Delegations to zoltan

[buggy]

I invite users from Teams Blue / Green / Red / White (and even Black) express their opinion on zoltan constantly violating delegation rules, e.g. taking over other nation in the middle of the turn of an active player (happened with Joy / Kingi / Lord_P) or controlling more than 2 players in a single turn without prior disclosure.

I have sent a few messages already on Discord regarding this. It seems that zoltan doesn't care and considers this to be acceptable and even necessary behavior.

I would like some input from other teams though my personal solution would be simple - ban zoltan from any future delegations.

[ghamath]

For more context. In the last three turns.

(T51 - 09:32:29) Kingi has connected from xxxx (player Kingi).
(T51 - 12:49:57) zoltan now controls Kingi (Human, Alive).
(T51 - 12:50:49) zoltan now controls zoltan (Human, Alive).
(T51 - 12:50:50) Kingi has connected fromxxxxt.
(T51 - 00:25:19) Kingi has connected from xxxx (player Kingi).
(T51 - 01:58:32) Kingi has connected from xxxx (player Kingi).

(T52 - 05:52:40) Joy has connected from xxxx (player Joy).
(T52 - 16:53:30) Joy has connected from xxxx (player Joy).
(T52 - 00:56:55) zoltan now controls Joy (Human, Alive).
(T52 - 00:57:52) zoltan now controls zoltan (Human, Alive).

(T53 - 05:40:14) zoltan now controls Kingi (Human, Alive).
(T53 - 05:40:26) zoltan now controls zoltan (Human, Alive).
(T53 - 05:48:01) zoltan now controls Kingi (Human, Alive).
(T53 - 05:49:22) zoltan now controls zoltan (Human, Alive).
(T53 - 07:51:13) Kingi has connected from xxxx.
(T53 - 10:51:35) Kingi has connected from xxxx (player Kingi).
(T53 - 13:37:52) zoltan now controls Lord_P (Human, Alive).
(T53 - 13:41:33) zoltan now controls zoltan (Human, Alive).
(T53 - 13:51:36) Kingi has connected from xxxx (player Kingi).

[wieder]

With the admin powers I edited the message and removed the address information from it.

[zoe]

Actually, banning Zoltan from regencies would be enough. He could still ask for delegations though, which implies full turns and asking for it...

[jwrober]

I think there are a couple of issues here:. Outright banning is not the solution. Playing by the rules as established is.

1. Players have more than one delegation set to them on the main LT game page in violation of the rules
2. Players are exploiting this loophole to play for active players (in the same turn, especially)

If you sort the table of players + delegations from http://longturn.org/game/LT45/ you will see some interesting delegations by team

Team BLACK = dion, zoltan, Alfred, xandr, Joy, Lord_P, Kingi
dion is zoltan's regent
xandr is Alfred's regent
zoltan is xandr, Joy, Lord_p and Kingi's regent

I cannot speak to who is an perm idler for this team, but it does seem strange that zoltan would hold 4 regencies. This is in violation of the rules.

Team BLUE = cgalik, Temmikael, Livius, Mooreinstore, kunki, emilio, jwrober
No one is regent for cgalik, Temmikael, Livius or Mooreinstore
cgalik is kunki's regent
jwrober (me) is emilio's regent
Mooreinstore is my regent

Kunki and Emilio are perm idlers, this is why cgalik and I play both these nations every turn. Notice we are also following the delegation rules by only holding to one delegeation each.

Team GREEN = sigur, rocknrolf, Hans_Lemurson, SKB, Corbeau, louis94, pieronjeden,
Corbeau is Hans_Lemurson regent
Dodo is SKB's regent (picked up an perm idler spot? I don't see a forum post agreeing to the delegation.)
Hans_Lemurson is Corbeau, louis94 and pieronjeden's regent.

I cannot speak to who is an idler for this team, but it does seem strange that Hans_Lemursonn would hold 3 regencies. This is in violation of the rules.

Team RED = chill, soon, kamBLR, Dim, ferg, petromax, BeckettTheGreat
No one is regent for chill or soon
Chill is kamBLR's regent
kamBLR is Dim and ferg's regent
soon is petromax regent
wieder is BeckettTheGreat regent

I cannot speak to who is an idler for this team, but it does seem strange that kamBLR would hold 2 regencies. This is in violation of the rules.

