New diplo game: big discussion needed

[deity]

I like the idea of getting rid of that game score. This was discussed a long while back but I don't think it can be reliably implemented.

Also, it is most likely we are using Capo's modpak for the next diplo.

Capo, can you provide links to the latest downloads/instructions please?

[deity]

-Higher maintainance for cities after some point (in current game there are empires which are simply too huge. They are researching modern techs in a few turns and i think that's bad.

You bring up some good points.

Those players getting modern techs so quickly is why I was talking about handicaps but maybe your idea is better. Let's flesh it out.

[Robert]

If there's no score-system then the in-game-score will automaticly determine the winner. (if not official, then at least into the minds of the people)
I think our current score system just needs some tweaking, but isn't that bad at all in the end.

2 threads will imho not work, people will miss important posts or people will have different opinions on what post can be in what thread and what not.

Just put a limit on the number of characters one can post in the story thread per month (leave out public communication, if needed).
Quality above quantity.

We can also start tracking the game score every month so that players who are on the top at a certain couple of months, but drop later (Piercia, Maya) still get the benefits of being on top for a while.

For military and diplomatic votes we should let all players post a small post in which they explain their reasons for why they think they deserve votes.
Then hidden diplomacy can be exposed. (or perhaps a couple of months later, if it's too confidential yet). and military tactics can also be made clear.

And then 5 extra points for the in-game winner. (space ship, cultural, etc.)

[The Capo]

I think we should keep Cybershy's point system in place until we have a regular game (as opposed to BtP which was filled with problems) to see how it works when it is utilized. I don't think there was really anything wrong with the system we had before. The game score was taken into consideration, and since we are voting it is up to the voters to determine who "won" the story category, military category, and diplomacy categories. I think the best way to determine these is with a vote by the players, who should know why they are voting for certain people. I also didn't seem to notice much favoritism (I personally voted, on many occasions, for countries that Korea was not friends with). For now I'd suggest we figure out the procedure for dealing with a double move. Here is what I think should happen;

When a double move occurs...

Step 1: obviously it begins with the accusation that a double-move has occured. The game should be put on pause as soon as the host can do it. If someone accuses someone of a double-move the other players should NOT move (so check the thread before playing your turns), don't worry because the game will be paused and most likely reloaded.

Step 2: Once the game has been paused correctly, again players who make moves after a double-move has occured do so at their own risk, obviously a double move is determined. If there is a double move the following outcomes should occur;

1. The offended player is asked if they want a reload. They have the option in case the double-move seems accidental or is of no consequence. It is NOT up to the host or other players to determine this.
2. If the offended player(s) say they want to continue without reloading (in cases where there are numerous nations offended, this must be unanimous) then we can unpause the game and continue unless there are any other objections.
3. If the offended player feels slighted, or wants a reload to occur it is their prerogative to do so. In this case the game will be reloaded to the save PRIOR to the turn on which the double move occured.
4. All players are expected to recreate the moves in the same way they did them before. Obviously this will be hard to enforce, which is why all of these rules must be agreed upon in advance.

Step 3; If a double-move has been shown to have occured, and the offended player (or players) ask that a reload occur a reload should occur at once. Extra time (say ten hours) should be put on the clock in case this conflicts with other people's schedules.

*The game should be PAUSED UNTIL THE ISSUE IS RESOLVED based on the procedures.


Under this procedure the host has no authority other than setting the wheels into motion. I think the host should have to send save files to either one or two other players in case some issue arises where the host decides he either doesn't want to reload, or was involved in the issue, or takes it upon his/herself to make a decision without following guidelines. This way the host can be circumvented and a new host (even if temporarily) is established. I doubt it will come to this, but just in case back up saves should be given out to either one or two other players.

I honestly don't see how this could fail. So long as it is applied the same way each time, and every player understands that there WILL be a delay when there is a double-move (whether the offended player wishes to reload or not, the game should be paused until all parties understand what will occur). I think this is the best method, there is no real need for independent judges or anything like that. Game gets paused, reload is determined, and we either continue or reload from the last save. Seems pretty cut and dry to me.

[The Capo]

About my mod; I am going to make a new version (well actually two versions, one for MP games like Diplogames and one for SP games) of my mod which should run better and not have any memory problems (or at least a lot less). So if you really want to play it now you can download it HERE AT CIV FANATICS' CENTER. You are going to need WinRAR I believe to decompress it. Simply put it into the mods folder for BtS and you can play it by loading up BtS and clicking 'Advanced' and then 'Load a Mod.'

