What every SMAC player MUST know.

[MariOne]

WOW!
I didn't think to renew the discussion, I just bumped it for reference purposes!

As we got here anyway...

"For the sake of precision"... (usual lame excuse for nitpickers)

big_canuck:
JAM and I also fell in that misinterpretation at the beginning.
The 10 minerals carryover limit applies to production.
Stockpiling is NOT production.
The bug puts in play Stockpiling as if it was there from the previous turn.
That is, any mineral carryover is stockpiled, PUT ASIDE for future use, and indeed you'll find all those minerals there intact as soo as you'll revert to normal production.
The Stockpiling Energy is calculated NORMALLY, that is the WHOLE mineral production for that year: if you base is producing 20 minerals, you'll get 10 extra ec, not just 5.
It's maybe unexpected, but a very simple test (activating the scenario editor on a new game, possibly with the Hive) will prove that.
As we also found out that luckily the Energy Banks, etc. economy modifers do not apply to those Extra ec from Stockpiling in the Qs.

TauCeti (et al.):
At first I also thought that the use of Stockpiling as marker was a lame excuse, cosidering the relevance of what they pretended to regard as a "side-effect" bonus.
But seeing how that thing is widespread, I had to admit that everyone's mileage may vary...
Personally I review all my bases in windows mode at the end of every turn (in pbems, of course), so the need of that marker is moot for me.

BUT.

Your approach is one-sided.
Forbidding the use of Stockpiling in the Qs and NOT BANNING EMPTY Qs, is equally unbalalncing.
True it's the default game behaviour.
But it's the BUGGY default game behavior.
Sticking to the buggy default game behaviour, (paraphrasing your statement)
"forces EVERYONE to NOTuse the queues after non-units items or lose out on several hundred ecs over the course of a game. I for one find THAT very unjust", as it means exploiting those who use Qs without knowing this bug, and it also means denying the use of a game tool to those who would find it useful. This although I never use Qs myself, for other reasons.
This can go as long as the problem is unknown or unadressed in a pbem. But once you address this, I find the unbalanced and unjust buggy default game behavior the poorest choice to willingly adopt.
Would you tell to a newbie in a pbem you organize: "you can't use Stockpile in the Qs, but if you want to lose money you can use the Qs?". Because THAT is exactly what you're saying.

As "banning empty Qs" would be for sure the most annoying to abide by, although the most correct way to approach it, THEN the freedom of Qs is the easier (to enforce too ), more balanced and more just approach overall.
True, it forces you to add Stockpiling in the Qs if you don't want to lose out ec on the others.
But you strictly have to do that only in the bases producing a unit, and only on the turn they're actaully producing it. (or to say it otherwise, you have to work with the Q only once per unit, not every turn anyway).


Mind, I still think it's a TRUE BUG.
So, if one begins using it without having agreed about it IN ADVANCE, I still think that's CHEATING.
BUT once you DO discuss how to handle it, my position is the one expressed above.
I don't support its use just because it's "beneficial" for the game" as someone said, on the contrary!

---

Bkeela, your sarcasm is witful and I enjoyed it.
I hope you won't mind then when you'll realize that you "lost out on several hundreds ecs over the course of a game (Tau Ceti)", or that you've been branded cheater in another game. If you don't care, you'r welcome, you don't need to be bothered. And if you think that those who instead care are wasting their time, thank for your opinion, we recorded it.
[This message has been edited by MariOne (edited December 08, 2000).]

[Tau Ceti]

MariOne: Actually, I think the fact that it is default game behaviour is very important.

It is unreasonable to penalize someone for doing nothing. Sure, if you never use the queues, you get some extra energy from your facilities, but it is the game that does this, no action of yours. If you put Stockpile Energy into your queue, you are actively exploiting the flaw.

I think forcing people to put something in their queues after a facility would be annoying. I also think (essentially) forcing people to put something in their queues after units is annoying.

The solution currently adopted in the Apolyton PBEM Tournament rules is the only solution that does not force people to do anything. It is therefore the least intrusive and, IMO, best solution.

