27-07-2004 13:19									#181
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By the way it's around 1500 BC, and SoZ is there for a little while now.

	27-07-2004 14:51									#182
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quote: Originally posted by bongo When taking over this posistion I was quite shocked to find a SGL waiting for me. While a SGL is a nice thing to have in single player it can be quite dangerous in PBEMs due to the 'dogpile-effect'.

you can say that loud. i even built a peaceful wonder (pyramids) and took a peaceful goverment (republic) and this was still a reason (not the only one, but it was mentionned explicitly) of 3 ganging up.

now that you guys speak of this... the trade embargo went against me too. 2 players were writing that they were "struggling" and couldn't offer anything now. the 3rd player kept answering my tech trade offers with "accepted" without even offering anything in return. later on it was clear that it was an embargo. imho a braking of rules... but that's over for me anyway, so... shït happens

quote: What's next? A 3-front coordinated invasion?

that's pretty much what you can expect. except if you can take out one oponent straight away, you won't have any chance at all in the long run. they'll research at more than the double of the speed, have 3 times more units and resources, will trade luxuries freely. you may be able to cope a few dozen turns, but basicly you're doomed (except at least 1 enemy withdraws from the alliance).

that's the point i chickened out and pillaged by improvement, sacked my cities and gave up. i thought it's better if no one gets the cities and land than any one of the "bad guys". it may have been a feeble move by me, but at that point i had lost all fun in the game.

	27-07-2004 15:01									#183
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If a player manage to get ahead of the other, either by luck or skill, the rest will gang up to crush him.

Even though it looks like some of the rules were made to negate this effect, those rules have no effect at all as some players just chose to ignore them.

A tip for the Final: Turn SGLs off, anyone who gets one is doomed anyway. Might as well save people the agony of having to choose between being dogpiled and disbanding a SGL.

	27-07-2004 15:02									#184
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maybe in future it really should be something rommel proposed to do: no communication AT ALL except over the diplomacy screen and unit renaming. and even the latter could be misused (eg: "xyz got SGL and leads in points. interested in beating the crap out of him?") or shorter...

i know multiplayer is all about diplomacy. but if it gets that far that you're punished for being the strongest and getting lucky, then it's not diplomacy anymore.
i mean... imagine the whole world militaristically ganging up on the USA today? or against britain 2 centuries ago?

didn't and doesn't happen...

	27-07-2004 15:32									#185
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quote: i mean... imagine the whole world militaristically ganging up on the USA today? or against britain 2 centuries ago? didn't and doesn't happen...

Maybe because Brittain, neither the USA is playing a game in which there should be an eventual winner... As we all can see, bongo (and in the other game sabre) is (was) going to win if the others don't (didn't) sit down and smoke a peace pipe. Bongo is still not even near losing. It was him who started a war with the Vikings by a "sneaky" attack. It's all in the game.

A SGL can also be applied to celebrate a period of wisdom. Less awarding on a short term, but probably more on a long term. It fits into strategy games to think about these disicions. It's not a SP and if you (in general) always want to be able to exploit luck to the fullest, play SP.

Or...

Go start a silent tournament.

	27-07-2004 17:03									#186
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"imagine the whole world militaristically ganging up on the USA today? or against britain 2 centuries ago?

didn't and doesn't happen..."

No, they were busy ganging up on France instead.

	27-07-2004 17:16									#187
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Let me post my opinions

1) none of the 3 civs violated the common understanding of etiquette. We behaved by the rules as written. It is not impolite or morally reprehensible to try to achieve cooperation toward a common goal.

2) tech embargos, which is what this is since there are no roads to the mongols, are better explicitly announced than secretely conducted. Under Rommel's interpretation, tech agreements would simply not be mentioned. That's worse, not better.

3) unlike SP, it is indeed the case that you can't simply race off to a tech victory or a land-grab victory. Small or backward civs have a chance by cooperating.

This is not SP, but it is strategically interesting. I think more interesting.

	28-07-2004 01:34									#188
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Rules must say what they mean and mean what they say. Nationalism does not permit civs to agree not to trade technology with a third civ. Therefore, the rules we agreed to do not prohibit this activity before nationalism.

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	28-07-2004 01:35									#189
	Remove this text

embargos are for lux and strat resources

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	28-07-2004 01:36									#190
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If we want to extend this to tech trading, we need to think long and hard about the wording. This is an area of cooperation that would be nearly impossible to prohibit short of silent pbem.

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	28-07-2004 01:54									#191
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trade embargoes (with nationalism) can also cut off trade routes iirc, so they are certainly different than 2-3 players agreeing to not trade with another player.

i think 1-2 (item d) is clear and explains very well that trade embargoes are not to be allowed without nationalism. it does not state that when players start agreeing to not trade, that such a thing constitutes the same as a "trade embargo".

