Prepoll Discussion: Redefining "Playing Ahead"

[Kuciwalker]

My idea is this:

For the purpose of determining trades, we let people (we may limit this to certain ministers) "play ahead". There would be special conditions on this: you could NOT end turn, move units, or do trades involving maps or communications. Discuss.

[jdd2007]

what would be the point of that?

*Glory to country through Strength and Honor!*

[Kuciwalker]

This way we can actually figure out if a tech whoring project will work, among other things.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Don't like it.

Any form of playing ahead is cheating IMO. What if they discovered a trade that is widely approved would not work? Saving us loads of cash in the process. That = unfair advanage = cheating.

[notyoueither]

Not a good idea.

The benefit of tech whoring is what can be gained. Massive sometimes.

The risk is that you will not get what you want and your opponents will be stronger.

It is a game. It must have risk, otherwise why don't we use reload cheating to avoid unfavourable results when we attack?

[OPD]

Re: Prepoll Discussion: Redefining "Playing Ahead"

Originally posted by skywalker
For the purpose of determining trades, we let people (we may limit this to certain ministers) "play ahead".

Perhaps you could expand on what things ministers would be allowed to do?

If for example you mean, buy a tech and see whether we can make our money back or not, then I'm afraid I'll have to disagree with this.

[Kuciwalker]

OPD - that's EXACTLY what I mean. Right now we are pretty much in the dark on how much we can get back for our stuff. In real life you can say "If I gave you this, what would you give me?" to set up chains of trades, etc.

[Spiffor]

I think I'm the first to be concerned here.

Skywalker :
You're right when you say "playing ahead"'s definition needs more refinment. To me, playing ahead is doing anything on his computer hasn't been done by the President, or doesn't bind him.

Let's take an example (it's late, so I'm less and less understandable ). Imagine Uber says "Persian warrior goes West" during a turnchat. For some reason, the Prez didn't move the warrior immediately. Doing this on my computer won't be playing ahead.

Same thing goes for trades. If a trade is sure to be done (victorous poll / adamant decision of the FAM), then playing "ahead" will be allowed, because everything done binds the president to mimic it.

For example, with my latest tech-acquiring project. Once the poll about it (posted soon) has been accepted, I'll work on it on my computer, because we'll now have to follow it.
But, if I do this before, in order to see how much I could get, it would be playing ahead. Just imagine I realize Brits will not sell constrution for currency (which has a small chance to happen indeed). The plan is wasted, and Plan Gold is jeopardized. I'll just come back on the forum and say "forget about the project", and all risk would have been avoided. That would definitely be playing ahead.

[MrWhereItsAt]

WHAT?!

I thought that in the past, the FAM told us EXACTLY what trades were acceptable to a certain Civ. They then reported it to widespread approval. Does this not contradict what has been said here?

Y'see, I thought this was the bulk of the FAM's job - to sound out the other leaders on possible trades, and then report to the people before accepting any of them. If not, does the FAM only hope to enact all the decisions made here without knowing if they are acceptavle or not?

[Inverse Icarus]

techwhoring projects are risks. the risk is that greece (or whoever) wont buy a tech, or wont pay top dollar for it.

it's as much of a risk as a battle would be, and should be treated as such.

[Ninot]

good reasoning by all, makes me think

[adaMada]

I say that anyone should be able to open a trading box, plug some values in, and see if the Foreign Advisor says the AI'll take it. On the other hand, I don't think that anyone should be able to actually make the trade or end the turn... that lets people make accurate predictions as to what costs what, isn't really cheeting (If it wasn't a demo-game, we could all do it anyway), but also gives people planning trades some ballpark numbers.

Just my two cents...

-- adaMada

[Kuciwalker]

Of course they can see what the Advisor says. I'm saying that if we're performing a sequence of trades, we should be able to play out that sequence.

[Shiber]

This is all a very problematic issue.
We need to be able to play ahead to know what the AIs will pay for something which we intend to acquire. In real world trade this is possible so I don't see this as cheating. Furthermore, the AIs can make very accurate predictions as to what the other AIs might offer them but we cannot. Not allowing us to play ahead to see how much an AI would offer for something that we don't have would disadvantage us.
However, much like the force, there is a dark side to playing ahead. People might be tempted to abuse the ability to play ahead in ways such as determining the effect of a certain trade on an AI leader's attitude towards us.
In my opinion we should only allow ministers to play ahead, and they must swear not to abuse this ability. Abusive actions will of course be defined by a law which we can begin to discuss now.

Any comments? Or thoughts? Or thoughtful comments?

[DAVOUT]

I am not sure I understand ; at the end of the turnchat, the last move is entered, and the turn ends. If you start a new turn, you are playing ahead, full stop. Watever you do or see now will bring you informations that were not available at the end of the previous turn.
Why dont you try your trades before the last move of the previous turn ?

But we could have agreed, at the start of the game that we adopted another rythm consisting in ending the turnchat AFTER starting the next turn, and seeing the AI moves, but before making any human move.

In fact, a complete turn consist of human moves then AI moves, although it is presently artificially ended at the end of the human turn.

Do you follow me ?