The winners for LT34 (military and space race)

[wieder]

For every 7 players there will be one more winner.

With 29-41 players we would have 5 winners.
With 42-48 players we would have 6 winners.
With 49-55 players we would have 7 winners
With 56-62 players we would have 8 winners
With 63-69 players we would have 9 winners
etc

We are also now limiting the number of the survivors.

The alliances can also have one free survivor in addition to the winners. The single free survivor is there also for the reason that we used to have survivors (lots of those) and changing too much at once is usually risky.

However we can have have max 3 survivors if there is one winner less in the winning team. With this I mean that for example in a game where there would be 60 players, there could be

- max 8 winners and max 1 survivor
- or max 7 winners and max 3 survivors

The winners need to be allied in the end and the possible remaining survivors will need to make a post and accept defeat/survivor status.

In an ideal conquest/domination/military victory there would be no survivors but let's try this to see what will happen. What I hope to see with this is the uncertainty about alliances (7 or 8 winners) and ultimately preventing a situation where we have a full alliance with 10+ players helping them in order to survive the game.

The number of the winners is the same with the space race victory. However with the space race victory the number of the survivors is not limited and the number of the winners is not reduced by the number of the survivors.

If a nation launches a space ship, the victory post for claiming the victory (and including the winners) must be made before the end of the next turn after the launch. For example if the ship is launched during T100 the victory post must be made before the end of T101. You can of course make the post (including the winners) before the launch turn if you have already produced at least one component needed for the ship. The idea of the victory post for the space race is to simply let everyone to know in advance who will be among the winners if the ship is successful. If no victory post is made in time and the ship is successful, the game will only have one winner.

The victory post must be made on the forum.

All of this can of course be talked about and we can change this if we have a good reason to do so.

[mmm2]

first of all, you have to define more clearly what a survivor is? Do you mean for the case of 5 winners + 1 survivor that game ends when 6 players are remaining? In that case, all 6 players are actually survivors, but you are really saying winning survivor versus losing survivor?
Maybe try this: There are going to be about 50 players probably, so say 4 winning survivors + 6 losing survivors. Because this way, you will have fighting among the veteran serious players for the 4 winning spots. Also, try to count the 4 winners with top scores instead of declarations of victory, because "vassal" and noob players will have lowest scores anyway, so it is just easier this way.. If we used this method for lt33, game result would be same with top 4 scores (wieder,cgalik,kryon,edrim), except you don't have to waste time with posting victory threads to forum...

another topic: It's bad idea to restrict alliance size. This is really hard to define anyway because of underhanded deals where players make alliances with enemies, etc. It would be just easier to say top 4 or so scores wins than policing the game which is an impossible task to see who is allied with who...

[Corbeau]

We are also now limiting the number of the survivors.

Why, how and what do you want to accomplish?

You would be forcing people to destroy other players even if they may not want to, effectively enforcing a style of play and decreasing diversity of people who would want to play.

Also, suppose there is a winning alliance and there are more survivors than it is agreed on. Suppose the alliance doesn't want to destroy people. Now what? Their victory is null and void?

I am getting more and more convinced that we are not playing the same game here. You guys are playing a football game and spend a lot of energy discussing rules, while I just like to kick the ball and run around. I am getting in your way and, to be perfectly honest, you are getting in mine. I'm seriously considering to take a break for a while, to see how things will develop in the future.

[mmm2]

Corbeau, each game there are two phases:

Phase 1: T0 - T110: players are playing regional wars, not that much interaction with players far away.

Phase 2: T110+: veteran players micromanaging moves for 2+ hours each turn form cooperatives with other veterans to wipe out everyone else so they can have a victory as defined by the criteria that they are defining ..

My recommendation is to have the veterans be forced to fight each other.. We could say game ends when 15 alive players are remaining and the players with the top 3 scores at this point are declared the winners. We shouldn't really worry about who wins, but it is more important just to create game rules that make competition more competitive and creative than the standard rules used for last 5-6 times...

[wieder]

You can micromanage and build the nations as much as you want. However if you want to end the game without destroying other players you basically have 3 choices.

