Realms Beyond MP House Rules: A Proposal

[scooter]

It has occurred to me that there might be value in having a sort of default set of house rules for our Civ4 MP games. We have general principles and a general community understanding of what is and isn't OK, but there's less consensus than I would like. It's also extremely common to launch games without discussing these things.


To solve this, I would like to propose a set of house rules that will serve as a default for any new game, but importantly can be overridden by player choice at time of new game launch. The purpose here is not to make a blanket ban on a bunch of things site-wide, but rather to make a default selection that must be intentionally deviated from rather than a vague set of principles that is just sort of in everyone's heads. The following rules are my proposal for what the default should look like, but I'd like to get feedback here. I'm ideally looking to land on something everyone finds generally agreeable and inoffensive. Important detail: when in doubt, this will lean more towards what is most common in RB games and will not always match my personal preference. For example, I'd prefer a stricter reload policy for big games, but maybe the existence of a baseline here will encourage us to think about it explicitly next time.


This is also not meant to be exhaustive. I'm not going to get into the weeds over things like settler races, map trading, etc. Those can be addressed for individual games. Finally, full diplo games are rare here, so these rules are not optimized for that. It would be recommended that a diplo game consider overriding rules as appropriate.


Rule 1: When in doubt, don't be a jerk, and default towards good-faith play. This one is more nebulous, but if there's doubt over interpretations of other rules, this one governs all. If you think you have found a way to exploit a loophole in the rules, you are violating this rule.


Rule 2: Double Moves in Simultaneous games are banned during wartime. The declaring player may choose which half of the turn timer they'd like to have, and the responsibility is on them to not double move the other player. It is also considered good practice to alert the opposing player via PM when it is their turn. Multi-party wars should play in the same order when appropriate to prevent advantages gained via swapping turn order.


Rule 3: Turn timer camping is strongly discouraged. There may be the odd case where it's unavoidable - such as following a potential but not yet declared turn split - but if you find yourself doing it with any sort of frequency, you are violating this rule as well as Rule 1.


Rule 4: Unit, city, and gold gifting are banned. Good-faith deals involving cities and gold are acceptable. An example of a good-faith deal would be gold for gold-per-turn loans, purchasing a city, extorting a city/gold for peace, etc. An example of a bad-faith deal would be giving a city to player X in order to deny it to player Y, or gifting half your cities for peace when only one or two are truly threatened. Unit gifts in a non-diplo game are impossible to negotiate, so they are never allowed.


Rule 5: Reloads are granted for mechanical mistakes but not mental mistakes. If you misclick your stack in the wrong direction or your cat walks on your keyboard, that is a mechanical mistake, and a reload will generally be granted if it is not harmful to other players to do so. If you forget to whip a unit, that is a mental mistake, and this will generally not be reloaded.


Rule 6: Destroying things in your own civ for zero tactical/strategic gain to deny spoils to would-be attackers is not allowed. If the destruction improves your position in the game, this is generally allowed. Examples of acceptable destruction that improve your position include: whipping a unit every single turn possible, replacing cottages with different improvements to improve defensive capacity, etc. Examples of unacceptable destruction are self-pillaging your own tile improvements or whipping a city several times in one turn.


Would love to get some feedback on this. Perhaps there's something important I've missed or some suggested refinements. My general hope is we can refine this and have this in place prior to new games launching. This would have 0 impact on existing games, unless of course players in existing games would like to unanimously adopt these.

[Qgqqqqq]

I think that settler races would be worth spelling out given that they tend to create a fair amount of issues.

Another thing I think would be useful, one way or the other, is to clarify what forms, if any, of mechanical exploits of the game are considered inappropriate. E.g. Flying Camera tricks, pathing island shapes, detecting cities in the fog using settlers, etc. My impression is that a strong portion of the player base considers there to be nothing wrong with these and another portion consider at least some of these to break the spirit of the game. That's definitely getting very much into the weeds, but if we have house rules, t could be useful.

