Pitboss 4 Signup

[Gold Ergo Sum]

So Sunrise has graciously offered to host another of these shindigs, and thus it is time to sign away almost a year of your life to Civtacular goodness.

These are Sullllllla's proposed rules for a new PB game:

Written assuming a 24 hour timer with 12 hour clock splits.

1) Settling Races: When settling in a disputed area, teams must wait 12 hours after moving a settler before the same unit can move again. You cannot move at the end of a turn, and then immediate re-move at the start of the next turn.

2) Declaring War: When initiating a new war, the attacker must declare war during the first 6 hours of the turn. Once 6 hours have passed, no new wars may be initiated by any teams. Upon declaring war, the attacker immediately takes the first 12 hours in a 12/12 hour timer split. Because these rules make it impossible to gain the element of surprise - the defender will always have a chance to play the second half of the turn - the attacker should make every reasonable effort to declare war at the very start of the turn, to avoid confusion.

The attacker must also move their units during the first 6 hours on the turn before declaring war, to avoid a double move.

When a player at war occupies the second half of a turn-timer, that player may declare war at any time during the second half of the turn-timer. The Civ who is declared on then occupies the first half of the turn-timer the following turn. If the Civ who is declared upon has yet to move during the turn of declaration, that Civ can still move their units during the second half of the turn-timer for that one turn only.

3) Joining an Existing War: Teams joining an existing war on the attacker's side must take the same half of the clock timer, the first 12 hours. Teams joining an existing war on the defender's side must do the same, and take the second 12 hours. Teams must synchronize their turn with their respective side (first half attacker, second half defender) on the turn before declaring war.

4) Turn Actions during War: During their half of the timer split, teams can take all normal civ actions. Once the attacker(s) have all ended their turn, or after 12 hours have passed, their turn is over and the defender(s) turn begins. When it is not their turn in wartime, teams may log into the game, but cannot take any actions whatsoever. This includes moving units, whipping or drafting cities, changing research, changing builds or reassigning tiles in cities, promoting or upgrading units, adjusting espionage or the research/culture sliders, and conducting any diplomacy other than chatting (no gifting or trading units, gold, cities, etc.) Think of it this way: IT IS NOT YOUR TURN. Teams can watch what the other teams are doing, but that is all.

5) Gifting: Teams should act in good faith when gifting units, cities, techs, and/or gold to one another. Gifting and re-gifting back cities (to build a unique building) and units (for Heroic Epic purposes) is strictly prohibited. Gifting cities away as part of a peace treaty is allowable, but gifting cities away to third parties to prevent capture in war is forbidden.

6) Phony Wars: Phony wars instituted between teams for purposes of training Heroic Epic units or manipulating the clock timing rules are strictly forbidden. Don't be a jerk about this.

7) Fair Play: Teams should show good sportsmanship and act in good faith. Play to win, play to survive, and avoid moves that artificially unbalance the game.

Sullla essentially summarizes the rules thusly:

* When you attack, you have to do it at the start of a turn, and take the first 12 hour half of the timer split.
* You have to join your allies' time split when entering a pre-existing war.
* You can't change anything when it isn't "your half" of the turn split.

Everything else is just written to try and avoid cheese play: no cheesing with city/gold gifts, no phony wars for clock manipulation, no cheesing with settler double moves, etc. The main criticism from our earlier round of comments was that this system slightly disfavored the attacker, which I agree that it does. However, because we can't create a round of production in the middle of the turn, someone has to be disadvantaged, and if we have to choose between attacker and defender, I say it makes more sense from a gameplay perspective to give the first half of the turn to the attacker. The effects should be pretty minor though on the whole.

Advantages to this ruleset as opposed to Pitboss 1-3 games:

+ No double move sucker-punch attacks.
+ No incentive to run down the clock/other timer manipulations.
+ Cannot whip/draft/change builds on other person's half of the turn (removes incentive/need for more clock games).
+ Removes cheese play elements.
+ Relatively simple system to understand (a major problem with other rulesets).

