minor issue. Games are not going to be won or lost based on screenshot trades. Even if you learn the location of another civ or find out that someone doesn't have a particular resource, that's something that could just as easily have been conveyed in text (e.g. "Team X is south of you", or "Team Y doesn't have Copper connected").

I think it's far simpler to just allow teams to trade screenshots if they so desire, rather than potentially forcing admin interventions on a fairly insignificant and trivial matter. Teams will be naturally cautious about trading screenshots anyway - and even if they're extremely liberal with trading them, it won't yield them any significant advantage.

Overall it doesn't seem to make sense to make a rule banning the relatively unimportant trading of screenshots, which can be circumvented anyway by diplomacy in a huge number of ways with a huge amount of grey area which isn't really enforceable.

BTW, 4 June in what time zone? May I suggest that from now on any deadlines (e.g. for civ/leader selection) will be given in unambiguous format. Since the game is international, I believe UTC would be the logical reference time.

Fair point, I will make that clear in future. Previously I was using UTC, and generously judging the deadline to be at the END of the day in question.

What about the timer duration and the way it should be managed in case of war (supposing that the double move mod is not used) ?

That shouldn't be too difficult. The minimum time would, of course, be 24 hours per turn at the start (any shorter and some teams may be unable to play). If some teams feel that would be too fast, we could start at 36 or 48 hours.

As for wartime, it makes sense that the turn timer should be multiplied by the number of separate sides involved (i.e. in most cases, 2) - unless ALL teams involved specifically request NOT to increase the turn timer. So if the turn timer was previously 24 hours, it would become 48 hours upon a war declaration - with both sides allowed up to 24 hours to move and end their turns. If later all teams go back to being at peace, the teams could vote on whether to reduce the turn timer or keep it at the longer length. And of course, at any time teams could unanimously agree to lengthen or shorten the turn timer.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Regarding bugs and exploits, there are a number of known ones out there as well as probably several that are relatively unknown or undiscovered.

Rather than trying to make a rule against every individual bug and exploit - which would almost inevitably fall short and leave loopholes around the ones not mentioned - I propose we make a simple blanket rule about any bugs and exploits.

Something like this:

The use of any bugs and exploits is prohibited in this game. The decision about exactly what constitutes a bug or exploit rests entirely with the admin. If you are unsure about whether the admin would consider something you are thinking about doing an exploit, then either (a) consult the admin about it, and/or (b) don't do it at all.

If the admin determines that a bug or exploit has been abused by a team (or teams), then the game will be reloaded to a point before the abuse took place (if possible and practical). Depending on the circumstances, the team (or teams) involved in the exploit abuse may face some further punishment, as the admin sees fit.

 

[Kloreep]

First turn should definitely have an extra-long timer, at least 48 hours. After that a shorter span like 36 or even 24 should work for a while.

 

[2metraninja]

First thing first, I would really like to honestly thank to LP for trying to help and speed up the organization of MTDG3. I am sure it comes from desire this great game to start sooner than later. But I would like to point out that it is r_rolo1 as admin and Sommerswerd and myself as co-organizers of MTDG3 to set the deadlines and presumptions, as I am sure you all will agree that rules are something fundamental for a game and cant be overlooked. We need to hear from all the sites which are going to participate if they have ideas about the rules.

Just like the leader/civ choosing discussions dont needs to wait for the mod to be ready, it doesnt need we to have ruleset ready before actually the game starts.

I am encouraging all team captains/spokesmen to take active participation with discussing the ruleset to make sure we have the best possible rules before the game actually starts.