[DaveV]

In connection with rule 4, what about two front wars? I've observed lots of hard feelings about perceived all-out defense on one front while leaving token garrisons on the other (although this veers very much in the direction of telling someone how to play). Other topics that have caused a lot of furor are spite whipping and cottage pillaging. What about deleting workers or moving them into your ally's territory?

General comments: devoting a lot of time over a long period to a game inevitably causes the player to become very invested in the result. It's easy to get angry when things don't go your way, particularly if you don't have a dedicated lurker to talk you down. It's fun as a lurker to read the details of the game in someone's thread, but also easy to ignore the amount of effort it takes to document all the details, on top of time spent playing the turns. In general, the level of sportsmanship and fair play here is amazingly high, particularly when compared with the teenagers taunting each other in the typical online game.

[greenline]

I'm pretty neutral on spite whipping, but a lot of people don't like it. Self pillaging cottages when losing a war I am not a fan of.

[Commodore]

In connection with rule 4, what about two front wars? I've observed lots of hard feelings about perceived all-out defense on one front while leaving token garrisons on the other (although this veers very much in the direction of telling someone how to play). Other topics that have caused a lot of furor are spite whipping and cottage pillaging. What about deleting workers or moving them into your ally's territory?

General comments: devoting a lot of time over a long period to a game inevitably causes the player to become very invested in the result. It's easy to get angry when things don't go your way, particularly if you don't have a dedicated lurker to talk you down. It's fun as a lurker to read the details of the game in someone's thread, but also easy to ignore the amount of effort it takes to document all the details, on top of time spent playing the turns. In general, the level of sportsmanship and fair play here is amazingly high, particularly when compared with the teenagers taunting each other in the typical online game.

Multiparty wars in general are a tough nut to crack. Trying to defend on one side vs. the other is obviously an issue when there's a "loser being eaten" side, but the newly emergent dogpile metagame can be a little iffy too. How should a hopeless player handle being involved in helping "pick a winner"? 

Like you say, it's actually remarkable how much sportsmanship is displayed here given the investment level.

Rule 5b, I do like the "1 oopsie" rule.

[scooter]

I'm pretty neutral on spite whipping, but a lot of people don't like it. Self pillaging cottages when losing a war I am not a fan of.

Ah, I agree this is a thing that should be on this list. My general sense is the community is mostly pretty anti those things, so I've written one as such and added it to the OP.

In connection with rule 4, what about two front wars? I've observed lots of hard feelings about perceived all-out defense on one front while leaving token garrisons on the other (although this veers very much in the direction of telling someone how to play). Other topics that have caused a lot of furor are spite whipping and cottage pillaging. What about deleting workers or moving them into your ally's territory?

General comments: devoting a lot of time over a long period to a game inevitably causes the player to become very invested in the result. It's easy to get angry when things don't go your way, particularly if you don't have a dedicated lurker to talk you down. It's fun as a lurker to read the details of the game in someone's thread, but also easy to ignore the amount of effort it takes to document all the details, on top of time spent playing the turns. In general, the level of sportsmanship and fair play here is amazingly high, particularly when compared with the teenagers taunting each other in the typical online game.

Multiparty wars in general are a tough nut to crack. Trying to defend on one side vs. the other is obviously an issue when there's a "loser being eaten" side, but the newly emergent dogpile metagame can be a little iffy too. How should a hopeless player handle being involved in helping "pick a winner"? 

Yeah the two-front war is tough because even with a rule, there's gray area. For example, sure I could try to write a rule that says you should defend equally, but what if you have the answers to one invaders stack but not the other? What if you view one invader as having ruined your game, and you view another as simply piling on reasonably? In addition, there are some cases where it's a valid tactic to try to convince one dogpiler out of the war by making it clear they won't actually make gains. Sometimes this might even be a bluff. Finally, you often can actually survive much longer by killing one invading army first, so disproportionate defense is often the right strategic choice. In short, I don't really know how to write a satisfying rule, and suspect such a rule could create as many problems as it solves. I'm open to someone trying to write one. My gut though is Rule 1 exists and is the best I can think of for this type of thing.

