New diplo game: big discussion needed

[deity]

Can we discuss the pros and cons of pitboss, in the light of BTP, and sort out cast iron parameters and levels of player skill to establish a new diplo game that has constant game dynamics sometime in the next few months?

[Pitboss Khmer]

Well deity, I think it's time to stop the vets from making rules on the run. In fact they should stop thinking altogether.

One thing I will say is that the game of 18 players would never have happened without pitboss. Very few technical probs.

And using the epic speed the turns advanced over 6 months just as quick as playing a once per week session.

What about Capo's new diplo mod?

Is that launching soon?

[Pinchak]

I would be very much for another diplogame to start.

I'm not saying BTP should be ditched, although honestly I wouldn't be opposed to it. Out of 15 remaining players, only 5 story post on a consistent basis. The game IMO has degenerated into a standard multilayer game for the most part.

Alot has been learned from BTP however.

Regarding Capos MOD... I have played it and it is good. It does however push the hard coded game memory bounds to their limit. I would hate to see it become unstable several months into a game. Perhaps someone with more programing knowledge then myself can verify it's stability and/or any other technical concerns before we commit to it.

That being said, besides creating a solid rule base, I think we also need to take a closer look at who we are letting in the game, stressing the need to engage in the story side of things.

[Robert]

All games I've been in saw a decline in story telling at the end.
We must take the lessons from this game into a good ruleset for the next game though.

If we start a new game while BtP is still running we'll certainly see the story telling in BtP dropping.

[deity]

I do not recommend starting a new game just yet but we do need to restore momentum in the genre with discussion and the planning of a new game, players etc.

[The Capo]

Obviously I would be in favor of starting a new game. But I agree that there is no need to start this ASAP. In fact that is probably the worst mentality to have for the new game. The attitude that we have to press on as quickly as possible and at all costs has clearly been refuted by what transpired in Beyond the Pit.

There are at least a couple of new players who would be great for the Diplogaming genre. I myself have also returned, and while we may have lost a couple of regulars we did get a few good replacements in the interim. I think the BIGGEST lesson learned from BtP is that there has to be guidelines/protocols in place prior to the game happening. They have to not only be agreed upon (which I was told was the case in BtP) but also UNDERSTOOD the same way by everyone (which clearly was NOT the case). I don't think there is a need for a lot of RULES beyond a double-move rule of course, and then tech trading rules. But guidelines that have to be followed for every situation are certainly a MUST.

The host is another issue. By that I mean the host's role. I don't think we should have our host be the decision-maker. Especially if the host is going to be a player in the game. This creates problems, whether or not the host is right it puts a bad taste in people's mouths and it becomes an issue later on (as we learned in BtP). The guidelines should fix this problem, but perhaps we should, in certain situations, call upon neutral judges, although I don't really think this is necessary is guidelines are established for dealing with issues. I think a mandatory pause in the game for certain issues must occur to prevent any situations where the game continues when it should not have continued.

As far as using my mod. It is a good mod, its fun and it looks amazing. I think it could be used but we would have to limit the civs to ten, and we should probably have someone look at it as Pinchak suggested because it was my first foray into modding so the python and xml coding might be a bit "sloppy." Which does result in more memory being used than necessary. But its really cool, it gives more dynamic religions and the unit/city graphics are awesome so it would definitely add flavor to posts and that may ultimately lead to more posts and thus more involved diplomacy. I also think we should use a smaller map simply to make wars more viable. Even in modern times on a huge map your war capabilites can be stymied by sheer distance alone.

But again; this should be discussed more before we actually start a new game. But count me in.

[St Jon]

As a total newbie to PitBoss and Diplo-Gaming I have, despite the arguments, enjoyed BtP for the 2 months or so I've been playing so I would very much like a chance 'from scratch' in a new game.

Lessons must be learn't from BtP and mistakes not repeated. The most important thing must be that the Rules are set in advance, on pivitol matters, and are CLEAR in as far as possible a way to all. You cannot have situations where rules are added, amended or dispenced with entirely as seems convenient to allow 'the game to progress'.

The biggest MUST of all is that upon any complaint being raised the host must be obligated to pause the game immediately so it can be resolved. I would go further and suggest that an independent host would be a move to stopping a lot of gripes and allow swift decision making without any allegations of bias being raised. The CMN role is the norm in SMAC/X and it works but it does require somebody to be prepared to give of their time and, in PitBoss, hardware resourse.