One group gets screwed by it, as you point out: people who regularly use queues. My experience is that this is a small minority, especially in PBEMs (which is the only area where the rule interpretation matters anyway). Therefore, forcing them out of their habits is again the least intrusive solution.

(I also believe that the only solution that actually works for the queuers is the one you also oppose: forcing non-empty queues after facilities, as I do not think putting Stockpile Energy into the queue ahead of another facility works. If so, your solution also "denies the use of a game tool to those who would find it useful." Not entirely sure about that, though.)

As for not knowing about the bug, well, I expect people to either know about it from expereience, or from reading about it here or elsewhere, or at the very least read the rules and be puzzled by the ban on putting Stockpile in the queues, therefore asking why. Is that unreasonable, in your opinion? Perhaps I could advertise it more. Again, though, I cannot see that your preferred solution is any better in this regard.

Is it all unjust? Maybe it is, opinions may be divided. However, that was never a topic in this discussion. Misotu et al. attacked the rule on the basis of convenience. I pointed out that the case is not so clear-cut. (You might want to leave out quotation marks when paraphrasing. Currently it looks a bit like you are saying I said anything about justice.)

One more thing: It seems everyone agrees that forcing non-empty queues after facilities would be an annoying and unworkable solution. However, it is no more intrusive than forcing non-empty queues after units, and, in fact, it would make the game behave in the way I am sure we all agree it should, that is, never giving you any extra energy after production. So I have trouble seeing why that solution is hopeless while exploiting Stockpile Energy to the full is the only just, moral and workable way...

[This message has been edited by Tau Ceti (edited December 08, 2000).]

[RedFred]

As a SP guy I never had to worry about this whole issue until recently. My practice is to use the build queues for their intended purpose. Sure, this approach will slow me down a tad, but I am generally looking for ways to make the AI tougher, not easier. Besides it is easier to keep track and play is speeded up if I don't have to check each city each turn.

Due to my relative inexperience in MP, I am not going to jump in with an inflexible opinion on the stockpile energy rule. I would note that Tau volunteers a lot of his time to facilitate MP games and that he seems to be receiving more heat and getting less credit for it than he deserves.

I didn't pay attention to how the MP rules were arrived at. Would it be possible to poll the players and see if there is support for changing this rule? Tau Ceti strikes me as someone who would give weight to our collective opinions if most favoured a change.

Another person who often seems to be receiving more heat and getting less credit for his volunteer work in making this forum run would be MarkG. He recently asked if we wanted another poll on anything. Is there any interest in getting a poll done on this issue?

[JAMiAM]

bumped for Skanderbeg, et al.

[Misotu]

Actually, I kind of disappeared from this discussion a bit early. But RedFred's idea was a good one. More and more MP games I'm playing are permitting the use of Stock En in the build queue, mostly because it's impossible to police in the early turns which is, of course, when it's critical.

I don't want to provoke a heated debate here, because I know that opinions on this are very divided and I have a lot of respect for the views of the people who oppose the use of Stock En after a unit. But a poll would, at least, be interesting?

[Skanderbeg]

quote: Originally posted by JAMiAM on 02-28-2001 10:07 AM bumped for Skanderbeg, et al.

Thanks!
I have known about this feature.

But only playing single player this has never been pain in the ass for me.

I rely on the building queues because they save me some micromanagement, I am too lazy to check every base every turn (I always end up with a real mass of bases, sometimes more than 50).
I know I would loose some energy by not putting stockpile in my queue after units, or, seen from the other side, win some energy by having stockpile energy after facilities, but I don't care about it for the practicability of the game.

And always playing with the same settings make the games comparable.

In MP this feature would be no problem if all player know about it and had agreed about the way to handle it.

"Steelborn, Starborn"

[MariOne]

Hey hey, my my, this thread will never die!

I realize that I wanted to answer to TauCeti, but then it slipped from my mind.

RedFred, if you were referring to me, we were having a civil discussion about a gaming issue, I see no heat, and that has nothing to do with giving TauCeti credit, which BTW I do.

