March Madness!

[Rommel2D]

Guys, I'm not sure I'm fully understanding the map generation process:

Originally posted by alexman
But if an administrator generates the map, makes a quick check for fairness, and doesn't assign starting locations to specific players, I think it should work fine.

When I go into the editor and select 'Generate Map', the resulting map has the little blue circles indicating the starting positions. Without knowing what tribes go in what spots, how can a judgement of 'fairness' be made? Would we be going back and rechecking after launch?

The more experienced PBEMers have expressed a preference for previewing maps for balance, and even described it as giving a 'cleaner' start. It seems to me that having someone looking and deciding how many tiles each tribe may be from an iron resource or how many luxuries must be within an X-tile radius from each capitol is extremely messy.

I understand how analyzing the map is beneficial for games where the primary goal is to learn about the game and improve skills, but the idea behind the tournament is to test everybody's skills in a raw Civ3 environment. As long as everyone has an equal chance of receiving the same disadvantages before starting, isn't that what counts?

Again, the single restart is meant to be a simple and quick (it would at most add 2 complete turns worth of play to a game) way to deal with extreme map conditions. I've included it in the meta-tournament rules because I'm concerned that someone starting in a rough spot is likely to loose interest in the game quickly and be less responsive when playing their turns.

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by sabrewolf
we could play all 5 games parallel

oh yeah... micromanaging 5 times as many units and cities in the later game

The main problem is that the second round will not start until all first round games are complete. As it stands, this will be determined by the slowest of 4 games. With a round-robin format, it would be the slowest of 20(?) games. Factor in that most of these games disrupt the regional groupings and alexman's timeframe might be accurate even with parallel games.

random tribes can be a big pain, but otoh no two people will fight for their favorite civ (be it mongols, americans, or other gamebreaking civs )

They should be fighting for their favorite tribe- by playing quickly.

[sabrewolf]

rommel in the financial world, you've got so called squeeze-out rules. so when you control 98% (or 97% / 95%, depending on country and market) you can force the rest to sell their shares.

something equivalent could be done here: if a certain percentage has finished (eg. 3 or 4, or 16 of 20), the others stop immediately and a histograph victory is decisive.
of course, stalling the game because you once were in lead should be punished...

speaking of stalling... what happens with someone who repeatedly fails to do his/her turn in time?

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Rommel2D
Without knowing what tribes go in what spots, how can a judgement of 'fairness' be made?

If every starting location is equally good, then the map is fair for every player.

I understand how analyzing the map is beneficial for games where the primary goal is to learn about the game and improve skills, but the idea behind the tournament is to test everybody's skills in a raw Civ3 environment. As long as everyone has an equal chance of receiving the same disadvantages before starting, isn't that what counts?

No, because the tournament only lasts two rounds; if it were many more rounds, the random effects of the map generator would balance each other out across players. Losing in the first round because your opponent was luckier than you with the map generator is not really all that fun.


Dominae

[Jon Shafer]

While searching the map you should look for locations that are REALLY bad... that is, surrounded by tunrda on a tiny peninsula, or stuck on a small island with no resources, or stuck in the middle of a huge jungle with no bonus food, etc.

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by Dominae
If every starting location is equally good, then the map is fair for every player.

Besides the dubious complexity of determining what distance from and what quantity of what resources makes things equal, there's also the issue that this method interferes with the game's association of tribal traits with starting location. In the first tournament, just in my own game, one player requested a restart due to being land-locked with a seafaring tribe. In the restart, he was again land-locked (with Portugal), and I myself had to move a tile to reach the coast with Spain. This was with 1.12 which was supposed to 'further increase the odds of seafaring getting a coastal start' over the original C3C. I think 0 for 3 indicates a problem, especially considering the map settings already weaken seafaring considerably.

Re-launching until there are no landlocked seafarers would then eradicate the slight chance for an event that is designed into the game, although that might be for the better in this case.

What about agricultural tribes? Are they more likely to start in river basins? If so, would they be nerfed too far by losing this? As alexman pointed out, assuring them a river start is too much.

External map moderation is something I'd like to avoid, at least in the first round, as there are too many new factors involved to make good judgements IMO.

No, because the tournament only lasts two rounds; if it were many more rounds, the random effects of the map generator would balance each other out across players. Losing in the first round because your opponent was luckier than you with the map generator is not really all that fun.