Tradeoff is that it makes it slightly more difficult to attack on the initiation of wars.

Comments: Cyneheard brought this up and I don't have a good enough sense to know if some modification need be made to the rules--
One possible exception for late-game air raids and/or spy sabotage: Workers should be able to re-connect resources/improvements during the 2nd half of a turn, even if it isn't their half. Again, this is to keep the "when I move" and "When the game does some critical things" gap from being a major issue. Note: that's workers only...not any escorts that they may need. This is to keep a back-line, say, oil, from being continually bombed or sabotaged and the player who goes 1st has no possible recourse. Whereas if I can capture any workers you may be using to fix that tile, well, that's sufficient grounds for "you don't get that resource".



DECIDED RULES

1. No Tech Trading
2. No Nukes
3. No War Elephants or related UUs
4. 24-Hour Turn Timer
5. Unrestricted Leaders
6. No Pauses
7. Amount of Land/Water Up to Mapmaker
8. No AI Takeover
9. No Duplicate Civ/Leaders
10. No Huts
11. No Spies/Missions
12. No Random Events
13. Settle or Golden Age all Great Spies
14. No Permanent Alliances
15. No Vassal States
16. No Changing Builds/Research Late in Turn in Bad Faith/Consistently
17. The Heroic Epic and West Point can only be built once you have a qualifying unit that has always been yours, and if joined to a GG, the GG was one you spawned yourself
18. Snake Pick
19. Default Starting Units
20. Normal speed
21. Monarch difficulty
22. No diplomacy until players meet in-game
23. 10 teams
24. Tatan's Leader/Civ Ban List (plus HC & Vicky) in play
25. No Barbarians
26. Map-trading at first contact
27. Ivory is Krill's decision (no 'Phants)
28. Cylindrical World Wrap



SIGN-UPS (NOT LIMITED IN NUMBER)

1. Plako + DL-antisocialmunky: Catherine (CRE/IMP) of China
2. WarlordDr: Washington (EXP/CHA) of Greece
3. Mackoti + Ioan76: Roosevelt (IND/ORG) of the Dutch
4. Sleeping Moogle + DL-Sciz: Louis (CRE/IND) of Babylon
5. Nakor + Gaspar: Asoka (SPI/ORG) of the Vikings
6. Luddite + Atlas1998: Bismarck (EXP/IND) of Sumeria
7. Locke + Cervantes: Isabella (EXP/SPI) of England
8. Adlain + DL-Mania Muse: Wang Kon (FIN/PRO) of Arabia
9. Lord Parkin + DL-Senseless + DL-Irgy + DL-Yamps + DL-adrianj: DeGaulle (IND/CHA) of Egypt
10. sunrise + DL-Regoarrarr: Shaka (EXP/AGG) of the Zulu

EXP: 4
IND: 4 (!)
CRE: 2
SPI: 2
CHA: 2
ORG: 2
AGG: 1
IMP: 1
FIN: 1
PRO: 1


SELECTION ORDER:

Selection order w/ snake pick:

1. Mackoti + Ioan76
2. Adlain + DL-Mania Muse
3. plako + DL-antisocialmunky
4. Locke + Cervantes
5. sunrise089 + DL-Rego
6. Luddite + Atlas1998
7. Lord Parkin
8. WarlordDr
9. Nakor + Gaspar
10. Sleeping Moogle + DL-sciz
11. Sleeping Moogle + DL-sciz
12. Nakor + Gaspar
13. WarlordDr
14. Lord Parkin
15. Luddite + Atlas1998
16. sunrise089 + DL-Rego
17. Locke + Cervantes
18. plako + DL-antisocialmunky
19. Adlain + DL-Mania Muse
20. Mackoti + Ioan76


No one else has stepped forward so I will be the final say in rules disputes. I will consult the arguments made on both sides and the veteran lurker opinions. Play fair, play reasonably and remember that it is just a game.