---

Tau, I think that our knowledge of the game should have taught us that many times default=faulty (notwithstanding that I'm still playing it daily after >2 yrs, I can't ignore it's buggy)...

There's one thing you pointed out, that I didn't have realized so far (I mean, till your post 3 moths ago!).
You can't put any item in a Q after StockEn.! Tha is, StockEn can only be the last item in a build Q.
Thus, you can't have a true build Q after a unit, as you have to leave it empty after a facility, if you want to reap the benefit of the bug.
So, those who like having true build Qs to ease their micromanagement, will always lose out on money in any case.

I agree with you that It is unreasonable to penalize someone for doing nothing, and that forcing people to put something in their queues after a facility would be annoying.

I have to put a disticntion tho.
You state that forcing non-empty Qs after facilities and forcing non-empty Qs after units it's equally annoying and intrusive.

But forcing non-empty after facilities would be an *imposed rule*, to eliminate the effect of the bug from the game.
While *allowing* the use of StockEn after units would NOT be forcing non-empty Qs.
In the first case, a player would *break a rule* if he only FORGETS to put something there.
In the second case, it's just in his own interest to do so, but no one forces him.
I think that from a jusridictional (and possibly moral) point of view this makes a hell of a difference. I would not like to be branded a cheater because I forget to take an action, and that's why the only theoretically correct solution is absolutely impractical.
Getting punished for something you willingly do, is quite another thing.

Said that, assuming that greed is enough of a drive to be considered compulsory, any of the 3 options will either force/drive someone to take actions he didn't want to, or drive him to take on the hard task of micromanagement because the game-provided labor-sparing tool actually makes him lose out ec on others (and I don't know which alternative causes the most hassle...).

I also agree that the Q-users might be a minority (figure that I never us'em myself), and so, if any solution would compress someone rights anyway, you have a point that the one disturbing the lesser group can be preferred. Although in principle the rights of the Q-users are not lesser than anyone else's.


What to do in practice.
Once you care to issue a rule, I think that a *complete* information must be then provided by the ruler/referee.
More.
Once you address the issue, then you can even let the players decide which "setting" to adopt, whether the greedy free stockpiling or the (de)faulty bahevior, *on a pbem per pbem basis*.
Yeas, in each game the players should be free to choose their own rules.
A common set should be there only as a guideline, and in the rare case you want to make cross-games comparisons.
Cuz this issue is really important in MP (oh, my, this den of singleplayers!!!!).

Something like:[list=a][*]you can't put StockEn in the Qs after units, but beware that if you use Qs at all after facilities you'll lose out ec on others[*]there's no restriction on the use of Qs, but beware that if you don't put StockEn after units you'll lose out ec on others[/list=a]
The players have to decide which setting to adopt before starting the game.

You can also go out to state that lacking an agreement, the de-faulty option A will be enforced.

Nitpick: observe that the option B, actually does not require any ruling. You don't have to state that you can use StockEn in the Q, NOR that you "allow" it. If you don't say anything, where's written anywhere that some items can't be put in a Q???
Talk of default behavior. Default is also what the game allows you to do, and it allows you to put StockEn as last (or sole) item in a Q. So you see that freedom of Q would just be the "natural" game approach.

Only, it's a default BUGGY behavior, and I agree that it can't be tolerated... "unless" you inform those who can get exploited by it, like I propose with option B.

As a final note, of course we rely on trust, and many rules are hard to spot and enforce even with a CMN, we must hope that our opponents know what "dishonorable" means.
But if you want to be sure (and coherent), well, in the games you CMN enforcing the A option, I whish you good work in parsing all the player's bases every round to look in the Qs, especially in the first phase where there can't be interplayer control!!!
(at least in Chiron Winter we spared you this hassle!)

[Dimension]

Has anybody considered that there could be cases where you actually produce things slower by putting Stockpile in the queue after a unit?