To utilize the new religions (there are seven total) select 'Choose Religions.' This will also prompt the AI to choose religions closer to their civilization's traditional religion (for example the Persian leaders will select Zoroastrianism). There are also Inquisitor units (that you can use to remove non-state religion from a city you control or those of your vassals so long as they have your state religion), and spy promotions (so using spies for cheap missions build up your spies' experience and make future missions cheaper and easier to conduct). There are also a bunch of new leaders and two new civs (Iroquois and Israel). Other than those changes, which ultimately are not very many, the game is the same as normal BtS. That is, with the exception of the graphics; there are ethnic city styles and tile improvements, new terrain and resource graphics, some new graphics for old leaderheads, and of course flavored units to give your civ a more unique feel.

Its really fun to play in Single Player (in fact I only use my mod now) and does work in MP games (as Vamp, MMC, and Pinchak can attest to). I made a bunch of modules for it, which are no longer up (damn FileFront!) but I'll reupload them because there are over thirty new civs you can plug in and pull out depending on what new civs you want. These new civs also have flavored units. And Australia is one of them!!!

EDIT: Oh yeah, one of the few game mechanic changes that have been made is that some buildings now provide a little more espionage points and give XP points to spies.

[The Priest]

Capo,

I think that your procedure for double-moves is great.

What we need now is a similar statement as to what a double-move is. Probably easily written, but its not completely obvious, since does it mean 'move' or 'any action' (e.g. altering your espionage settings, upgradings etc), if 'any action' does this mean no logging in after you have ended turn. And are we looking at establishing turn order in war, or the 6 hours, and is the 6 hours to be interpreted as 'you can't move before 6 hours, and you shouldn't afterwards until your openent has moved, but if necessary you can' or 'you can wait at at 6.01 deliberately log in and make a double move but because its after the 6 hour point you can get away with it'? And we need to be clear about simultaneous moves, and the whole thing to have sufficient flexibility for connections going down (you can't actually say you may only log in once, since it someones connection goes down 2 mins after they logged in its harsh to say they have therefore forfeited their turn) and for the realities of life and time zones.

But, I'm sure it can be done - perhaps you could give it a go.

The Priest.

[The Capo]

Capo,

I think that your procedure for double-moves is great.

What we need now is a similar statement as to what a double-move is. Probably easily written, but its not completely obvious, since does it mean 'move' or 'any action' (e.g. altering your espionage settings, upgradings etc), if 'any action' does this mean no logging in after you have ended turn. And are we looking at establishing turn order in war, or the 6 hours, and is the 6 hours to be interpreted as 'you can't move before 6 hours, and you shouldn't afterwards until your openent has moved, but if necessary you can' or 'you can wait at at 6.01 deliberately log in and make a double move but because its after the 6 hour point you can get away with it'? And we need to be clear about simultaneous moves, and the whole thing to have sufficient flexibility for connections going down (you can't actually say you may only log in once, since it someones connection goes down 2 mins after they logged in its harsh to say they have therefore forfeited their turn) and for the realities of life and time zones.

But, I'm sure it can be done - perhaps you could give it a go.

The Priest.

The six hour wait time was established not to completely remove double-moves, but with the understanding that due to the amount of players (18) with differing schedules (at least three continents with very different time zones represented) sometimes double moves would have to occur in order to keep the game going smoothly and give players appropriate time to move. The theory was that, while at war, a player would make an effort to move quicker because they had important things to do (such as wage war or defense for example). The six hours was in place to that players couldn't take advantage of the double move rule and force their opponents to wait for a long time before moving, which could potentially ruin their chance of moving (depending on their time-zone/schedule). Under this rule there is absolutely nothing wrong with waiting six hours and one second and then conducting a double-move. I actually like it because it does help people with scheduling when they take their moves and I don't think we ever really had anybody complain about the six hour window. Although personally I would move it to 50% of the turn clock. So if we had a game with a twenty hour turn, it would be ten hours rather than six before a player can make a legal double-move.

I think the only real issue we have with what constitutes a double move is whether or not the turn prior to declaring war should be considered. I am in the camp that says it should not, then of course you have people like Cybershy who say it should. Other than that issue I don't think there is much of a disagreement on when an illegal double-move has occured.

Does anyone else have any comments on the procedure I proposed?

[Robert]

The one question is, if there's a double move then it's easily visible from civstats.
Why not just reload the game at once?
Right now we have this rule to pause and debate about it, but what's there really to debate?

