Longturn.net

akfaew

Administrator

Posts: 622

End at T180?

If the vast majority says to continue playing after T180, then maybe we can null the two polls. This is a little against our own rules, since the polls have passed before the game started, and this is a ranking game.

I won't shut down the server after T180, unless someone presents a good reason to do so. But what is questioned here is counting the ranking, and if some players will chose to stop playing. If you don't care about the ranking, then don't post your opinion, since it is irrelevant as the server will continue running anyway. If you feel the server should be shutdown, then do post.

akfaew

Administrator

Posts: 622

Re: End at T180?

As I'm a player I'll voice my opinion: I say we play until we have a clear 7 victors, and no live player object to them claiming victory, which will be included in the ranking. In other words, we ignore the T180 deadline.

det0r

Player

Posts: 166

Re: End at T180?

I think we should keep the 180 turn deadline and call the game a stalemate. The map is far too big for just seven players to control and the time commitment required from those seven players will be unreasonable (several hours of game time per day).

People who want to continue playing are welcome to do so, but I would prefer to stop playing and if quite a few other people stop it isn't really a 'valid victory' for those who continue (related to rankings at least) .

Dimitril

Player

Posts: 83

Re: End at T180?

Let's just see who claim victory at turn 180. If more then 7 players do it, the lower score have to retire claim for victory. That way we respect the old vote, yet 7 player doesn't have to conquer the whole map.

Of course, the server could run some time after that until we feel the need to shutdown. In case some people want to finish something.

cgalik

Player

From: Chicago

Posts: 311

Re: End at T180?

I think we should keep the 180 turn deadline and call the game a stalemate. The map is far too big for just seven players to control and the time commitment required from those seven players will be unreasonable (several hours of game time per day).

People who want to continue playing are welcome to do so, but I would prefer to stop playing and if quite a few other people stop it isn't really a 'valid victory' for those who continue (related to rankings at least) .

I agree with det0r. Of course I'll still keep playing if others are.

Another option could be to keep the game going at 43 hour TC? Then you have more time to make your moves, but the game will just take longer.

Last edited by cgalik (2013-05-08 05:53:31)

edrim

Ganoes Paran

Posts: 479

Re: End at T180?

If the vast majority says to continue playing after T180, then maybe we can null the two polls. This is a little against our own rules, since the polls have passed before the game started, and this is a ranking game.

I won't shut down the server after T180, unless someone presents a good reason to do so. But what is questioned here is counting the ranking, and if some players will chose to stop playing. If you don't care about the ranking, then don't post your opinion, since it is irrelevant as the server will continue running anyway. If you feel the server should be shutdown, then do post.

If we will null polls, than what will be the reason for voting in future. Next time we should close all polls in one time, and only polls which have more then 25% of players voted should be check as valid one.
That polls was created about a month before game starts, so they are very valid polls and we shouldnt just null them. I could play different game if i knew that it will be no end of a game after T180.

wieder

Administrator

Posts: 1,863

Re: End at T180?

Yeah, I guess it's obvious that the game will end at T180 because of the reasons said earlier in this thread.

Maybe there should be just one question / poll in the future? Now there are votes for 2 different settings in one poll. It would be nice to see different polls for the last turn and for the number of winners.

mrsynical

Player

Posts: 171

Re: End at T180?

I agree with points from edrim & det0r:
* strategy would have been different if stopping at 180 or if we were playing to death.
* map is too huge to be efficiently captured by 7 people. Even my laptop, which is not particularly old, struggles to load the map each time

I think play to 7 claim victory is going to take a huge amount time. There will also be a lot of luck involved with getting a successful landing onto an island.

If we call the game a draw at turn 180, alive players should gain equal credit, and dead players loose equal credit (or something like that).

Kryon

Administrator

Posts: 370

Re: End at T180?

Even though my nation has the top score and is part of a strong alliance, I also strongly favor ending the game at T180 as we voted for. In fact, I am going to stop playing after T180 due to lack of time.

