Realms Beyond MP House Rules: A Proposal

[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.

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.

What's the steelman case for allowing someone to, say, whip a size 14 city down to 1 in a single turn just out of spite? I cannot think of why this would ever be acceptable.


However, the rest is all fair, and I think I should adjust Rule 6 to simply noting that this is all allowed but somewhat controversial and still governed to an extent by Rule 1. It's vague, but I don't know that there's enough consensus to land on something specific. I do want to clarify - I think pillaging for gold is always acceptable. For example, if someone conquers your city and you pillage the towns while it's in revolt, well that's up to the conquering player. I think what irks me most is simply destroying your own stuff for no actual gain. Such as:

I do hope Piccadilly feels stupid because of what he has done to this city. He pillaged it into the ground - but I am not coming.

This stuff I just do not have enough eyes to sufficiently roll. This was a player destroying all of his cities - which made his production/defense capacity worse, not better, in an effort to make it unappetizing. I suppose you could make a (stupid) argument that this prolonged his life in the game. But I have 0 respect for this loser stuff. Defend your cities instead! Anyway, open to ideas on how to get this out of the game without having negative unintended consequences. But I will adjust Rule 6 to be more permissive because it does not seem like the correct default.

[Fintourist]

What's the steelman case for allowing someone to, say, whip a size 14 city down to 1 in a single turn just out of spite? I cannot think of why this would ever be acceptable.

I guess the key phrase here is "out of spite"? If I'm anticipating a long war, I do not want to give my opponent a large city from where he can whip more units to kill me.. If I'm just whipping down my last city, I don't think that's good sportsmanship.

Anyways, I think we agree that simply banning stuff like that makes the game outright more enjoyable for all the players.

[T-hawk]

What's the steelman case for allowing someone to, say, whip a size 14 city down to 1 in a single turn just out of spite? I cannot think of why this would ever be acceptable.

The case is if the target thinks that's his best chance to recapture the city. Make it harder for the attacker to get more units or walls or cultural defenses in it.

You could say, that's a real purpose and doesn't fall under spite, but then you're just in an argument about defining what constitutes spite. Or arguments that the defender misjudged any chance of recapturing it and therefore wasn't allowed to whip it down.

The more general case is that anything a defender owns is his resources to dispose of as he chooses, and other players don't get to dictate that. An attacker doesn't have an entitlement to anything that the defender can avoid giving him.

[Mjmd]

Original etiquette thread below for those curious. There is some repetition being discussed here. I know some people brought up settler races and that is covered here. To note I sometimes specifically put in my voting spreadsheets the option for coin flip. I haven't seen a strong preference towards one method vs the other. I think coin flip has won the vote twice and current rules has won once.

https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/show...p?tid=7311

I like #4. No offense to you xist but the few times I've seen games on the German forum it seems like some pretty shady stuff gets through. I would also rather not have to have an arbiter each game (poor soul) and lurkers councils aren't always easily resolved. In response to DaveV I agree with what others have said, its almost always right to consolidate your own stack vs defending on two fronts. When people are dying they usually aren't feeling the best so I agree with Commodore we have been pretty luck overall. I do agree people shouldn't totally abandon your cities, but I know I've only left a unit or two (usually older fully fortified or archer/longbows) in cities so I can pull real units back. But what is reasonable can depend on when in the game it occurs and forces involved.

5 - ya this one is kind of size of game dependent, but for larger games organizer can always note that  going with the 1 oopsie rule.

6 - I've never self pillaged, but I have whipped down to 1 pop in a single turn, but always for reason. I have also NOT whipped down to keep a city in revolt longer. In general I think people need to learn to dry whip more when being invaded, but situations do arise where it makes sense one way or the other. On tile improvements, Ramk in PB59 it was taking me so long to kill that he had time to fort a bunch of his tiles ruining the improvements. But then he put guerilla crossbows in some of the ones on hills, which was VERY annoying and effective. Were the ones on flat ground out of spite? I don't know, but if he had gotten to longbows maybe he would have used those too. Hard to say.

[superdeath]

re-iterate: Thoughts on out-of-turn logging in during war turns? Gaining info you might not have otherwise especially if multiple players are involved.

[Dreylin]

re-iterate: Thoughts on out-of-turn logging in during war turns? Gaining info you might not have otherwise especially if multiple players are involved.

I'm not sure; I thought it was generally accepted that this is not done, but I can see it happening accidentally.

