RBP2 Lurker Discussion Thread - No Players!

[Krill]

sunrise, I guess that your question is exactly the issue here. Spullla are sure that they could capture and gift the city. Nobody so far told them, that they could not because Krills ruling includes ingame diplomacy as well - something they would not accept probably.

But as long as they are not told otherwise they will assume that the ruling is for not killing on their own one redlined defender. And I think it then becomes understandable why they are so reluctant to comply with this ruling.

I think, the best thing would be to explain to all players:

- why this rule is in place
- what exactly it covers (movements, ingame diplomacy, ...) and for what reason

before going on to talk about the ruling for this situation.

I don't have a lot of time today, so if someone wants to knock up a draft explaining this, and then post it here, I would greatly appreciate it.

[Serdoa]

It seems that there are still some ambiguities about the rule in question, especially what exactly it means and which actions are covered and maybe even more importantly why those have to be covered.

In order to get everyone to the same understanding and hopefully be able to find a solution to this issue let me first start with what it means and which actions are covered:

This rule means basically that players move sequentially in war. This is reflected by the turn split rule if two parties are at war which each other (12 hours for both). If now a third party joins one side in the war it also has to move sequentially with the other. To prevent having to split up the turn in up to as many parts as players are in the game (here: 3 turns with each 8 hours) parties on the same side are put into the same 12 hours part. Though still the rule about sequentially turns applies.

This rule covers all ingame actions which can be done by the player and do effect war.
For example: moving in a contested city, drafting or whipping defenders, gifting gold which is used for upgrades of troops which are actively participating in a war, gifting of cities in a contested zone, ...

Now lets move to why this rule is in place. First, if we want to have teams move sequentially, why do we not split up the turn among all involved parties:

- To make warfare flow and keep it going. Otherwise as explained above turns would have to be split for 3 parties in 8 hours each, for 4 into 6 hours each, and so on. That would not keep the flow due to differing time-zones and restrictions when everyone is able to play. Basically we would need many pauses or an 48+hours turn timer.

And why do we not allow to interleave attacks:

- To make sure that neither the attackers nor the defenders do have an advantage solely because of the out-of-game fact that two players work together and are in the same timezone. By banning the interleaving of attacks, it allows anybody to work together and not get screwed over by forcing them to be present at an unreasonable time.

Hopefully it is now clear what this rule covers and why it is in place. If not or if you are unsure about something I wrote, please ask. Though please refrain from starting a discussion about the rule itself. No matter if you like the rule or not, it was (and still is) in place and every team knowed it and could play along it lines and expect anyone else in the game to do the same.

----------------------

Now, Speaker, Sullla, I also hope you can now see why breaking this rule really did affect substantially this part of the war.

First: HRE lost a stack which it would not have lost if the rule would have been followend.

Second: You were informed by a lurker only a short time after you posted that you have broken this rule. You decided to play on and I am really sure that was with no ill intent of you two but because you thought that all what was effected by the rule was one redlined defender and you wanted to keep the game going. Nevertheless this sets a bad example. If a rule is broken it should not be played on, ignoring it, but at least the others should be informed about what happened and it should be clarified with them how to proceed.

This did not happen here and thus led to this mess which we try to clean up now. As nobody wants to reload this has to result in some punishment for the rule breaking. Surely I can understand that you are not happy with it but try to put yourself in HRE's shoes. I hope you understand then that this is not about personal feelings but about being fair to anybody involved.

[Serdoa]

First draft, here we go.

As you will notice, English is not my first language so it will probably have to be corrected a bit. The second part (below the --------) is optional. I am not sure if it makes sense but i thought trying to get the personal feelings out of the way and trying to get them to see the issue from the other side might help.

[Beamup]

If they gift Gao this turn Dantski must go last. This is because Dantski has to accpet the gift in the diplo screen on his "turn". You don't get a liberate city option or the player you want to give it to must answer a prompt. This is seen during the failed Rego plot to take the AP win.

EDIT: In other words once Spulla gives the city; Spulla can not legally move. Dantski MUST accept the city gift on the diplo screen in order to get it on that turn. Once he does that he has moved and Spulla can not make any more moves.

The trouble is, the rules don't quite say that. (Assuming the ruleset in the first post of the IT thread is still current; if not, please ignore this post completely.)

In the phase of the turn belonging to the designated party, the following actions are legal:

Moving any unit,
Promoting any unit,
Upgrading any unit,
Gifting a unit,
Drafting any unit.