1) You can launch the space ship and win the game with your allies or without them.
2) You can wait for someone else to do 1) and peacefully keep playing until the game ends while someone doing 1)
3) You can end the game with or without winners. Everyone remaining declarers as a winner or a survivor and that's it.

The game is intended to have a reasonable number of turns before someone is able to end it. Assuming that the actual end of the game is not a problem for you, I wonder what is?

The number of survivors is only limited for the military ending. If you wish to have a happy ending without any nations killed just prepare your rocket, have it ready for a launch and shoot it to the stars.

Limiting the number of the survivors for the military outcome is there for discouraging large alliances and players teaming up in order to survive. Seriously, if you don't want to kill anyone, launch the rocket. It may not be easy and you may even win alone if you can pull that off. With the space ship you even have the possibility of ending the game without winners. Simply build the ship, announce on the forum how you are a survivor and not a winner and unless someone manages to conquer your capital there will be no winners.

You can keep playing the game or kicking the ball. The victory is simply about ending the game. And of course a state of mind. Who won. I you don't care about that, then don't.

And yes. If there is a winning alliance and there are more survivors than it is agreed on, then the game will end without winners unless the winners can agree about killing the extra survivors or ending the game with a space ship. I really wonder why you wouldn't want to end the game with a space ship in a situation like that.

Right. In the extremely unlikely situation of the game having an "allied" world the old LT admins can have a vote for ending the game if the players obviously don't want to do that. For example if the resisting players were killed/started idling in T200 and it's already T365, it might be reasonable to end the game with a tie. This would also apply if everyone started idling or something will prevent from continuing the game. Maybe it's better to say that now just in case if someone plans to play a 2000 turn game with one resisting city controlled by an idler. Or something like that

In conclusion.

LT34 simply needs to have an ending. It can happen with everyone surviving or without anyone but the winner surviving. The outcome may be pretty much anything but it's for the players to decide. The people who will play the game.

[wieder]

We all know how we have issues with the veteran players allying. I've been doing that and I know it's a problem. However we would need some system for discouraging that while not completely preventing it from happening. I had this proposition at an earlier time and it was not really liked so it won't take place in LT34.

http://forum.longturn.org/viewtopic.php?id=437

Mmm2's idea of limiting the number of the people having the top score is both good and bad. The first problem is that you may not know the scores for some people until very late in the game. We may also have problems with the number of the winners. Let's say that we would now have 8 winners with 60 players. How would that work out with the scores? The top scores (max 8 or them) winning would need some people eliminated or would we still have 8 winners, just with the top scores? Or with max 4 winners and 4 survivors there should be at least one survivor with 5th ranking score?

Using the current score just seems to be a really bad way of doing that because it only tells you how well you are doing now.

One simple way of discouraging the number of the veterans allying would be deciding that there can be only 50% veterans among the winners. Veterans who have won in the last 5 *LT* games. With 8 max winners there could be only 4 out of 8. Or maybe 4 out of 7 if we want to be fair. I could live with that but would it be too restrictive?

Do we really need that kind of limitation? Limiting the number of the veterans allying together. Everyone please comment on that. If there are one thing for the settings you comment about, this could be it

[mmm2]

Mmm2's idea of limiting the number of the people having the top score is both good and bad. The first problem is that you may not know the scores for some people until very late in the game. We may also have problems with the number of the winners. Let's say that we would now have 8 winners with 60 players. How would that work out with the scores? The top scores (max 8 or them) winning would need some people eliminated or would we still have 8 winners, just with the top scores? Or with max 4 winners and 4 survivors there should be at least one survivor with 5th ranking score?

How about just to say top X rated players when game ends win the game, and there is no limit to number of survivors (ie, if everyone in game allies then game would end with top 3 players winning). I think 3 or 4 winners is perfect, because there are only about 6 or 7 serious players each game.. so really game is 6 player game + noobs...

[Corbeau]

Limiting the number of the survivors for the military outcome is there for discouraging large alliances and players teaming up in order to survive.

That part is obvious. What isn't obvious is: why?

You are overcomplicating. FreeCiv is a game. It has rules. However, here you seem hellbent to add more out-of-game rules. In my opinion, you are ruining the game as it was imagined to be. In your opinion, obviously, you are not (and in some views *my* style of playing is the one that is runing the game).

