[SPOILERS] scooter Expands the Empire Across the Sea

[Zed-F]

Not that I think you should, but if you do, make sure to pair it with a war vs Yuris offer. At least some of the other players must be tired of this too, maybe all Yuris’s war allies being bribed to turn on him will finally do the trick.

This might be obvious but I think the play once Kremlin is in is to whip a whole bunch of Drydocks and build enough ships to pin everyone’s ears back. We can’t rely on Kremlin for everything — eventually we’ll run out of happy — so Drydocks will help keep production up when we aren’t whipping, plus XP is valuable.

[T-hawk]

Another day goes by with none of the lurkers who think I'm wrong able to produce a single solitary example of a gold gift of this magnitude being considered acceptable despite over 150 games spanning over a decade to choose from. Maybe someday we'll see evidence in favor of this decision. Until this happens, no screenshots for any of you. If you think I'm going to stop being petty about this, then this must be the first thread of mine you've ever read.

I'll push back a bit here. Not to convince you, since you won't be, but to at least make you aware of reasonable counterarguments. I don't care about convincing you into reporting, but I do about giving voice to the opposing viewpoints.

If something like this hasn't happened before, that's not a definition that makes it unacceptable. New situations happen all the time. It's perfectly possible that we haven't had such a situation before where one player's best approach to defend himself was to help an ally get to a tech and he had enough means to do so and make a significant difference. In particular this is only really likely to happen on a water map, where there are such sharp breakpoints at each ship military tech, and the mobility means that even one turn is often huge, and we haven't played all that many water maps. To make this happen the way it did needs the intersection of a lot of factors (water map, one player close to a big tech, one player not close to any significant tech or better means to spend the gold, those players in alliance against a superior leader), and it's perfectly possible it just hasn't happen in 150 trials until now.

Yuris got to frigates sooner. That caused you to pull back from positions to attack him - did that also cause you to pull back from positions against SD at all? If so, then the gold accomplished its purpose from SD's point of view - the best way SD could use the gold to defend himself was through his ally proxy. Even if it didn't because you didn't have plans to attack SD, SD didn't necessarily know that, and so even defending against the possibility even if it didn't happen can still constitute good faith.

SD honestly thinks this move was in good faith - that it best represented his use of the gold to defend himself and to have any chance of turning the tide against a common opponent. You're claiming it's "obviously" not, but he is. Your opinion doesn't take precedence over his nor his over yours, so how do you resolve this? Lurker consensus or a singular arbiter is one way, but we don't have that. What's left is "let them play" and let SD expend his resources as he chooses. (I think you might ultimately be agreeing with this in that you're continuing to play on.)

[scooter]

Another day goes by with none of the lurkers who think I'm wrong able to produce a single solitary example of a gold gift of this magnitude being considered acceptable despite over 150 games spanning over a decade to choose from. Maybe someday we'll see evidence in favor of this decision. Until this happens, no screenshots for any of you. If you think I'm going to stop being petty about this, then this must be the first thread of mine you've ever read.

I'll push back a bit here. Not to convince you, since you won't be, but to at least make you aware of reasonable counterarguments. I don't care about convincing you into reporting, but I do about giving voice to the opposing viewpoints.

If something like this hasn't happened before, that's not a definition that makes it unacceptable. New situations happen all the time. It's perfectly possible that we haven't had such a situation before where one player's best approach to defend himself was to help an ally get to a tech and he had enough means to do so and make a significant difference. In particular this is only really likely to happen on a water map, where there are such sharp breakpoints at each ship military tech, and the mobility means that even one turn is often huge, and we haven't played all that many water maps. To make this happen the way it did needs the intersection of a lot of factors (water map, one player close to a big tech, one player not close to any significant tech or better means to spend the gold, those players in alliance against a superior leader), and it's perfectly possible it just hasn't happen in 150 trials until now.