This is the only part of the turn that these actions are legal.

One could make a reasonable case that gifting a city is implicitly covered under gifting a unit, or that the spirit of the rule covers it. Or, that there's a list of actions legal anytime in the turn which does not include diplomacy. But the fact remains that there's an explicit list of actions which must take place on one's own phase. And gifting a city, or accepting the gift of a city, is not on it. There's also nothing else I see in the rules that would account for it.

Any attempt at explanation and conciliation which does not very carefully account for this will only make things worse. Which includes Serdoa's draft. If that's the approach taken, Spullla will be most definitely reject it as a retroactive change to the rules. And I can't find it in me (much as I'd like to, given their execrable behavior thus far) to say they'd be wrong.

Given that Speaker/Dantski did break the rule, Speaker was informed about it, and he did nothing, some penalty is appropriate. But the scope of the violation is greatly different based on the letter vs. the spirit of the rule, and that HAS to be addressed.

[ManiaMuse]

All I can say, regardless of who is right or wrong and what rules were or were not broken by whoever, is that this pause for all the rules lawyering and bickering has really killed the flow, interest and spirit of the game.

This sort of of thing is really not appealing to lurkers and seems to be completely against the vaguely educational and informative basis upon which these games were begun in the first place.

[Serdoa]

Beamup, as I understand it, it is legal to gift a city - it is also legal for Dantski to accept this city - everything happening in the same turn.

What is not legal is to interleave there moves. Basically if Dantski goes first, his part of the turn timer ends as soon as Spullla starts to move units. He is allowed to change city builds then, slave and change worked tiles but thats it. He is not allowed to do anything which changes the war. And accepting the gifted city certainly does change the war.

edit: It gets easy if you think about it as if all 3 parties involved in this war do have 8 hours each for making their moves which affect the war.

[Square Leg]

I would like to see a Pitboss with no rules. Just play as the game lets you!

[Twinkletoes89]

I would like to see a Pitboss with no rules. Just play as the game lets you!

With all that has happened in this game - I would be pretty inclined to agree!

[Beamup]

Beamup, as I understand it, it is legal to gift a city - it is also legal for Dantski to accept this city - everything happening in the same turn.

What is not legal is to interleave there moves. Basically if Dantski goes first, his part of the turn timer ends as soon as Spullla starts to move units. He is allowed to change city builds then, slave and change worked tiles but thats it. He is not allowed to do anything which changes the war. And accepting the gifted city certainly does change the war.

edit: It gets easy if you think about it as if all 3 parties involved in this war do have 8 hours each for making their moves which affect the war.

Apparently I have made my argument unclearly. I will try to explain further. The key point, I think we can all agree, is the legality of same-turn city gifting. The interleaved unit moves are certainly illegal, but their consequence on their own is minor, and penalties for that should therefore also be minor.

The rules as written, however, appear to make same-turn city gifting legal. Therefore, the point that has to be carefully explained in order to make this work is why a large penalty is appropriate when the action against which it is being levied is not directly called out as illegal in the written rules. And in particular, why any reasonable person should have understood that it was illegal.

I think that'll be an uphill battle. And it may help illustrate why if I step through the thought process that led to my previous post. I read the draft and thought, "gee, some quotes from the posted ruleset would make this much stronger." So I went to the posted ruleset to find quotes I could reference to support the proposition that same-turn city gifting is illegal, and despite careful examination could not. If you don't think that Spullla will do exactly the same thing (and be perfectly justified in doing so), well, I'd love to know why.

In order to make this work, the argument that "the posted rules do not forbid this, and almost-explicitly condone it by not putting city gifts on the list of phased actions" must be preemptively demolished. And I just don't see how that can be done, given that the purpose of written rules is supposed to be to ensure that everyone knows where they stand ahead of time. Maybe somebody with better diplomatic skills than I can accomplish it.

The draft, in particular, fails in this regard because it almost skims past the city-gifting point, presenting it as in the same class as moves and drafting without special explanation. But the fact that it is in that class is the central point that must be justified.

Whipping, by the way, is one of the explicit can-be-done-any-time actions and should therefore be removed from

This rule covers all ingame actions which can be done by the player and do effect war.
For example: moving in a contested city, drafting or whipping defenders, gifting gold which is used for upgrades of troops which are actively participating in a war, gifting of cities in a contested zone, ...

in any case.

[darrelljs]

I would like to see a Pitboss with no rules. Just play as the game lets you!

+1000!

Darrell