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Cuspidore BrownBeard staggers out of the WheelHouse, deftly snagging the helm with his hook while finishing off the xenorum and pitching the empty bottle out to sea halfway to DronzzzzLand. "That was #$%^&*!ing goooooood stufffff, methinks, " he says, "what I can remember of it anyways." Thwackkkk. . . the dirk slams into the bulkhead behind him, its message neatly pierced and written on nicely scented paper, fluttering in the gale . . . "Must be an important message, it nearly hooked my earring on its way in;", says the Cuspidore, " that bloke knows the right way to get my attention . . . but that handwriting, none of the crew onboard Montezuma's Revenge even knows how to write, let alone that pretty, . . ., and that smell . . . hmmmm, . . . , just like that place on the last shore leave, . . . hmmmm, . . . it must be from Admiral Googlie, just what we need, Hey you below, Matie, up here!", he shouts, "get me that University slave volunteer; get him up here to read this @#%^ #$$@%$! thing for me."
"Well Blow Me ^&*%&$@ing Down!", says the Cuspidore.
I realize it's a little late for discussing the rules and all, but these seem to be quite a bit at variance with the usual PBEM set. In the standard Poly tournament rules we have:
At CGN, the rules are similar (these are listed under "contentious issues"):
Further, in the PBEMs I've been in, reverse engineering, if allowed at all, specifically excludes reverse engineering the Probe (speeder) chasis to use for rovers. I don't think I know what the "Googlie probe cruiser tweak" is, but it sounds like a similar thing to 'pirate' the cruiser chasis.
Do We Really Want To Play With These Rules?
I had sort of assumed that this game was going to be more or less like a standard PBEM, but some of those variations are pretty unusual, in my experience at least. I'm particularly surprised by the Stockpile Energy treatment, I thought that was really standard, having been hammered out at length; it is nore or less a comprimise between fully exploiting the bug at the expense of never using the queue (except to stick in Stockpile Energy after units) and compulsively avoiding the bug at the expense of having always to put something (other than Stockpile Energy) into the queue after facilities. This happens to be a hot button issue for me as I was really bummed out when I learned about this bug and how it meant that some kind of weird queue usage was going to be required in PBEMs or else you would suffer a competitive advantage (I used to be very fond of using the queue to keep my plans remembered).
The business of upgrading with the DR and then attacking on the same turn can be a particularly vicious trick and IMhO was not intended to be allowed and should not be. I feel the same about doing it with crawlers, but I'm willing to compromise and allow that if upgrading/moving military units continue to be disallowed.
Anyway, I would be in favor of modifying the rules to more closely conform with regular PBEMs if for no other reason than to keep it simple for those of us who play PBEMs or who may get into PBEMs as a result of this game - so we don't create needless confusion and uncertainty about the rules.
There are, of course, other 'exploits' that were not brought up by the Googlemeister (actually it was TKG) in the FAQ thread, but this is enough for now.
from FAQ thread
Cheats and Exploits
Allow the Stockpile Energy Bug: YES!
Allow upgrading crawlers for rush purposes: YES!
Allow retro-engineering: YES!
Allow upgrading with the Unit Workshop: YES!
Use the Googlie probe cruiser tweak: YES!
Cheats and Exploits
Allow the Stockpile Energy Bug: YES!
Allow upgrading crawlers for rush purposes: YES!
Allow retro-engineering: YES!
Allow upgrading with the Unit Workshop: YES!
Use the Googlie probe cruiser tweak: YES!
I realize it's a little late for discussing the rules and all, but these seem to be quite a bit at variance with the usual PBEM set. In the standard Poly tournament rules we have:
- Inserting Stockpile Energy into the build queue after a military unit is forbidden.
- Upgrading units with the design workshop is allowed at end of turn only. However, supply crawlers upgraded in this fashion can still be used to advance Secret Projects in the same turn.
- A player may not insert stockpile energy into the build queue after the production of a military unit. Due to a bug in the game, should you put stockpile energy into the queue, you will get the benefit of the extra energy on the same turn as production of your military unit.
- A player may not upgrade a particular type of unit using the design workshop, and then attack with that unit in the same turn.
Do We Really Want To Play With These Rules?
I had sort of assumed that this game was going to be more or less like a standard PBEM, but some of those variations are pretty unusual, in my experience at least. I'm particularly surprised by the Stockpile Energy treatment, I thought that was really standard, having been hammered out at length; it is nore or less a comprimise between fully exploiting the bug at the expense of never using the queue (except to stick in Stockpile Energy after units) and compulsively avoiding the bug at the expense of having always to put something (other than Stockpile Energy) into the queue after facilities. This happens to be a hot button issue for me as I was really bummed out when I learned about this bug and how it meant that some kind of weird queue usage was going to be required in PBEMs or else you would suffer a competitive advantage (I used to be very fond of using the queue to keep my plans remembered).
The business of upgrading with the DR and then attacking on the same turn can be a particularly vicious trick and IMhO was not intended to be allowed and should not be. I feel the same about doing it with crawlers, but I'm willing to compromise and allow that if upgrading/moving military units continue to be disallowed.
Anyway, I would be in favor of modifying the rules to more closely conform with regular PBEMs if for no other reason than to keep it simple for those of us who play PBEMs or who may get into PBEMs as a result of this game - so we don't create needless confusion and uncertainty about the rules.
There are, of course, other 'exploits' that were not brought up by the Googlemeister (actually it was TKG) in the FAQ thread, but this is enough for now.
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