Cyber is right about Story-Telling tailing off towards the end. It does in ordinary PBEM, if anyone has put any effort into a thread in the first place, as some people just have nothing to write about. I think Cyber did suggest on another Thread that a rule might be put in place that allowed Civ destruction after a set point in game. Maybe this should be considered as there are 3 Civs that have nothing and no hope of progression in BtP. Not bad play just the geography has just left them stranded. They cannot even be outraged at invasion as their immediate stronger neighbours would not be able to benefit from attacking them due to Diplo-Game etiquette. I inherited a weak Civ that cannot win but is 'where the action is' and could wage a war against another similar ranked Civ. I can write stories because I have something to write about but it must be very boring now for those who are just stuck in a rut. Even being attacked is more fun that just hitting 'End Turn'! BtP does seem to have 1 player who has no interest at all in it being even MP and that should not be encouraged.

An Opinion

[Robert]

We need a very clear ruleset. This ruleset is almost defined in BtP, we need some more double-move rule tweaking.
We should never use external judges again. It's just too difficult to understand such a complex game as an outsider. The only solution there is a judge that's involved with the game but not a player. Nobody is going to do that. Not to mention that our need for a judge was only related to vague rules which needed interpretation from outsiders.

The host should also be a part of the game. A non-involved host would be terrible. Delays in reloads, not being aware that the game is down, etc. etc.

It might be best to have the decision maker to be someone else then the host.
Also make a 3-decision maker hierarchy. When the #1 decision maker is involved in a conflict the decision is being made by the 2nd, or the 3rd.

But everything comes down to having a clear ruleset.
BtP was partly an experiment to figure out the right ruleset.
Rules we haven't discussed and may never be needed to be discussed but perhaps should be discussed anyway are rules about city gifting in wars.
Civs that are (soon going to be) involved in a war aren't allowed to give cities to external parties. (ie. to avoid that the city is being conquered by the enemy)
City switching forth and back should also not be allowed (ie. to make quick upgrade and then give the city back)
Never ooc split up a civ (if it becomes AI)

Another rule I'd like to debate is to loosen up the 'no annihilation' rule.
Perhaps annihilations should be allowed from a certain point in the end game. (60%? 70% of the game length?)
For the natural flow of the game that may be good. Small civs may not even care in the end to be destroyed. (and be freed of their daily end-turn routine).
Civs could in that case be able to express their wish to continue. (so that nobody wil destroy them)

Just some thoughts or debate

[Pitboss Japan]

I'd like to see discussion about all these things:

1, What kind of map would we use. (i think the BTP map is very nice but maybe it's too big even for 18 players)

2, Possible use of mods (I wouldn't mind, i'd even play with mods like the Ancient Mediterrean Mod for example or a simplier one with just a few modifications)

3, Changing rules (disabling some wonders/it's effects whatever. Actually i don't have problem with the core rules- One thing i want to discuss is spying: I think it's not working very well in multiplayer games, It's too easy to infiltrate someone, because no one would spend soo much money on spying to be able to defend himself from all the other 17 players. I think the game would work better if we had to put our spying spendings on each player from 1 to 5, anyway this is just a suggestion)

4, Double move, war time etiquette (the best and easiest way to let the warring sides agreeing who moves when. It would help if the timer is 24h (or maybe 12h) because most player can play in the same time every day.

5, Balancing the game somehow- giving help to the weaker or the less fortunate players. (probably it would be a good idea to make exact rules for this, maybe based on score)

[The Capo]

Okay, second time is enough. DO NOT USE YOUR BTP NAMES FOR THIS THREAD PLEASE! There is no point in doing so.

EDIT: Also you are not supposed to anyway, you are only supposed to use the extra log-ins for the game they were made for. This is a rule from the moderators, not me.

[The Capo]

I have a few responses to some things.

@ Cybershy; I agree with you that the independent judges don't quite understand the diplogaming concept. Some may consider this a benefit, because they are truly neutral, but some (like you and me) don't like the independent judgements. In fact I was against the independent judges even when I thought they would rule in my favor, and I was certainly at odds with the way it was handled. Having said all of that I am also against your heirarchy of judges. That puts us right back where we started from in the first place, and will also create negativity and personal quarrels amongst the players (rather than the actual civilizations). I think as long as our rules are all agreed upon (and I'm talking about the letter, there should be no concept of the spirit of the rule) and the protocols are in place we have no real need for judges at all. I also think that we should continue the concept of not allowing total destruction, if there is a powerful civ that never posts and hardly has any interaction with the other players and just goes conquering the game can dissolve into a regular MP game. Also I don't find the precedent that you note, by that I mean a waning of diplomacy as the game gets late. I remember a few games where there was just as much diplomacy going on in the late game as there was in the early game (HOTW2, HOTW5 etc.), these games had one thing in common; a SOLID group of diplogamers.