2nd: if a player misses a turn then the turn-order should switch, like:

turn 1: Player A moves, Player B moves
turn 2: a moves, b movecs
turn 3; a, b
turn 4: a
turn 5: b, a
turn 6: b a

Why would we let a move in turn 5 again first if b didn't move at all in turn 4?
In fact, a moved last in turn 4 so he should move last in turn 5 as well.

3rd: we should put the double move rule on 9 hours, 6 is too less.
And we should also include the honourable request to wait to play your turn till the first player moved as long as possible. Of course this can't be enforced, but if Player A is first in turn orde and Player B is 2nd, then if Player A didn't move for 9 hours B is allowed to move, but he can wait another 4 hours, then he just waits 4 more hours. If he can't wait, then he moves.
This is a code of honour, not a rule, so players who ignore it won't be punished or whatever. (we can't check people's schedule anyway) but we're all honourable I believe.

@Capo: you're the only one who doesn't want to include the turn prior to the war. Most probably only an echo from our conflict. Can you please drop your opinion here.

My suggestion on a double move rule (english errors aside):

When a player is in a state of war he should not play a double move.
A double move is when a player moves during two sequential turns without his opponent(s) moving in between.
Players who are in a state of war should give their opponents at least 9 hours to play their turn. (Code of honour, not being enforced by the rules: If possible wait as long as possible or your schedule permits)

Additional:
- Players who are in a state of war can only login once to the game per turn (unless there's a technical problem, then login again an explanation in the forum)
- Players who are in a state of war cannot be online at the same time together
- A player who declares war immediately posts this war declaration in the forum to avoid that his opponent ignorantly joins the game at the same time
- The turn before the war starts is included as a turn that cannot be a double move in combination with the declaration of war-turn
- If all involved players agree on a different turn order this must be posted in public and accepted in public by all involved players before accepted as official.
- These rules are applied to the war as long as the official-in-game war lasts at any time.

If a double move happens the game will immediately be reloaded back the the last available safe before the double move happened.

[St Jon]

I am in agreement with both Priest and Capo but there must be a rule in place to prevent someone using the clock as a tool of war itself. I live in the UK so, unless I am in conflict with someone with no RL commitments, this should not be an issue with another European. We have a couple of Aussies in BtP and there it could ne a real problem in war. Even a European/US conflict could get tricky depending on clock/turn cycle. A multi-party inter-continental war could prove impossible to arbitrate depending on turn sequence. Psuudo-Simultaneous movement also must be addressed clearly to reflect the fact that Civ is a turn-based game not an RTL one.

Possibly a more generous clock and movement time might be useful. Even use of a Pause after each turn during war-time and a 12hr maximum limit for movement could be utilised. Anything that will remove deliberate use of game mechanics or rule set to achieve an unjust advantage.

[Robert]

with 'double move' we should mean: playing the game in general. (thus no login at all before it's your turn in the turn-order)

[Rasputin]

we know that diplomacy is truly the art of saying nice doggy till you find a big stick.

[The Capo]

@Capo: you're the only one who doesn't want to include the turn prior to the war. Most probably only an echo from our conflict. Can you please drop your opinion here.

I don't think this is true. In fact I specifically remember Ozzy agreeing with me on this matter. And I won't "drop my opinion," I can be overruled by the other players of course, but that doesn't mean I don't hold the opinion. This certainly has NOTHING to do with our conflict, I assure you, I would have had the same opinon even if you didn't cheat.

And of course ideally you should try and stick to the turn order, but I think a nine hour window is fair so that the game still progresses. The reason, by the way, that I suggested a pause and the procedures I suggested was in case the offended player does not feel slighted or does not want to reload for whatever reason (he may not want the other player to get an advantage now that they have seen into the territory for example). Basically if we don't need to reload, becuase the offended player doesn't feel it necessary, we shouldn't reload. I must also remind you, AGAIN, that every single issue we had with reloading was because the game continued on. Let's NOT have that happen again. I say a mandatory pause should be in place.

[Rasputin]

itwould seem if this is the way of diplo games i will have to remove the "D" from above my avatar

[St Jon]

@Capo: you're the only one who doesn't want to include the turn prior to the war. Most probably only an echo from our conflict. Can you please drop your opinion here.

No he isn't. I don't think the Turn before should be included just the double move in times of War. For an attack to succeed timing is everything.

[Robert]

Can you in that case respond to my reasons to include this turn?
That timing is important doesn't mean that players should get the advantage of playing two turns in a row without their opponents in between.