The lurker's burrow

[Krill]

It's not for the lurkers to call the game, only to communicate when the players already have. If yuri wants to concede then he can do so.

That's the absurd point about all this though: 1,000 gold will do absolutely nothing in this game to stop scooter from winning, and there was always going to be a dog pile, it's essentially traditional at this point. Scooter is simply on tilt at the idea, he just needs to get his attention grabbed by someone and get back into a rational frame of mind. This happens to most players at some point, it's nothing special, and I don't see the point in trying to act as if it is. Scooter almost got back to it when he started talking about turtling. Just grab Kremlin (need SM for oil anyway) and then head for DD and crush everyone who doesn't give up.

[Krill]

I think there's never an issue with gifting resources, open borders (where one player might benefit more) or world map. All of these are costless to the player gifting, except in opportunity cost terms. They're different in kind from unit, city, or gold gifts.

Just to be clear, there is a very real cost to the first two (the latter can never be seen by other players until after the game, unless there is some drastic change in OB or resources available to trade). It isn't economic, and most people don't seem to think beyond that, but the views of other players changes their actions. Call it a diplomatic cost if you will.

For example, in PB71 SD turned on Thoth because of a copper gift to Yuri. Then there are all the "Why give OB to the player with GLH" posts that litter games for the past 10 years.

[Qgqqqqq]

Oh absolutely. But there's a difference between something that helps another player and affects views on you, and something that actively hurts you.

[Mousey]

Putting aside unwritten rules (which personally I think matter and this breaches); isn't the spirit of AI diplo itself to avoid this sort of thing?

I find it hard to understand why gold gifting would be allowed when city gifting, unit gifting, and tech gifting are all banned. It's a resource that is directly transformative into most of those, so that's pretty clearly exploitative and a way to work-around the intent of the rules?

[Mjmd]

It comes down to do you want to spend literally hundreds of hours on a game just for someone to be given everything you've worked hard and played well for. Again, to Sulla's point at some point its just a mockery of a game. Why subject yourself to this. If you won because someone gave you all their gold is that a win? The thing with a normal dog pile is A) you have to actually being the fight, B) your forces have to be relevant, C) you can always choose how much you want to put in said dog pile and when you want to end said dog pile. Edit D) you also often have the opportunity to advance your own position by taking cities.    Gold and unit gifting get around all those. You are just trying to give the game to someone else. I don't want to play in that game.

[xist10]

With the latest information (SD already has frigates), I'm sure intervening would be a mistake.
This gift doesn't hurt SD ability to defend himself.

Putting aside unwritten rules (which personally I think matter and this breaches); isn't the spirit of AI diplo itself to avoid this sort of thing?

I find it hard to understand why gold gifting would be allowed when city gifting, unit gifting, and tech gifting are all banned. It's a resource that is directly transformative into most of those, so that's pretty clearly exploitative and a way to work-around the intent of the rules?

And here I want to answer.
Tech trading (gifting) is banned (I think), because gifting a tech doesn't hurt you.
And trading warps the meta game greatly.
I think you can find something in most SP games, where a consortium of KI trades only with itself and advantages at the triple time than the rest ?

City gifting allows a few shenanigans later (buy an airport and lifting a whole army over an ocean) and is a problem if you deny someone his spoils with gifting all (most) cities to a neighbour.
Still, we allow this back regulated - CF as general only lurker (arbiter) approval, which per guideline should be a buy offer, a tribute to get peace or relative free trading of spoils after a joint war. Generally this gifted city shouldn't have a negative impact on third parties.
RB is at the moment at 1 city per deal, without the rule about uneffected third parties. Something I do find a lot worse.

Unit gifting is critical if you include great persons or modern units.
Mass gifting could be a problem too.
Still, this is for us (CF) not really a problem after the rule, that someone has to have the tech to built the gifted unit (base unit in case of UU).
Mass gifting (at the cost of the own ability to defend himself) is the remaining problem and this falls under tilting/"Don't be a dick".
Still not a real problem if you forbid this. - And CHA->Not Cha is mostly a negative gift, because the unit loses XP.

Gold gifting is harmless in this case.
This is the only remaining ability to help other players (I do play MP because something can happen).
Gold is no immediate benefit, you have to invest it.
So gold is useless if your research rate is low.
So this is only a problem with gifting most (all) gold. This is again something you can stop over tilting/"Don't be a dick".
And this is the case where I think we argue here.

