Ctp Competition Rule Discussion..

[Gavrushka]

Agreed absolutely - IF there are bugs in a premade map that lead to a mistaken conclusion then they must be looked at - better this now than in the middle of the comp.

Thanks for the intelligent post Quinns, and it would be good if Yoda can zip the saves and post them to someone to check - I think we are all in agreement that the accusation will prove mistaken....

[yoda]

Game Play

First of all, I did NOT accuse Paul of cheating on the tournament map. Paul made an assumption there based on a conversation he had with another player. Let me be clear on this... I DID NOT accuse Paul of cheating on the tournament test map game that we played. The only question I had about that map after looking at it was: Why did Paul have 17,000 gold saved up at modern age when there were obvious improvements to buy that would have significantly improved his science?

That is the ONLY question I had and still have regarding the play of that game! Everything else appeared legitimate in our test game

Now, aside from the Paul issue, I'd like to talk about another rush buy issue:

If I am correct, there is to be NO rush buy swapping from improvements to units, right? There is to be NO PW rush tricks, right? Now, what about rush buy ramping up? I learned about this just yesterday. For example, let's say you have a junker city and you want a destroyer in a hurry (using the unit example just for fun). To rush buy this it would cost 8000 in communism. However, if you rush/switch a courthouse, city wall, theatre, academy, marketplace, and collisium... then switch to a destroy, you have the unit for a total of 3043! The same goes for a factory. Rush buy cost would be 8100 from scratch. Follow the same path but then switch to bank, university, city clock and then factory and your cost would be 5334! A nice savings by any standards. In addition, if the city already has some minor production accumulated, the initial cost of a courthouse (1080) is significantly reduced. Furthermore, a few rush buys in the middle of production can save several turns of construction for just a minimal cost!

Are we going to allow this type of ramping up trick in the tourney?

Now, some additional results from the test game with Paul. After having a look at the map where we ended, I continued for another 10 or 30 turns just allowing the turns to go by. I only did this after it became obvious that we were not going to continue playing this test! By the end of that time, 4 disasters had struck. That is without nuclear weapons and without me building oil refineries (but Paul did build these). I have made a change to one of the default files and will be testing it to see if disasters can be avoided while leaving pollution on in the game.

Finally, one last time, I did NOT accuse Paul of cheating. But, for anyone who is worried about someone using the rush buy/rush PW tricks, I suggest both players save a copy of the game each turn and then the losing player can review the game and contest it if he finds something is wrong. It can then be reviewed by the tournament organizers to either confirm or denie the accusation. How can this be done? Paul taught me this one... as the NON-HOST player, all you have to do to get a saved copy of the game is go to options, hit NEW GAME, hit SAVE GAME, hit CANCEL. There you go... you now have a save of the game as the non-host player.

yoda

[yoda]

Accusations

One additional comment about this controversy... I have played (but not finished) many games with Paul. In all of those games, I have only noticed a couple of things that I wondered about. I am not going to drag these issues out through the mud because regardless of these, I know that Paul is one of the best CTP players in the world. The suggestion I have made above regarding how to review the games is the simple solution if ANYONE has a problem with how myself or any other person plays.

And Paul, if you would like to see the tourney map we were playing and don't already have a copy using the trick you discovered, let me know and I will send it to you via icq. Once again, I did not make this accusation about the tourney map. I simply was curious just why such a high quality player would keep so much gold on hand...

[Gavrushka]

Do you really need an answer on the ramping suggestion?

[yoda]

answer

Originally posted by Gavrushka
Do you really need an answer on the ramping suggestion?

Not really Gav. I just wanted to make sure that everyone involved understood the impact of this loophole as it was a considerable revelation to me.

yoda

[J Bytheway]

I brought this up in the last thread (though I didn't make it clear - I assumed everyone would know what I was talking about):

So far I think you've excluded rush buy switching, but I'm sure there are others (Incremental rush buying comes to mind - i.e. rush buying repeatedly in the same category rather than switching e.g. from improvements to buildings - I would think that this is much harder to police).

To which Gav replied:

Rush Buying is pretty straight forward.... You may never RUSH BUY then switch category - that is between units, structures and wonders

Which I took to mean that incremental rush buying was OK by him, since it's not switching category - was this a misunderstanding?

Then Solver said:

Here's my take on rushing: if you buy something, you complete whatever you bought. Simple really.

Which is clearly against it. I take it you're all agreed on Solver's interpretation.

[quinns]

Re: Game Play

Originally posted by yoda
Now, what about rush buy ramping up? I learned about this just yesterday.
Are we going to allow this type of ramping up trick in the tourney?

yoda

I think that the "no rush-buy-switch rule" covers the ramp up as well. "Ramp Up - Switch" is just a derivation of the rush-buy-switch.... But it was good that Yoda brought it up now, instead of later, for clarity's sake.