There are lots of reasons one might want to gift gold to another contender. It doesn't happen like this because it's a scummy thing to do, so it's not been allowed. This is the same reason we look down on unit gifts. The idea that nobody has considered gold gifts before is... kind of silly. The very first couple games here were rife with wild player choices, and they were legislated away as it made everyone involved very angry. The very second PB was packed to the gills with insane gifting shenanigans that were 1) legendary moments and 2) immediately agreed we should never do again. The shift away from diplo games cemented this because with out-of-game diplo you had a metagame to play too. The concept of "good faith deals" comes from deals that make sense in the diplo window. I do not mean the following to be offensive at all, but this take from you feels like one you might reasonably have if you do not play in MP games here and do not super frequently follow them. I do agree it's probably a bad thing that this is mostly in the heads of the regular players rather than written down, hence my attempt to be constructive and solve this in the CivGeneral thread I opened.


I'd ask you back, do you think it would have been acceptable for SD to gift Yuris a bunch of Frigates instead? Or perhaps, gift him a city or two to improve his research capacity - maybe one that via distance maintenance was more efficient for Yuris to hold? What if Bing gifted him that stack of Caravels, making coordination easier and unit supply cheaper? Or if Bing himself gifted cities to Yuris? Would any of these seem OK to you? These would have all accomplished the purpose of prolonging the game, which technically improves their position relative to the leader. Does that make it OK?

SD honestly thinks this move was in good faith - that it best represented his use of the gold to defend himself and to have any chance of turning the tide against a common opponent. You're claiming it's "obviously" not, but he is. Your opinion doesn't take precedence over his nor his over yours, so how do you resolve this? Lurker consensus or a singular arbiter is one way, but we don't have that. What's left is "let them play" and let SD expend his resources as he chooses. (I think you might ultimately be agreeing with this in that you're continuing to play on.)

Also to be blunt, I do not care what SD's opinion of "good faith" means.

[T-hawk]

I do not mean the following to be offensive at all, but this take from you feels like one you might reasonably have if you do not play in MP games here and do not super frequently follow them. I do agree it's probably a bad thing that this is mostly in the heads of the regular players rather than written down, hence my attempt to be constructive and solve this in the CivGeneral thread I opened.

I'd ask you back, do you think it would have been acceptable for SD to gift Yuris a bunch of Frigates instead? Or perhaps, gift him a city or two to improve his research capacity - maybe one that via distance maintenance was more efficient for Yuris to hold? What if Bing gifted him that stack of Caravels, making coordination easier and unit supply cheaper? Or if Bing himself gifted cities to Yuris? Would any of these seem OK to you? These would have all accomplished the purpose of prolonging the game, which technically improves their position relative to the leader. Does that make it OK?

I haven't played multiplayer Civ games, but I have plenty of experience in over-the-board tabletop games where similar things can happen. Settlers of Catan for example, it's perfectly common for player C to deliberately help player B take longest-road away from player A who is otherwise close to winning. Player A hates it but it's correct and within bounds for others to oppose him that way. Being ahead in a game means that everyone is justified in using their resources against you (particularly if you've already attacked them), and the leader doesn't get to dictate how they go about that.

I don't know where to draw the line at any of those gifts, but neither does anyone if the rules weren't set ahead of time. There's an argument that unit and city gifting is generally considered far enough out of bounds that the players should be aware of that even if it wasn't spelled out. (I'm not sure where I'd stand on that.) I don't think gold can fall under that since there are plenty of ways for gold deals to be perfectly fine, and who gets to decide where to draw the line? I can ask you back - what if SD had declared war on Yuris and then offered the gold in a peace deal, or even a city or two? Ceding stuff in peace deals is generally considered acceptable, right? Who decides if it was a phony treaty for the purpose of fig-leafing a gift? Your house rules are going to need to address that somehow - you can't foresee and cover every possible case in the rules, you're going to need an arbiter if you want to start banning behaviors in certain cases. It's a short slope from trying to ban what you think is scummy, to calling everything scummy that works against you in order to ban it.

