New diplo game: big discussion needed

[Robert]

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

I'll ignore the rest, but....: two?

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

On a meta level, yes it was.
It's not the cause of the problem, but when nobody takes charge problems won't get solved.
The biggest challenge is never to avoid problems but to solve them in a neat way.

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

Why?

[Rasputin]

capo is right,

black and white rules are needed.

second whenever a nissue arrises the game must be stopped till it is resolved.

all players need to repsond to the issue.

not just the loud minority.

The diplo cmommunity of players in the game should make the decissions not outsiders, not jsut certain people, but all of the players in the game.

would playing the game in turn order be better.?
will take longer due to time zones and personal availabitliy of course, but would make the game fairer as no one could double move or move half his units then move more after you moved.
Civ was always meant to be a turn based game not a Real time game. i prefer the old civ 2 for this reason.

[St Jon]

We do actually seem to have 'some form' of consensus nere.

We must have 'SET RULES' and an acceptance that the Host will 'PAUSE THE GAME' if any dispute should arise. The rest of it is ether - how powerful are spies or wonders and what resolutions should they be allowed to set! Those issues can be included in Mod's or specific 'RULES' for any particular game prior to launch and agreed by all.

Sorry Ras, but keeping to Turn Order makes having the Game PitBoss in the first place irrelevent. You also have the problem that in PitBoss the Turn will advance when all Players have finished Turn. Even with a 24hr clock most of us have jobs to do and real life to enjoy so our free time is limited. If I have an alarm clock set for 0500 to go to work am I honestly going to stay up until 0200 to fit my Turn in?

There will be situations, unavoidable, where an action is suspect but not covered but the rule set. This does not mean it cannot be challenged and and in-game, hopefully, a solution found. You can go too far in any direction for even if you had a text the size of the OT as 'Rules' you would fail to include every single thing. Capo, there still will be debate!

Anyway, count me in for a new game as I am enjoying BtP and it's just about reaching it's pivitol phase so I doubt many more months to go.

[The Capo]

You can go too far in any direction for even if you had a text the size of the OT as 'Rules' you would fail to include every single thing. Capo, there still will be debate!

I am not trying to stymie debate, on the contrary I am trying to soften the blow a debate may cause. If we have a "hierarchy" or decision-makers or judges or whatever you want to call them it will result in jealousness and doubt. If you have a group that is given this ability their decisions will be seen as biased (see Pinchak's noobs/vets guide). If you give the host the ability the host will be blamed, whether correctly or not, for what transpires (just ask Cyber). As a quick example I'll offer the following;

The Turks play their turn and finish while they are at war with the Chinese. The Chinese player then makes their move against a Turkish city, landing a substantial force near it. The Turks check the Chinese moves and see this has occured and decide to move some units to defend the city. The Chinese player, having moved last, has to allow the Turkish player to move first the next turn. Their units are attacked by the fresh Turkish army that, as far as they know aren't there. When the Chinese log in to play their turn (which happens to end the turn) they realize what has occured and claim a double move has occured. Many players move in this next turn including the host. The Turks deny a double move has occured. During this time there is some type of issue involving two other civs (who knows, a wonder, a discovery of a technology, something) which if a reload to the turn the Turks double-moved occured would effect the actions of the players which may cost another player a free tech, great person, or wonder. Let's also say that all three of these judges are involved in either the Turkish/Chinese war or one of the other situations. Or that the host is either Turkey, China or one of the other civs. This being the case SOMEONE is going to feel slighted, or claim to have been slighted based on the decision of either one of those aforementioned parties.

Now I bring up this entire circumstance for the following reasons;

(1) This sort of occured in BtP, the decision there was to continue the game. Even after judges were called upon.

(2) This could certainly occur, and shows what I mean when I say there is a difference between a debate and a situation where specific players in the game (whether the host or part of a triumvirate) decide the destiny of others
which could be taken as an affront and thus create personal vendettas.

(3) We have to have clear rules on how people move during war time that pertain to every situation, not rules made up by the warring parties. Did the Turkish player double move? One could say he did since he moved twice having moved LAST the first turn and thus BEFORE China the second turn. But since China moved last anyway ending the turn what if the Turks had waited the six hours before moving? It's a tough decision to make and with such issues on the table as war, and a potential loss for other players what is the right choice?

Basically my point is we have to remove the opinion aspect from the game and make sure the rules cover any scenario so that nobody feels they were slighted by popularity, their "status" in the diplogaming community, how "nice" they are in making their case or any other reason that has nothing to do with what actually happened. We must also protect the situation where there can be a mob mentality (i.e. it wouldn't be fair to everyone else to restart because x and y happened since the double move). These are the things that happened in BtP. If we don't cover each one they will happen again, in some form or another.

