Longturn.net

kyrilus

Player

Posts: 3

Re: LT31 will start soon

Hehe! ready to play again. I hope I haven't forgotten everything since last game centuries ago...

Lord_P

Player

Posts: 166

Re: LT31 will start soon

If you want to discourage alliances just turn off Tech trading. Combining research is the main reason for allying. If players can only get others tech by capture or stealing its more likely they will remain enemies with their neighbors.

Marduk

Administrator

From: Rotterdam, Netherlands

Posts: 151

Re: LT31 will start soon

I opened a vote to limit # of winners to N/6.

Isn't really any way to encourage small alliance other than just forbid or hard-limit them?
Can we estabilish a victory points calculation in a way that REALLY makes you want to kill as many players as possible, including your allies.

Suggestions are welcome, as long as they are simple to implement and don't depart too far from what is already common practice in the game.

My attempt so far has been to propose the option of surrendering (which is already a common practice to reduce the length of the endgame). So a player can surrender to a particular alliance; if that alliance wins and the surrendered player is still alive at endturn, he doesn't suffer a loss of points or suffers reduced loss of points. So having successfully surrendered to the winners means you're treated as better than a loser, but less than a winner.

This way winners can choose to let someone who didn't quite deserve victory (e.g. someone  outside your alliance who helped you a little bit) count as a surrendered player, rather than having to choose between taking him in as winner (leading to huge winning alliances) or killing him (hurt feelings in the next game). Ofcourse winners don't need to accept any surrenders, and if people surrender to an alliance that doesn't end up winning they may get killed and count as losers anyway.

We can hammer out the details and then see if in practice players choose to use this option or not.

Marduk

Administrator

From: Rotterdam, Netherlands

Posts: 151

Re: LT31 will start soon

If you want to discourage alliances just turn off Tech trading. Combining research is the main reason for allying. If players can only get others tech by capture or stealing its more likely they will remain enemies with their neighbors.

In previous games with tech trading disabled alliances simply designated some worthless city as a "tech trading city", allowing their allies to conquer the city again and again to get recent techs. To do this they have to formally break alliance, but then they can simply postpone formal alliance until endturn. So it makes tech sharing alliances a little more complicated, but not enough to prevent large alliances. If we also set conquercost=100 then that might make a bigger difference, though in that case alliances would designate one dedicated researcher and let the others steal techs from him (so they don't care about incurring tech penalty).

ifaesfu

Player

From: Huelva - Spain

Posts: 93

Website

Re: LT31 will start soon

I think with this sentence "I'll now be kicking and temporarily banning players who stay logged in all the time", we'll have problems too. What is all the time? only 23 hours? There is no problem with staying logged 22, 16 or 9?

monamipierrot

Player

Posts: 171

Re: LT31 will start soon

My attempt so far has been to propose the option of surrendering (which is already a common practice to reduce the length of the endgame).

I find it smart, althou I'm afraid it wouldn't work with me: I'm not the type of guy who will surrender just for the points. Be advised!

Lord_P

Player

Posts: 166

Re: LT31 will start soon

Yes there are always ways to abuse the rules and 100 trade is cheap for most technology....   Is it possible to set a chance of tech loss for capture or stealing? That would be a good deterent if theres a chance one or even both players could lose the technology. It would also mean that war can cause the global technology level to go down as techs are lost, literally bombing eachother into the stone age....

Surrender option is a good idea. I was thinking something similar with weak players choosing "Client State" status which disqualifies them from all points or chance of winning (I personally think dying fighting should be rewarded more than surrender). Primarily as a way for inexperienced players to play along to the end without being wiped out by experienced ones.

monamipierrot

Player

Posts: 171

Re: LT31 will start soon

I was thinking something similar with weak players choosing "Client State" status which disqualifies them from all points or chance of winning (I personally think dying fighting should be rewarded more than surrender). Primarily as a way for inexperienced players to play along to the end without being wiped out by experienced ones.