[Cyneheard]

And I'll bring up my other note from that: tiles worked definitely should be changeable at any time during a war. I think that's more likely to be relevant than the repairing-broken-resources bit (that's only relevant if you have spies OR the game's gone to air power), but that corner case is more likely to be game-breaking if it occurs: Someone in PB1, and I think it was Rego, would have refused to be first in a rigid turn order if that meant he couldn't repair resources during the other player's turn. If there aren't spies, then it becomes the far-more-counterable air power game, and is less troublesome.

No, I'm not signing up; I'm not joining a new game at this time.

[plako]

Signing up.

Concerning the issues brought up by Cyneheard. I'm against rules that would require a player acting 1st to login again at the end of turn. I don't consider reallocation of tiles big enough of a problem to require an exception. However constantly losing strategic resources and key improvements is potentially more serious issue. I suggest that in these cases the player that suspects that some of his resources will get pillaged will negotiate a way to fix things with the pillager so that constant pillaging is not possible and obvivously pillager has to accept reasonable suggestions. Without spies it is quite unlikely this will be an issue. the deal could be e.g. that player acting 1st parks sufficient worker force to tiles and pillager is not allowed to air bomb these tiles.

Comments on some of the settings:
Decided:
3. Everyone or No one gets Ivory - No War Elephants is better rule. Map maker can make the final desicion
6. No Pauses - Except in case of technical glitches or reloads when someone might lose his turn because of this. Pause shouldn't be longer than 24h. maybe some pre-scheluded holidays with longer timer could also be agreed.

Undecided:
1. Tatan's Leader/Civ Ban List + Huayna Capac & Vicky - Ok
3. Game speed - Normal
4. Map wrap - Map maker's decision
5. Game difficulty - Monarch
6. Barbarians - off
7. Screenshots/Map Trades Allowed at: 3. Always
8. No Contact until: 2. Brokered by Civ who directly met other Civ
9. Lurkers Code of Conduct: ok
11. Number of Pauses: 0

[mackoti]

OK, this is my first pitbos( there is a beggining for everithing), so this is a sign in.
So about the rules:

1. Tatan's Leader/Civ Ban List (plus Huayna Capac & Vicky) NO civ and leader ban.
2. Starting Unit of Civs (Default or Uniform) Default( its an important chose)
3. Game speed - Normal or quick
4. Map wrap -doesnt mather just i want to know before picking the civ
5. Game difficulty - prince
6. Barbarians - off
7. Screenshots/Map Trades Allowed at: 1. Alphabet 2. Paper 3. Always 4. Never- 1
8. No Contact until: 1. Met In-game 2. Brokered by Civ who directly met other Civ-1
9. Lurkers Code of Conduct- OK
10. Ivory Allowed?- ye but not war elefants
11. Number of Pauses -1
12. PLAYERS! i liked alot pitbos 2 so lets say maximum 10
13. TEAMMATES! Very aprecieted to get one of 2
14. Who arbitrates disputes?-dont know Kril perhaps i lek how he thinks
15. Number of Civs- 10

[Krill]

You're going to have difficulties with that ban list if you get more than 9 players

[SleepingMoogle]

I'm interested, but will be unable to commit to the game until after Christmas. If that is an issue, no harm done.

On the topic Cyneheard raised: I don't really have an opinion either way, but hope that whatever the end result, the rules are there to provide a bottom line on scenarios that the game itself cannot account for. They are not there to be exploited to anyone's advantage, so just play nice & play fair.

