New EitB game (Big PBEM/PB)

[Dreylin]

Without full context, I do have to agree that "abusing the snot out" of a bug is rather against the RB ethos.

[jalepeno]

Played. And I think it's time to talk about the elephant in the room. When I read these posts my first thought was *not* "Wow, I'll have to pick them next game and abuse the snot out of this bug." If I were playing the Balseraphs in a hypothetical game, I would delete my Hall of Mirrors units after three turns, since that's obviously what was intended by the game. Other players are free to tell me to get stuffed or call me a poor loser.

Was wondering where those came from. That does seem exploitive, maybe beyond the old keelyn specter exponentiation.  They certainly changed my approach (more in my thread for later). 

Not sure what else to say. I [selfishly] want you to fight on, as their utility is fading, but understand that you've already born the brunt of the damage.

[Ellimist]

Within the diplo rules for this game, I feel that this was 100% inappropriate for DaveV to post here. I voted against these rules twice but have followed them faithfully.

I do not consider anything I have done to be exploitative of a bug or otherwise outside of the bounds of fair play.

I have invested a VERY large amount of in-game resources into this tactic and the simple fact of Dave revealing and explaining it will reduce the utility and effectiveness considerably.

Furthermore, Illusion units have so far played an insignificant(possibly zero) role in the fight against the Lanun. I can't elaborate further without revealing spoiler knowledge.

I am very disappointed that the game has been compromised in this way.

[DaveV]

What? Instead of poofing back into non existence after three turns, your uber-phants strolled halfway across the map to block my path to counterattack your mages.

[Ellimist]

Serious question:

What recourse do I have when one player has decided to deliberately defy the rules against engaging in diplomacy, and has openly shared spoiler knowledge in a public thread?

[Aurorarcher]

I guess as I started this game I should say something.

And that's a fair question, Ellimist, and I'm not sure how to answer it without full context (which I would not like to know at all). You're absoloutely right that no spoiler knowledge should be shared in public.

And I do think Dave went off the limits here. It's difficult with these games when there's not much of lurkers around to help to solve these situations in private or game admins or such. I guess that's why Dave wanted to share it in public (?) because he believes you're abusing a mechanism that shouldn't really work that way.

It's hard to say on things that could possibly be broken and/or should be fixed but they're still there for players to use. I guess it's a matter of percpective then.

You have all the right to say that you're not doing anything like that (no abusing of a known BUG), and we'll keep playing the way it is (sadly with a little spoiler info).

Let me ask for final clarification, Ellimist. Do you believe 100% that you've not used a known BUG to your advantage or otherwise obvious unfair broken game mechanism/fair play?

If your answer is yes, then no more discussion on the matter should be held in public.

[Dreylin]

Well, this feels like a job for the game admin (if we have one) and/or the Lurkers (if there are any non-deds still paying attention), since there's not just the revealed spoilers aspect of the situation.

EDIT: ninja'd.

[Qgqqqqq]

This is a difficult situation.


Premisally, Dave, you shouldn't have posted as you did. That crossed the bounds several times over, and everyone's actions will be influenced by knowledge they should never have had. This is quite a severe case of that. Reaching out to a lurker would have been preferable.


I've spent some time discussing this with Ellimist. Here are my conclusions:

1. Objectively, this is a bug. This is outside the intended behavior of the mechanic, as evidenced by the wiki, previous discussions, etc.

Illusions are meant to be temporary.

2. Subjectively, Ellimist did not believe this was a bug. The Civilopedia does not discuss the intended use of this building, and Ellimist tested this rather than investigating further.

2a. My opinion: I do not believe that he should have been expected to investigate further. Different players come at FFH2 with different levels of experience, and interact with the community differently.
2b. This is reliant on 4. If my conclusions there were different, I would expect him to investigate further.

3. Ellimist has invested into this strategy to a considerable extent. Quite apart from how forcing him to undo this would change the current state of play, it would also reflect an non-trivial investment to his civilization compared to where those resources could otherwise have been invested. (The relative position of his civilization is not relevant here.)

4. The results of this bug are not ludicrous. That is to say two things: 1. Ellimist's benefit is non-trivial, but not gamebreaking. To place this in context, the benefit is not even close to the order of magnitude of Mardoc's Disciples of Acheron. 2. the benefits from it are counterable within the level of development at which the bug arises.

4a. That is not to say that, on balance, Ellimist has not recieved benefit from them. But rather that that benefit has primarily been on the level of an unexpected strategy. For instance, if I started next to the Dovellio and expected them to make champions to the extent that I'd forgotten they could build anything else, and instead they built mages. The loss is because of the difficulty of rejigging to respond, not inherent.

5. On balance, the benefit Ellimist has received is proportionate to the investment.


Based on these, I would generally consider some remedy might be warranted, but it would be a small one. On balance, I think the damage done by Dave revealing this may be sufficient to balance it out.

[Qgqqqqq]

If it is believed that a further remedy might be needed, than we need to find a spoiled lurker with experience in FFH2 to assess, which will involve hearing from Ellimist & DaveV and probably me (as developer). Tbh, I'm not sure an active lurker exists who could fulfill that function.

[Dreylin]

If it is believed that a further remedy might be needed, than we need to find a spoiled lurker with experience in FFH2 to assess, which will involve hearing from Ellimist & DaveV and probably me (as developer). Tbh, I'm not sure an active lurker exists who could fulfill that function.

We could ping Ichabod and see if he were willing to take a look? Maybe Commodore?

As you say, I think the rest of the experienced players are either playing or deding.

Edit: also maybe plako