Team Pitboss Game

Civstats were down today and it was difficult to find out how much time left to play and who played already. Looks like as a result Bowsling was about to loose his turn, and since he is at war, I paused the game for him to avoid this. Since I am pausing for Bowsling, I will also take this opportunity to finish my turn at more convenient hour - Bowsling, please pause back after you play.

Cal, almost everybody is at war with each other in hour game now, which forces complicated turn order and I think we could use a longer timer, like 60-80 hours. At least I have problems playing within limits of the current timer, especially that I am very busy with work this month.
 
game unpaused. We don't need anymore of these game killing pauses for your convenience and my inconvenience. 48 hours is plenty, and Bowsling is dead anyway. This is getting ridiculous.
 
game unpaused. We don't need anymore of these game killing pauses for your convenience and my inconvenience. 48 hours is plenty, and Bowsling is dead anyway. This is getting ridiculous.

Slaze, it is you who are getting ridiculous. It will not be another war as with Mayic, when you will fight a non-playing opponent.

You should be grateful I keep playing on, most people in my place would just rage quit.
 
It's not fair when you have extra time to do all the diplo you need. Thank you for playing on, please play your turns in the alloted time.
 
Listen guys.

I set up this game for the team, with emphasis on the fact that this was supposed to be a game to keep team morale and let the team have fun together. I have hosted a few games now, and this game is starting to be something I dread having to make decisions for because I enjoy talking and playing with all of you guys, and I would hate to see any decision I make antagonise any of you. I do know that sometimes being a game host/admin means you just have to step on someone's toes, and if it becomes necessary I would do so - it's part of the job. Before making any decision though, I would like you all to consider what I write here very carefully, since again - this was supposed to be a friendly game among friends in the team:

In any multiplayer game that involves real people there will be incidents where someone is hurt by someone else's actions, decisions etc. Sometimes people forget that the baseline of what they're doing is playing a game. The point of a game is to have fun together. Some multiplayer games are far more competitive than others, and obviously a Civ4 game is competitive by nature. For some people this competitiveness is fun, while for others (like myself) competitiveness is just a byproduct of something else (I enjoy the personal interactions of multiplayer games a lot more than just winning). Now, the important part here is to accept that when we play multiplayer games together, especially ones with high elements of competitiveness, there will be incidents that can arise that have the potential to create interpersonal conflicts.

It would seem that this game has created some interpersonal conflicts, and I am sorry to see that. It is highly difficult for me as the host and admin of the game to make decisions for a game where there is interpersonal conflicts, as I am certain to step on someone's toes - and the fact that I know most of you doesn't really make it any easier. In this specific incident I have three options:

1. I can grant a timer increase, which will please Maga but make slaze unhappy.
2. I can deny a timer increase, which will please slaze but make Maga unhappy.
3. I can ignore the request until you guys to sort out a majority decision (and only if that majority decision is a timer increase, intervene).

So tell me, what is the correct decision for me to make? And by what method do I reach a decision?

A final alternative is to just save the game, shut it down, and ask you guys to either sort out your personal conflicts before the game continues (if at all) or find a different host. One thing I've noticed in the time I have been a part of the Civ communities is that there's nothing better to kill a game than a conflict between players that has turned into a personal dispute. Now, I will not do this, but I urge you all to please try to resolve whatever personal conflicts you have managed to create between yourselves and play out the game with good sportsmanship (which means both winning or losing the game with a smile).

For the time being, I will not make a decision but wait for some more feedback from you guys - particularly on what I have written here. If you are a participant of the game who is outside of any personal conflict, then please just state whether you want a timer increase or not.
 
I have played plenty of MP games and you have to remember that it is just a game where everyone is trying to win. And since I have played many with the same players, in one game I have been bitter foes with one player and in another game we are closest allies. Just remember that each game is different just not take any deal breaking personally.
 
