[SPOILERS] scooter, pindicator, and Huayna Capac try some fast Zulu cuisine

[pindicator]

Maybe I don't understand - is it that the starts are close enough together that they can see each other's borders, or was it that as an artifact of the map making process plako got contact with two people where he shouldn't have?

If it's the first, I'm thinking play on. If it's the second I can see the argument for a restart, but if plako and the two people he met don't mind and just want to play on then I wouldn't mind going on.

[scooter]

I can't imagine there's any way it's #1. We have almost 2k land tiles for 11 players, so the starts definitely aren't super close together.

Anyways, I'm trying not to be contentious about this in the IT thread because I don't want a fun game like this to get a bad start, but I do feel strongly about this. And I'm fine with any mechanism to help the hut-poppers. I"m even fine with letting them choose between keeping or re-trying their huts. To me that's much less significant than the EPs.

[pindicator]

Then I would defer to the players affected. If they choose to play on I'll trust them not to trade maps or do any AI Diplo until they actually meet each other in game. I don't think 60 - 80 EP is worth a fight in the IT thread, especially for a casual game.

[scooter]

I guess my point is - we are the players affected, not them. This can only help them, except maybe Plako if he's met more than the others.

Anyways, we're talking about a very minor delay in the first turn rolling (less than 24 hours since people need time to think on what they see), which seems to be really trivial compared to the effects on the game. I think it's impatient players, but we saw the negative effects of being impatient when we all got our starts before the map was decided upon.

But yeah, don't want to start a big fight either. So I really don't know what to do.

[NobleHelium]

Fight aversion is overrated.

[scooter]

Much more overrated: burning bridges because you can't swallow your pride. :P

I'm less inclined to make a fuss over this if Pindicator doesn't agree with me. So I'll probably keep quiet in the public thread - I've spoken my piece, if I'm "outvoted" then fine.

[pindicator]

Looks like plako wants a restart, so all is in agreement.

[NobleHelium]

This is for Commodore:



It's not about pride...it's about what makes sense.

Oh and we popped Astronomy from our hut, thanks!

[Mardoc]

Do any of you lurkers who are not playing here seriously think playing on is an option here? Am I nuts for being shocked that a restart is even being debated? This seems like such an obvious "must be restarted" thing.

Sure, I'll be a Devil's Advocate. Early contact is worth maybe 100 free EP and some extra C&D knowledge. Knowledge that is disproportionately likely to be about a team you don't border. How does that compare to the following:

• A hut that pops a tech, vs a hut that pops a map of a bunch of ice. Or vs not even having a hut within scouting range
  
• Getting the very first bear spawn right next on the other side of the forest you just entered
  
• A standard event
  
• A start with an extra resource (remember, no nerfs, just boosts)
  
• A start with extra room to expand, or nicer neighbors
  
• Having copper as your strategic resource, vs having iron
  
• Mining luxuries vs Calendar luxuries
  
• Having Mansa Musa of India vs Augustus of Arabia
  

Given that all of the above are random luck bonuses that are agreed on to be simply accepted, what's one more? Sure, it's caused by an outside-the-game misclick instead of the mapscript RNG, and it wasn't agreed on like the others. But it'll most likely be outweighed by the results of the above anyway.

It'd be very different if you were playing with a truly balanced map and RB-standard bans, a snake pick, and so on.

Course, that's an argument that the benefits of restarting are low. It has to be compared to the cost, which all depends on Krill/sunrise's availability. If you assume that's 3-4 days, like it took to get the game running, you'll have a different result than if they're already posting that they're here and able to help immediately .

Not that it matters, since I don't have a vote, nor apparently the same perspective on the game, and it looks like the restart will happen anyway. Take it as a guess on what the naysayers are thinking.

[scooter]

Thanks Mardoc. Looks like the reload is happening, so it's a moot point.

However, I don't think that's good logic at all. All those things you listed are things we explicitly said we wanted by signing up for this game. All those things are simulation of playing what is basically a random SP game without the AI. A mapmaker error in allowing contact is fundamentally different. I also think you're underestimating the EP thing. Look at PB5. Brick died to rifles having not met half the teams in the game. It's a big map, I probably will only meet half the teams in BC years, especially with barbs out there to eat scouts. In PB5 I think it actually was AD years before I made my second contact IIRC (I may not be).