Consider a base that produces 20 minerals/turn. Player starts making a 30-mineral crawler, no items in the queue:

Turn one: 20 minerals go towards Crawler
Turn two: Crawler produced, 10 minerals carry over
Turn three: Crawler produced, 0 minerals carry over

...and so on, two crawlers every three turns. Now consider the player putting Stockpile Energy in the queue:

Turn one: 20 minerals go towards Crawler
Turn two: Crawler produced, instead of carryover, full 20 minerals is applied to Stockpile for 10 energy
Turn three: 20 minerals go towards crawler, no crawler produced, and rushing is going to cost more than the 10 energy that stockpile gave you

[Aredhran]

When you switch from Stockpile to your 2nd crawler, the 10 minerals *are* carried over to your production.

Turn one: 20 minerals go towards Crawler
Turn two: Crawler produced. Stockpile Energy. Immediately switch to production of 2nd crawler, get 10 mineral carryover
Turn three: Crawler produced, Stockpile Energy applied.

[This message has been edited by Aredhran (edited March 02, 2001).]

[Fitz]

I use Queues extensively in MP. Every turn, I look at the F4 base screen. If an item has one turn to go, I double click to bring up that base, then if the queue is empty (90% of the time) I add the next item to it). This means I'll never get a stockpile energy unless I actually intend to.

Occasionally if I see a need for the next production item long before the current item is needed, I'll stick it in the queue (most commonly when a base has been working for a long time on an SP).

I personally think this is not only good planning, as it forces a review of your bases as a whole (via the F4 screen), but also a resonably small expenditure of time.

I disagree (respectfully) with you Mario. I think that this is an error, but that players should make every resonable attempt to avoid the free energy. It takes a very small amount of time to do the base review the way I have described, and in my opinion is something a good player should be doing anyway in a PBEM game, when you have lots of time to take a single turn. If it gets missed occasionally, not the end of of the world though (unless extrememly convientient timing). I would certainly ask that the rule be:

C) Players review their base list at the end of every turn and queque the next item in bases that have 1 or 0 turns left.

in games that I play.

-Fitz

Edit: In fact, I frequently look right click on the MFD messages with a zoom and erase at the begginning of a turn, even though it always reads 'one item left in production queue.' This reminds me what the hell I was working on, starting work on, and possibly kicks my slowass brain into gear so that i can remember my stratagy for that game.
[This message has been edited by Fitz (edited March 02, 2001).]

[MariOne]

In my (and Jam's and many ohter advised player's) opinion, exactly in MultiPlayer a good player should NEVER put anything in a Q, unless he WANTS let his opponents know what he's planning to build next (you can never be sure who's infiltrated you, and then there's the EG, the governor, and you might be wary of Pactmates also).
Like giving Goto orders to units, which can be spotted passing the mouse over the support box icons.
Actually, when I'm NOT completing the item that turn, I add FAKE items in my Qs in MP.

Personally, exactly because in pbems we have all the time we want (r/l apart), I review every base at the end of every turn in a pbem (and for this reason I don't *need* to use Qs), so I frankly find all the justifications of the StockpileMarkers and also your proposal.... a bit extravagant to say the least.
But I understand that everyone has his style and preferences and PoVs.

Fitz, although the majority of players I heard agree that avoiding the effects of SE bug would be in theory the most correct thing to do, you're the first I know who seriously thinks that it's applicable practically in a pbem.

I "like" to review my bases every turn, but you'd force all the players to do it??!??!??
Lord, I guess that very few would like to have such a CMN!
Jokes apart, adhering to your noble intentions, I'd classify the imposure of this preocedure as "beyond reasonable" indeed.

[Misotu]

Seconded I never use queues in SP except for Stock En after a unit, *not* because of the bug (a recent revelation to me) but for the conveniences that Stock En provides. I do, however, sometimes use the queue in MP. Having said that, you should never trust what I put there Since stock en is not permitted in some games after a unit, I will put an out-of-character build item in as a "marker" to avoid double-builds, which I have suffered from in the past despite the fact that I review all of my bases, every turn, in MP. Sometimes I use a queue because I have thought of an unusual course of action, and by placing a particular item in the build queue I will remind myself of my thoughts next time I see the game (which is sometimes many days, unfortunately )

It all depends. In fact, I have only recently started using the queues after about a year playing MP because I find them most helpful

edited to add: Not that this should dissuade anyone from thinking that only idiots use the build queue, of course. Frankly, I largely don't care if people know what I'm going to build next ... under ordinary circumstances what, exactly, are they going to do about my tanks or rec commons?