With ~100 cities and 500+ units, my turns take extremely long and victory by any team will take forever (maybe never). I started playing LT instead of regular freeciv due to lack of time but now LT takes much more time than regular freeciv overall. At this point LT31 for me is just a torture instead of fun and I think players who don't have too much free time will agree.

Last edited by Kryon (2013-05-08 15:05:04)

Lord_P

Player

Posts: 166

Re: End at T180?

I can understand why winners should be declared and the game officially ended at a certain turn, and this being only my 2nd official LT game I will be glad to survive with a fairly healthy nation and get onto the rankings
However I think the game should continue to run unofficially after turn 180 for the following reasons:

- Not all of us are experienced enough to grow and research at the rate of the pros among you. I am just about getting to the fun part of having a nation developed enough to be able to sustain full scale war with decent modern units. Obviously I cant win the game but there are plenty of other players at a similar level to continue a personal battle with

- When will LT32 start? It would be nice if this game could continue to run until the next game begins, other wise I will miss doing my daily turn....

--------------Slightly off topic--------------

Regarding the limits of server speed, being able to control the map with fewer players and game becoming a tedious chore for kryon.... you know you can just destroy cities instead of occupying them right? I suggest we adjust the ruleset so that this is encouraged and the maximum number of cities, and therefore to some extent units, is effectively capped.
This could possibly be done by making things that are always affected by empire size, such as unhappiness, and food waste, strongly non-linear. So as players begin to approach a predetermined empire size limit their cities start to become increasingly unmanageable or starve. With this kind of effect there will be an incentive to pillage and destroy cities when the disadvantages of holding them outweigh the benefits.
For example; Number of Unhappy Citizens = (A x (Number of cities/Empire size))^B (with suitable values for A&B)

I think this would be good for the game because;
- The total server load would be more predictable, with number of cities reaching a maximum and then declining as players are killed off.
- Although really experienced players will make more efficient use of cities and grow them faster, having the same maximum number as everyone else will even things up and make the fight for the win more competitive at the end.

A bad idea? Is this possible?

pipo

Player

Posts: 59

Re: End at T180?

I also think we should end at T180.  I will stop playing at that turn.  We should also keep in mind that Longturn does exist to be able to spend less time playing freeciv.  My own opinion is that no turn should exceed about 30mins/day and preferably 15mins.

We should ALWAYS set everything accordingly, otherwise we might as well play regular freeciv.

pipo

Player

Posts: 59

Re: End at T180?

...
Regarding the limits of server speed, being able to control the map with fewer players and game becoming a tedious chore for kryon.... you know you can just destroy cities instead of occupying them right? I suggest we adjust the ruleset so that this is encouraged and the maximum number of cities, and therefore to A ...

Do you have a special technique about destroying a city other that starving it, considering most cities have walls to begin with?

Xercise

Player

Posts: 95

Re: End at T180?

Dear fellow players,

I shall second Pipo's contribution that future games should be set up in a way that encourages slightly faster and less complex games (so that we do not have to spend too much time each day); I suppose this is best achieved by playing smaller maps and with less corruption/waste over distance. As I understand LT32 will take that into account.

I hope this huge map has not deterred some of the great players to join LT32. See you there, hopefully soon after LT31 finishes at T180!

Cheers, Xercise

edrim

Ganoes Paran

Posts: 479

Re: End at T180?

Talking about hudge empire and disadventages because of it is like talking that i hate my 400pounds body but i like to eat everything i see.
When you dont want to spend many hours in game do not make/conquer shitty size ~4 cities. Every player in LT could make his empire on one or two island, based on big >25size cities and haveing fun from it.
I dont belive when player lament that he has to many units to move (again, like many previous games).

Conclusion: If you dont want to spend many hours moving shitty units - play largepox and move less more valuable units. When you are smallpoxer - dont gramble for time you have to spend ingame because of smallpoxing.

Lord_P

Player

Posts: 166

Re: End at T180?

If I dont want to keep a city, because it is too far away and corrupt and the cost of improvements to make it productive dont seem to be worth it, I would tax it to death. Sell everything, set all citizens to taxmen, build coinage and then migrants when the population reaches 1. This makes loads of gold, which can be invested in your main cities

Edit: Gold from taxmen is also unaffected by corruption or distance,  so this is more effective than trying to make a distant city profitable with early gov like monarchy.