	28-07-2004 02:55									#192
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Let's not fall over how we spell the words. I think we all agree that a declaration of not trading techs is approved of by single nations and if 3 nations do it at the same time after some discussion about the situation in the world it should be ok too.

It's been a long and fruitfull day mister chairman. Let's close the curtain on this issue and celebrate the brink of a new day..

Good night from Europe

	28-07-2004 03:01									#193
	Increase Your PM Length

if 4 people play a game, and only one can win and there is nothing to be gained finishing second, you will always find that the other three will try and take that player down.

The best way to do that is to form an alliance.

If you are in the lead and not expecting this, you are being very very stupid.


What this means is that the rules of this tournement, which are designed to give everybody a fair shot, will be pushed to the limited as people invest time and passion into winning. in MP, there is no re-load, so all decisions need to be enacted in such a way as to give your nation the best possible chance of victory.

The rules need to be there to stop people stepping over the line into "unfair" tactics and strategies, but everybody should be aware that this is a competition!

	28-07-2004 06:19									#194
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Wow, this is getting interesting ^^

I'd have to say, about the 3 players ganging up, that:
* it only happens when 1 develops a substantial lead over all 3 others
* even then, it's not impossible to work something out: particularly with the weakest player. Make an alliance, get them to "bandwagon", because the weakest player has nothing to lose. Worst case scenario -- they finish 2nd, instead of 3rd (which would clearly happen if they ganged up against you).

It's quite a realistic situation, and is not far from what happens in the real world. Nations that have a lead and don't try to get allies (like the France 1800 example) have little chance and get decimated ultimately by the ganging up of threatened powers. Nations that *do* try to recruit allies among the weaker powers generally convince some of them to "bandwagon" along with them (like the US and Britain, for example).

I've not really gotten far enough in to most of my games to try to use this tactic (and I'm not Alexman so I don't have the opportunity often anyways ^^) but certainly early game diplomacy helps a *lot*. If you have a partnership with another player from the moment of contact (say 2000 bc on average) then you'll have a much better chance at keeping that partner even when you're on top of the world, and if you keep pumping him/her with help even after he/she can't reciprocate anymore, there will be no reason for him/her to switch sides.

^^

Tech trading embargo: I'd consider this to be against the rules if and only if it's covert. I'd definitely consider it against the rules to have a covert tech trading embargo because the point of the rules -- not the letter -- seems (to me) to imply that basically anything not specifically prohibited is ok, *as long as transparency is maintained.* I don't think secret agreements of any sort are appropriate. (But that's just me. Maybe I'm misreading it?)

	28-07-2004 06:31									#195
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secret agreements are fun though

	28-07-2004 07:02									#196
	Increase Your PM Length

True ... like that one MFCamillus and I have to take out the mummy in noob game next turn ... err, i mean, ...

But, in a competition I think they are inappropriate. Realistic they may be, but they lead to badness that should be avoided in a tourney.

	28-07-2004 10:28									#197
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My apologies jshelr. This entire issue stems from my misunderstanding of what constitutes "trade". I'd assumed an embargo would block any sort of diplomatic exchange, including technology. The fact that exchanging techs is referred to as "trading" by most players and that they are often assigned monetary value and included in deals reinforces this misconception.

From what I gather now, a "trade embargo" is represented by the game mechanics as a removal of the embargoed Civ from the embaroers' trade network. There are no direct military repercussions, but as far as trade is concerned, the embargoed player is an "enemy" of the other two in the agreement. [As an aside: what does this have to do with making an agreement with another Civ? Why can't you simply declare an embargo as a soveriegn nation?]

There was nothing actually done wrong in the game, though I am forced to wonder why McMeadows did not "say what he meant" in the announcement and made it sound like a complete embargo, which generated the alarm in the first place...

	28-07-2004 11:07									#198
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On the general issue of 'dogpiles' and massive alliances, my perception is that without limits on diplomacy (player communication), PBEM games tend to degenerate into Survivor-esque cutthroat popularity contests. Skill at playing the game is relegated a small portion of the winning formula, much like 'challenges' in the TV show. (Has this show been distributed to most media markets by now?)

I would hope that with good etiquette guidelines, diplomacy will remain a part of strategic gameplay, not the other way around. Of course, a silent game would accomplish this, but I'd prefer to not completely cut off open expression if we can find a workable alternative...

	28-07-2004 11:28									#199
	Put an end to popups!

quote: There was nothing actually done wrong in the game, though I am forced to wonder why McMeadows did not "say what he meant" in the announcement and made it sound like a complete embargo, which generated the alarm in the first place...

In the game itself there could not be any misunderstanding as there are no roads connecting any of the involved nations. Last night I have allready added "tech" to the declaration.