It looks smart. Can you elaborate, please? I also think that dying fighting is better than surrender!

wieder

Administrator

Posts: 1,863

Re: LT31 will start soon

In LT30 one of us used the surrender-command and continued playing even while he was no longer able to claim victory.

In the end everyone who wanted to surrender was given that opportunity after the outcome was too obvious. And those who didn't agree gave everyone some really good fighting.

Monamipierrot gave the world the last real war in LT30. It took maybe 45 minutes for us to beat his nation even while we had over 3000 Howizers and stuff. And really really much that stuff stuff. Great game!

IllvilJa

Player

Posts: 51

Re: LT31 will start soon

Ah, we will have LT31 running! As there's some issues getting the 'please confirm your participation' mails to their intended recipients, I encourage everyone to use their 'jungle telegraph' to communicate to their buddies the game is coming.  I'll take care of my buddies and I assume, for instance, that someone will notify the guys at freeciv.fi that LT31 is en route!  Etc, etc...

Given the discussions to reduce the number of winners allowed or reducing cooperation: as soon as two players are allowed to play in the same game, they do have the option to decide to cooperate and if they decide to, they are most likely going to get an advantage out of it, no matter how many obstacles for formal cooperations you throw at it in the ruleset.  Disabling creating formal alliances for example won't prevent two players from cooperating for reasons given earlier in the thread.  They will find ways to transfer tech anyway and they will benefit from having a non-aggression behavior against each other's troops/cities, e.g not needing to have defensive troops beetwen themselves but instead they can use those forces against others.  Etc etc.

Another point, many players (like me) don't care about victory/loss in the sense we need to eliminate others who want to claim themselves victorious.  I personally don't care about ranking and would not adapt my playing style in anyway to adjust the points I get.  Actually, no matter how well Sweden does in LT31, I can tell already that I won't claim victory.  Which of course don't need I'll let everyone run me over but neither that I will refuse to cooperate with everyone.

I think with this sentence "I'll now be kicking and temporarily banning players who stay logged in all the time", we'll have problems too. What is all the time? only 23 hours? There is no problem with staying logged 22, 16 or 9?

Personally, I found the rest of that sentence quite a lot more interesting, namely the one I emphasize in the quote below:

"I'll now be kicking and temporarily banning players who stay logged in all the time or who otherwise cause grievance."

Does not essentially all activities (or lack there of) in LT fall under the "otherwise cause grievance" category?  Given how much people complain about what others do in the game, it seem impossible to not be a candidate for a temporary ban.  Just an observation.

akfaew

Administrator

Posts: 622

Re: LT31 will start soon

I think it's a good idea to play a quick (1min turn) test game a day or two before LT31 to make sure the settings are ok. Send me an email if you would want to participate in such a game. No score or victors or anything, just a test game. If it would take place, it will be between around 10-20 european time on the weekend after this weekend. This will also help some of us (me ) recall how to play freeciv.

akfaew

Administrator

Posts: 622

Re: LT31 will start soon

As to the kicking and banning part - rigid rules are hard to define, and flexible ones like "common courtesy" laws were abused. They obviously didn't work, as LT30 has shown. Let's try something different. I'm still open to other solutions. Also - if you want to be an administrator and help out in any way then email me.

wieder

Administrator

Posts: 1,863

Re: LT31 will start soon

Test game sounds good.

I agree it's hard to define rules. One possibility would be defining the actual goals of the rules. It's really great if everyone could move without the RTS stuff but then sometimes there can be some unintentional RTS going on if you are moving units inside your country and someone else thinks you are not moving and attacks. In that kinds of a situation it's extremely tempting to continue moving. If RTS is to be avoided then that can't be an excuse to counter attack every time anyone else is trying to attack. It's very hard to draw the line.

If we don't want RTS all the way then we shouldn't have RTS all the way.

