RBP2 Lurker Discussion Thread - No Players!

[Serdoa]

I guess the post from Krill from 23rd January 2010 is pretty explicit in stating that they are not allowed to use the altered tactical situation after the city fell - and what else would it be to gift the city to Dantski and then use the altered tactical situation for cleaning up units? It seems to be exactly what Krill used as example a long time ago.

[regoarrarr]

Are we sure that Dantski would have to log in and accept the city gift? Couldn't they (India) have "liberated" the city when they took it?

[Jowy]

Why are we still discussing the actual rule? Krill already came up with a good solution that isn't unreasonably big and doesn't require a reload, but still enforces the rule. I thought real the problem is that Sullla and Speaker are threatening to quit the game if they have to face the consequences of their cheating.

[Beamup]

That is indeed much better. The link to Krill's post in question:

http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showp...tcount=497

This should be included for the convenience of the readers. Also, the line about "cleaning up units behind the city" should be bolded, as it's precisely what happened here.

@ Jowy:

Because in order for anything to be accepted, it must be convincingly explained WHY the action in question is actually against the rule. Note, in particular, that Speaker doesn't see that it is, since he's under the impression that the same-turn city gifting would be legal.

The problem is NOT that they are objecting to "hav[ing] to face the consequences of their cheating," but that they believe that there was no impact on the game (due to believing that the same results could have been obtained legally) and therefore consider the penalty to be out of line.

[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.

Let's start with the rule itself:

Joint attacks

If two players want to attack a single target i.e. a city belonging to a third party, Civ C, then they must move sequentially. ie Civ A attacks with all of its' units, and then Civ B attacks with all of its' units during the phase of the turn belonging to them. Civ C must wait until the phase of the turn belonging to it before it may counter attack or promote any units etc as proscribed above.

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:

1) 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.

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

The rule itself states only attacks, but the idea behind the rule is the following (posted in the IT-thread on 23rd January, 2010: http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/s...&postcount=497)

Clarification on Joint Attacks and Example 4: In that example, M uses Catapults, then N uses Catapults and captures the city. Would it be legal for M to move their units into the city for Garrison, or does that still count as participating in the attack?

That would still count as participating in the attack.

Basically if it didn't, it would mean Civ M would be able to make use of the altered tactical situation after the city fell, maybe cleaning up units behind the city, capturing workers. The aim there is to subdivide the FWP and SWP into different teams turns, but provide flexibility to keep the game moving. The other option is to do proper mixed stacks and similtaneous warfare but frankly that just causes the game to drag massively as everyone has to be online at the same time to make them work. It's OK in MP, but in pitboss it just doesn't fly.

Now let's 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 a 48+hours turn timer.

And why do we not allow interleaving 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 followed.

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]

Why are we still discussing the actual rule? Krill already came up with a good solution that isn't unreasonably big and doesn't require a reload, but still enforces the rule. I thought real the problem is that Sullla and Speaker are threatening to quit the game if they have to face the consequences of their cheating.

My understanding is that we do not try to discuss a rule here but first and foremost try to get everyone to understand what has happened and why it needs punishment.

I also would not say that the problem is that Spullla threaten to quit the game - if they do so, it is their decision. And surely if you try to understand what they probably think, it is reasonable. They do believe that Krill does somehow have a problem with them and now should get punished for a move which would not have had any consequences on the war (from their POV). They are pissed. Exactly that is also the reason why I wrote in the second part of the draft something along the lines that Speaker did not do that move with ill intent. I do not want to give them the feeling they get punished because somebody has personal issues with them but really because they broke a rule. Less of a punishment, more of reparations (kind of).

And Jowy, they did not cheat, no matter how often you write it down

[Beamup]

The current draft addresses my concerns. I myself have no additional comments or suggestions.

[MWIN]

I think the rule about joint attacks came from Apolyton game. You may want to put this reference as Spullla should feel better about that game...

[darrelljs]

And Jowy, they did not cheat, no matter how often you write it down

Yeah...likewise Krill does not have a vendetta against Spulla no matter how often they claim he does. I mean, did anyone else read the e-mails Nakor posted and find their depiction of Krill's "policing" in the India thread a tad exaggerated ?

Darrell

[Serdoa]

Well I agree with you about the exaggerated part but I do think that we are better off if we do not start to act like they do.