I don't think it would be fun for a less technical player to be REXed into a corner and swarmed by Stacks_of_Ralphaders in the early Middle Ages, either. ;-) As this format is experimental, I'd like to be more inclusive of various play styles and abilities, allowing Fate and Luck to round out the player pool.

If the format works well, hopefully there will be other tournaments set up that can focus on balance or style issues (or the AU Mutiplayer Mod), building upon developments in this one (and with another referee, so's I get to play :-).

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by sabrewolf
something equivalent could be done here: if a certain percentage has finished (eg. 3 or 4, or 16 of 20), the others stop immediately and a histograph victory is decisive.
of course, stalling the game because you once were in lead should be punished...

speaking of stalling... what happens with someone who repeatedly fails to do his/her turn in time?

Histographic victories suck IMO. Knowing it is coming in 540 turns is one thing, having it dropped on you because game X just had a nuclear exchange is another. I prefer the sports model to the financial world for this. Maybe something like a "soft cap" on the fourth game once the third is finished, eg you have 30 more turns to play before the histographic victory is determined. Can this wait until we see how bad the discrepencies are before deciding about it?

Players who chronically fail to play their turn on time will have their tribe played by me with a non-aggressive strategy until a replacement can be found, or if AD, until destroyed.

[Rommel2D]

Let's see how much of a consensus we can reach on exploits and etiquette for the whole tournament. Here's an outline of the MZO list (refer to Beta's thread in the PBEM forum or Trip's original post earlier in this thread for details):

1. Alliance tricks

1.1 Getting double-duty out of artillery and Workers

1.2 Sharing a Luxury or Strategic resource

1.3 Generating Leaders and Golden Ages by sacrificing cheap units

1.4 Declaring war for happiness

1.5 Exchanging map/minimap information before Navigation.

1.1 and 1.3 are addressed if players behave only according to in-game diplomatic status. This means no helpful coordination of actions while at war. Does it also mean no alliances without embassies? No MPPs or embargoes without an embassy and Nationalism?

1.2: the MZO fix is to allow 'bursts' of resource sharing for upgrade purposes only, disallowing resource trading to allow more than one tribe to use a single resource as a supply for building or happiness. Would it be better to say that deals cannot be made and cancelled on the same turn? That roads cannot be pilliaged and rebuilt on the same turn for a simillar purpose?

1.4: I'm not even sure of the game mechanics of this. Do all tribes receive the hapiness bonus when war is declared, under all conditions?

1.5: There is a typo in the description; the details say map trading is pushed back to Astronomy, although it is actually Navigation as the tag line says. Short of screen shots, how much detail can be given verbally before players can exchange in-game maps? Would "there's a Rider at tile 22,39" be a legal exchange?

2. Metagame tricks

2.1 Reloading to alter unwanted random results

2.2 Manipulating a savegame file

2.3 Loading a save while zoomed out

2.4 Renaming units/cities to confuse/mislead opponents

I assume everyone would agree 2.1 and 2.2 are disallowed. (BTW, in my first v1.22 test game with Paddy, I'm fairly certain I started it with the RNSeed preserved, but it definitely is not functioning. Further testing is in order...)

2.3 is not an issue with v1.22.

2.4 had some dissenters in Dom's thread . Would anyone here object to disallowing this?

3. Game Mechanics tricks

3.1 Fortifying a ship without any movement points left to obtain extra vision radius

3.2 Hitting F1 to change production

3.3 Using GoTo to get extra movement

3.4 Chaining naval transports to quickly move land units across water

3.5 Teleporting units by abandoning or gifting cities

3.6 Accepting a Peace Treaty from a civ then immediately declaring war

3.1: Can someone explain this further? Fortified ships can see 3 tiles?
Sort of related to this but not mentioned anywhere except in Donegeal's exploit thread, is the general 'fortify all' exploit. Vondrack supplied some test results that were supposed to verify this exploit worked, but I haven't seen direct evidence myself. Whenever I try to 'fortify all' on an already moved stack, none of the units are fortified the next turn. Was this addressed by Firaxis at some point?

3.2, along with the 'gold mine' bug, is addressed by cancelling all popups until the production phase is complete.

