Moderator Game News

[Kody]

MY year 2101 (Gaians Turn)

The data angels have requested that their password is to be changed.

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=3102764#post3102764

Password has been given to Drogue.
PMing to Buster too.

The new save is attached, it has also been given to the Gaians.

_____________________________

A screenshot of the first 9 squares has been given to all the teams so they can do some inital planning.

Currently looks like the Morgans are going to keep a offsite forum. The other teams are going to this apolyton forums.

[Drogue]

Gaians have asked until tuesday or wednesday to get started. That's fine, they need time, give it too them. Gets more people involved. But within reason.

[Drogue]

Actually, obs just said, official start 12 (midday) GMT on Tuesday. 48 hours from then.

[Snowflake]

Bulletin board

Not sure where I should post this but the notepad is closed. people post all kind of stuff on their bulletin board I think.

PM from obs:

Forum, and positions are intentionally incomplete, so that other players will jump it. Also, first turn might be a little late (I am trying 'time is almost up' trick to increase interest in game). Take note of this, and be free to transfer it to other CMNs.

Me:

Ok, obstructor. From what I see, you are doing a great job. It would be interesting to see what kind of a structure Gaians will have.

Hong

[Kody]

MY year 2101 (Gaians Turn)

The morgans pointed out the starting ECs were only 100ECs, when it should be 110ECs for morgan. They decided not to worry too much about the missing 10ECs though.

[Snowflake]

Morgans are now officially requesting modified start. Because the tech trade flag is believed to be incorrectly activated thus have negative effect on Morgan's initial tech availability.

[Drogue]

Have posted in that thread. I've talked to buster, who has no idea what they're on about, but can't read the thread (they haven't authorised him yet). Will advise when I hear more.

Kody: You're thoughts on it? Like what they're actually going on about?

[Kody]

MY year 2101 (Gaians Turn)

Usually people don't complain about it, I guess it was only Minute Mirage's work that actually brought it to the forefront.

Basically they found out that the mod3 beeline they were hoping for had been modified by the tech trading flag. After someone trades with another player the tech-trading flag gets set and the mod3 beeline changes.

The tech trading flag is often inadvertantly set by the way the CMN puts adds a tech in. There's two ways of adjusting tech and one way sets the flag.

My opinion is they have to first argue that this case is a special case since most people in PBEMs had their tech trading flag set and still played on without a restart (admittedly because people previously didn't know). This is the first time in my awareness that someone has actually wanted a restart for this issue.

[Snowflake]

They only got three available techs according to what Kody posted. If in a normal pbem the Morgans are getting more options, and their options are limited because buster's modifying of the game, then it should be fixed. Althogh it is very hard to fix, then we need to talk about it more.

If it is what Morgan normalling getting in a normal pbem, instead of a customised one, then they should have to live with it.

I actually complaint about not getting Century Ecology in a game Darsnan made (Gufnork Rumble). But I didn't ask for restart.

[Kody]

MY year 2101 (Gaians Turn)

I think it's also because of Enigma heckling them last night about the tech options. He was boasting about how Data Angels got the optimal starting mod3.

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With respect to Buster and Drogue not being able to find the tech-traded option. It's not a visible variable you can set. You need to reload the faction I think to fix it up as what Chaunk said.

I can fix the problem I suppose if it is decided to fix it, don't announce the restart thus holding the turn. We can easily replicate other players moves. Can the starting scenerio be posted in the CMNs forum?

[Drogue]

Originally posted by HongHu
They only got three available techs according to what Kody posted. If in a normal pbem the Morgans are getting more options, and their options are limited because buster's modifying of the game, then it should be fixed. Althogh it is very hard to fix, then we need to talk about it more.

If it is what Morgan normalling getting in a normal pbem, instead of a customised one, then they should have to live with it.

I agree. IMHO, buster has played many many PBEMs, and set up many scenarios. It appears that common practice is to add techs by trading, thus setting the tech trade flag. Also, the effects of said addition affect everyone. They change the mod3 table, sure, but then doing it the other way would change the mod3 table for everyone, and some other team may come of worse. It is luck what is available at first, as it is for every other team.

If we restart it, without setting the tech trade flag, and another team comes off worse, they're going to complain, and with good reason. I'm not about to restart the game because a team does not like it's starting tech choices, that are doesn to chance. Especially not when every team knows their tech choices, and thus if a team is worse off, they will complain.