Team WHITE = shoter, ghamath, Orisson, nirti, kevin551, zoe, Wahazar
No one is regent for shoter, ghamath, Orisson or nirti
buggy is regent for nirti and kevin551 (picked up a perm idler spot - http://forum.longturn.org/viewtopic.php?id=1123)
kevin551 is regent for zoe
shoter is regent for Wahazar

Team White, like Blue is following the rules with only one regent per player. They also got an external player to pick up an idler following the rules. Thanks White!


So, what am I to make of this situation? It looks like 3 of 5 teams are bending the rules with regards to the use of delegations.

I can poor through logs and find evidence of the misuse of the delegations. Some examples have been posted on Discord as well. For the game to stay fair and fun, I ask that all teams simply follow the rules! Seriously, it is not that hard. This is supposed to be fun. I can speak to the challenge of having players who do not want to be on Discord. I respect their decision and we collaborate in the chat line inside the game. It does make it much harder to collaborate, but we are making it work. Other teams should do the same.

Ladies and Gentlemen - Let's simply follow the rules. It is incumbent on all of us to do this as teams. This keeps the game play fair and as balanced as possible.

Thanks

[louis94]

While I agree that tech exchange is more efficient using /take, I'm inclined to consider using delegation for anything else (including among others moving units, selling buildings, setting city production) as cheating. In a team game, one has to accommodate his teammates. Coordination is essential in team games, just like diplomacy is in classic games. Making it optional, even though it would fit a particular player's syle of play, would remove an extra dimension from the game.

Given that /take, initially allowed in LT44 for tech exchange purposes only has been abused, I'm inclined to forbid it completely beyond the usual 1+1(+1) delegation stuff. Stating clearly that it's allowed would lead to teams coordinating to be online 24/7 and do RTS when they like, which would IMHO ruin the game. In the end, anticipating that you'll need a tech and coordinating with team members is not that difficult.

Anyhow I think that a decision is needed, because the current situation being continuously exploited by one person is not fair (and no, I don't want to do things that I consider as cheating)

Hans_Lemurson is Corbeau, louis94 and pieronjeden's regent.

I cannot speak to who is an idler for this team, but it does seem strange that Hans_Lemurson would hold 3 regencies. This is in violation of the rules.

As far as I'm concerned, I set my delegation to Hans at the very beginning in case I needed to delegate. Hans had only one player at the time. I don't think he ever used the delegation, and he probably didn't even notice. As far as I can tell, having the delegation set is not against the rules; using it in an inappropriate fashion is.

Ladies and Gentlemen - Let's simply follow the rules. It is incumbent on all of us to do this as teams. This keeps the game play fair and as balanced as possible.

Agreed.

[jwrober]

As far as I'm concerned, I set my delegation to Hans at the very beginning in case I needed to delegate. Hans had only one player at the time. I don't think he ever used the delegation, and he probably didn't even notice. As far as I can tell, having the delegation set is not against the rules; using it in an inappropriate fashion is.

Thanks for the reply louis94. I agree with your comments regarding intent versus actual use, especially inappropriate use. My team ran into a similar situation. I had cgalik as my "default" regent at the start of the game. However, when he and I both needed to take on a perm idler cgalik suggested that I move my default regent to Mooreinstore to ensure that from the public's perspective it would only look like we each were operating under the 1+1 format. This is the main premise of my original post.

Tech exchange or any other function of a regent is only supposed to happen when the person is either perm idle or needs some help with being out of pocket for a few days. That is why we went with the 1+1(+1) solution. To allow say me to take on Mooreinstore if he was going to be out for a holiday or something and then revert back. All publicly commented here or on Discord. There is absolutely zero need for a regent to handle tech exchange. The live players have to coordinate!

My ask is that all teams with "extra" delegations get them cleaned up as soon as possible (with expected coordination via established comm channels). Maybe in the next 2 or 3 turns?

Teams need to learn to communicate in the best possible manner available to them. That is the ultimate challenge of team games and why I like them so much. We would not play if it was easy!

[Hans_Lemurson]

Is there a limit on how many regencies you can hold?
According to: http://longturn.org/game/LT45/

• Zoltan currently holds 4: Xander, Joy, Lord_P, Kingi
• kamBLR holds 2: Dim, Ferg (Ferg was controlled by Dim previously, so it looks like kamBLR is taking over all of Dim's former duties)
• Buggy holds 2: Nirti, Kevin551 (he is however a substitute, so controlling Nirti is actually his primary nation, so it's really just 1 regency)
• Hans_Lemurson (me!) holds 3: Pieronjeden, Louis94, Corbeau (I should probably drop Louis though, since that could mean controlling 3 nations at once if he needed to go away.)