Caledorn, I'm going to warn you in advance of my post that I have mixed feelings about all this, and may not give you a straight answer, but you asked for feedback, so time to share. :)

1) You aren't alone in your dilemma over pause rules. I also participate in a few games over at WPC and I'd say game pauses generate more forum activity than any other topic. (usually 2 or more players trying to work out how to get out of the diplomacy screen, :cringe: ) In fact, a whole thread was started by one of the veteran members with an aim to ban pausing (and even reload requests) in all forms. Many agreed, fewer disagreed, as usual I said nothing because I was sitting on the fence (and still am). I don't think anything was ever settled. Pausing is definitely still in heavy use at WPC and probably always will be. But here's the link to the thread. may offer you some insight as a host.
http://www.weplayciv.com/forums/showthread.php?7900-new-rule-no-pause-and-no-reload!&p=273778#post273778

2) My first ever pitboss experience was as a host, actually. I set up a game for my friends in 2010. It was super fun for the first while, but then a rumour started circling that one of the players (and so one of our friends as well) was actually playing 2 civs. I'll leave out the sordid details, but long story short, everyone looked to me to do something about this and it left me in a awkward position. I really had no idea what to do. I was hosting and playing and finally decided the direct approach was the best approach. (Are you playing 2 civs? No. Oh, ok, thanks.) But the accusations only picked up from there. I decided that I had done my due diligence as host, and it was time to do something about it as a player. The evidence was overwhelming, so I gathered a coalition of allies and prepared for an invasion, but at the last second, all my "allies" backed out on me because they didn't want to get involved. Somewhere, somehow, in their minds the dispute had become something between me and this guy alone. And it was all because I was host! So I went in alone and let's just say things have never been the same. There are some folks who played in that game that have never played since and are convinced that bts pitboss games ruin lives. Friendships ended in that game! The end result was me rage quitting, and since I was the host, also rage CRASHING and shutting the game down forever. It took me years to get over it. To this day, I think back on that game and get red in the face, 1/2 embarrassment for blowing up the game (I basically took the Risk game board and flipped it upside down and stomped out of the room in a virtual sense) and 1/2 out of righteous indignation that although everyone just expected me to be able to police the game, when I suggested dealing with cheaters the old fashioned way (ganging up and wiping him out) everyone flaked and I ended up being the bad guy. Just writing about it makes me want to load the game back up so I can tell everyone it's going again and then just when things get good, SHUT IT DOWN AGAIN!!! Anyway, all this to say, I empathize, dude. I really do.

3) I finally started hosting again, three years later. Right now I'm hosting a Fall From Heaven game with mostly the same friends (except those who retired forever) and things are much better. We don't pause ever, and in fact, pretty much ignore all the other normal rules as well. (Double turns, turn order, heck, I wouldn't be surprised if some of us were playing two civs again!) But part of the reason it's all good is that I've learned to just shut out the noise as a host. I have one job, keep the game going, reload when it crashes, make sure civ stats is ok. (Actually FFH and civstats hate each other, so it's quite the challenge).

4) Classical Here is bang on. for in-game backstabs, you have to just let it go. But we are humans and I now have a theory that everybody freaks out at least once, maybe more. I certainly did. After all, these games can dominate the psyche for years, and so much time and effort is invested that when it starts to unravel, people lose their s**t and maybe that can't be avoided, not until it's happened to you a few times. I play a lot of dungeons and dragons as well and same thing there. any betrayals are magnified because instead of it being a one-night only kind of thing, d&d campaigns stretch on forever.

So Caledorn, all this to say, if I were you, I'd go with option 3. Ignore us. reload when it crashes, deny all other reloads. stay out of pause disputes altogether and let us fight it out on the forum. If drama escalates... well, I think that's part of the fun actually, and inevitable... but as per above, I feel kind of tempered now after so much fire.

My final thought relates to the sports world. The intrateam is an exhibition game, a sideshow to the real deal that is the intersite, meaning it doesn't count in the standings if you will... is that a "Friendly" in football/soccer? Anyway, keeping that in mind, I think keeping the game going is more important than making sure everyone has a 100% chance to finish their turn, or undo mistakes, or any of that stuff that would be important in "the pros"

Hopefully this post sheds some light on my in-game actions as well. Cav/Aivo, my new enemies, please understand that the main reason I am at war with you right now is that on a straight up Fun/Not Fun analysis, invading your fine continent seemed to be my best option.

Kind regards,
dratboy
 
Thank you for that excellent feedback, dratboy! It is very much appreciated. :)

I'm sorry to read that #2 paragraph. It's a shame when games become so important to people that winning the game becomes more important than friendship. It's never a good thing when someone tries to fool their fellow players by playing more than one civ, and I guess it can be construed as cheating - at least if the other players are not given the chance to say yes or no to someone playing more than one civ in a game.

