RBP2 Lurker Discussion Thread - No Players!

[Kristian95]

I couldn't agree more with Serdoa, darrell and dazedroyalty

[sunrise089]

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.

Nothing personal Shoot, and I'm sorry I'm still testy over this, but there was no rules debate as I recall things. Players decided they wanted to change the rules after the game had begun, and did so at our expense. It was voted on by the majority of course, but that's different a disagreement about the interpretation of the rules.

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.

Now, it still may be a bad rule, but none of the evidence thrown around is focusing on that, but rather whether the illegal move actually matters at this point. A criticism of the rule is a criticism of Krill (who wrote the rule). A criticism of enforcement is really a criticism of the vote to make Krill king of this game (assuming Krill is just following the letter and spirit of that vote he isn't at fault, the voters were for making a game admin when they didn't want one).

[MWIN]

Thanks. I edited my post.

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.

[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.

[Kristian95]

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?

I think this was mentioned because some people consider that rule breaking will only be discovered from teams who write detailed reports, and hence it may cause players to stop writing reports to minimize the risk of anything similar to this happening to them.

Regarding the gifting of cities, I thought that Spullla would get the option to liberate the city to Dantski once they conquer it... at least you get that kind of option in SP... if that is true, then the whole rule breaking ends up being a non-issue with regards to affecting the outcome.

[Axiis]

This is seriously ridiculous. If you watch sports at all, you know that sometimes the refs have to put away the whistles. Getting worked up over a technicality is just stupid, especially when this really doesn't drastically change anything. I mean, let's go worst case scenario here for Spullla and say Nakor does manage to raze Gao. Does that make any real long term difference? Is that anything more than a small set back? And even that's pretty unlikely to happen.

All you're doing here is pissing off Speaker. And yes, that does make a difference, because your pissing him off is not outweighed by any tangible positives other than a wrongheaded adherence to the rule book. Just let this go. I know as a lurker that my voice makes no difference, but I and I imagine most others would like to see this game go on without unneccessary antagonism. The players also seem to be in agreement that they would rather just play on. Let it go.

[SevenSpirits]

I don't think Krill as arbiter should be able to choose a course of action that no players agree with when there is a different possible course of action that all players agree with.

Also, I am curious whether the liberation option is there as people have speculated. If not, someone needs to explain the consequences of the rule breaking (not just that it happened) to Nakor so he can ask for appropriate reparations if he wants.

[Axiis]

To quote The Office: this is the smallest amount of power I've ever seen go to someone's head

[sunrise089]

To quote The Office: this is the smallest amount of power I've ever seen go to someone's head

What's the alternative?

Never enforce any rules? Enforce rules only when there is some sort of consensus for enforcing them? Then why have rules, why not just vote on everything every turn?

Giving Krill all this power and then letting some people decide that they're immune to it is the worst possible scenario. It's MUCH worse than just allowing double moves or whatever. We end up in a situation where some people can break the rules because the other side won't make a fuss, but if the situation is reversed than the game admin is quickly brought to the table.

I think you guy know my positions: I don't like game admins, and I wish RBP2 had kept the rule set it opened with, rather than changing it twice. But IIRC the remaining players unanimously voted Krill into power. I think what India did in their war should be legal, but it isn't, so why turn a blind eye? If people have turned against the rule then vote to remove it, but why are we defending someone unilaterally saying "the rule doesn't apply to us."

Can my RBP3 team decide a rule doesn't apply to us? Is this some new freebie to be used up like pauses?

Finally - sports analogy "If you watch sports at all, you know that sometimes the refs have to put away the whistles." Yeah - I find the team who got away with something loves that view. So who's going to decide when the whistles get put away? Should we never blow them? Ok, blow them once per game? Twice? It's an unsolvable problem isn't it? So instead players play and coaches coach with this sword hanging over their heads - will they or will they not get away with things? Now suddenly we're not playing sports, we're playing "Game Theory Hour with Bob and his officiating crew."

I'm actually shocked that after the last month (blown perfect game in baseball, blown World Cup goal for England) the "there is a time for ref calls to end" argument is still being uttered. The game isn't made better because players are able to get away with playing unfairly - the right calls deserve to be played all of the time. The only argument is that it takes to long to have good calls, so in that case 1) get better officials, 2) improve technology, or 3) change the rules. But I have zero patience for the "wink wink nod nod, lets overlook things because we like the outcome even if it's unfair" way of dealing with things.

[Axiis]

Games would grind to an utter halt in football if every holding call got called. Same with every touch foul in basketball. It's not always appropriate to stop the game just because a rule was broken. I don't think you analogy of the blown perfect game/blow goal really work because those weren't examples of a ref using discretion, but rather they were examples of refs getting the call obviously and terribly wrong. IMO the argument that every foul should be called all the time is way more problematic than asking for a little common sense and discretion. Prime example: Michael Jordan's push off against the Jazz for his famous last shot. It would be awful if a referee waved off his shot because he pushed off. He would be technically right, but it would go against everything that is good about competitions. Same with the (in)famous Helmet Catch - people where I'm from still complain about all the missed holds during Eli Manning's scramble, but the fact of the matter is that it would have been ridiculously inappropriate for the refs to call a foul on the deciding play of the game.

tl;dr it's not about a formula for how many calls are acceptable, it's about the ref using a little discretion. Stopping the game and pissing off the players for no tangible good is the opposite of that.

I used the phrase "rule lawyering" earlier, because that's exactly what this is. Yes they broke the rules, but it makes little difference. Therefore: let it go.