Consensus on Cheating, Repost

[gwillybj]

Just wanted to highlight three important keys to my own approach:

quote: Originally posted by big_canuk on 03-06-2001 09:24 PM this is a game, not real life, so do what is more playable and fun.

[This message has been edited by gwillybj (edited March 09, 2001) dang html is going to be the death of me yet.]
[This message has been edited by gwillybj (edited March 09, 2001).]

[vitamin j]

*Bump*

Thanks, MariOne.

[Yxklyx]

So, how is the stockpiling energy bug worked out or is it?

[vitamin j]

The Apolyton Tourney rule forbid it, last I checked. I think there was some recent discussion about it but I didn't follow it. Individual games decide in advance if it will be allowed.

[Blake]

To elaborate a little on the bombardment thing, the problem isn't so much that it gives no notification, but that it allows bombardment of allies with no diplomatic penalty.
So, the honorable thing (and it should have been coded) is if your going to bombard your allies infrastructure, declare vendetta.

I can see no problem with lack of notification when bombarding enemy infrastructure.

[Googlie]

Originally posted by Yxklyx
So, how is the stockpiling energy bug worked out or is it?

Here are the agreed interforum rules for the Forum Wars series of games:

***********************************

Rules:

• Communications - none till contact, obtain commlink, or build EG
• Total freedom in Design Workshop (upgrades anytime, during turn or on-field,
• Retro-engineering - OK, except for using the probe rover chassis before discovering Doc. Mobility
• SE switches "quickies" forbidden - (obviously you can experiment to see what effect various SE choices have, but cannot change, play moves, then change back in the same turn)
• Council notification - immediate broadcast to all players (Post in the thread and e-mail to all immediately by player who has called elections, citing candidates and votes. After each player's turn, post in the thread the running totals)
• Stockpiling in Qs anytime - OK
• Crawlers Upgrade anytime - OK
• Probe actions: Must choose vendetta option when probing other players, rebuke if a pactmate (OK to probe teammate at any time)
• Using the AI - Cannot use the AI to bribe on council votes nor to demand withdrawal of units
• Cannot use the right click feature for multiple drop moves to extend range (ie limited to 8 tiles unless owning the Space Elevator SP)
• Cannot use the 'set waypoint' feature for automatic worm hunting/lifecycle enhancements
• Must 'Accept' or 'Decline' an offered Pact or Treaty that the other player has indicated 'Accepted' before exiting the diplo box and playing the turn (i.e. no accepting pending treaties/pacts *after* declaring vendetta in the same turn )
• Cannot use the F4 feature (or the bases feature of the F2 screen) to change an infiltrated faction's workers to specialists

**********************************************

Most of the CMN'd games that I set up nowadays follow these rules

Googlie

[vitamin j]

Cool, thanks for posting that Googlie. And what do you know, I agree with everything on the list! Except maybe the part about Council notification... What was the rationale there, and what's with posting the votes?

These aren't the official Apolyton rules, though, or are they now?

[Fitz]

• Communications - none till contact, obtain commlink, or build EG

You realize there is a switch in the alpha.txt and alphax.txt that reads something like:

1; if non-zero human players can comminicate any time in multi-player
1; if non-zero human players can comminicate any time in play by email

It should be mandatory for people to go into the txt files and edit them to zero if they want to play multi-player in my opinion.

[Googlie]

That's a good point, Fitz. (In the Forum Wars there are 3 teams of 2, so this rule was slightly amended to allow team mates to communicate from the start - the assumption being that they paired off on the Unity and as they were fleeing gave each other their commlink frequencies)

And vitamin j, no, they are not the official Apolyton rules. These were crafted over about 4 weeks by most of the 18 players from the 3 forums (fora?) who were going to participate in the FW series of matches

G.

[vitamin j]

Fitz:

For pbems, isn't the alpha.txt file used in the game packed with the turn? I thought I read somewhere that it was... Otherwise, you could edit your own rules file to give yourself unfair advantages in MP.

[Fitz]

Dunno, you could be right, makes sense to me. I've only played 3 pbems, all for less than 100 turns. Why take a turn every 5 days when you can take 150 in one day over the weekend?

[MariOne]

Originally posted by vitamin j
Fitz:

For pbems, isn't the alpha.txt file used in the game packed with the turn? I thought I read somewhere that it was... Otherwise, you could edit your own rules file to give yourself unfair advantages in MP.

No, alpha.txt is read EVERYTIME you open a SMAC *session*.

Thus you can even save your pbem turn halfway, alter alpha.txt, and resume it with new parameters applied. At least, I know it works for the human comms flags.
I never even imagined to check what happens if you alter for instance tech prerequisites, weapon strength, 10 minerals rush threshold / carryover limit, facilities costs (!), artillery or movement rate parameters, etc...
Of course you are spot on the UNSPEAKABLE!!!!
All advised pbem players refuse to consider this trick in their minds, or they would not bother to begin playing pbems in the first place.

Fitz, maybe because of timezones coupling, or because you don't have time to play 150 turn in MP (which are inevitably rather slow) continuously over a weekend?
BTWm the first of the two alpha.txt lines referes to IP games, the other to Hotseat/pbem.

Enforcing the setting of this flag is impossible, you should rely on the honor system.
As it was never addressed, of course players liberally exploited all the tricks it offers: e.g. you can attempt to offer your techs to a factions you didn't meet yet, and thus you'd know which of your techs they already have or not (this works for frequencies too).


FW rules:
they are indeed a bit more permissive than the Apolyton standard, espacially thanks to JAMiAM lobbying (with my marginal support...).
Total Freedom of DW upgrades is the most significant relaxed restriction w/r to mainstream ruling! I shiver myself thinking to its consequences on gameplay, most of us were long accustomed to a more tranquil end-of-turn only...

VitJ, the rationale for immediate council details broadacast is a common sense widespread ruling, and it's *equity*.
The inevitable flaw lies in that pbem must be implemented *sequentially*, while some events must be considered *simultaneous* to be fair and to give everybody the same opportunities, despite this is a TB game. Even in SP you can immediately interact with every faction during elections, regarldess whose turn is to muove the units.
Imagine if the last to vote get to know of the electiuon only when he receives his pbem tune, i.e. after everybody has casted its preference: he would be toatlly denied the option to influence other's votes, which was granted insteaed to the other players.

[vitamin j]

Well, hopefully there'll be less honor system needed for SMAC2!

Thanks for the explanation of the council thing. I hadn't thought about it like that.