The game crashed this morning for some reason, while Maga was logged in, so I had to reload from the autosave on login for Maga. Game is back up now.
 
Hello,

It is after midnight here and I am too tired to read the fine points of extended timer discussion.

The situation is that game keeps crashing on me whenever I am trying to play and it is only four hours on the timer, so please take into account that I will not be able to play until 8 pm tomorrow (I am US central time) that is 20 hours from now. Hopefully nobody will object to this, reloading the game during middle of my night or my workday will cause me to loose the turn.

Cal, the worse thing is that I have no idea what is causing this problem, but it happened two times when I was logged in - was it something on your side or is it likely to happen again when I would log in? I had no problems playing PB14 (yesterday, did not try today yet) which is also on your server.

@2metra - feel free to name workers after me, it would be actually nice to be able to contribute to the team in such a way

@slaze, the pause was not for my diplo, as Caledorn can certify, I tried to play the turn on time - even though I was backstabbed in an extremely inconvenient moment. Not that there is ever a convenient moment to be backstabbed, but I learnt at a similar time that I somehow missed info that I am supposed to give an hour long talk at work next day - that I had yet to prepare - and was generally feeling unwell, and my whole family went down with flu for next couple of days, which was main cause of the delay. Anyway, unfortunately for me I played most of my turn at the time I was supposed to, but run into unexpected technical problems with finishing it and generally my hardware was rather disgusted with the whole situation, which resulted in my router dying and no internet connection other than phone one at some point.

Now the game keeps crashing on me, cannot guarantee that it would stop, hopefully the problem is on Caledorns end. Anyway, going to sleep now as game crashed again, I did not played at all yet, just looked at the situation. Will have another window to play between 20-24 hours from now.
 
Sorry, apparently this time it was only my civ crashing, not the whole game, so i should be able to play my turn - trying now.
 
Well said, Dratboy. I completely agree that main point for playing the game (any game for that matter) is to have fun. In Civ war and diplomacy are part of the game. IMO, unless it's specifically stated in house rules, anything goes in that front, except for exploits and cheating, obviously.

Hopefully this post sheds some light on my in-game actions as well. Cav/Aivo, my new enemies, please understand that the main reason I am at war with you right now is that on a straight up Fun/Not Fun analysis, invading your fine continent seemed to be my best option.
No worries. I'm rather enjoying the excitement myself :) And I've also declared my fair share of wars in this game, so it would be really poor sportsmanship for me to start complaining about your DoW now.
 
Hi everyone, had to pause the game in the middle of my turn :rolleyes: as my day job suffers no tardiness. I'll finish it up in probably 4-6 hours or so. Thannnnnks!
 
Hi guys, I am sorry, but now that the 3rd person in a row broke their agreements with me - and is not even answering the messages why, even though he has read them - I just had enough and I am not gonna play anymore.

It is not about winning or loosing - my civ is still in a good shape to win - dratboy cannot sabotage my space ships parts - in a NAP-breaking manner- fast enough, especially now that I have run a counterespionage mission against him, i can built them much faster and i have a great scientist that can found Aluminum Co anytime ... and using Christo Redentor and my spies already in position I can put both him and Slaze into stone age civics, ruining their economies, I may have a chance to do the same through "world considers you a villain" UN resolutions etc. And despite Slaze's cocky boasts, it became evident that "wiping me off the map" would take much longer than he expected - and I actually had a good chance to still win, I have completed 6 space ship parts already and the next turn I will be completing 7 new space ships parts, including the most expensive one, the Engine.

But I just do not see a point anymore, I am just really busy at work now and I really do not see why I would like to put any more of my time into this game.

Nobody was forced to make their agreements with me - and when I made NAP with Slaze, my army was about triple size of his, as you can see from the power graphs. If somebody does not like diplo - or is simply not good at it - there are "always war" games.

I also do recognize that the game become rather boring for a long while - with nobody but Bistrita's and mine civ having any chance of winning. I have also wondered, how much it had to do with my NAPs. I have been even saving some save files and asked Caledorn if it would be technically possible to replay from these saves and if he would be up to it, if there is interest, to both of which he replied positively.

Imho, if you realize the only way to win is through NAP breaking, the honorable thing to do is to just concede - or try to renegotiate the NAP. I amy be actually willing to do it - providing a generous cancelation period - as I was also bored by the lack of challenge. and I would definitely be up for a replay for fun, if you guys would concede to Bistrita's and mine civ first.