Since there are many different games in the world and not everybody likes everything, which is why not everybody is playing every game there is, I see it only natural to refrain from playing a game one doesn't like / isn't to one's taste. You can explain your views all you want, the bottom line is: I don't like the particular game-out-of-game that you are playing.

[wieder]

Let's say that we would have the vanilla single player ruleset here and we would play multiplayer with that one. I can bet you wouldn't like to see every game ending with a race to build caravans. Or would you like that?

If not, then we can probably agree that some rules need to be modified. After that it's only a question of where to end with the modifications and why to modify.

Limiting the large alliances is there in order to make winning a game about how well you played and not about how well you managed to join with all the possible allies. Some of the basic idea is the same with limiting the trading. Unlimited trading was highly disliked.

I only wonder what's the actual problem since with these rules you can actually ally with everyone you possibly can and with the rules there is nothing preventing from that to happen. I really don't get your problem now. You can win with 50 allies if you want and that's your thing. If those 50 players consider that a victory. it's a victory for you. It's simply not a victory from the LT point of view.

So why don't you just play? What's the problem?

[mmm2]

Limiting the large alliances is there in order to make winning a game about how well you played and not about how well you managed to join with all the possible allies. Some of the basic idea is the same with limiting the trading. Unlimited trading was highly disliked.

I only wonder what's the actual problem since with these rules you can actually ally with everyone you possibly can and with the rules there is nothing preventing from that to happen. I really don't get your problem now. You can win with 50 allies if you want and that's your thing. If those 50 players consider that a victory. it's a victory for you. It's simply not a victory from the LT point of view.

So why don't you just play? What's the problem?

These rules don't make much difference to most players, because they don't care to win or lose that much - it is just for fun. The rules are really only relevant to the 6 or 7 players each game who play serious to win. In most cases, these new rules have just resulted in games being even more one sided than before.

With the two examples you cite:

1) Limiting alliance size: 1st of all, this is impossible, because players have shown that they do underhanded deals and alliances are undefined anyway. Also, it creates scenarios where serious players only ally with serious players, thus you've seen in last 3 games where everytime there is gang of serious players versus casual players. It is same predictable result each time.

2) Traderoutes: trade routes before had the result of making big cities harder to grow and giving smallpox fighting chance. Traderoutes where removed, and since then freeciv has become more like farmciv. There was one bug with the traderoute toggling bug that obviously had to be fixed though.

Well, I don't see why not just let to play a game where it is standard rules, where game ends when everyone is allied or someone makes spaceship (if it's enabled). Or we could go back to Edrim's team picking if we don't have time to find solution for single player games...

[wieder]

"Well, I don't see why not just let to play a game where it is standard rules, where game ends when everyone is allied or someone makes spaceship (if it's enabled). Or we could go back to Edrim's team picking if we don't have time to find solution for single player games..."

This is really almost like that.

If you forget the 1-3 survivors there can be, the game will either end once everyone remaining has allied or if someone launches a space ship. There will be a space ship in LT34.

For me it looks like this. You hate to see the number of the survivors limited if the game ends with a conquest victory. However at the same time you would like to remove all the survivors.

If the game would have an unlimited number of winners we would end up with 2 teams and few independent nations fighting each other. This doesn't sound too much fun. Team picking can happen in LT35 but LT34 will not be a team game.

Limiting the alliance size is impossible but discouraging large alliances can be done.

[Corbeau]

Let's say that we would have the vanilla single player ruleset here and we would play multiplayer with that one. I can bet you wouldn't like to see every game ending with a race to build caravans. Or would you like that?

If not, then we can probably agree that some rules need to be modified. After that it's only a question of where to end with the modifications and why to modify.

I was referring to out-of-game rules. As in "not written/programmed inside the game".

Limiting the large alliances is there in order to make winning a game about how well you played and not about how well you managed to join with all the possible allies. Some of the basic idea is the same with limiting the trading. Unlimited trading was highly disliked.

Why are you talking about trading? I never mentioned anything trading. (For the record, I don't like present trade route concept at all. One-time fee is fine; permanent turnly trade revenue is not.)