I couldn't find any other examples of multiple regencies other than these.
edit: Looks like I'm Corbeau's regent too! Hmm...that could be a lot of nations at once. More than I'd like.

[Hans_Lemurson]

Thanks for posting Buggy.

Every team but Blue is cheating... damn... this is my first LongTurn game. Team Black with Zoltan is the worst...

You know, the missing players issue should have been addressed before it got this bad. We could have easily assigned current good standing players to other nations, like even one person controls 2 nations for instance. We can still do this even.

I vote we restart a different map and make teams according to players that actually participate. If we don't restart, we are always going to say, they won because they CHEATED...

Livius

Hold your horses Livius; there's a difference between "Is the designated regent" and "Is actively controlling a nation on behalf of another person". I wasn't listing the "violators of the rules" just writing out who has the largest number of regencies. Having a regency doesn't mean that you control that nation. (Unless you are Zoltan)

I control Hans Lemurson's California because that is me and my nation.
I control Pieronjeden's Silesia because he never showed up. This is permanent delegation and is an established solution to no-shows. No-shows are a recurring problem.
However, I have never taken control of ANY other nation in all 55 turns of the game. Louis and Corbeau have me set as their regents, but all this means is that I could take control of them should they require it (vacation, illness, otherwise unable to play...)
But I haven't because:
-They haven't asked it,
-Controlling 3 nations at once is highly questionable when there are other players who still control single nations,
-You're not supposed to have two players issue orders on the same turn.
-It's a big pain in the ass. Switching back and forth between two nations is manageable, but three is a chore. (Did that briefly in LT44)

The issue is that Zoltan is controlling 5 nations, possibly has not been asked to do this, and is issuing a second set of orders on the same turn as them.

[wieder]

I'll copy the relevant part of my response from another thread.

"Another thing is that the players are allowed to have more pre-defined delegates for cases where people are missing turns and I might not be around to do the delegations for then. It has happened. Really smile

The actually used delegations is the thing that counts on LT45. The game specific rules allow this exception.

In any case, maybe it would be better to have more evenly distributed pre-defined delegates?"

One solution to this might be allowing all the teams to have a designated player to connect for controlling one extra nation for only once / turn for a very short period of time like maybe 2-3 minutes. I'm not sure how this would work since we never had something like this but it might be a compromise.

[Corbeau]

Just to add in a thought: maybe not everybody is aware that every takeover of another nation shows in the chat window with the exact time it started and ended. So everything is out there, visible for inspection, if anyone is paying attention (and "anyone", apparently, is).

The large number of delegations to one person in many teams is probably the result of bad coordination, but in the end, nothing actually happened. For the record, I switched my delegation to Louis and I just realised that I didn't even notify him So, Louis, there

[Corbeau]

Fair enough. I guess I'm too lenient towards it because it didn't hit me directly.

So, basically, what is an official proposition here?

[wieder]

I have used pre-accepted dialogs for gold transfers when the gold is needed. This is a really good way to have the gold ready for almost anyone to use while not really giving it unless needed. It only requires the players to understand what they are doing.

[Corbeau]

What?!

[Hans_Lemurson]

Livius, I know you're angry but I'm not 100% convinced you actually understand what's going on. Black team HAS multiple players in it.
There are no empty nations in black.
There's nobody for you to "take" from Black.
You're proposing that you remove Kingi from the game so that you can play Japan for him?
You want to take the Palatinate (I assume you meant this instead of the Dutch) from Lord_P?

Secondly, switching players between teams is a blatantly ridiculous proposal. The amount of intel they would carry with them, as well as the conflict of interest right before switching makes it too problematic to allow.

Thirdly, your team already has missing players. You want to add a 3rd empty slot? Cgalik and Jwrober have been controlling 2 nations apiece for quite some time. (And as for coordination, if Slovakia needed more cash, you can bet that Cgalik would look to get it from Mozambique first)

What the problem is, is that Zoltan has been taking temporary control of nations that HAVE PLAYERS, and doing so on turns where they are playing. This is the rules violation.

