War Pigs Builds Winter Adjustments 1902

[orange]

Originally posted by Sheep
The policy of derfaults for me is that they go away from the units towards a SC province if available then a non SC.

What if two SC or two non SC options exist? What do you do then? Or three? (this is why I personally prefer retreat Off the Board...nations shouldn't benefit from NMRing )

[CyberGnu]

Orange, the only way a player could BENEFIT from an NMR would be if the pre-determined or random move is BETTER than the move a player could come up with... You would have to be a pretty horrible player to be worse than random... Methinks you have played CivIII to much, where random actions would be better than the AI

[orange]

no what I mean is, if you NMR, your nation shouldn't make the best possible set of moves...else what's the point of ever playing a turn? An NMR is supposed to cost you - that's why you don't want to let it happen. If you retreat to the best possible place, what's the point of even sending in moves? If an NMR will get your nation the best possible defensive or offensive moves made, what's the point of ever sending in anything?

[Sheep]

No when a NMR occurs, the units just hold. Thats my way of thinking. I have 3 orders already. If you all get it in early I will update. If they are provisional orders please say so. Also when you send them can you write

War Pigs Orders / season / country

as the subject thanks

[CyberGnu]

Orange, have you ever played the computer version of diplomacy? Moves made by static rules or even a human without a long term plan always suck. There is no way around that.

BTW, what is this obsession you and ruff has about the NMR'ing player? Who cares about that player? I think people who NMR without a medical reason deserves to have their nails pulled out with pliers, and then forced to gut fish without tools.

It is the OTHER players that are important. THEY are the ones that shouldn't be either rewarded or punished by a NMR...

Well, the people at redscape has understood it. Boshko has understood it. You are a smart guy, you will come around.

[RUFFHAUS 8]

*OT*

Gnu,

This isn't the place to continue the debate I guess, what with cluttering up the War Pigs game thread and all, but I think the root of 90% of the disagreement that I have (and perhaps orange as well) here is the decision to allow the NMRing units *any* action other than to hold.

I'll repeat that only at Aployton/CGN have I ever seen a GM make up orders for a unit in this fashion. In fact, I've only seen 5 GMs *ever* do this. These people are, Boshko, Cyber Gnu, Defiant, Du_Chateau, and SnowFire. Defiant isn't currently GMing a game, but he depated from this habit since that.

Nowhere at Redscape do they advocate allowing NMRing units to support each other. And even the default builds and retrats soptions hown, which you seem to think vindicate your poor decision to take this policy on are only there to deal with a situation where a *player* NMRs. These defaults do not apply to civil disprder nations. The philosophy behind the defaults is to keep the position viable for the original player's return or an eventual replacement player. It's an insurance policy against having a single NMR destory the game.

While I don't subscribe to the default order theory, I see where it is coming from. I do not see any benefit in allowing a nation in civil disorder to do anything. I also do not see any reason to allow any action during the movement phase for a nation that NMRs.

I agree that the moves randomly selected by AI's always suck. But there's more to this than you are considering. Suck yes, but for whom? It quite possible to be next to a CD disorder nation and NOT want to attack or destroy it. Why should a nation adjacent to a CD nation receive the benefit of those extra supports? I know that you cannot fathom this yet, but as you told orange, 'you're a smart guy, you'll come around'. In CGN Imperial orange has already figured it out. I can't blame him for taking advantage of what you've given to him

The nation in CD is screwed no matter what. No amount of allowing them to support themselves is going to save them from plundering hordes. The issue is who decides what, where, and when they choose to support? If the GM does this, then he's taking an active part in *playing* the game.

[CyberGnu]

Ruff, see their policy on COPs.

That's my entire point. Their policy on NMR's is more extreme than mine, and it is all to make sure that a player next to a NMR'ing nation won't benefit from the NMR.

[orange]

i think doing anything to an NMRing or CD nation is wrong because there is already the factor of "well if nation A is leaderless, nation B (its neighbor) is going to roll so we better ally against him and beat him now while he's weaker. If the GM tries to compensate for anything in the game, he will likely get results he didn't intend for, only you can't blame the GM and he'll never know, simply because of the variability of diplomacy.