BTW, side point - if unit gifting is so out of bounds - why not just mod it out in CTH?

Also to be blunt, I do not care what SD's opinion of "good faith" means.

This is just character assassination (however justified you may feel it may be, and I know something of his reputation), this isn't an argument against the gifting.

[scooter]

I don't know where to draw the line at any of those gifts, but neither does anyone if the rules weren't set ahead of time. There's an argument that unit and city gifting is generally considered far enough out of bounds that the players should be aware of that even if it wasn't spelled out. (I'm not sure where I'd stand on that.) I don't think gold can fall under that since there are plenty of ways for gold deals to be perfectly fine, and who gets to decide where to draw the line?

You keep asking where you draw the line, and I'm telling you I've participated in MP games here for the last 13 years, and it's well-established where the line is drawn. I didn't imagine it from nowhere. This isn't something we are running into for the first time. The reason nobody can produce an example is because it's a well-established norm that gifts are generally not allowed.

I can ask you back - what if SD had declared war on Yuris and then offered the gold in a peace deal, or even a city or two? Ceding stuff in peace deals is generally considered acceptable, right? Who decides if it was a phony treaty for the purpose of fig-leafing a gift? Your house rules are going to need to address that somehow - you can't foresee and cover every possible case in the rules, you're going to need an arbiter if you want to start banning behaviors in certain cases. It's a short slope from trying to ban what you think is scummy, to calling everything scummy that works against you in order to ban it.

Why do we need an arbiter? It's not hard to see what you're describing is a blatant violation of not being a good faith deal and is instead an attempt to exploit a loop hole. The difference is we just don't allow it. Except, for some reason, in this game. If we're going to move away from enforcing good faith deals and rules lawyer everything to death, I'll just stop playing games here. Either that or organize games "offline" to ensure I'm avoiding certain players.

Also to be blunt, I do not care what SD's opinion of "good faith" means.

This is just character assassination (however justified you may feel it may be, and I know something of his reputation), this isn't an argument against the gifting.

It was a bit unnecessarily harsh, so I edited it down to just this sentence, which I stand by.

[El Grillo]

BTW, side point - if unit gifting is so out of bounds - why not just mod it out in CTH?

I've played some casual co-op vs AI games with CTH where unit gifting is in scope. If Charriu or someone else knowledgeable were around, perhaps we could add it as a checkbox option in pre-game setup.

[T-hawk]

Why do we need an arbiter? It's not hard to see what you're describing is a blatant violation of not being a good faith deal and is instead an attempt to exploit a loop hole. The difference is we just don't allow it. Except, for some reason, in this game. If we're going to move away from enforcing good faith deals and rules lawyer everything to death, I'll just stop playing games here. Either that or organize games "offline" to ensure I'm avoiding certain players.

Because it's not objectively a blatant violation or not in good faith. Half the lurkers and SD himself don't think so. Who decides who's right?

[scooter]

Why do we need an arbiter? It's not hard to see what you're describing is a blatant violation of not being a good faith deal and is instead an attempt to exploit a loop hole. The difference is we just don't allow it. Except, for some reason, in this game. If we're going to move away from enforcing good faith deals and rules lawyer everything to death, I'll just stop playing games here. Either that or organize games "offline" to ensure I'm avoiding certain players.

Because it's not objectively a blatant violation or not in good faith. Half the lurkers and SD himself don't think so. Who decides who's right?

I'm referring to your hypothetical of doing a fake peace treaty to skirt a rule which I am quite confident "half" the lurkers would not agree to. This is obvious, and the fact that you think it's some sort of gotcha is why I'm trying to, as respectfully as I possibly can, say I don't think you are well qualified to weigh in here on what's generally acceptable.