I only wonder what's the actual problem since with these rules you can actually ally with everyone you possibly can and with the rules there is nothing preventing from that to happen. I really don't get your problem now. You can win with 50 allies if you want and that's your thing.

When did I say that?

*checks previous posts*

Nope, I never said that.

What I *did* say was that I don't like the concept of "victory or death". When you play your way there is no middle ground. In the last game I heard three people who at least once (and some of them frequently) said something like "we can't win so there is no use in playing, we are going to be crushed in the end anyway". Some simply played on inertia, but you could see that the game was only half as fun as it could be. When you have the concept of "winners" and "losers" without any middle ground, at one moment, pretty early in the game, about half the people will realise they can't win and, basically, for them, there is no challenge anymore. Your attempts to even limit the number of survivors help this no-challenge-no-fun a lot.

If those 50 players consider that a victory. it's a victory for you. It's simply not a victory from the LT point of view.

So why don't you just play? What's the problem?

Because of the too many times I heard "I'm disgusted by the people who are not actively trying to win". Simply, sometimes you are just not in the position to win. Sometimes you just want to get into a better situation. Sometimes you just want to avoid being destroyed. I am disgusted by such one-track-mindedness and, as a consequence, don't want to get in the way of such people nor want them to get in my way. A certain percentage of barbarian-like nations/players in fine, it even adds flavour to the game. The overwhelming majority of them kills the fun for me completely.

Again, and I feel I'm repeating this in every post, this isn't such a problem. Not everything is for everybody. Different people like different things. All I can say is that, if you wish to meddle with the number of survivors by out-of-game means in any way, I wouldn't be interested in playing the game. But that wouldn't be such a disaster. Last game had 50+ players. (Some even said "too much".) One less wouldn't hurt. There will be other games. Besides, I hope that we'll be able to start GreatTurn finally so that everyone can play a game by his taste.

[wieder]

"I was referring to out-of-game rules. As in "not written/programmed inside the game".

The in-game rules are the in-game rules. Talking about winners is a different thing. This is a ranking game and for a ranking game we have a pre defined amount of winners. If you don't care winning the game "LT" way you can ignore this. You can even create an alliance as big as you wish. This is not forbidden or prevented. We are just not considering you as a winner as LT way. In football terms you can have as many players in your team as you want but because of the rules, people usually won't consider you as a winner.

There is really no problem if you want to ignore the winning conditions and simply let the game to determine the winners. If you have an alliance of 20 players and win that way. The server will tell you that you have won once everyone remaining has allied or the space ship reaches the destination.

So, what am I talking about if it's that simple? I'm talking about the winners for the rankings and those winners who will be listed as victorious players on the Longturn web site. If you don't care about that, you can simply play and have fun. For those people who like to compete for the LT victory it's different. Some people think that it would be nice if people wanted to have some kind of competition. Sometimes it's nice to play games where you can win. Sure, games without a victory can also be fun. However, this game is also played by people who want to win and become victorious.

We are making these rules not to just annoy people and make things difficult for you or for anyone. In the past we had some games where lots of people felt it was unfair how some players formed huge alliances. Those huge alliances were able to kill everyone resisting and people felt this was not that fun.

"Why are you talking about trading? I never mentioned anything trading. (For the record, I don't like present trade route concept at all. One-time fee is fine; permanent turnly trade revenue is not.)"

I mentioned trading. Tech trading was a major issue for those people who didn't participate large alliances. Let's hope that LT34 doesn't have this issue.

"When did I say that?"

I wonder if there is a problem or not. If there is a problem, I'm not sure what it is. I've explained what the LT way of winning means and why it's there. I've also explained why huge alliances are discouraged. Not prevented, only discouraged.

"What I *did* say was that I don't like the concept of "victory or death". When you play your way there is no middle ground. "

This time you can actually win without conquering anyone or perhaps even without any fighting. The space race will be enable for LT34 and you can choose trying to reach the stars instead of focusing on the military. You may not believe it but we have had lots of talks about how to make this more interesting for everyone. Not just for those who want to fight and become mighty military leaders.

"Because of the too many times I heard "I'm disgusted by the people who are not actively trying to win"."