I have no idea how hard it would be to implement some hard settings to prevent RTS but yeah, how about setting a random time for the TC and a 10h limit to move you troops? With the 10h limit you would really think twice before doing RTS in the beginning of the turn if someone was just making some not so agressive moves.

No idea if this makes any sense

monamipierrot

Player

Posts: 171

Re: LT31 will start soon

"common courtesy" laws were abused

I don't think that substituting a "common courtesy" suggestion with a unclear threat against a vaguely described behaviour would be a wise move.
Just set a clear rule - the one you like most! - and have this rule obeyed. If one doesn't obey it, kick him out. Just simple as this.
Of course if I tell you this, I perfectly know I will not like the rule. There are many laws we don't like but we are supposed to respect law, aren't we?
For me it is much better to be banned for not obeying a clear rule than to be kicked out on arbitrary and subjective considerations. (In LT30 I stayed several times onlilne 24/24 just because I never shut up my PC, I never shut up Chrome or VLC or Freeciv. I'm still convinced I "let opponents move", unlike it happened in LT29 - do you remember? - when I were not aware of the "rule").
And actually, it is much easier to shut up and obey a clear rule than to shut up and try to please your (Akfaew's or Marduk's) likes - which I still didn't catch that well.
In any case, let's all try to keep discussion level to a friendly level for all. Let's all reset any contrast originated in LT30 and let's all start from scratch.
I believe many if not all people like me - who don't think that being online 24/7 is a bad thing - will be happy to obey a clear rule.
Please set similar clear rules with all sensitive subject, like double moves, etc. etc.

det0r

Player

Posts: 166

Re: LT31 will start soon

monamipierrot - if you are not actively making a move then you should log out. There is of course no way to prove that you're not sitting there thinking in FreeCiv, so the rule was created using a "common courtesy" clause - i.e. if you know it annoys people when you don't log out, show some common courtesy and log out.

In the last eX game we had some timelimit code implemented.. It set a maximum of one hour logged in per turn. I know a few people (including myself) logged in and forgot, then went afk for more than 60 min and lost our turns. Despite this, it was a very good patch, and maybe that can be your rule:
"if you're logged in for more than an hour per turn, expect to be kicked."

Last edited by det0r (2012-10-23 23:34:59)

monamipierrot

Player

Posts: 171

Re: LT31 will start soon

if you know it annoys people when you don't log out

I infere from what you wrote that it does. But believe me, NOBODY told me this before the end of LT31, (and I would say that nobody stated it clearly since). So, it is that simple: I DIDN'T KNOW!!! And now, do you agree with the "clear rule" thing?

"if you're logged in for more than an hour per turn, expect to be kicked."

Ok, it looks like you agreed.
Look, you want 60 minutes, I would be for 24h. Do you want to haggle over? Why not find a reasonable compromise?
I believe there's no reason to limit to only 60 minutes. In later part of the game I usually make 2 moves: 1 for military and 1 for civil, and it may take much less than 60 minutes, say 10 minutes each. But every once and then, say once per week, I get to city management and review everything and plan major future moves. I would not have time to do that now.
Why not set the limit to some more reasonable 3 hours, maybe with maximum consecutive 60 minutes and pauses of 60 minutes before logging again? This will allow week-end players like me to take part in the action more effectively.

mrsynical

Player

Posts: 171

Re: LT31 will start soon

if you know it annoys people when you don't log out

I infere from what you wrote that it does. But believe me, NOBODY told me this before the end of LT31, (and I would say that nobody stated it clearly since). So, it is that simple: I DIDN'T KNOW!!! And now, do you agree with the "clear rule" thing?

"if you're logged in for more than an hour per turn, expect to be kicked."