I think that settler races would be worth spelling out given that they tend to create a fair amount of issues.

Yeah, I thought about this, and I'm open to slipping this into the double move rule. My general sense is this one is fairly low-impact and doesn't cause games to blow up, so my instinct was to ignore it and leave it as an optional "game setting" which is how it's often treated now. Do others feel strongly that this type of thing should be officially ruled on? It's a thing I've never cared that much about, but that may be in part be just because I've skewed towards Sequential games for awhile.

Another thing I think would be useful, one way or the other, is to clarify what forms, if any, of mechanical exploits of the game are considered inappropriate. E.g. Flying Camera tricks, pathing island shapes, detecting cities in the fog using settlers, etc. My impression is that a strong portion of the player base considers there to be nothing wrong with these and another portion consider at least some of these to break the spirit of the game. That's definitely getting very much into the weeds, but if we have house rules, t could be useful.

These feel difficult to enforce, and I also think they're difficult to discuss because I think a lot of players aren't even fully aware of this. My general feeling is this is a skill insofar as understanding game mechanics - intended or not - is a player skill. I would view a player figuring out map things this way no different than a player figuring out my early build path to figure out if they can rush me by cleverly solving the demo screen. That's a skill even though I'm almost certain the game designers had no idea how much detail was leaking out. So my general feeling is to leave this one alone, but my feelings are not strong.

Rule 5b, I do like the "1 oopsie" rule.

I prefer being fairly lax for smaller games, especially as it's easier to reload without delays for those, but I agree strongly for bigger games. I think this is a minority opinion, though, and Rule 5 as written is a pretty good description of the current norms that we judge reloads by. My belief though is the existence of Rule 5 might remind us to consider the "X oopsie" rule for future games before the game has begun.


Basically, if I launched a game and wanted this, I would include "RB House Rules, except <explanation> for Rule 5" in the signup phase.

[xist10]

1-3 should be clear.
3 as written is a bit complicated, but in general I would even say that if one doesn't submit to these rules, at least in theory, then one should think about not playing here, right ?

5. I can live with that, but I still see some need for discussion here.
What about the upcoming “no questions reload”? Is that going to be dropped? Would this be the only legitimate use for this reload? Or can more reloads be requested now?

In this case, you could also briefly mention the circumstances under which a reload must otherwise be performed. So things like a double move in a war

And now to 4.
I find this far too restrective.
I think all 3 things are also acceptable as gifts (in moderation).
But I clearly agree that there have to be limits somewhere. - For people who don't want to see any limits here, the top statement would actually be useful.
But I don't see them explicitly for all gifts.
I can understand the ban on units. I don't agree 100%. Especially because why do you need to negotiate unit gifting ?
Proxy wars are nothing unknown. There needs to be a limit (modern units and no mass gifting, both should fall under rule 1), but even one, two units can have a moral impact. We (CF) play more loosely, but there was one case where we didn't want to apply rule 1 in the game. - The player was then banned from playing PB.
But in the end we lose not that much with that - because nobody really uses that.

I understand the ban on city gifts in general, but a somewhat special example: Joint war, one side was clearly more successful with conquered cities.
Is it allowed to give part of the conquered cities to the (temporary) ally (in order to improve the diplo relationship)?
Otherwise I would like to ask: Should this replace the (in my opinion) absurd limit of one city per trade ?

Regarding gold, I have already written a longer text in PB81.
In my opinion, there are several valid immaterial reasons why gifts of gold are justified.
What makes such gifts critical in my eyes is a combination of duration and relative size. 100g per round is little if both parties make 1000g per round.
And if this becomes critical, you can end this over Rule 1 again. - Like we discussed in the PB77.