1. Tatan's Leader/Civ Ban List (plus Huayna Capac & Vicky): - If this game starts with a high number of participants, we may have to open up the full list as the amount of choice becomes rather thin. Other than that, I don't mind either way.
2. Starting Unit of Civs (Default or Uniform) - Default
3. Game speed - Normal
4. Map wrap - If the difficulty is lower than Monarch, toroidal. If Monarch or above, Cylindrical or no wrap. Ultimately this should be the mapmaker's decision though. I'd rather not have us sabotage a great design due to world wrapping.
5. Game difficulty - Monarch
6. Barbarians - On, and Raging if the difficulty is lower than Monarch
7. Screenshots/Map Trades Allowed at: - Always; previous efforts have just led to long descriptions instead
8. No Contact until: - Met in-game
9. Lurkers Code of Conduct - Agreed
10. Ivory Allowed? - Mapmaker's decision, but War Elephants should be universally banned
11. Number of Pauses - 5 per Civ, with the ability to assign more if needed on general agreement
12. PLAYERS! - No more than 10 Civs please (see point 15)
13. TEAMMATES! - Up to the Civs I suppose. Preferably every Civ will be able to play turns regularly and commit the necessary time and effort.
14. Who arbitrates disputes? - A neutral third party with or without lurker support. If anyone volentueers for it, that's fine with me
15. Number of Civs - RPB3 was way too crowded. If the number pushes into the double digits, I prefer creating two games rather than one.

[Twinkletoes89]

I'm going to have to pull out of this game (at least from regular turn playing).

I've been playing another pitboss game at CFC and my uni network doesn't seem to ever fully disconnect from the host's server, causing bandwidth issues etc. As i will be using it most of the year, its best I keep from being a turnplayer.

In terms of resolving disputes, It may be better to have an 'arbitration team' of 3/4 people. This may make it easier for decisions to have credence and avoid one person gaining a lot of personal criticism for any unpopular decisions.

[sunrise089]

In terms of resolving disputes, It may be better to have an 'arbitration team' of 3/4 people. This may make it easier for decisions to have credence and avoid one person gaining a lot of personal criticism for any unpopular decisions.

Three people seems overwhelmingly better than four people

NOT a signup because I'm still thinking things over, but if you have any real number of teams I'd make the number of pauses per team very low or zero. We tried a pause pool in RBP3 and while it was a good idea IMHO it still meant a game could have ~40 pauses, or more than one per week.

I'd also caution reliance on a "banned civ list" - remember, all that does it make the strongest non-banned civ into the new OP civ. Say we assign civs values on a 1-10 scale and we have 10, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. It makes sense to ban the value 10 civ. But if we have 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 then it makes much less sense to make an arbitrary cutoff point. And, when I see a ban list with more than 1-2 civs on it I start to suspect we're closer to the later example.

[regoarrarr]

Someone in PB1, and I think it was Rego, would have refused to be first in a rigid turn order if that meant he couldn't repair resources during the other player's turn. If there aren't spies, then it becomes the far-more-counterable air power game, and is less troublesome.

Yes I think it was me, but it involved not being able to build nukes if uranium was pillaged / bombed I think.

It also came up for us in PB2, because A/K would move their units on our tiles, affecting our production.

I guess in the PB4 scenario, I'm less concerned about it, because the person affected is the aggressor (1st to play), right?, and as such, that's just one more thing to consider when decidign if/when/how to declare war

/not a signup but I'm noodling. again, I'd prefer a smaller game

[Cyneheard]

So, a proposed short ban list (no 2 Fin/Exp/Cre OR Lizzie):
Willem (Fin/Cre)
Pacal (Fin/Exp)
Elizabeth (Fin/Phi)
Sury (Exp/Cre)
[Peter] (Phi/Exp)
[Pericles] (Phi/Cre)

Civs banned:
Inca
India
[Rome]

The ones in brackets would be a more extensive list; I honestly don't feel that those in the brackets are all that much more powerful than other options (Darius, Ragnar, Gandhi, Ottomans, Egypt, etc. etc.): Rome successfully pulled off one praet rush in 3 pitboss games. That's not that high a success rate, and Rome didn't end up economically stronger for the war.

There's a clear break-point in power between Inca/India and everyone else. For the leaders, it's little murky, but the top 2-4 is probably the best way to handle that.