Last edited by Lord_P (2013-05-09 21:52:53)

Kryon

Administrator

Posts: 370

Re: End at T180?

Talking about hudge empire and disadventages because of it is like talking that i hate my 400pounds body but i like to eat everything i see.
When you dont want to spend many hours in game do not make/conquer shitty size ~4 cities. Every player in LT could make his empire on one or two island, based on big >25size cities and haveing fun from it.
I dont belive when player lament that he has to many units to move (again, like many previous games).

Conclusion: If you dont want to spend many hours moving shitty units - play largepox and move less more valuable units. When you are smallpoxer - dont gramble for time you have to spend ingame because of smallpoxing.

Edrim, you'd be right if the map was small or if we did not limit the alliance size. But the problem here is that no team can win this game without expanding. The reason is we limited the alliance size to 7. If we had no alliance limit, we could form a 20 player alliance and win the game. Since the map is huge with too many cities, the winning 7-player team has to conquer many of the other big islands. If not, no team can win. On the other hand if you expand, it not only takes too much time to play but it also is very hard to maintain the empire due to food waste and unhappiness issues.

Kryon

Administrator

Posts: 370

Re: End at T180?

If I dont want to keep a city, because it is too far away and corrupt and the cost of improvements to make it productive dont seem to be worth it, I would tax it to death. Sell everything, set all citizens to taxmen, build coinage and then migrants when the population reaches 1. This makes loads of gold, which can be invested in your main cities

Edit: Gold from taxmen is also unaffected by corruption or distance,  so this is more effective than trying to make a distant city profitable with early gov like monarchy.

Lord_P, I've been starving many cities to death using scientists/taxmen and migrants but it is a very slow process (I have to wait for 10 turns for a size 10 city to disband before I conquer a new one) AND if everyone disbands far cities no team can win this game as enemies would be too far from each other.

edrim

Ganoes Paran

Posts: 479

Re: End at T180?

The reason is we limited the alliance size to 7.

As i remember it was your pool to limit it like this.
Did you just pass out your new conquered cities to your allies? Beacuse you could start give it out from very begginig and now you could have 7 very strong players not only the biggest one and others:)
I can belive it so that is a problem, city trading is forbiden but you can stil conquer your allies cities in normal way.

Kryon

Administrator

Posts: 370

Re: End at T180?

The reason is we limited the alliance size to 7.

As i remember it was your pool to limit it like this.
Did you just pass out your new conquered cities to your allies? Beacuse you could start give it out from very begginig and now you could have 7 very strong players not only the biggest one and others:)
I can belive it so that is a problem, city trading is forbiden but you can stil conquer your allies cities in normal way.

If I let my allies conquer my cities I could lose many good techs. Allies can coordinate attacks so that smaller nation conquers cities but it is hard to coordinate such attacks in LT. Also, even if we could somehow share the conquered cities equally among 7 allies, each nation would still be very large. This map would be winnable only if we would not put a limit on alliance size. Yes it was my poll that limited the alliance size but I had no idea that the map was so huge and that food waste and unhappiness due to empire size would be a big problem.

pipo

Player

Posts: 59

Re: End at T180?

Thank you LordP ,  so that is what I called starving but your point about gold is worth noting.

pipo

Player

Posts: 59

Re: End at T180?

I think we all agree that this map was too big.  I would also prefer a faster climbing of the tech tree.  That way, games won't have to run for 6 months.  I think a target of 3-4 months per game should be reasonable and more interesting.

Kryon

Administrator

Posts: 370

Re: End at T180?

it is now clear that Akfaew's team has won (Akfaew,Dimitry,Wieder,Sokrat,Viznut,Xercise,Vendicar).

Johnhx is almost illiminated and Kryon will be the next to fall...

Akfaew, you must just say which 7 players belong to your alliance and they will receive credit for victory... if the others don't agree yet, it should become more apparent by t180 that you have won.

mmm, what are you talking about? According to the rules we voted for, they can officially win only if all other remaining players are either dead or accept their victory by T180 which is very unlikely to happen.