3.3 is disallowed. Would it be worth asking all players to not use the GoTo command at all to avoid this happening by mistake? If someone did do it unintentionally, should they be made to replay their turn?

3.4 is very questionable as to it's exploit status, and should be agreed to on a per-game basis. In other words, I won't disallow it, but each group can do so on their own.

3.5 is simply in the MZO list with and assumed "don't do it". How about disallowing any voluntary exchange of cities for the tournament?

3.6 is also listed with an assumed "don't do it". Last I heard, general consensus was that War Weariness didn't affect any MP games. Has this been disproven or changed?

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Rommel2D
1.1 and 1.3 are addressed if players behave only according to in-game diplomatic status. This means no helpful coordination of actions while at war. Does it also mean no alliances without embassies? No MPPs or embargoes without an embassy and Nationalism?

They exist to prevent cooperative exploits, not simply cooperation.

1.2: the MZO fix is to allow 'bursts' of resource sharing for upgrade purposes only, disallowing resource trading to allow more than one tribe to use a single resource as a supply for building or happiness. Would it be better to say that deals cannot be made and cancelled on the same turn? That roads cannot be pilliaged and rebuilt on the same turn for a simillar purpose?

As Conquests made upgrading more expensive, I see no reason why there should be any limitations on upgrading. You need a lot more gold than before, and everyone can do it.

1.4: I'm not even sure of the game mechanics of this. Do all tribes receive the hapiness bonus when war is declared, under all conditions?

Yes, when a civ has war declared upon them they always get extra happiness until war weariness counteracts it (which will never happen when allies are working together).

1.5: There is a typo in the description; the details say map trading is pushed back to Astronomy, although it is actually Navigation as the tag line says. Short of screen shots, how much detail can be given verbally before players can exchange in-game maps? Would "there's a Rider at tile 22,39" be a legal exchange?

I think giving away specifics about certain tiles is not alright unless both people have already seen them. For example, you couldn't say that there's a plains tile at x, a grass tile at x + 1, etc. Limited to "there's plains in this region and grass here," etc.

2.3 is not an issue with v1.22.

But will we use 1.22? There are some bugs in 1.22 that have caused it to be banned from use in all of the major Conquests MP DGs. One of them is how MGLs allow the rushing of Great Wonders, which is certainly a bug since there was a distinct effort to make MGLs more military-oriented and the introduction of SGLs to give builders more options.

2.4 had some dissenters in Dom's thread. Would anyone here object to disallowing this?

Why were they dissenting about this?

3.1: Can someone explain this further? Fortified ships can see 3 tiles?
Sort of related to this but not mentioned anywhere except in Donegeal's exploit thread, is the general 'fortify all' exploit. Vondrack supplied some test results that were supposed to verify this exploit worked, but I haven't seen direct evidence myself. Whenever I try to 'fortify all' on an already moved stack, none of the units are fortified the next turn. Was this addressed by Firaxis at some point?

Yes, fortified ships see 1 extra tile further out. If you have units on a boat you can use fortify all and it DOES count as being fortified, giving the sight bonus to the ship.

3.3 is disallowed. Would it be worth asking all players to not use the GoTo command at all to avoid this happening by mistake? If someone did do it unintentionally, should they be made to replay their turn?

Yes, if someone does it on purpose (or accidentally in a case when it has an effect on the game) they should be required to replay.

3.4 is very questionable as to it's exploit status, and should be agreed to on a per-game basis. In other words, I won't disallow it, but each group can do so on their own.

You can chain units all the way from one continent to the other, giving instantaneous landing and movement capabilities to a large number of units. Highly exploitive and certainly not intended by the game designers.

3.5 is simply in the MZO list with and assumed "don't do it". How about disallowing any voluntary exchange of cities for the tournament?

I see no reason why we should ban all city gifting for this. Say someone fights a war and wins and one of the demands is the opponent hand over a city with a certain resource. Banning that sort of thing is silly, IMO.

3.6 is also listed with an assumed "don't do it". Last I heard, general consensus was that War Weariness didn't affect any MP games. Has this been disproven or changed?

I can assure you war weariness (and happiness) is certainly a factor in PBEM games.

[Aqualung71]

Being new to all forms of MP, I don't really have any experience with these exploits. Still, some of them can pretty easily be regarding as cheating. The grey area is those alliance-type arrangements that border on exploitation, but I guess can provide a much deeper and "real world" diplomatic dimension than SP could ever provide.

