Pitboss 18 Lurker Thread of Infinite Wisdom

[AdrienIer]

What's strange is that GJ didn't mention it in his last post. Could he have just missed the fact that his loan was repaid ?

[spacetyrantxenu]

Well, BGN gift of alluminium to OH should be cancelled too, in that case. He's helping OH finish date the same as GJ is helping TBS, in a "for free" trade that doesn't extend to all the other civs.

You can look at it that way or say he was making up for a shortcoming on the map whereby OH somehow didn't have his own source of aluminium despite having 20% of the map under his control.

If you bring it up to Joey, are you prepared to not rock the boat as his post-ragequit sub?

If someone wants to quit because they're doing something that's been frowned upon for ages, they can be my guest.

As I said before, gold-gifting isn't even hinted at in the rules. So banning it is changing the rules in the middle of the match which gives Joey an unbreakable defense. Now the rules were already changed by allowing lurkers to play multiple civs and just defend but that's not enough.

MJW, there was a time when we went to extreme effort to hammer out rule sets for games. Now we condense all those "rules" into the general guideline of don't be a jerk. That implies fair play is required. Obvious gold gifting has been called cheesy as far as I know in every instance when it has been observed. When you're moving this much cash from one player to another with no benefit to the giver, that's crossing the line.

As for changing the rules by having people sub for missing players, are you seriously suggesting that this was some kind of grave misstep or offense to the players the lurkers perpetrated upon them? I only missed a few turns when I was playing, but I was glad, for instance, when LP or Dreylin was available to play a turn for me. Much better than missing a turn and I don't recall hearing anyone else complaining about lurkers helping to keep the game moving along and avoiding endless pauses. I know you like to argue strange positions sometimes, and I can never tell what your motives are when you do....But there's basically zero relationship between "changing the rules" by letting people sub for players (even though there is plenty of precedent for using subs in previous games) and wanting to curb unfair gold cheese. It's possible Joey didn't even notice the ten turns were up, I wouldn't blame him for not paying close attention at this point. It's only a problem if it's a deliberate action intended to unduly assist TBS, in a form that can directly contribute to his victory condition. And apparently even TBS is uncomfortable with it. Anyway, enough on this.

[ipecac]

Well, BGN gift of alluminium to OH should be cancelled too, in that case. He's helping OH finish date the same as GJ is helping TBS, in a "for free" trade that doesn't extend to all the other civs.

You can look at it that way or say he was making up for a shortcoming on the map whereby OH somehow didn't have his own source of aluminium despite having 20% of the map under his control.

Which would be a selective making up; TBS doesn't have coal.

MJW, there was a time when we went to extreme effort to hammer out rule sets for games. Now we condense all those "rules" into the general guideline of don't be a jerk. That implies fair play is required. Obvious gold gifting has been called cheesy as far as I know in every instance when it has been observed. When you're moving this much cash from one player to another with no benefit to the giver, that's crossing the line.

And what does this unwritten rule imply about Krill gifting troops, for example?

[spacetyrantxenu]

I didn't know TBS didn't have coal, maybe someone should have offered it to him. I thought at the time that some of Krill's unit gifts were unsporting. I was one beneficiary, as he gifted me a frigate I otherwise never would have had, but when he gave Wetbandit a stack of cannons, or whatever else he did just to mess with other players, that wasn't really sporting. I haven't read his thread from that period of time but I'm pretty sure he was doing it to be a jerk.

[Qgqqqqq]

I think the much more likely answer is Joey forgot about it.

[ipecac]

I didn't know TBS didn't have coal, maybe someone should have offered it to him.

TBS has complained more than once about BGN gifting aluminium to OH and not coal to him, and is prepared to accept Joey's gold as something which offsets the imbalance. There's already been so much king-making and what some would regard as 'unsporting' play in the game so I certainly don't see any grounds for lurkers stepping in to prevent any more.

