23-02-2004 23:56									#1
	Resolving the Long-Term WW Rules Issue Got spare money?

Latest PM from bongo of GWT:

quote: I sent it in a PM on poly, here it is.(with some corrections/addons) My personal opinion is that perpetual WW is a shortcoming in the game-mechanics. There are several good reasons to NOT make peace, and force WW on your enemy when he effectively cannot touch you. It won't be difficult finding RL analogies to that strategy/exploit either. Problem is of course that WW don't decrease until a peace treaty is in place. So we need a rule that will mimick the effect of an WW that do decrease when there are little hostilities. 1 attack per 5 turns were mentioned here, I think that is too low. How about 2 attacks per 5 turns, averaged out over a longer period (i like the 'sliding window' averaging btw ) A new rule might look like this: When there has been under 0.4 hostile acts per turn for over 15 turns, peace can be enforced. Peace shall not be enforced when one of the involved parties has the capability to go over that number. Any of the parties can break an enforced peace treaty at will, but have to accept a renewed treaty immediately if the conditions still are met. During enforced peace, none of the parties are allowed to conduct espionage or trade that would otherwise be blocked by a condition of war. Only parties that suffer from WW can ask for enforced peace. To avoid spying, the peace enforcer shall consult all affected parties. Of course, the details may have to be changed a bit. I belive this rule will cover the current situation, it would enforce peace between GCA and poly/cfc, but not between GWT and CGN, even if one of us actually wanted a peace. If GCA had gone through with(and succeeded ) with the 'island refugee' plan, instead of jumping units, the new rule would (probably) not kick in.

We need to discuss here what our response should be... in other words, what do WE think the rules on WW should be? The only proposal I've heard thusfar is the one made by Hot_Enamel, which sounds sensible to me, but I want to see if any other ideas are out there.

Please discuss.

	24-02-2004 00:55									#2
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His rule would be fine as would H_E's. But, lets go with Bongo's as it would most likely have immediate support by GWT and thus would get enacted more quickly.

	24-02-2004 01:10									#3
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* E_T thinks he sees a snake in the grass with this one.

E_T

	24-02-2004 01:20									#4
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quote: Originally posted by E_T * E_T thinks he sees a snake in the grass with this one. E_T

So do I. Remember, they INTEND to cause us perpetual WW if they can.

	24-02-2004 01:28									#5
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quote: Originally posted by Arnelos So do I. Remember, they INTEND to cause us perpetual WW if they can.

And they might be able to do it if we continue to have cities on the other continent.

I dunno, I know there are some good guys on the German team but after they effectively killed the playback proposal, Im inclined not to trust them any farther than I can throw them right now.

When I think of GWT, I think of a snake in the grass WITH GCA.

I know this is a global agreement we need to reach for the entire game BUT can someone tell me what the plans are with those cities "over there"?

Edit: Question answered, I think, in another thread

	24-02-2004 04:20									#6
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I dont care ...

Agree to this.
Get CFC to agree to this.
Tell CGN, if they want our continued support in the war, they must agree to it.

...

Once this is approved...and we have peace... and the game gets going...then we can work on a better policy.

My only problem, is that it is too easy to manouver the right amount of troops in the modern era to ensure whatever rule is made, can be exploited.

But I think we accept it as is...and then point out the flaws later.

	25-02-2004 07:57									#7
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btw, there's a little problem I see here... for example, if we accept a 5 turn ruling on WW, what prevents any team, say, from sinking a foreign galley in his territory and then having to wait only 5 turns for an enforced peace?

My gut instinct tells me that we should have the admin make rulings on a case-by-case basis since each one could be different. So in each case, the admin would rule out whether there IS a deliberate exploit of WW to cause war weariness, and not an exploit of this ruling to start (and end) a very short war.

	25-02-2004 12:08									#8
	Re: Resolving the Long-Term WW Rules Issue Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

quote: Originally posted by Arnelos There are several good reasons to NOT make peace, and force WW on your enemy when he effectively cannot touch you. It won't be difficult finding RL analogies to that strategy/exploit either.