	28-07-2004 11:30									#200
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quote: On the general issue of 'dogpiles' and massive alliances, my perception is that without limits on diplomacy (player communication), PBEM games tend to degenerate into Survivor-esque cutthroat popularity contests. Skill at playing the game is relegated a small portion of the winning formula, much like 'challenges' in the TV show. (Has this show been distributed to most media markets by now?)

"sitting duck" could be a TV show as well if bongo is not opposed.

	28-07-2004 20:12									#201
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Seems like there's a bit of cat-fighting in the other games

	28-07-2004 20:41									#202
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quote: in the game itself there could not be any misunderstanding as there are no roads connecting any of the involved nations. Last night I have allready added "tech" to the declaration.

The point being if you were aware of 1-2d and the difference between exchanging techs and trading resources, why use language that described the wrong one? If the subject had been resources, would you have refrained from discussing it?

	28-07-2004 21:05									#203
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For me nothing has changed. I was not aware it all came down to the leaving out of the word "tech". I have never reconsidered trading other things than I can trade at the moment in the game, which are techs.
Furthermore I have never slapped around with etiqette, which for all I care, as I stated before represent just what we all think is to play the game in its spirit. I dislike bureaucracy. The pin pointing on rules, etiquette and things that have been written (literally) are not the way we should be going along. RL is allready full of it. The players involved in the game all want to play an honest, competitive game. A bit more focus on the intentions softens the edges a little.

Would we have been world leaders, we would have had a serious issue in the UN now.

Hmmm WAR it is Bongo... I'll have your AC's for lunch.

	28-07-2004 22:26									#204
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Very well said. I have occassionally looked at this discussion but have not really followed it very closely.

When I started reading it, it reminded me of all the arguements and rules "discussions" going on in the PtW ISDG.

Not good.

We are a family here, satisfy the intent of the rules, if you lose, you lose. Try again next time

But I for one wont be getting into any intense rules discussion. Thats too much like work and not enough like fun for me.

quote: Originally posted by McMeadows For me nothing has changed. I was not aware it all came down to the leaving out of the word "tech". I have never reconsidered trading other things than I can trade at the moment in the game, which are techs. Furthermore I have never slapped around with etiqette, which for all I care, as I stated before represent just what we all think is to play the game in its spirit. I dislike bureaucracy. The pin pointing on rules, etiquette and things that have been written (literally) are not the way we should be going along. RL is allready full of it. The players involved in the game all want to play an honest, competitive game. A bit more focus on the intentions softens the edges a little. Would we have been world leaders, we would have had a serious issue in the UN now. Hmmm WAR it is Bongo... I'll have your AC's for lunch.

	29-07-2004 13:49									#205
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I've redirected discussion of this out of the thread because progress of the games should not hinge on it. Even before jshelr cleared up the meaning of 'trade' for us (me), the discussion was not meant to disrupt any games. My only goal here is to clear the air on the subject of these etiquette options so that the final round (not to mention other games that adopt this code) can proceed without rule ambiguities hanging about. Should I assume everyone participating has a good understanding of 1-2 and will abide by it if agreed to in advance?

Last edited by Rommel2D on 30-07-2004 at 10:47

	29-07-2004 14:05									#206
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quote: Originally posted by McMeadows For me nothing has changed. I was not aware it all came down to the leaving out of the word "tech". I have never reconsidered trading other things than I can trade at the moment in the game, which are techs. Furthermore I have never slapped around with etiqette, which for all I care, as I stated before represent just what we all think is to play the game in its spirit.

Which is why most competitive events rely upon an external source for circumscribing accepted behavior, since one individual's assumptions inevitably bring confusion and conflict when compared to another's. The experimental rules in this tournament are an effort to surpass subjective limitations and arrive at an objective code of conduct that will minimize out-of-game conflicts.

And René Descartes was a drunken fart.
'I drink, therefore I am.'

Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed,
A lovely little thinker,
But a bugger when he's pissed.

Cheers...

	30-07-2004 01:40									#207
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quote: Originally posted by Rommel2D Should I assume everyone participating has a good understanding of 1-2 and will abide by it if agreed to in advance?

did 1-2 change?

	30-07-2004 01:53									#208
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d) Players shall not make Mutual Protection Pacts or Trade Embargoes unless they are declared in the foreign advisor's screen.

Seems perfect to me. Can't do it until you have nationalism. Trade means what civ says trade means.

	30-07-2004 10:43									#209
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quote: Originally posted by jshelr Trade means what civ says trade means.

To put a few more licks in on that dead horse...

Are people aware enough of the special definition civ gives to 'trade'? I wasn't, Bongo wasn't, and I had the impression that Flandrien and/or McMeadows might have been 'going with the flow' on the issue. Would clarifiying the language of 1-2 somehow avoid future misunderstandings?

	30-07-2004 11:47									#210
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Problem is that 'trade' has one meaning in single-player, and a much wider meaning in multiplayer. In the demogames 'trade' are used for almost any kind of arrangements.