In a war situation I might be, er, a little more circumspect
[This message has been edited by Misotu (edited March 03, 2001).]

[Fitz]

Mario: Obviously my 'practical' application to PBEM isn't very practical to you.

I admit that the ramifications of queues and infiltration had not occurred to me. I'll concede the point.

But this bug gives a massive advantage to people who already have the advantage: Those who build items fastest. That's a pretty big double whammy.

Rush building gets you ec back as well (as soon as you complete the item).

It also encourages use of weak unit builds to be upgraded in the future, since weak units can be built much faster. I think that's a fairly huge impact on the game play/style.

Furthermore, it really makes me think twice about building SPs, and encourages the technique of producing crawlers ahead of time, then switching to an SP and cashing them all in. Not that I have a problem with this last one. It works well with your infiltration considerations anyway.

[cousLee]

I agree with mari. In my PBEM games, someone is either at war, or planning war with another faction. I use queues in SP, because of the ease in micromanagement, and the few EC I would get frm exploiting this bug does not really make a diffrence. The AnonI is quite readily beatable with out it. BUT, in MP, I do find the ability to look at building plans a "security risk". I will look (provided I have infil) to determine a better target. IE if a base is planning on building a tachy field, or strong garrison, I will take it out before one building a tree farm. Altho this canusually be determined by looking at the overview, if a quick build unit is current, I wiil check the queue (I try to determine if it is a "logical" queue of fake).
Since the PBEMs I am in now, the free use of this bug/feature are allowed. The players and the CMN find this the most amicable solution. We do make sure everyone knows about it tho, and I think that is imperative. I have tried the "fake" queue to get around infiltrollers, but find that doubles the micro work, and leaves me suceptable to errors for not changing to the real item. For myself, I find the easiest way is go through the bases in window mode (at end of turn) and look for bases that have 2 turns to go. I hate nothing more than a 20 mineral base, to be 1 or 2 minerals short of finishing in one turn. It just is not worth it. even the cheapest facility rush is wastefull. It takes 2 energy for each mineral left in the queue, and you only get 1 ec for each 2 minerals. It costs more ec to carryover more than 10, than what you get back. the benefit of 10 c/o is obvious. IMHO, so is the expense of c/oing more than 10, but diff strokes for diffrent folks. In past play (before my current micromethods) and before knowing about this, I used the stockpile to stop repetitive unit building (made that mistake too many times), and not to exploit this whatever you want to call it.

This bug is also compounded by the unbalance of infiltrator information. Once probed/Always current...Along with the ability to steal a base and every unit surrounding it, Probe teams are way overpowered. I hope (have not looked) this will be addressed in civ 3. If you concentrate on EC and probe teams, it matters not what the other factions do. you will win every time. soo cheezy. IMHO it is worse than ICS. put the two together and you are unstoppable. (oops, got off thread topic)

Forcing A player to use queues is not fair, neither is forcing them to not use them. I support free use of this "feature", if it is tempered with making sure it is common knowledge with each player (CMN job imho). If you forget to use it (I do sometimes), or choose to not use it, is personal choice (or error in forgetting).

besides there are a lot better (or worse) bugs to worry about(as a CMN and player). Like using govenors to exploit the unlimited missle bug, or the production switch cheat, or the R-click multi-drop, ect...

[cousLee]

quote: Originally posted by Fitz on 03-07-2001 02:05 PM Furthermore, it really makes me think twice about building SPs, and encourages the technique of producing crawlers ahead of time, then switching to an SP and cashing them all in. Not that I have a problem with this last one. It works well with your infiltration considerations anyway.

yea but I never did like the make one 3-row unit/upgrade to most expensive unit and cash in. Only need one, two at the most crawlers to finish any SP. Grr. But I use it when in games that everyone else does. (with much dis-taste)