This is the only part of his post that does not make some kind of sense. Can anyone think of any good reasons to force WW on an enemy when there is no state of active war?

bongo is right however in that we need to outlaw WW where there is judged to be no 'active' war, and thus determine what 'active' war really means. His proposal sounds good, but how exactly do we do this? Say that combat ended 15 turns ago, on which occasion there were 6 hostile acts. Then , to keep WW for two more turns, one more hostile act would need to happen. Then another after those two turns.... Actually this doesn't seem so bad, if we are constantly keeping track of the hostile acts over the last 15 turns. Then we would need to define individual hostile acts as well. Is a turn of 6 improvements pillaged enough to constitute 6 hostile acts and thus prolonging the war by 15 turns? Is 12 hostile acts in one turn enough to prolong a war by 30 turns? IMO we need to define 'hostile acts' as turns of some kind of hostility, whether it's attack or pillaging.

	25-02-2004 17:59									#9
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With any rule made, someone will find a loophole, and abuse the system (read GCA)

Thats why I suggested we just "agree to not to do it".
And allow Mongoose to decide on a case by case basis.

	25-02-2004 23:00									#10
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I made several suggestions on how to phrase this in the old GCA thread, but after reviewing them, I think that they could be work against us.

quote: No party shall intentionally remain at war for the SOLE PURPOSE of using the game's "war weariness" as a means to get revenge on the other party. Once a war has been concluded, and no further fighting can occur within a reasonable period of time, if peace is offered by one party it shall be accepted by the other. Parties shall exist in a state of war in the game only if they intend to fight each other. Being "at war" shall not be allowed for alterior purposes, such as punishing another nation with war weariness or to give a happiness boost to another nation.

They're all vague and require a judgement to be made as to the motives of the parties. While I trust Mongoose to see things our way, I do not trust GWT and GCA to abide by his ruling if it goes against them. And the amount of hastle this is going to cause Mongoose is far higher if we make it a judgement call, as opposed to making it black and white.

I'm now leaning towards something like what GWT suggested. Frankly, I'd accept their proposal if forced, but I'd prefer that if we change it to 0.4 acts over 10 turns.

And I agree on the other terms. They're fine. Tell GWT that we'd like 10 turns instead of 15 but ultimately agree on this either way.

--Togas

	26-02-2004 03:19									#11
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Here's an example of vagueness:

GWT galleys. We decide it is a nuisance. We declare war and kill it in our continent. Now, given that no other type of combat betweeen GWT and Poly is possible, we will have peace in 5 / 10 / whatever turns is decided upon.

So as you can see, this was a deliberate exploit of this ruling, which is why I suggest the admin be the ultimate judge in what does constitute exploiting WW and what isn't.

	26-02-2004 15:47									#12
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WW will not be in evidence much, if at all, from a single incident, unless it is a hangover from a recent war, in which case it could be crippling. THIS could be a dangerous exploit. We may need to push for a rule even stronger: in order to guard against WW from memory of the last war, should we try to ask additionally for, when peace is declared, a moratorium on any declaration of war for x turns after the peace is signed?

I think GWT's proposal is fine as long as we define 'hostile acts' - it MUST be a turn of 'hostile action' and not just a single attack. 10 attacks on one turn and nothing for another 24 is not a war - 10 turns of 'hostile actions' over the same period IS.

	02-03-2004 07:20									#13
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WIA's point above is excellent.

With that in mind, I'd like to make the following changes:

If there have been 2 turns or less in the last 10 turns in which a hostile act has taken place between two teams presently at war, peace must be accepted, if offered by either side.

Such peace shall be considered a "truce" and may be broken by either side by committing a new hostile act in the future.

--Togas

	07-03-2004 07:29									#14
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you know... I'm starting to come around to H_E's suggestion (I think it was H_E) that we simply give Mongoose a "common sense ruling" authority. Rules that automate a peace agreement after 5 turns or 10 turns of no attacks could become problematic... what if the two sides both have their armies in the theatre, are at war, and are pussyfooting around each other (manuevering for advantage) before striking?

What if one side only attacks the other on one turn, but there are some obscene number of unit battles? Then you'd only have 1 turn of warfare in 10 turns, but the number of unit actions might be very high.

Perhaps the rule should have to do something with having significant forces IN A WARZONE (we may have to give Mongoose some leeway on deciding that) either attacking or manuevering within the warzone.

We still want to force peace when the only thing going on are token skirmishes between 1-2 units merely for the sake of keeping up WW, however... perhaps a rule that takes into account the NUMBER of units inside enemy territory?

As we add more and more stipulations, however, we come closer and closer to a point where it would just be easier to give Mongoose a "common sense" ruling authority.... of course, part of the problem is relying on Mongoose's "common sense"...