With the planned ban on gifts, but not on (good faith) trade, we now have more of a discussion about what a good faith deal is.
It feels like we are just shifting the discussion. Edit: And the latest post from Cornlakes in scooters PB77 story highlights this.

And I'm fighting for the gold because it's simply the last way to support other players.
I play MP partial for such things.
There are a few good reasons why you want to support other players relatively unconditionally - even if this shouldn't be with all of your eco.

I don't like rule 6, but that's personal preference and different culture.
I do think that the (partial) ban should lead to more discussions, about what exactly is allowed and what is not.
Interestingly, it also almost implies that you should overbuild the number of workable cottages with farms/workshops.

[superdeath]

Another rule: Logging in/out of turn order during war. Gaining knowledge that you wouldnt have otherwise due to turnsplit/war.

[scooter]

I do have an issue with my own proposal here.

Rule 6: Destroying things in your own civ for zero tactical/strategic gain to deny spoils to would-be attackers is not allowed. If the destruction improves your position in the game, this is generally allowed. Examples of acceptable destruction that improve your position include: whipping a unit every single turn possible, replacing cottages with different improvements to improve defensive capacity, etc. Examples of unacceptable destruction are self-pillaging your own tile improvements or whipping a city several times in one turn.

I tried my best to write up rules that closely match existing norms for games, but I realize this is actually not a rule normally. It is frowned upon and widely despised and also somewhat uncommon as a result. However, on the rare occasion it happens (PB74 for example), there is a loud chorus of "why do we allow this" from players. So, including this here is me taking a perceived temperature check, but it's not unreasonable to actually reverse this and note that this is allowed. I would personally lobby for disallowing it in games I play in.

What about the upcoming “no questions reload”? Is that going to be dropped? Would this be the only legitimate use for this reload? Or can more reloads be requested now?

This would have no effect on that. The point of this proposal is that a given game can have whatever reload rules the players decide amongst themselves, but in the event they make no decision this would be the default. If you start a game tomorrow and get others to agree to unlimited gifting, unlimited reloads, unlimited double moves, and unlimited self-pillaging, have at it! I would lurk that game no question . But half our games launch with 0 discussion of any of these things.

[Fintourist]

I do have an issue with my own proposal here.

Rule 6: Destroying things in your own civ for zero tactical/strategic gain to deny spoils to would-be attackers is not allowed. If the destruction improves your position in the game, this is generally allowed. Examples of acceptable destruction that improve your position include: whipping a unit every single turn possible, replacing cottages with different improvements to improve defensive capacity, etc. Examples of unacceptable destruction are self-pillaging your own tile improvements or whipping a city several times in one turn.

I tried my best to write up rules that closely match existing norms for games, but I realize this is actually not a rule normally. It is frowned upon and widely despised and also somewhat uncommon as a result. However, on the rare occasion it happens (PB74 for example), there is a loud chorus of "why do we allow this" from players. So, including this here is me taking a perceived temperature check, but it's not unreasonable to actually reverse this and note that this is allowed. I would personally lobby for disallowing it in games I play in.

Self-pillaging is rarely logistically feasible, but under certain circumstances I think it should be allowed as a default. If my opponent is conquering a great commerce city and I have a chance to destroy its cottages, it can be very logical. Maybe that will improve my chances of reaching tech X earlier and taking the city back in a distant future? And if possible, it makes also sense to whip the city to the ground. At the same time I have no problem playing in a game that bans self-pillaging and multiple whips per turn - probably that makes the game more fun.

However, self-pillaging improvements as the final middle finger to your opponent a turn before you get eliminated definitely sounds like a violation of "don't be a jerk" rule.

***

I haven't followed games closely enough recently. What are we thinking about fish-for-fish and iron-for-10g type of messages/offers in no-diplo games. Does that need a clarifying rule?