[Rasputin]

is it possible to have unlimiterd time on pit boss?

if so turn based is possible..

the only negative here is when someone fails to paly a turn., but this comes down to making sure your group of players are dedicated and post away notes whenever possible so everyoen knows.

I know this will slow the game down but surely a fairer game is better than a quikcer game and the no need for rules and checks on who did or didnt do a double move..

[Rasputin]

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?

Khmer still hateds deity is so unfair,

it dates back to an old Dipl game wehre captain manning didnt do exactly as khmer wanted ....

[mzprox]

an example

It's not easy to cover every scenarios with rules. What do we do if someone breaks it (unintentionally as He claims ) and the only way to fix it is a reload-which is breaking the rules in some sense for the reasons you have mentioned too.
In your current example the Truks made the mistake by moving some units after their opponent moved, in the same turn that they have already finished before.
let's see the possible solutions:
1, reload: could cause lots of problems
2, just continue on, giving some warning/punishment/negative score whatever to the erring side- no one will be satisfied this way..
3, make the Turks pass their whole next turn: they made a mistake, now they pay the price: this way everyone can be sure that no double move will occur... well except if they already told thier units what to do in the next round...
4, Let the warring sides solve this between each other. In the current example it would be enough if The Truks wouldnt move those units in their next turn which they moved after the other player's turn, but this would require trust between the players which is unfortunately missing sometimes..

The rules are good untill no one breaks them, but if it happens it could be really hard to fix.

[The Capo]

Which is precisely why there has to be a standard rather than an ad-hoc solution (which, as we have seen often results in a different solution to similar situations and creates animosity/disdain amongst players on a personal level). This way nobody is blamed, nobody can say "This is not fair that player x makes the decision." If you have a pre-determined protocol for dealing with something the liklihood of it happening becomes lessened.

[St Jon]

This is why Capo is right. I had a dispute with your, and Cyber's actions, and demanded a reload immediately. All I got was a tirade of accusations of Paranoia! I never did get that which was right - if the explanation were true - and that would have been a fourth City at little, if any, cost. The moves against me were totally different on reload, even though the explanation given was that the original was simply a correction of an error, and cost me the gain of a City. We now have a precedent on that issue and a 'RULE that must be included in any future Game'. I was still wronged and the wrong not corrected, even by reload, so the 'amended RULE must apply' so that a reload can be avoided. If broken the reload must NEVER again be used to circumvent the original offence. I took that issue no further at the time to try and limit any further damage to BtP but I was still the loser and a very big loser at that.

We must have strong and set rules that cover any foreseeable situation. It will never be possible to cater for any and all possible areas of dispute as only hindsight can do that but if such do arise there is always the PAUSE option whilst we, as a group, can determine the rights and wrongs of the matter.

That prior to my invasion of Japan I had to consult Ming for his interpretation of our ‘RULES’ regarding double moves on declaration war says an awful lot about my faith in their vagueness. I realise that his word is not law in BtP but it gave me a valid interpretation of the 'RULES' that I could use as defence of my actions. Nobody else should feel the need to have to follow that path again.

[mzprox]

To FF

Spoiler:

((@FF: You are wrong here because i moved the same after the reload-except i didnt make those moves which i did after yours- I don't like that you are suggesting that you "lost" a city this way, because it's not true ( which city are you thinking of btw? Both had an adequate defense on its own, you just didnt see Osaka's troops because they were out of the city-but closer than your troops, so you never could capture it). You didnt belive me that it was a honest mistake and i didnt gain anything-fine- we reloaded-but after that what else could have been done anyway? ))

Ok, we all agree that good and well explained rules are needed. Most of the rules based on common sense anyway, but we can't exclude the possibility of mistakes so we need rules to "how to fix it" without making long disputes on the forums. Pause immediately and then reload always?

[The Capo]

I agree. To me it is amazing that while we all agree that some changes need to be made certain parties continue to cling to concepts and ideas that have failed on multiple occasions in VERY recent memory. There is no way to ensure that people do not alter their moves when something occurs, obviously the information gleaned from a reloaded move will be used. But what is worse than that is continuing on without fixing something that should never have occured in the first place. That is the main issue at hand here. I hate to bring up old business, but it is essential to this problem. The facts of the matter in the Greek/Korean issue were that Korea ultimately had to "deal with" what happened to it simply because the game progressed (incorrectly/illegally). This precedent can not be allowed to stand, its the worst possible way of dealing with an issue at all. While a reload may not have been a perfect solution it was in fact the best possible solution. Rather than a pause in the game (which was not only requested, but would have helped to resolve that situation and would have, theoretically, resolved the situations that resulted from it) an argument ensued while the game progressed.