Joris

Player

Posts: 23

Re: End at T180?

I claim f11 demographics screen victory :D:D

wieder

Administrator

Posts: 1,863

Re: End at T180?

The end is coming and here is a chat with Kryon about it. This may answer some questions you may have about the end.

[21:40:38] ->{Kryon} Hi! I'm asking you about this because you are probably the only one who really know is or who can decide it.
[21:40:56] {Kryon} hi
[21:41:43] ->{Kryon} The game ends in T180. So, shall we move in T180? I mean, will the rankings be counted for the status at the beginning of T180 or at the first moment after it?
[21:42:54] ->{Kryon} I don't know if this is unexpected question or should I ask it in the public chat?
[21:44:01] {Kryon} game is going to end at T180 without any winners so rankings won't change....in game scores are not used in LT rankings
[21:46:47] ->{Kryon} Ok, but if we are looking in the ingame rankings, what is the last turn worth playing? T179 or T180? What do you think?
[21:49:48] ->{Kryon} Or let's look it this way. Are you going to play in T180?
[21:51:34] {Kryon} I stopped playing a while ago just moving a few units for fun
[21:52:10] {Kryon} in-game rankings do not really matter
[21:52:23] {Kryon} I hope my nation survives by T180
[21:52:34] ->{Kryon} Ok About the rankings. I don't have a ranking since this is my second LT game. Do I get a ranking after LT31?
[21:52:38] {Kryon} I no longer have empire size problems
[21:52:54] {Kryon} yes you will
[21:53:01] {Kryon} hmm
[21:53:21] ->{Kryon} Probably not, but I have severe problems with empire size. Now I really know what you were talking about
[21:53:30] {Kryon} that's a good question. I think your ranking should be displayed after LT31 ends
[21:53:51] {Kryon} yes, I had 105 cities once...you must have even more now
[21:55:24] ->{Kryon} I have been avoiding taking too many cities, so not yet, but I think getting 105 may happen during this game. The empire size is really ... Well..Maybe not flawed, but very hard for larger empires
[21:57:05] {Kryon} I think this wont be a problem in LT32
[21:58:10] ->{Kryon} yeah, I have understood there will be fixes. And while the islands scenario is interesting, playing the late game with islands takes really huge amounts of time. Much more than with continents.
[22:01:41] ->{Kryon} You have given me lots of valuable information about the endgame and rankings. Can I publish our chat on the Forum so that the rest of the players would know about that stuff?
[22:01:47] {Kryon} yes...continent games are fun
[22:02:42] {Kryon} sure go ahead
[22:03:01] ->{Kryon} Ok, great!
[22:03:38] {Kryon} I note this: I deal with the rankings but it is up to Akfaew to close the server at T180...I hope he will
[22:04:09] {Kryon} another note:
[22:04:40] ->{Kryon} Close? Why is that? Hmm.. I was just wondering about if the final ingame stats are published. I sure would like to at least see those.
[22:05:04] {Kryon} I meant ending the game by setting endyear
[22:05:35] ->{Kryon} Oh! I see! I didn't know about that.
[22:06:39] ->{Kryon} Apparently it's not set that way.
[22:09:19] ->{Kryon} Because "Turn the game ends" is 5000. Anyway, that actually answers my original question. T179 is the last turn worth playing in LT31 and if moving in T180 is possible, that's just aftermath or something like that
[22:09:49] {Kryon} akfaew and I are talking about ranking
[22:12:46] ->{Kryon} Ok. I posted this already on IRC and I'll post this a bit later on the forum. I can make a new thread or continue the old one.

Marduk

Administrator

From: Rotterdam, Netherlands

Posts: 151

Re: End at T180?

Maybe in the future we shouldn't allow endturn polls before gamestart anymore. It's impossible to know beforehand how a game will end up, and hence whether a fixed endturn will be called for or not. In this game I think it's a shame because we're actually reasonably close to a natural end with a winning team.

If a game gets totally stuck then we can always still open an endturn vote at that moment.