	07-03-2004 07:41									#15
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Mongoose already has "common sense" authority and has authored the 5-turn rule. I don't think that GWT will agree to go back to Mongoose's "common sense". They seem to want something definite and we can either agree with them on it, negotiate better phrasing, or leave things as they are now.

To make things clear: I have no problem with Mongoose just ruling. Thus far he's ruling favorably on all of the issues set before him, and we really have him in our camp. He drops in and visits our #isdgfamtalks channel every other day looking for gossip or just to ***** about GCA & GWT. He's on our side, it seems.

My concern is that we have *zero* positive relations with GWT. We have made all of one tech trade in our history. We're in a Cold War with them right now and it would serve us to have something to talk to them about and agree on so that we can keep the Cold War chilled out.

The future is still uncertain. We aid CGN because they're the weaker of the two parties at war, but if that changes, we are going to need to have inroads with GWT already in place.

In my opinion, it serves our Foreign Policy to have us work together on a long term WW deal, a bi-partisan deal at that, perhaps to set a precident for future cooperation over other rules disagrements which will laydown the ground work for cooperation over in-game disagreements.

Just like in the game, every deal we make and every agreement we create helps to build positive feelings between us. Right now this is the only constructive thing we can talk to them about. I'd like for us to press forward with it.

--Togas

	07-03-2004 08:20									#16
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quote: Originally posted by Togas In my opinion, it serves our Foreign Policy to have us work together on a long term WW deal, a bi-partisan deal at that, perhaps to set a precident for future cooperation over other rules disagrements which will laydown the ground work for cooperation over in-game disagreements. Just like in the game, every deal we make and every agreement we create helps to build positive feelings between us. Right now this is the only constructive thing we can talk to them about. I'd like for us to press forward with it. --Togas

This is a d*mn good point, Togas. It is true that merely my correspondance with bongo and Striker over the WW issue a few weeks ago seemed to significantly thaw a previously cool relationship. These guys seem willing to be reasonable and negotiate this issue... successfully doing so, especially with our new ambassador Aidun at the helm, could greatly improve chances of doing similarly with in-game issues.

Your point about Mongoose's "common sense" being in question is another good one, as I alluded to in my own post. I suppose I'm just concerned that as we add more and more rules, this gets more complicated than its worth.

	07-03-2004 08:51									#17
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I still think we are making this way too complicated:

If an ocean seperates two civs and neither has the ability to cross said ocean without risk of sinking, then we enforce peace. Why is that so complicated?

I mean yes we can probally get a few suicide galleys across, or they might have a spearman in the inland sea.....but does either side have any realistic expectation to be able to capture cities belonging to the other side? Until navigation the answer to that has to be no, so the only purpose to any war is to screw one side over through the game mechanics of war weariness.

Come up with a complicated rules, and you are actually running a huge risk of making it more likely they can come up with a scenario that breaks the spirit but not the wording of the rules.


I still think we are making this way too complicated:

If an ocean seperates two civs and neither has the ability to cross said ocean without risk of sinking, then we enforce peace. Why is that so complicated?

I mean yes we can probally get a few suicide galleys across, or they might have a spearman in the inland sea.....but does either side have any realistic expectation to be able to capture cities belonging to the other side? Until navigation the answer to that has to be no, so the only purpose to any war is to screw one side over through the game mechanics of war weariness.

Come up with a complicated rules, and you are actually running a huge risk of making it more likely they can come up with a scenario that breaks the spirit but not the wording of the rules.


EDIT: And if its not clear, I'm against Bongo's proposal. The wording is too specific (.4 in 15 turns whatever that means) . I'd be far more in favor of simply having a rule in place that says something like this:

"A team shall not maintain a perpetual state of war with another team with which it has no signicant means of attacking solely for the purpose of inflicting damage to said team through war weariness. To this end the game administrator can call a in game peace at his discretion after 20 turns of no cities changing hands and enforce this peace until war weariness has subsided. During this enforced peace, neither side shall take part in espionage against the other team forbidden by the state of war. The game administrator shall use his judgement in the enforcement of this rule, and shall do his best to determine if there is a possibility for cities to change hands in the near future."


Yes that is specific and lengthy, but it's not built on conditions that are so easy to come up with loop holes in.

Last edited by wervdon on 07-03-2004 at 09:02