It's hard for me to believe this would be a popular view here on LT. Some people are annoyed by people who don't want to win but even there the actual reason for that is usually quite different. It's not fun if someone plays just to prevent someone else from winning. Sure, there is no problem with this if it's a one time revenge for a deception or something like that. It's a problem if half of the players team up and instead of trying to end the game just try to extend it indefinitely. Where is the point for that? Limiting the number of the survivors (with a military ending) is an attempt of making the game more interesting.

I'll repeat once again that limiting the number of the survivors only applies to the conquest victory. There is a space race available for LT34 and the number of the survivors is not limited there. I hope that will make this less of an issue for those players who don't want to fight or have no interest in joining complex alliances.

It would be very interesting to know if those who had no hope in LT33 feel that this would help them to have a more interesting Freeciv experience if they decide to give LT34 a try.

[Corbeau]

I think we have a major misunderstanding here. Basically, I'm not interested in your discussion about winning conditions and, like you said, I'm perfectly fine with ignoring it, as I was doing the whole time. If I manage to be on the "winning team", great, if not, well, I'm still playing a game and my goals are known. However, I exploded when I saw you discussing about limiting the number of SURVIVORS. If you do that, then no, I can't ignore your winning rules because those winning rules won't ignore me.

No, going with the "space race" doesn't cut it because it also dictates a certain style of play. Namely, you have choices:
1. be on the conquest-winning team
2. build a spaceship
3. die
So, still, after 30 days it will be clear to roughly half the people that they have no reason to play anymore. At least if they don't feel like being someone's cannon fodder.

On the other hand, you are partly right about simply agreeing with 20 other people to go for the space race. But then it turns into a World War on concepts (ideologies): two blocks, one against the other. It may be a good thing if victory wasn't determined before the game even starts. If I see the names of people on each side I'll be able to tell you immediately how this World War is going to end.

But yeah, you may have a point there.

[wieder]

Just out of curiosity.

How is it with GT? You can have an unlimited number of players allying, teaming up against the minority and then destroying them?

We can of course have a have with unlimited number of survivors if this is what people want. I must ask you if you really felt that LT33 was interesting to play once mmm2 and akfaew fell? How would you make the game more interesting?

What kind of styles of play we have anyway with the Freeciv 2.3 ruleset? The default game allows survivors only with space race and with a pre defined end turn. With the military victory the game will end only once everyone who is not allied is destroyed. Would you like this better?

How many GT games have ended with survivors who were not among the winners? I mean games without a space race victory and without end turn.

[Corbeau]

I'm a latecomer regarding GT, but I'm not aware of any extrnal rules, except when there were scenarios involved, and the winning criteria there depended on the scenario itself. However, the completely honest answer would be "I don't know".

About LT33, you are right, there was no dilemma after akfaew and Mmm2 were destroyed. So, perfectly reasonable to end the game there and then. However, unless I got something wrong, you are proposing something else. In this case, that would have been for the winning alliance to physically wipe out everybody else before the game can end. Which is, in my view, absurd.

Regarding the style of play, I'd say you are fixed too much on the endgame. The whole process of playing is subjugated to that one moment when you decide who is the winner and who is the loser. Again, I feel that it is absurd for a game that lasts months. But (again), this is *my* personal view and not everybody needs to agree with it.

[mmm2]

Let's see, in lt33, my team was about 12 players of ultra-noobs/idlers/etc. In my estimate, we had 1/1000 chance to win that game, yet if by miracle we ended up winning, our win would be invalidated, because micromanagers make rule that only 6 players can win.. lol... and.. now that it's clear they've been cheating by making underhanded deals with players like corbeau and evan to assist with making rails and stabbing other teams, they want to add caveat for their mole allies that they call "survivors" win but win in such way that not counted as win hehe.. if before they didn't win, now they won't either - so what is difference?

to make change to traderoute setting is example of legitimate game rule change, because it is coded into server and can't be cheated. however, you cannot make up artificial rules that cannot be enforced.. This just makes more ways for players to create creative strategies/cheats such as making "survivors", "moles", "vassals" or whatever you want to call it... If you really wanted to make rule about limiting team size, the first thing you should do is make it coded into the server.