Ok, it looks like you agreed.
Look, you want 60 minutes, I would be for 24h. Do you want to haggle over? Why not find a reasonable compromise?
I believe there's no reason to limit to only 60 minutes. In later part of the game I usually make 2 moves: 1 for military and 1 for civil, and it may take much less than 60 minutes, say 10 minutes each. But every once and then, say once per week, I get to city management and review everything and plan major future moves. I would not have time to do that now.
Why not set the limit to some more reasonable 3 hours, maybe with maximum consecutive 60 minutes and pauses of 60 minutes before logging again? This will allow week-end players like me to take part in the action more effectively.

Just so you know, your message posts are also annoying (to me).

maho

Player

Posts: 161

Re: LT31 will start soon

if you know it annoys people when you don't log out

I infere from what you wrote that it does. But believe me, NOBODY told me this before the end of LT31, (and I would say that nobody stated it clearly since). So, it is that simple: I DIDN'T KNOW!!! And now, do you agree with the "clear rule" thing?

It's funny. I realized, that I probably will miss many new rules, because I'm reading only some of messages.

Eg, I didn't know even about problem of not logging out users, to say nothing about direct or indirect rule about it .

What other important stuff should I know?

monamipierrot

Player

Posts: 171

Re: LT31 will start soon

Just so you know, your message posts are also annoying (to me).

"if one annoys someone else with his messages, he'll be kicked out from forum", ok?
Great -  Radio silence.

Modeemirotta

Player

Posts: 14

Re: LT31 will start soon

I'm also interested in the test game if it happens over a weekend. Akfaew or someone else, please message me over e-mail or irc if this will become reality.

Edit: or any day if I'm not at work

Last edited by Modeemirotta (2012-10-24 10:50:42)

Marduk

Administrator

From: Rotterdam, Netherlands

Posts: 151

Re: LT31 will start soon

It's possible to make a strict rule against RTS-behavior. For example we can set the rule that players should press 'turn done' when they've done their moves. If they are online for a long time (like over an hour) before pressing 'turn done' then that smells like RTS. If they do aggressive moves after pressing 'turn done' (nobody cares if you move a worker, RTS is about attacking and defending), then again that's a sign of RTS. Players can easily document these transgressions, and if it happens a number of times we can declare that person an RTS'er and kick him out.

The benefit of this is that players can still stay online to chat with each other, but not to play RTS.

Another option may be to record the precise number of minutes every player is online per turn, and set some cut-off point. Or give players a time budget per turn, and have the server disconnect them when their budget has run out (which requires that the server computes online time for every player).

Are such measures necessary? Or can we just add some explanation about RTS to the game rules and expect players to get the point? e.g. "It is common courtesy to log out and let your enemy do his moves in peace, after you have done yours. Staying online to monitor your enemies and make your moves directly in response to his moves is called RTS (real time strategy), and is considered dishonourful"

maho

Player

Posts: 161

Re: LT31 will start soon

Anti-RTS functionality is very simple: each player should have 0 moves at beginning. He places order. When everyone press turn done, or turn advances, it's like commit in database and moves are performed. So you will get result of battle in next turn. Always.

In such way - there is no RTS in game at all .

monamipierrot

Player

Posts: 171

Re: LT31 will start soon

I'm also interested in the test game

+1

wieder

Administrator

Posts: 1,863

Re: LT31 will start soon

One way of preventing RTS would be making it impossible to attack any unit that just moved in the last 5 minutes. Sure, someone could abuse this by indefinitely moving a single unit on rails. This would probable require programming it's out of the question.

Allowing staying online after pressing the turn done button might work. That would make it possible to chat and adjust cities while not doing RTS.

IllvilJa

Player

Posts: 51

Re: LT31 will start soon

Maho, your suggestion of letting players just submit orders and not have anything actually happen ingame until TC would turn freeciv into a PBM which indeed eliminates all RTS issues.  It would probably require quite some coding, UI design and server design work to make even a rudimentary implementation of that a reality, and then the result would be a PBM with a TON of wrinkles and odd game mechanic artifacts to iron out, enough to drive players crazy many times over!  But still, I think it is the best long term solution and it would be worth looking into how to redesign the Longturn/freeciv ruleset to make such a PBM-ified game as painless as possible to implement. (E.g perhaps reduce down the speed of units to the settings of vanilla freeciv etc)

Until then, longturn freeciv IS an RTS, game mechanics-wise.