But what is the PW Rush Trick? Does everyone know this trick but me??

Still mixed up a little on Paulno1's post, though. He said the comp2b map was buggy. But in what way? I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic about the 17000 gold or if a bug caused the 17000 gold or whether it was just plain good old gold savings from good old basic trading? more

[J Bytheway]

IIRC: The PW rush trick is when you place two tile imps on the same square in the same turn - you only pay the cost of the more expensive of the two, but the improvement is built in just one turn.

[yoda]

Re: Re: Game Play

Originally posted by quinns


I think that the "no rush-buy-switch rule" covers the ramp up as well. "Ramp Up - Switch" is just a derivation of the rush-buy-switch.... But it was good that Yoda brought it up now, instead of later, for clarity's sake.

But what is the PW Rush Trick? Does everyone know this trick but me??

Still mixed up a little on Paulno1's post, though. He said the comp2b map was buggy. But in what way? I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic about the 17000 gold or if a bug caused the 17000 gold or whether it was just plain good old gold savings from good old basic trading? more

The RUSH PW trick is simple. You build a farm for a cost of 200 and in the same turn, build an advanced farm in the same hex which only costs an additional 300 (total 500). You then get the advanced farm in ONE turn. I believe it was Dragon who first made me aware of this trick a few weeks ago when he posted it here. The same procedure works for mines. I'm not sure about other PW projects such as roads/railroads, airbases, listening posts, etc...

As for a buggy map, so far there have been no bugs that I have noticed while playing for the first sitting. I don't know about what happens after a saved game is continued. I will be testing that today along with the pollution modification file.

yoda

[quinns]

Okay. Thanks for that Yoda and JBTW. Right, NO RUSH PW either!

[J Bytheway]

I'm actually glad in a strange kind of way that the incremental rush buying thing is there because it promted me to post this thread (just about the first thread I ever started) and faded's reply got me hooked on PBEM... I can't believe that's nearly a year ago now. Back in the days when I was a clueless newbie - now I'm beginning to feel like a scarred veteran (though not so scarred as the august competitors here (Try and figure out whether that's a compliment )). But that's enough OT rambling...

[yoda]

Bugs

Ok, just loaded up a saved test of the map and discovered that there were NO bugs in terms of extra gold or tech. I also tested my modified pollution file and determined that you can delay the occurence of disasters while still keeping pollution on. If I am correct, the game went from 9 turns to the next disaster to 35 turns. I am going to modify it further to make it basically impossible for a disaster to occur unless the players go nuke happy.

yoda

[Paulno1]

I dont think i ever said in the post that yoda called me a cheat
tried not to even emply it, i tried not to name names, his mate was the one that called me cheat very adimently and no holds barred. I have not even discussed the issue with yoda YET. Though the game seemed very laggy to me , id switch to next unit and it would take 20 seconds. Ive never had this problem before and never since. Even in 4 player games, hence i thought it was very strange (i was not host). We stopped teh game so i could reboot but thtat did not fix the problem.
I never mentioned it to yoda whcih is even stranger i suffered in anoyence alone. About the that ramping thing, i kind a new the idea of that never used it though never thought it was worthwhil. Cause buying any unit or building from the start is not effient. I never spend more than 500 gold on any one thing before commi and and about 1100 in commi.

[Gavrushka]

Paul - I had exactly the same thing with map - not lag - but when the comp auto circulated to a new unit it could totally hang (as if frozen) for ages ....... couldn't even scroll ...... At one point it was soo bad (early in game) that I had to reboot CTP...... I thought it was old comp here - I don't think so though now.... there is an issue that needs to be addressed.... It got to the point where it was happening several times a turn. One thing - It always seemed to be with same single units... I am concerned that CTP loses track of where units are occassionally - and misplaces them... It does happen then every time you try to move it u get a resync, and unit goes back to where it started... This could end the game prematurely..

Anyone got a suggestion??

Paul will you rejoin comp.... There is a lot of us very upset at the prospect of you not being part of it!

J Bytheway - I never realised incremental Rush buy switching had an impact on cost - I thought costing was directly proportional to prod applied ..... I think the edited answer is that once you rush buy - you complete whatever you are buying. - And J B yes u certainly are developing painful looking welts and bruises! - It would be great to face your analytical brain online in the summer... I have a feeling that you could be one hell of an opponent..... BUT in CTP I am convincd there is a best thing to do, and a right thing to do...

[yoda]

testing

Dr. Doom and I have tested the map a couple of times (not to completion) and found that there was a slight lag in moving the non-host player, but no other problems. We will need to play it out to big battles to make sure there are no significant problems. Also, the game has never lost track of units to the best of my knowledge/play testing.

As for the rush buy ramp-up, the incremental drops in cost per production is parabolic.

yoda