RBP2 Lurker Discussion Thread - No Players!

[Bobchillingworth]

Eh, I totally disagree here regarding city gifting; I don't see any shame in knowing when to fold them & calling it quits when the game is clearly lost. If you want to ban city gifting then I suppose you should also ban deleting your own garrisons or suiciding troops as Jowy did- but why force players to fight it out to the bitter end, thus drawing out the inevitable and causing frustrations for both the attacking and defending parties just for the sake of pretense?




No matter how much they suck, the Chicago Cubs still get paid; Whosit doesn't. This isn't life or death, it's a computer game hobby, and it's absurd to ostrachize someone from the community just because they didn't wring every last drop of blood possible from their civ.

[Kristian95]

I agree m4gill4, and I would hope that if there was ever a PB4, there would be a rule made that noone can gift cities to another civ unless they are liberated or part of a peace treaty.

Of course it has a loophole where (using this game) Nakor could DoW Whosit and claim the cities as the price for peace, but that would be such an egregious exploit that surely the game admin/other players would forbid it from occurring.

I find it interesting that RB seems to slowly turn into a place where people may or may not consider exploits.... not that I have actively participated in RB events, but I know that using exploits is definitively 100% against the spirit of RB .... let us hope it stays that way!

[m4gill4]

Who said anything about ostracizing anybody? Whosit is free to play how he wants and I'm free to not like it.

[MJW (ya that one)]

I think A4L's plan is to rip off 2-3 cities for free and then sue for peace when he encounters real resistance.

[Bobchillingworth]

Who said anything about ostracizing anybody? Whosit is free to play how he wants and I'm free to not like it.

Okay, replace "ostracize" with "publicly label as dishonorable and behaving against the ethics of the community".

Point still stands that arguing for players to fight to the bitter end is tantamount to requesting them to waste their time on a game they can't possibly win, for the sake of wasting the time of the player(s) attacking them. Like a player refusing to resign in a game of chess where they have only a few pawns left and victory is essentially impossible, just to spitefully draw out the game as long as possible. Which is, in my opinion, silly.

[darrelljs]

I know that using exploits is definitively 100% against the spirit of RB .... let us hope it stays that way!

There seem to be a lot of things tolerated in RB MP that are anathema in the Epics/Adventures. I'm a second generation RBer (joining due to Cuban Isolationsists). Sirian was really active at that time and impressed upon us newcomers the importance of not influencing anyone's game. The only thing we are allowed to post is "game complete". I loved reading Penny's post and Spulla's responses to it, but at the same time wished he had kept it in this thread. A lot of second generation RBers seem to feel the same way, but most of the old timers don't seem to have a problem with it. Go figure .

Sirian was also really big against exploits. I remember how he'd rail against the Civil Service slingshot, devising variant rules to ban it, then getting mad when T-Hawk found a way around them .

Darrell

P.S. Sirian, if you don't want people talking about you like you aren't with us anymore, come back :neenernee.

[m4gill4]

Okay, replace "ostracize" with "publicly label as dishonorable and behaving against the ethics of the community".

I think you may be overstating the influence of my opinion

Point still stands that arguing for players to fight to the bitter end is tantamount to requesting them to waste their time on a game they can't possibly win, for the sake of wasting the time of the player(s) attacking them. Like a player refusing to resign in a game of chess where they have only a few pawns left and victory is essentially impossible, just to spitefully draw out the game as long as possible. Which is, in my opinion, silly.

Your point is valid, they don't owe anyone to play this game beyond their own initial commitment. Yes it would be a drag to play out the turns when it looks like a lost cause.

However if everyone gave up at the drop of a hat, there would have been no Banana to save the day and deliver a stunning and memorable upset during the Apolyton game. Such an outcome is inconceivable in this game when every team that is down bows out.

Simply put, it makes the game less fun to watch, and as a spectator in the spectators forum I think it's within my rights to say so.

[Bobchillingworth]

Simply put, it makes the game less fun to watch, and as a spectator in the spectators forum I think it's within my rights to say so.

Agreed on both points; it'll be much more interesting to watch if Whosit goes down swinging


As a participant in two of these games tho, I can say that my personal enjoyment will always come before lurkers

[m4gill4]

Agreed on both points; it'll be much more interesting to watch if Whosit goes down swinging


As a participant in two of these games tho, I can say that my personal enjoyment will always come before lurkers

I think you have constructed another consensus, congratulations

[T-hawk]

Eh, I totally disagree here regarding city gifting; I don't see any shame in knowing when to fold them & calling it quits when the game is clearly lost.

This is exactly what AI Takeover is meant for. If somebody wants to quit from a losing situation, they really can't be forced to continue playing. But it's not fair to the other players in the game to nakedly destroy yourself like Jowy did for Spullla, or to give away your cities elsewhere. An AI would at least hold on to its cities and put up halfway competent token resistance. I haven't played any of these MP games of course, but I don't understand why this isn't even considered.

Sirian was also really big against exploits. I remember how he'd rail against the Civil Service slingshot, devising variant rules to ban it, then getting mad when T-Hawk found a way around them .

Actually, that only happened once, and I think Sirian was more impressed at the micromanagement than mad. That said, I'm surprised it isn't used more often nowadays. Even with Math as a CS prerequisite, it's usually possible on Monarch or below, or Emperor with a Phi or Fin civ.

Sirian was heavy against exploits in Civ 3, since the game engine had so many holes in it. Many could be cleanly banned by legislation (ROP rape, free Palace jump by abandoning the capital), but there were several gray areas, chief among them being super-dense city spacing and worker farms. No rule could properly cover all those cases, so we had to rely on the players' sense of honor.

Civ 4 single player has no holes needing such aftermarket rules patching. Even the Oracle-CS slingshot just adds up to accelerating by 5-10 turns or so. The AI does not engage in transactions like temporarily gifting Heroic Epic units or cities to build trait-cheapened buildings or share wonders like the Mausoleum or Cristo Redentor. But multiplayer is a different story. The AIs don't care if you abuse them with spies, but multiplayer needs some restrictions to stop 500 EP from blowing up months of work.

Really, we're still in the discovery phase of a fair multiplayer set of rules, like we were in the early days of Civ 3 succession games before the Epics began. With time and effort, we could patch Civ 4 multiplayer to hold together as well as Civ 3 single player did. I am not sure if we have a captain both charismatic and industrious enough to make that happen, especially with Civ 5 on the horizon.