But yes, if we really are going to be obtuse and rules lawyer these types of things in future games too, then yeah, I'm out. If your opinion here actually is a common one, then no thanks. It's not worth the hundreds of hours per game invested to then find out surprise, exploiting loopholes is allowed if every possible rule is not ironed out in advance. Good luck getting other players to deal with this stuff too. I'm genuinely curious who in the lurker thread actually agrees with you because boy it's tough to imagine it's any of those who regularly play, which are really the only opinions I care about.


In short, the answer to "who decides who's right" is moot if the result is people deciding it's not worth bothering anymore.

[T-hawk]

Cornflakes and Xist10 agree with me. Mjmd and Sullla are against. Krill and Qgqqqqq are in the middle, perhaps disapproving but favoring non-intervention in the absence of a clear rule (if I've mischaracterized these opinions, feel free to correct me.)

My broader point was this that got muddled in that hypothetical: if you want the house rules to allow some gold deals but not others, you'll need some arbiter, since you'll never be able to cover every possible case with rules, there will always be some area where opinions are split.

[Cornflakes]

@scooter, sorry for not following up earlier. I have been commenting in the lurker thread to avoid spoilers. First of all, just because something "normally doesn't happen" is not the same as "unspoken default banned".

At the risk of spoilers I will add that Bing's gold transfer falls within one of the categories that Zed-F outlined as acceptable, which you agreed with.

Also your definition of "good faith" is different than what I understand it to be:

The concept of "good faith deals" comes from deals that make sense in the diplo window.

I understand "good faith" to mean a deal where a player genuinely believes the benefit they are receiving is worth the cost that they are paying. You say "in the diplo window" but the evaluation of trades always and every time includes factors outside the diplo window. Even for a simple luxury-for-gpt trade you have to know the state of your empire to known whether an extra luxury is worthless or if that means the difference between running two extra specialists during a GPP push that are now unhappy and you have a luxury multiplier building already. A *phony* war clearly violates *genuine belief*. A gift from someone who believes themselves to be a contender to someone else who they believe to be roughly their peer, for out-of-diplo-window-benefits is to me still a good faith offer in the absence of any rules otherwise, especially when gold has been used in many deals this game and gifting or begging for gold is common in many games.

I myself have made one-sided deals for purely out-of-diplo-window benefits. Not gold but in PB9 I gifted a city-for-nothing to a neighbor for no discernable benefit that they could see. For me it meant that I could chop a forest that was 2nd ring to that city but 3rd ring to a different city where I needed the production to shave off one critical turn and snatch Taj Mahal. Was that a bad faith deal because I gifted a city for nothing "in the diplo window"?

Again at the risk of spoilers I repost some of what I have said in the lurker thread:

To me this is the human element of multiplayer. I don’t see any evidence of bad faith in Superdeath’s gift, I see a genuine interest in [REDACTED]. Humans cooperate, and think beyond the immediate negative hit of 1000 gold to the future benefit. Superdeath is not just gifting gold, he is doing is for the express purpose of [REDACTED]. It does not look to me like Superdeath is trying to make Yuri win any more than he is trying to [REDACTED].

I do see extortion for peace on an equivalent level to players pooling resources to compete (whether that be literal resources, or gold, or army cooperation, or holding a grudge for getting knocked down (as long as it only goes as far as then end of the game and resets for the next game). The human aspect is part of the multiplayer game, and making friends and enemies has a an impact on the game. If the issue is transferring economy from one player to another player, then a gold for peace has that effect just as much as gifting during peace, or gifting to buy into a war. I don’t see a difference there. Similarly cities for peace. It is again the human element of evaluating the short term impact vs the long term outcome.

I definitely see a case to be made where this deal is not good for the overall outcome of extending a game that is still hopeless for SD an Yuri, and causing weeks more of 2-hour war turns. And I think post-game discussion and possibly banning are legitimate discussions. But I do not see any arguments for bad faith or rule breaking by SD or Yuri. But the question of a lurkers role in ending a game is different than jumping in to reverse clear rules violations.