If we do not set into place protocols that DO NOT include an ad-hoc interpretation of the rules (which so far is what we have done, and is currently what is basically being promoted by at least two people) we are guaranteeing the continuity of this practice. Our problems never were the double-move rule itself, our problems were always how it was handled. Every single time it occured (I believe it was four times, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were more) the situations were handled completely differently, albeit with the same mindset that they are situational issues. This is simply wrong, and as I said before it leads to arguments and personal vendettas. We are playing a game that was estimated to last around two years long (although this estimate was probably a bit too much) yet the biggest characteristic that caused problems was impatience. We can not let impatience ruin the game, which is why I am for mandatory protocols with a mandatory PAUSE rule when an issue arises. If people don't like it they don't have to play in the game. If people agree to play and then complain when the game gets paused they have the option of shutting up and dealing with it (because they agreed to it beforehand) or leaving the game over something as stupid as a day or two pause to the game.

But we lost Vamp over an argument, and BtP lost me over an argument (how/why I left can be debated, but the argument ultimately resulted in my leave). We nearly lost more than that (in fact we may have lost another player as well) and to try and use the exact same policy but with a different delivery is just, in my view, ridiculous.

[Rasputin]

I still believe the biggest issue in BtP was/is the game continuing whilst debates were on going. This puts added pressure on the debate and usualy end up with the game continuing and the aggreived really peeved off.

so rule number one in next Diplo Pitboss game is PAUSE the game as soon as possible.

rule number 2. if someone misuses the forums to keep getting the game paused they will be treated as the boy who cried wolf and ignored.

[Robert]

+1 @Rasputin

There two lessons learned imho:
1. pause games when problems arise
2. make clear double move rules

The rest is a bonus.

[St Jon]

I, like Capo, do not want to rake over old ground but the facts remain. My Army was next to Owari ready to attack. I saw the defence there and decided to join with my Southern Army against Osaka. The moment I moved all but a single Musketeer and Archer left Owari. The excuse given was that they had been there in error and the move was a correction. This is BS and anyone can see it for what it is, a double move within a move! How on earth can anyone pretend that a mistaken move, they cannot have moved twice anyway, was suddenly corrected upon seeing my move? If Owari had only had a single Musketman and an Archer I could have taken the City for little or no loss and the entire course of the war would have changed with only one City able to Draft and Slave rather than two. Even if I had known about Cyber's intent to take you on as Vassel I could at least have razed the City or banked on my gut feeling that he probably wouldn't have actually been prepared to risk a major war on backing a losing horse. As it was I ended up with 3 Cities instead of 4, it would have been 6, because a blatant flanker was pulled on me.

This is the kind of thing that must never be allowed to happen again and altering the order of Turn Movement, after the event, upon reload does nothing to right the wrong. If the troops were there in error then upon reload they should have been gone when I took my move. They wren't, all I ended up with was a forced peace treaty and relocation of my army, not even a chance to reconsider whether the potential losses of attack were worth it - and that excludes the claim that the increased garrison was there in error in the first place!

Sorry, but there have been too many incidents like that for my liking and only Hard Rules in place prior to the event can ever prevent a recurrance. I may have got my reload but I never got that which was right!

To FF

Spoiler:

((@FF: You are wrong here because i moved the same after the reload-except i didnt make those moves which i did after yours- I don't like that you are suggesting that you "lost" a city this way, because it's not true ( which city are you thinking of btw? Both had an adequate defense on its own, you just didnt see Osaka's troops because they were out of the city-but closer than your troops, so you never could capture it). You didnt belive me that it was a honest mistake and i didnt gain anything-fine- we reloaded-but after that what else could have been done anyway? ))

Ok, we all agree that good and well explained rules are needed. Most of the rules based on common sense anyway, but we can't exclude the possibility of mistakes so we need rules to "how to fix it" without making long disputes on the forums. Pause immediately and then reload always?

[The Capo]

Sorry, but there have been too many incidents like that for my liking and only Hard Rules in place prior to the event can ever prevent a recurrance. I may have got my reload but I never got that which was right!

Well, I think the basic rules should be that you can't double move at all, and you have to log in once and make your moves at one time and leave them as is. The best way to possibly ensure this won't happen is to disallow multiple log-ins during the same turn. A lot of players (myself included) have logged-in a couple of times in the same turn to see what is going on, set up orders, or just look around in general. But I suppose we may have to remove this option becuase clearly certain people do not understand simple concepts.

I am all for new rules being set up to cover certain situations. But I think the most important thing we have to tackle is the protocol for what occurs after a rule is broken, or at least there is a contention that a rule has been broken.