It is obvious that many games are set up like this, it is a common way to do it. There was no agreement before that the tech trade flag should not be set, buster was given free reign, relatively speaking on the scenario, and he decided to set it like this. He is an incredibly experienced player, and so if this is how he always sets up a PBEM, that makes it a common practice. I have never heard of someone complain to him about this (otherwise he would know what it is), so IMHO, it seems like the Morganites have found that their starting tech choices are not what they want, and so have found a reason to try to get them changed.

Bottom line, setting the tech trade flag affects everyone's tech choices, and depending on where you are in the order, it can be good or bad. It is no better or worse a set up than with the tech trade flag unset, and thus if we restarted, and it made another teams worse, they would have exactly the same cause for complain, of "why wasn't the tech trade flag set, it usually is". We agreed buster would set up the scenario, and he has done fantasticaly, IMHO. I don't see a reason to change common practice simply becuse one team happens to have been adversely affected by it. If we'd asked before we started, no-one would have cared, because it would still be chance. They only care because they've lost out, and I'm not restarting the whole game because a team doesn't like the chance part of their start.

Have I missed something, wrt the tech trade flag? I see it as an option, it could have been set, it could have not been set, neither option better than the other, just different. To change something done by chance, like this, in order to benefit one team, would be unfair to the others. It's like saying roll a dice for your start, but if you happen to roll a one, reroll everyone's and take that instead. Sadly their first tech choices are not what they'd have liked. That's the chance part of this game.

[Kody]

MY year 2101 (Gaians Turn)

I would concur with you on that analysis.

To add some additional information, having the tech trade flag set or unset has predictable results for the mod3. So if given the choice they would have asked for tech trade flag not to be set.

Also it's not a global flag rather per faction, I think in the Bear Baiting game I CMNed I inadvertantly set the tech trade flag for 3 of the 7 players. However, CMNs don't specifically look out of that kind of thing and shouldn't be made to, as I think it's an issue of game micromanagement that the players needs to deal with.

With respect to the 10 ECs thing, it means someone needs to get the scenerio and make the adjustment. Then copy the turns that were played so far with exactly with same pod pops etc.

[Drogue]

Re: MY year 2101 (Gaians Turn)

Originally posted by Kody
To add some additional information, having the tech trade flag set or unset has predictable results for the mod3. So if given the choice they would have asked for tech trade flag not to be set.

Well, they didn't know what number faction they were, before we started, so the tech trade flag could have helped. It doesn't affect the amount of energy they need to research a new tech, does it?

Originally posted by Kody
Also it's not a global flag rather per faction, I think in the Bear Baiting game I CMNed I inadvertantly set the tech trade flag for 3 of the 7 players. However, CMNs don't specifically look out of that kind of thing and shouldn't be made to, as I think it's an issue of game

micromanagement that the players needs to deal with.
Ah, is it always bad for it to be set? If it's set for some, and not for others, is that a disadvantage, or rather, would it be known to be a disadvantage before we started? How is it set? When adding extra techs to the AI?

Originally posted by Kody
With respect to the 10 ECs thing, it means someone needs to get the scenerio and make the adjustment. Then copy the turns that were played so far with exactly with same pod pops etc.

Nothing's been played so far. If you could change it and give the Gaians the new turn with it changed it would be much appreciated

[Kody]

MY year 2101 (Gaians Turn)

I need the scenerio to change it, I've been hinting that I don't have it.

If you could change it and give the Gaians the new turn with it changed it would be much appreciated

The gaians seem to have done a partial play.

Ah, is it always bad for it to be set?

Usually players don't care too much about whether it's set or not, like you said possible good or bad results.

It doesn't affect the amount of energy they need to research a new tech, does it?

I don't think it does. I do know that in one of my tests adding an extra tech caused the tech cost to be lower than what it was supposed to be. This hasn't occured in this game as far as I know.

[buster]

Here is the initial scenario.

The techs were not traded - but assigned to each faction by editing the discovered techs. (Toggling each factions starting techs to discovered using "edit technology" in the scenario editor).

How the game decides what techs to make available on first choice - other than that the tech must be flagged as "available" I don't know - but I believe this method is the one normally used.

I have always done like that and believe just about every CMN does.

On completing the whole setup I then at the end reload each faction.

The 100 instead of 110 ecs is an error on my side (I misremembered it as Morgan starts with 100 instead of 100 extra). The others have 10 ecs as they are supposed to. Though minor they do have a valid point there.

On the point re tech availability I agree with Drogue. Think it should be considered a random factor connected with scenario based setups and not an error to be corrected.

The 10 extra ecs could be fixed by modifying the scenario and CMN then recreating gaia and angels moves. If there are no pop pods that should be possible with only little hassle.