But I think under 50% of the gold output is a lot, but not at the point where you say, it hurts your own ability to research (okay, it does, but not over the undefined critical point). Add the fact, that SD has no real important tech in the near future (okay, still arguable, but he has frigates) and I don't see a problem.

[Cornflakes]

Still no examples of this type of behavior being acceptable, huh? Weird.

Definitely no obligation to concede. But ironically, I think better players would have conceded awhile ago. I suspect some of this is powered by naivety. Despite all the sham of this, I still got to Airships before my top competitor got to Frigates despite the latter getting hundreds of gold in charity. And I will get to Destroyers before he gets to Airships and will get Kremlin before he gets Ship of the Line or whatever else. I may get to Steel too before he gets Chemistry, hard to say. It's a 2T tech for me even after finishing Physics just now. Drydocks + Kremlin with perfect vision and first strike from Airships will be extremely funny at least?

This is a great reason why this trade is acceptable. If you want examples of "this type of behavior", look to virtually any game that has been played for examples where gold gifts have no impact on the outcome of the game, or where gifts have more impact on the outcome of the game than the gift in this game. Gold gifts in general happen almost every game, and if you are looking for impact then gifting 30 gold to upgrade a classical unit to hold a key city has far more impact on the outcome of the game than 1000 gold at this stage of the game.

Any rules other than total ban on gold gifts either have to accept that small value gifts early on have a much greater relative impact, or take into account some measure relative to the state of the game. And if you say total gold per turn no more than 5% of the world max GNP ... well, this trade would be acceptable because Scooter posted GNP of more than 2,100 on T181. Even after scooter comes out of a golden age, the total amount of the gold gift is likely less than 1 turn of of Scooter's saving rate (and the gift is spread out over 10 turns).

All that to say... I have been hesitant to say things like "this game is not loseable for me" because that's how you become a meme when you do actually blow it. But this game has been over for awhile. All this gold gifting sham is doing is making it take longer and making it more tedious.

This is the real frustration: false hope that draws out a game that is already "won" just not conceded, when the turns take 2 hours. And I completely understand this frustration.

[Mjmd]

Gold gifts to players in contention don't happen every game. Cornflakes I fully believe that if Pin and SD had pooled me gold in PB65 we wouldn't have needed to invade you. Either Pin or I actually could have won if gold gifting was allowed. We were ahead on city count, but behind on economy. Have two other players economies flowing into us though? Ya I could have won that. Do I want to win that way? Do you want to lose that way? Should we obsolete small empires winning? At what point is it ok to just give someone an economy they don't deserve? Someone went to war with me, I know I can't win, so I immediately start feeding half my gold to someone else. Should you go to war for anything less than someone's whole empire in a quick time frame if you know you auto lose because they can just gift someone else gold? Do you allow gold to the leading player? Who determines this? Its easy here, but it isn't always. I just won PB75 and I can tell you at most points gold gifting would have been a huge advantage because it was close for a long time, but players views and lurkers views of who is ahead can VASTLY be different and were at various points. Who determines how much is too much and for how long? Again, this game probably won't matter, but it certainly could.

[Cornflakes]

Would 1000 gold have changed the outcome of PB65? I actually offered Pindicator 100 gpt for peace to defect from the final dogpile. So that would have been a 2000 gold swing from me to Pindi.

I am not opposed to a total ban on gold gifting. I just do not believe that was the unspoken standard rule prior to this game, and I do not believe that either SD or Yuri acted in bad faith in this game.

[Mjmd]

Who says once you allow gold gifting it only has to be 1000 and only for 10 turns? If I had received from both Pin and SD maybe yes. What if SD wants to up his payment or do for longer? What are rules allowing who dictates and when it stops? Who says it when its ok to start gifting and in what circumstances? Again, when could SD and Pin have started gifting me gold (or me Pin)? You were leading most of that game, could SD have done for 30 turns for 3,000 gold? Could both of them for 6,000 gold? There are no rules around this right now specifically because its assumed it won't happen. This should tell you all you need to know about if we should be allowing here. And #1 paying #2 or #3 for peace is quite different than #3 giving #2 gold sinking #3 chances of winning and trying to artificially inflate #2.

Again, I can't think of a game in recent memory for our civ4 games that gold gifting to a contending player has happened. There are no rules right on when and how much is allowed now after how many games because it doesn't normally happen. The lack of former discussion and rules surrounding should prove its an assumed norm in our civ4 games here. We've let it slide probably for too long to players not in contention this is true, but to a player in contention? When I first posted I assumed I was going through a formality of checking with other lurkers.