[xandr]

In LT45 I captured a Black city. Black tried to bribe and failed. Then tried to bribe and succeeded. Then the next thing I know is Black was all over the place. I feel that such a coordinated response to get cash and ships from Black would not have happened without the unified by control Zoltan.

If it was unified control by Zoltan you would have lost it the very next turn Sole reason it took us so long is that we had to coordinate and Lord_P got some priorities wrong at first.

[zoe]

So... Team White attacked Xandr today after TC. Guess who connected as someone who had already logged in during the same turn? Moved units around. This is unacceptable. We complained against this several times, yet Zoltan still RTS against us as another player. Sorry, but he deserves to be banned from regencies in my opinion.

[buggy]

As a witness to the incident mentioned by zoe in the previous post, I'd like to concur with zoe. Either zoltan is banned definitely from delegations or I will be resigning and never touching a game where this guy is present.

[louis94]

Team White attacked Xandr today after TC. Guess who connected as someone who had already logged in during the same turn? Moved units around.

If true, this is unacceptable after the discussion we had here, and zoltan should be banned from delegations if not the game. I'd rapidly lose interest in the game if the same happened to me, and would probably quit.

[Corbeau]

Wieder, this is how things work. You are the admin and you are the only one who has the power to enforce things. So it's up to you.

You have two options:
1. Make the decision by yourself
2. Appoint one or more people to make that decision and then stand behind it (or not, which will then be the same as making the decision yourself).

There is no other way.

And you have a few days to do it or you lose credibility and the game goes bad.

Also, doing nothing will be a decision in itself.

I know you hate being rushed and pressed, but I am simply stating facts.

[Kingi]

We are a completely active team on discord pretty much 24 hours, we were even have a screen shot in that chat of Kashega from xandr just before you attacked because we guessed you were waiting for him to log off and the attack was made by you controlling 2 nations (team play), zoltan reacted as xandr was afk for what, all of 2 mins, it took him 2 mins to then retake his account, but his team mate saved his worker, looks like team play? its like the kettle calling the pot black, i dont know how to fix delegation and to be honest i dont give a shit how people use it, one team and all that, because there's players with multiple perm nations and RTS plays all over the place in EVERY match, its a game, lets play, someone does something you dont like, who cares? you'll be on the same team next cycle... i thought i left this behind with canon civ....


PS, dont mean offence, its just my 2 cents

[Corbeau]

We are a completely active team on discord pretty much 24 hours, we were even have a screen shot in that chat of Kashega from xandr just before you attacked because we guessed you were waiting for him to log off and the attack was made by you controlling 2 nations (team play), zoltan reacted as xandr was afk for what, all of 2 mins, it took him 2 mins to then retake his account, but his team mate saved his worker, looks like team play? its like the kettle calling the pot black, i dont know how to fix delegation and to be honest i dont give a shit how people use it, one team and all that, because there's players with multiple perm nations and RTS plays all over the place in EVERY match, its a game, lets play, someone does something you dont like, who cares? you'll be on the same team next cycle... i thought i left this behind with canon civ....


PS, dont mean offence, its just my 2 cents

Well, it boils down to one thing: what are the rules.

It seems that more people are in favour of the rule "no taking over a nation whose owner logged in that turn".

Personally, I'm actually ambivalent about it, but it is creating bad blood and a decision needs to be made.

But if people are allowed to take over nations whose owners were active on that turn, then it should be clear, public and available to everybody.

So, how do people feel about it?

[kevin551]

-
Buggy / Zoe - Please do not resign from this game.
I know 'Zoltan' is cheating. And that gives him an unfair advantage, but he can still be beaten.

Cheating has a long and illustrious history on longturn, and the admins have a long and illustrious history of ignoring it. The cheating player will normally be banned after the game has finished, but will return next game using a different moniker. The admins will go out of their way to pretend that this doesn't occur.

The best way to beat cheats is to unify against them and defeat them.

[zoltan]

>calls cheater
>controls 3 players since the beginning of the game

[Corbeau]

>calls cheater
>controls 3 players since the beginning of the game

Please do not multiply.



As for others, it is not strictly defined that what he is doing is "cheating" (if it is, please correct me). It is, however, strongly leaning toward it. But until the jury is out, I guess it's not a problem for everybody to do it. There were a few situations where our team would benefit very much from such behaviour but we didn't do it. Because, apparently, we are the stupid ones here.