Could you get much more information from this than you do from just rolling the turn and staying in-game for a few seconds to watch city growth/builds, and I don't think there's any way to fully avoid that happening.

[civac2]

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?

I don't mind messaging like fish/fish or iron/iron as long as there are reasonably vague.

Recently, I have seen fish/fish with gold attached which at least one party also intended to signify a fixed-term NAP. Anything that's remotely like a NAP needs to purged with fire including its relatives up to the 8th distance.

[superdeath]

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?

I don't mind messaging like fish/fish or iron/iron as long as there are reasonably vague.

Recently, I have seen fish/fish with gold attached which at least one party also intended to signify a fixed-term NAP. Anything that's remotely like a NAP needs to purged with fire including its relatives up to the 8th distance.

LOL no. Nothing is fixed. Can always be broken/misunderstood. Its not a full diplo game.

Nothing to clarify. Nothing is actively-being traded, hence nothing nefarious is happening. 


It is my view that outside of city gifting (debated pre-game how many cities per peace deal/lurker review) and gifting of units/whole economy being strictly banned, everything else in the trade window is up for grabs/ect. Want to pay someone to swap to your religion? Try it out. Spend 2500 gold to get someone to declare war on their neighbor? Maybe it will work. Trade war with someone for the other player to cut ties with that person as well, maybe cutting them off of strategic resource trades? Sure!

Limiting choices/actions is almost always a bad thing. Both in games ive played, and games ive lurked (usually after having died.. /grumble) Not much is more fun for myself as a lurker than watching misinterpreted diplo and how everything shapes up.

[RefSteel]

Recently, I have seen fish/fish with gold attached which at least one party also intended to signify a fixed-term NAP. Anything that's remotely like a NAP needs to purged with fire including its relatives up to the 8th distance.

So, my MP games here have been neither recent nor numerous, even if you count the ones I dedlurked without ever logging into the game, but I'll observe that what civac2 posted here was the consensus on this site for a long time; it's only comparatively recently that "AI diplo" has started growing increasingly permissive. It wasn't that many years ago that using gold as a "countdown" or "timer" was specifically forbidden, and using resources or cities to specify a part of the map or the nature of a plan or threat would likewise have been against the rules. I remember (picture me as an old man with a long, grey beard waving a cane and whining about kids these days here) when the likes of "fish for fish" were first reluctantly accepted to express mutual peaceful intentions in situations where there weren't actually-useful resources (e.g. spare sheep to someone who has none for spare fish if you have none) to trade. The idea that some people have adopted that a "fish-fish" offer specifically represents a 10-turn NAP on the other hand is ... well, I'm not playing, but I'm with civac2 on this. In my curmudgeonly view, fish-for-fish "shouldn't" be allowed at all!

I do think the old-school rules amounting to "no diplo communication except for purposes of the actual exchange offered; don't use anything on the diplo screen as code for something else" are better for the game. The current extensive trade-screen diplo (of e.g. warnings about incoming rival stacks, timed NAPs, etc.) gives a strong and unfair advantage to players who know each other and each other's diplomatic style (or are good at puzzling out each other's intended meanings and willing to take time and mental effort out to do so) especially over players who are new to the site. For better or worse, it also makes dogpiles much more effective, as well as other forms of cooperation between otherwise-rival teams. ("For better or worse" in the sense that it's likely many players like this feature, and perhaps some of the other aspects too.)

(I would also want to propose a rule against diplo spamming, but I'm not sure how to word such a thing.)

[superdeath]

re-iterate: Thoughts on out-of-turn logging in during war turns? Gaining info you might not have otherwise especially if multiple players are involved.

I'm not sure; I thought it was generally accepted that this is not done, but I can see it happening accidentally.

Could you get much more information from this than you do from just rolling the turn and staying in-game for a few seconds to watch city growth/builds, and I don't think there's any way to fully avoid that happening.

Accidents are accidents. Consciously logging in after the other party to see what they did.. is another thing. Especially if there is yet another player coming in after that could theoretically kill whatever was giving you vision of that area.

pb77. Scooter logging in nearly every turn after i complete mine to peak at everything i did. If for instance, bing/yuri/cairo killed one of his airships or ships or cities ECT, whatever gave him vision.. he wouldnt know what i had brought. I havent brought it up to him via pm because apparently ive already pissed him off plenty to have started this whole fiasco.. and i like to generally not be hated more than i need to be.