@ "Japan"; I disagree with altering wonders or making a cap on spying. I think spying is important to a diplogame. In fact in my mod I made spies MORE potent. Espionage certainly can help a small civ best a bigger one. In fact in the Korean/Mayan war (had it gone the way it should have) espionage would have been a HUGE part of our strategy. I also think our set up for the double-move rule during wartime was fine. As long as the rules were followed and protocols followed it would have worked, the problem was the concept of the "spirit" of the rule and the fact that nobody had actually agreed upon what this meant. The protocols for handling it were also not followed. And then of course there was the concept of "damage" done. The purpose of this was to make sure the game wasn't delayed over a simple mistake, but it wound up creating problems. In the next game we should eliminate this "spirit" concept as well as the "damage" concept.

[Ming]

Okay, second time is enough. DO NOT USE YOUR BTP NAMES FOR THIS THREAD PLEASE! There is no point in doing so.

EDIT: Also you are not supposed to anyway, you are only supposed to use the extra log-ins for the game they were made for. This is a rule from the moderators, not me.

THANK YOU... it saved me the trouble of sending a PM.

[Robert]

The Capo:

Having said all of that I am also against your heirarchy of judges.

It's a hierarchy of decision makers.
The decision maker is not the judge. He just makes the final decision.
He decides to vote for something, when voting ends, when the game needs to be paused, etc.

Someone must take charge.
The main problem during our conflict was imho most of all that there was no decision maker. The conflict could continue because no real decision was made. (till the judges were called by Ozzy and decided. From the moment on that ozzy took charge there was a solution.)

Normally the decision maker calls for a vote and decides upon a vote.

@Japan: I think a rule should be something like:
"during a war players can agree upon a (or no) turn order in anyway as long as all players publicly post that they agree.
As long as there is no agreement the following ruleset should be followed: ........."

[Robert]

Okay, second time is enough. DO NOT USE YOUR BTP NAMES FOR THIS THREAD PLEASE! There is no point in doing so.

EDIT: Also you are not supposed to anyway, you are only supposed to use the extra log-ins for the game they were made for. This is a rule from the moderators, not me.

May I advise players use different browsers.
I use firefox for my Greece postings and MSIE for my CyberShy postings.
That saves a lot of troubles! (no need to login/logout as well!)

[The Capo]

At the risk of bringing this up again I must respond to these comments by Cybershy. All the bolded stuff was done by me....

It's a hierarchy of decision makers.

That's the same thing as "judges" pretty much, in fact possibly worse.

The decision maker is not the judge. He just makes the final decision.

EDIT: Sounds like something George W. Bush would say. "I'm the decider!"

He decides to vote for something, when voting ends, when the game needs to be paused, etc.

Someone must take charge.

You mean how you did and cost us... err, you guys, two great diplogamers?

The main problem during our conflict was imho most of all that there was no decision maker. The conflict could continue because no real decision was made. (till the judges were called by Ozzy and decided. From the moment on that ozzy took charge there was a solution.)

Cyber, this is simply NOT AT ALL WHAT HAPPENED. Even then, that was not our "problem."

Normally the decision maker calls for a vote and decides upon a vote.

This is why we will have written and agreed upon protocols/guidelines ahead of time. There will be no more individual decision-making on when and if we pause the game. There will be a protocol. If there is a double move the game will be paused, no questions about it, and resolved. Then it will continue. That way there are no issues. There does not need to be a decision-maker (especially not using YOUR example), there just needs to be a set of guidelines to be followed. That's the best way to do it. Take it out of individual hands and put it in the letter/rule of law. Its the best, fairest, and most objective way to handle it.

@Japan: I think a rule should be something like:
"during a war players can agree upon a (or no) turn order in anyway as long as all players publicly post that they agree.
As long as there is no agreement the following ruleset should be followed: ........."

This is EXACTLY the type of wording we have to avoid!!!!