Best policy, in my book, is NMR = all units hold retreat off the board no builds, disbands: fleets before armies furthest from home supply centres alphabetical order by province if necessary. Then there are NO questions as to GM involvement. But if you have a nation in CD with 3 armies all supporting each other, and a supported attack on two of those territories, which one does territory 3 support? Flip a coin? Pull out of a hat? It DOESN'T MATTER how you try to justify it, it's still wrong because it gives one nation a clear advantage, the same advantage you were trying to prevent by instituting such a policy.

[CyberGnu]

I'm sorry Orange, but that ganging up never happens.

As for the second part, you still fail to explain why you prefer the large bias of having a defenseless neighbour you can gobble up over the small bias of what army a potential NMR'in army should support...

I would also like your comment on the redscape rules, which are pretty much like Boshkos. In redscapes COPs rules, an NMR'ing nation recieves orders made by one of the COPs, and that is way more biased that all units suppot each other.

[Sheep]

Unfortuantley we have lost Russia. The country will be placed into CD if a player is not fund before the end of this turn phase

[Sheep]

I move that if we lose another nation we abandon the game and start a new one with new postions deterined randomly

[RUFFHAUS 8]

Originally posted by CyberGnu
I'm sorry Orange, but that ganging up never happens.

As for the second part, you still fail to explain why you prefer the large bias of having a defenseless neighbour you can gobble up over the small bias of what army a potential NMR'in army should support...

I would also like your comment on the redscape rules, which are pretty much like Boshkos. In redscapes COPs rules, an NMR'ing nation recieves orders made by one of the COPs, and that is way more biased that all units suppot each other.

Gnu, that 'ganging up' DOES happen.It does. I've seen in in many games. It perpetuates fear, and ruins alliances because of perceived advantages.

Speaking of advantages... Gnu, you constantly refer to the "large bias" of the defenseless neighbor. This is not *bias*. This is an potential advantage, but not one without side effects which include the 'ganging up'. Still it's not bias, because there is no choice involved. The GM has no effect on the game here, so there can be bo bias. When the GM arbitraily (or perhaps not) decides which units will give and recieve support, where unit will retreat to , where units will disband... this is bias. The GM may have every intention of being completely fair about it, but there is no way to avoid complaint or suspicion of bias. This is why there are specific rules for CD occurences.

I don't know what you are referring to by COP(s) at Redscape. Is this a standby person to submit random orders? If so, I decry that idea as well. I am GMing a game there, and there are no such rules in my game, nor did anyone ask me to use them. Nowhere at Redscape or Cat23, or anywhere else have I seen this "all unit support" each other save here and your game at CGN, which is for all purposes a spin off of this community.

Now I'll give you that you stated up front in your game that you would use the "all units support" method, and I know that Boshko and Du Chateau use it as well. When joining games hosted by you all, I understand and accept them, while (usually) privately disliking them. These rules are terribly flawed, and it's no coincidence that these games suffer a high number of contested GM decisions and player abandonments.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could just get players to play a game without NMRs? Real life happens, but honestly 90% of these NMRs are from apathy, sudden disinterest due to poor performance, and outright laziness. If we could get committed players to play, then using the standard rules (all units hold, retreat OTB, waived builds, and prescribed disbands) on the rare occasion of an NMR/abandonment from real life concerns wouldn't be an issue.

I as much or more have more real life responsibilty and demands on my time here than anyone in this community past and present. I've never NMR'd, and my GMd games have never had a protest, a delay longer than a week, or just flat out died. I've hard hard drive failures, faulty or no ISP access, firewalls, over suspicious bosses, frequent cross- county travel to remote BFE sections of the country, babies born at incredible late hours of the night, and endless diaper duty. I managed to show my GMs and fellow players the respect of turning in my orders and cranking out the turns. I'm not here to blown my horn, I'm just saying that it can be done if people care. And if people cared, then we'd not be having this discussion.