RBP2 Lurker Discussion Thread - No Players!

[Krill]

There are several issues to deal with here, so I'll try to deal with them one at a time, but no promises...

@Krill

Speaker (unintenionally) got me to think about something. I understand that the war-split-rules are in effect to basically get the acting like it is in single-player - one moves after the other.

That means Dantski could not accept a gifted city by Spullla before the next turn. However, when Spullla would have took the city, would they not have been prompted by the game with a pop-up asking if they want to free it back to the original owner? I would think so and if that is true, Dantski would not have to accept the gift, it would happen instantly. edit: The point I am talking about is that also in single-player the city would have been gifted on Spulllas turn.

If both assumptions above are true (that the war-split-rules intention is to emulate single-player-warfare and that the city would have instantly be gifted without Dantski having to accept it) I would think that a reload really is not necessary.

The aim of the rules set was never to make MP like SP, but to make warfare in MP flow, to not take up too much time, and to keep the game balanced so that it never favoured the attacker or defender too much.

In fact, the current issue isn't a rules debate either. The rule was clearly broken. The argument is that either "it doesn't matter" or "the statute of limitations has passed." Because I have defended my own rules on this principle I think Krill needs defended here too - just because people don't like the rules doesn't mean they're badly worded or wrongly applied.

As sunrise said, no one has disputed that the rule got broken. This is an important point, IMO. It shows that something needs to be corrected. What needs to be done is still up in the air.

Now, I'll have to sidestep to another issue. I think Darrell above said that I should be an arbiter, and ask the wronged party what they would want to correct the issue, if anything. Perhaps it would work, but it would be really complex and difficult to sort out, and as I said, all I promised to do was keep the game moving. Someone much more wise than myself could perform the balancing act, and many less knowledgeable could screw it up. All I know is that it is Pandoras' box and I'm staying the hell away from that option, instead preferring to just stick with reloads (punitive measures I can understand, but still don't like).

On the issue with the lurkers involving themselves with rules breakages...I can't agree that lurkers should stay out of it. I can't read every thread, and understand the nuance of each teams position in the game, so having all of you lurkers bring potential problems to my attention, in this thread, is a great help. However, it is a fair point that the lurkers shouldn't involve themselves in sorting out rules violations, except perhaps to bring them up to the wronged party, right?

Now, we reach the crux of the matter: How to solve the issue.


Several people have stated that they should just play on because so many units have moved. Fair point, if the issue had just been uncovered. It hasn't been. The issue was pointed out when a reload could have easily solved what was at the time a minor problem, but the fact that the rules breakage was ignored is a major frigging problem, and I can't stress how bad that is, especially as someone pointed out above about how both Speaker and Sullla have email notification on (OK, Sullla is on holiday, so cut him some slack there). So let me rephrase that.

India (unknowingly) broke a rule, but when confronted about it knowingly played on.

Is that acceptable in any game? I can't see how that is considered acceptable. But it is a separate issue, and it should be worked out afterwards. So back to how to sort out the problem of the unit moving.


Serdoa posted above that India could have reached the cannon stack regardless of culture, but that isn't quite true...the Indian units were kept 3 tiles away from Goa, so that they would only have 1 move one they reached the city. They would not have been able to attack the cannons unless Mali culture was returned to the city, so the city would have to be captured or gifted to Mali, which brings me to explain why the whole unit movement section was added in the first place.


This is where the original argument and explanation started. One of the reasons the rule was written as is, is that I wanted to simplify turn splits, and keep the game flowing during a war (those of us in RBPB3 know just how bogged down it can get without this type of rule). Now, I also needed to find a way that stopped players in the same time zone from having a huge advantage compared to those spread across the world, in coordinating their unit moves, and this was how it worked out best, IMO.

Now, the reason I'd apply this to city gifts during war time is that it keeps the playing field level for the players spread through out the world. I can see why a lot of people don't like that, but it is a logical extension. The way I'd prefer to see it handled is that the city gets gifted at the start of the receiving players turn, simulating a capture...but this is, for the moment, immaterial, but I have posted publicly in the past that such shenanigans were not supposed to be acceptable.


But now to return to RBPB2...Could Dantski have captured the city himself? No, unless Sullla moved first and gifted their units to Dantski, thus opening the possibility of a backstab. If Dantski moves second to take the city, Spullla are attacking into 20% culture with no collateral, and thus lose a fair few cav. So gifting the city is a necessity, when you take into account the starting positions of the cav, they can't reach the cannons unless Dantski has Goa.

Thus you see, the rule breakage is important, because it affects the amount of units Nakor loses.

Based on the original need, though, it would seem the game admin should be the person to step in and settle conflict when it arises--not the person who is actively policing the game. That is what the players should be doing for themselves.

There was quite the rules debate in the Ottoman-Byzantine war, so I don't think it's fair to say all the other wars.

The problem with self policing is that, well, it doesn't really work. It takes a long time to haggle for a solution, if a problem is found. But Nakor didn't even see the rule breakage, so does that make it OK to break rules if the other side won;t see them? Obviously not...it is always wrong the break the rules, therefore you can't rely on just the players, who do not have all of the information about the game to police the game themselves, and still be effective.