So, being blunt....my comments on Rommel's list are:
1 - Alliance tricks: 1.1 and 1.3 are cheating. For the others, refer comments below.

2 - Metagame tricks: These are all cheats IMHO. I know there are proponents of allowing the renaming of units - this in itself is fine, but renaming specifically to confuse an opponent is not really in the spirit of the game, is it? There are lots of more valid ways to be evil

3 - Game Mechanics tricks: 3.2, 3.3 and 3.5 should be banned. 3.1 and 3.4 I think are fine - chain linking ships can easily be broken by a quick war (or Privateer). Fortifying ships for extra vision is really no big deal.


What I'm not really familiar with though is the extent to which "diplomatic" arrangements between various players is considered fair and at what point is the line of "ganging up" crossed. For example:

1.2 - luxury trading is a normal diplomatic occurrence, but there must be some strategic benefit to the players - ie, I need Iron for 20 turns to build RR's. Or I need the extra luxury to solve my happiness problems, even if it means I have to give up 2 valuable techs to that extortionist $^&#@%. On the other hand, "lending" another player Iron for a turn so he can upgrade all his Horsies to Knights and together you can obliterate player 3 the next turn is a bit questionable IMHO. But it's a bit of a grey area, since there's obvious strategic value in allying onself with another player to knock down the game leader a few pegs. The issue is, at what point does it stop being an in-game strategy designed to give you victory at everyone else's expense, and become just plain nasty and leave a bad taste in the victim's mouth? Perhaps someone with more MP experience can give some views on this.

1.4 - not sure about this. Is it true there is no WW in MP/PBEM? If so, it's quite a big difference to SP and changes the balance of governments.

1.5 - It seems to me that swapping strategic information and a greater range of diplomatic options is what can make PBEM a lot more interesting than SP. For example, I've always hated the "get your troops out or declare war", since it gives you very few diplomatic options. Much more interesting is the extended dialogue I've read on some of the PBEM threads where one player is questioning the need for another to remain in his territory. I would think we need to distinguish between internal information and useful information to assist an ally...to the extent permitted by etiquette of course. For example, assuming we've established contact, I don't see a problem in calling up my neighbour and saying "watch out, the Chinese riders are moving towards you through my territory". All things being equal, this should improve his attitude towards me, or perhaps compensate for a past transgression. On the other hand, I think it's a bit more exploitative to say "I've only got 6 turns to go on Copernicus so don't start it unless you've got something else to switch to".

3.6 - accepting a peace treaty and then declaring war? I presume this would be done to get a tech or cash, then go straight back to war. Unless there's another more sneaky reason, I don't see a problem with that. I think we have to assume a certain level of ingrained evil in a human player, and if someone wants to wipe you out then he's also going to want to take whatever you've got before he does so. If I make peace with my much more powerful human counterpart, I won't necessarily feel secure at all....it would be in my interests to be wary of him and perhaps try to butter him up as much as I can.

Anway, those are my views - I hope some of you long-time PBEM'ers can provide some comments on what I've said from your own experience, since my words are not "backed by nuclear weapons", as it were

[Flandrien]

Originally posted by alexman
Flandrien, a full tournament for PBEM, like what you suggest, would probably finish just about when Civ VII comes out!

All games can start at the same time.

[Flandrien]

Originally posted by Trip
But will we use 1.22? There are some bugs in 1.22 that have caused it to be banned from use in all of the major Conquests MP DGs. One of them is how MGLs allow the rushing of Great Wonders, which is certainly a bug since there was a distinct effort to make MGLs more military-oriented and the introduction of SGLs to give builders more options.

Using a MGL to rush-build a great wonder is definitely an exploit and should be banned.

[ricketyclik]

Rommel2D, don't we assign our own passwords at our first turn?

[Rommel2D]

I'll be launching the games and entering all passwords while skipping each player's first turn. I would need to have everyone's password regardless, in case anyone dissapears without notice and needs a replacement. :-( I've just updated the rules to reflect the new setup plan (and emphasized a couple points some people have likely missed).

[sabrewolf]

well, thanks in advance for all your work rommel!

let's hope there aren't too many restarts (does a reason have to be given for requesting a restart?)