Marduk, as I see it, with this many players (LT30 was ca 70 starting players IIRC) the best solution is to enforce rules by code mechanics in the server code if possible and if not possible to enforce/implement in server code, SERIOUSLY consider dropping the rule in it's entirety.  The best for everyone involved is to LOWER the number of rule violations in the game, and that NOT ONLY by asking people to follow the rules, but also by making it impossible to violate them. An automated rule implemented in the server CANNOT be violated.  A rule eliminated cannot be violated NEITHER.

(Yes, players might work around rules implemented in the server but then the work around comes with a cost for the player which most likely makes the work around acceptable as part of the game...)

We already have the ability to hardcode, in the server, a max online time for players.  Automatically enforced by a machine, without the need for bothering any admins.  Just communicate to the players the max online time as a technical property of the server, comparable to server IP adress.

Regarding declaring people who move after 'Turn Done' is pressed being RTS-ers I have a better solution: simply block ALL orders from a player who has pressed 'Turn Done' until TC!  That way the wanted effect is achieved, without the need for calling out someone as a rule breaker (simply, again, because the rule CANNOT be broken).

One situation I would hate to see happen (and I think it happens quite easily) with soft rules like the suggested "RTS should not be allowed" is something like this: Player A is perfectly well obeying all the rules but with a combination of wisdom, intelligence, skill and/or luck, he manage to win some contest vs player B (say, manage to steal some tech, defeat some of B's units, capture a city belonging to B, prevent B from taking a city or put player B's dog on fire etc) but player B does due to not paying enough attention to relevant details in the situation, being unskilled, missing knowledge regarding a critical game mechanic and/or some other reason not understand that player A can be that successful without violating the rules.  As a consequence, player B decides (incorrectly) that player A is a rule-breaker (or to put it in another way, player B starts to 'see a ghost') and then calls out/reports that A has broken the rules and we have the following problem:

1.) Player A is innocently accused for something he has not done.
2.) Player B think he is at a disadvantage due to another player breaking the rules.

To be honest, I fail to see how the above situation is beneficial for the game.  It hurts the atmosphere and tone for everyone and it puts MORE load on the admins no matter how the admins deal with it.

(Then we have the situation when someone in player B's situation thinks once more, realizes that he actually MAY be seeing a ghost and decides to not report what after all may be an honest, albeit prolific, opponent, but that situation isn't really a headache for the rest of the players or the admins)

Not to mention the phenomenon seen in many online games, when someone cries 'you cannot be that successful against such a skilled player like me without CHEATING' when stuff goes awry for him.  Soft rules like these gives room for a lot of that kind of 'psychological warfare' which I think is one of the biggest issues with Longturn.

Having rules to the max implemented in running server code and as little as possible in informal written rules means there is less rewarding to 'play the community' and 'play the admins' and more rewarding to focus on 'playing the GAME' which is all we want.

Rant over.

PS. For the record, I have a very permissive attitude vs what other players do against me in the game and I do NOT actively look for any violations of the informal rules, no matter how successful enemies are against me or my allies.  I intend to keep that attitude even in LT31.  The only thing I found really obviously unacceptable and which I simply cannot find a place for in the LT games was hacking players accounts and thrashing them. But again, action was taken against that player in LT30.  Regarding everything else like RTS play, autoattacking clients, being online all day watching my country and what not, you can most safely use those tactics/tools/techniques vs Sweden because I won't notice you break the rules, I'm constantly focused on other aspects of the game and intend to remain so.  Of course, I have this permissive attitude while myself sticking to the rules in LT31 and if that puts me at a strategic disadvantage, so be it!  Rather that than spending time accusing and complaining (or being accused myself).