But unfortunately, even though Bistrita did an amazing job of developing Sumeria initially - and i have not been playing badly recently, either, after fumbling horible for the first couple of turns - majority of players seemed to think that as a newbie - or "as a girl"? - I simply cannot be allowed to win this and everything goes :(.

So yeah, you have won in that that you drove me to quit - I hope your victory will feel as deserved as it is ;)

And thank you Aivoturso, Bowsling and Cav scout, for always being honorable with your dealings with me and keeping your promises.

I am sorry for this conclusion - this is definitely not how such games should end - but as I said unfortunately I cannot find any motivation to put any more time into this, even though "winning" in terms of final civstat score is still quite likely for my civ. But anyway I have lost in all other aspects I cared more about :(.
 
I have tried several times to ask Maga to tell everyone herself, but apparently she is more concerned with the NAP breaking. In light of the post she just posted I see no other alternative anymore but to state this outright:

Maga has been playing two additional civs in the game under cover of pretending to be the players in question. One of those civs she has played for a long time now, and that civ was her vassal in the game. The other civ was played only a few times as a temporary sub (which in itself should be okay), but some quite shady deals were set up that left that civ in a strike.

I will leave it to the players to decide what to do with this information. The irony of what you wrote in your post about someone playing two civs was just incredible, dratboy, as I was sitting on this information at the time you wrote that. Given Maga's resignation I have resigned her civ to AI effective immediately to not hold up the game any further for the rest of you.

As an outside observer, I have to add that your attempts at guilt tripping people over breaking a nap is quite appalling considering this, Maga. If you had won this game, your victory would have been anything but fair under these circumstances, and if you hadn't vassalized one of the civs you did, the entire game would have evolved completely different as that civ would most likely had been conquered by someone else a long time ago.
 
(I wrote this before I saw Caledorn's post :eek2:, and also before realizing Maga is totally gone... but would be a waste of my time not to post now... my take on the game follows)

I only have three things to say, and will not be debating them, but I will say my peace with utmost respect to all players, especially you Maga. Sorry you weren't having fun. Not sorry for what I did.

1) I think I made it fairly clear that launching your civ into space was an unacceptable end-game maneuver, and broke the spirit of our NAP utterly, if not in the strictest legal sense. I called on you to cease this operation, but you refused. I recall that we agreed to live in peace forever until we were the last two left, whereupon we would fight it out in an honourable war to determine the winner. To think that my precious aluminum and other resources was fueling your escape to the stars! And you didn't even tell me about it! I think I deserved that much. My spies had to inform me. The same spies that blew up your docking bay. A bloody impressive feat, I must say. Imagine them infiltrating your highly guarded space program and managing to carry out zero-grav commando operations! It's right out of a Sci-Fi novel which I should write!

2) Speaking of the strictest legal sense, when Slaze and I got to talking, we discovered that we both, in fact, had the exact same deal with you, right down to the "till we're the last 2 civs in the game" clause. The essence of legalism is loopholes. You hold 2 mutually-belligerent powers at bay, convince them to fight each other, Take Bowsling as a vassal under Slaze's nose (an act of war, in my opinion, btw) and pour all your efforts into a victory exclusive of either of us. A nice move, I say. Very nice move and kudos to you. And it will probably still work (why are you quitting?) but if Slaze and I ever talked... I think this outcome is pretty much inevitable. We certainly have enough to make our case in the International Court of Pitboss.

3) I encourage you to not quit and ride this out. If/when you win, the victory will be even sweeter. If you are so certain of your victory, why stop? Just cease communications and get it done. Can't be many turns now. Replaying from a point in the past does not interest me at all. I'm having a fun little war right now and your spaceship threatens to end it before the good stuff starts. Do it for me, Maga! If you quit now, my backstab and its long-standing consequences will have been all for nothing. Sorry, bad joke. Seriously though, don't quit! Play! These next 10 turns or so are going to be very exciting!

I hope this was all civil enough ...

Kind Regards,
dratboy
 
LOL I like your laconic way, Slaze.

I've been involved in this game too subbing for DaveShack back then and I had quite a drama for such a small and episodic role, so I am going to say my thoughts on what was said lately and how the game evolved and ended too.
 
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