Moderator Game News

[Drogue]

Posted ruling in the Morgan Forum.

[Kody]

MY year 2101 (Data Angel Turn)

Here's the new save, Drogue.

I've double checked that everything is fine, please triple check quickly then post it to the gaians?

With the gaian turn you can do the following.
*plant one base
*build former, stockpile energy
*move scout west
*move 2nd colony pod west
*press endturn

[Kody]

Well I think we're in 100% agreement then. They get the 10 ECs, but no change to their techonology. Not that we need agreement since Drogue has veto.

Edit: okay I'll make the nessacary changes, I'll upload within 30 minutes and Drogue double checks. Then he posts it as the official turn.

[Drogue]

So it seems the best course of action is myself to remove all turns currently up, Kody to alter the first Gaian turn to give Morgan's 10 more ec, and then to carry on as expected, not to restart it and change the tech trade flags.

If the ec can't be altered that easily, we can replay the moves, but no moves have beem made yet.

[buster]

got an error on first posting so try again

the revised name is not because I now changed it but because it was changed from original version because of some changes requested by drogue

[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.

[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.

[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 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]

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 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.

____________________________________

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?

[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 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)

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.

[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?

[HongHu]

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.