[wetbandit]

I didn't know TBS didn't have coal, maybe someone should have offered it to him. I thought at the time that some of Krill's unit gifts were unsporting. I was one beneficiary, as he gifted me a frigate I otherwise never would have had, but when he gave Wetbandit a stack of cannons, or whatever else he did just to mess with other players, that wasn't really sporting. I haven't read his thread from that period of time but I'm pretty sure he was doing it to be a jerk.

I haven't read their thread, but I can only guess it was to prevent BGN from running me over. I actually thought it was a gift to take you out and relieve you of your obligation to play.

[Rowain]

BGN decided that he prefers OH win over a TBS win and has acted accordingly since some time. Can't remember seeing a lot of fuss about this.

In the same line there shouldn't be a problem with other players preferring a TBS-win and acting accordingly.

Else we could also discuss that Krill helped OH to take down dtay previously and delay BGN and so on.

Geopolitical reasoning, Diplo and relationships do happen and do have their effects no matter if it is hurt feelings (krill - BGN, joey - BGN and OH etc.) revenge or other

[spacetyrantxenu]

Even to the point of emptying your treasury into your preferred winner's coffers? No, I can't accept that. Then why not play with vassals on and play out the whole dom\sub relationship? Also, it doesn't logically follow that we'd have to discuss the previous dogpile on dtay in the same light. That was a run of the mill leader dogpile. If you try to argue that isn't desirable player behavior I would have a hard time explaining why we even play the game in that case, if you're not allowed to pursue a win if you happen to not be leading.

Preferring that one player wins over another and giving your money away to make that happen are not the same thing. I said earlier that I didn't like dtay's current war, but that's as a lurker who wanted to see a tight game ending. I didn't say the war wasn't justified. He's totally within his rights given previous actions, revenge is the ultimate motivator. It just spoils some of the end of game drama. But it's not unsporting, it's an understandable and justifiable expression of dtay's desire that someone other than OH win the game, based upon what came before in the game. I played my grudge war against CH under similar circumstances (although it didn't impact the outcome of the game on a meaningful way).

Yes, diplomacy and geopolitics matter and are certainly valid motivators for helping a player decide what to do, you couldn't play a game without considering those things. But just because the game may allow you to do something (like gifting gold) doesn't mean it's necessarily appropriate to do it. Over time we've agreed to a lot of out of game conventions that end up as the basic game rules template that you keep seeing in startup threads, presumably because the players see those as generally accepted conditions for our games. Things like AI diplomacy, so no in game communication, or no double moves, or timer camping, or blockades, or whatever exploitable/unbalanced mechanic (ignoring the ones that are often modded out of the game or are put back in line with sane limits by mod), you see these in every setup thread, except that several of the most obvious conditions are now subsumed under "don't be a jerk".. Gold gifting is one of the cheesy exploit/agreed upon actions we've previously identified as an action we don't want in our games, unless I've misread the community opinion on that somehow, so IMO it's included under that catchall game rule. I do view it differently from a resource gift, like coal it aluminum, because my view of what the community decided is that gold gifts are cheese. If we want to put coal and aluminum on trial and discuss their suitability for gifting in future games that's a conversation you could try to have, but there isn't precedent for not allowing those deals while we do have precedent against gold gifting. If we're all against coal and aluminum deals line these, in future games they could also be adopted into the typical catchall ruleset, with precedent. But here, they haven't been so they're valid. That's the basic point I'm getting at, forgive my taking three paragraphs to do it.

[ipecac]

Seriously?

We're supposed to call Joey out for gifting some hundreds of gold at this late stage of the game when BGN's selective generosity has handed FinHarry ~ a thousand hammers for their spaceship, and denied TBS at least a couple of thousand hammers? Supposedly to let FinHarry have a 'fair race', but whoops, no fair race for TBS? And with this we're supposed to look with disfavour upon dtay and Joey's actions that in effect help to readdress this massive imbalance?

If you want to start singling out and censuring people for cheesy play start with BGN otherwise cut the sanctimonious crap.