[mmm2]

how about a pre-picked 2 team game? This is fairest game possible.. It's too bad voting system is not working...

[ifaesfu]

If you really wanted to make rule about limiting team size, the first thing you should do is make it coded into the server.

Sadly, that's the truth. Anyway, Wieder is trying to get a better game experience with all those propositions based on out-of-game rules. They are needed as there isn't any coded rule.
I can't think about a good way to prevent players from forming huge alliances or unbalanced ones.
Regarding the ranking system, I think most of the games shouldn't have had any winner, because it is a trick to win after a huge "alliance" destroy all the enemies and then they choose their x number of winners amongst themselves. I don't think the survivor status can fix this because there are many players that don't care about the ranking but they are actually helping or fighting against those who really care, making the ranking useless.

[wieder]

I'm not a big fan of the external rules but this one is mostly about ending the game and discouraging the huge alliances. I feel that we have covered the early game and the mid game relatively well. Or is there something someone would like to change there?

Mmm2. Your big alliance was not really a problem. At least on LT33. It was a trading game anyway.

The thing with the survivor limit is actually a hard limit. You can't have an unlimited number of "survivors", "moles" or "vassals" with the reward or surviving if the number of the survivors is limited to one with a full alliance.

"Sadly, that's the truth. Anyway, Wieder is trying to get a better game experience with all those propositions based on out-of-game rules. They are needed as there isn't any coded rule."

There is actually just one change to the external rules. It simply prevents giving a survival status as a reward for too many people. We however have lots of server side changes making the game more interesting and more rewarding for those who like to build a civilization without having a massive diplomacy.

[mmm2]

I can't think about a good way to prevent players from forming huge alliances or unbalanced ones.
Regarding the ranking system, I think most of the games shouldn't have had any winner, because it is a trick to win after a huge "alliance" destroy all the enemies and then they choose their x number of winners amongst themselves. I don't think the survivor status can fix this because there are many players that don't care about the ranking but they are actually helping or fighting against those who really care, making the ranking useless.

Yes that's right - if there is a max # players or any non-programmed feature, the only players that hurt from this rule are those that follow it - because inevitability the majority of players will find loopholes to break the rules, because either the rules aren't clearly defined or aren't able to be policed or validated by a referee. ie, in Lt31 Kryon's team obeyed the rule, but other teams ganged up in what seemed like 20 player team to defeat him, ironically he still won because the very rule he created was so unclearly defined that he found loophole to win under his own rules

As for last LT, Evan and/or corbeau could be the examples for what "Survivor"/Vassal/Mole or whatever else you want to define. Clearly, the team of Edrim,Kryon,and Cgalik could have easily won as 3 man team, but instead chose to take safer route and add 3 more players. I think it is cheat to not count evan and corbeau as winners of Lt34!!!! If Edrim,Kryon, and Cgalik really wanted to show off their skills they should have won as 3 man team, but instead they choose easy way with overpowered 6 player team. Since they have won with 6 players, there should be 6 players victorious, not just 4. Calling evan and corbeau "vassal" is very big insult!! Evan and corbeau played great diplomatic game and deserve to win since they were clearly allied to Edrim's team!!!

[wieder]

"Yes that's right - if there is a max # players or any non-programmed feature, the only players that hurt from this rule are those that follow it - because inevitability the majority of players will find loopholes to break the rules, because either the rules aren't clearly defined or aren't able to be policed or validated by a referee. ie, in Lt31 Kryon's team obeyed the rule, but other teams ganged up in what seemed like 20 player team to defeat him, ironically he still won because the very rule he created was so unclearly defined that he found loophole to win under his own rules smile"

Mmm2, it's true that the rules are for those who follow them but ideally they just limit what can be done and this is what is happening on the server side.

"As for last LT, Evan and/or corbeau could be the examples for what "Survivor"/Vassal/Mole or whatever else you want to define. Clearly, the team of Edrim,Kryon,and Cgalik could have easily won as 3 man team, but instead chose to take safer route and add 3 more players."

I have another opinion about this. It's also possible that someone else might have won. People seem to the that the veterans are invincible. They are not. In fact our team might have lost once mmm2 and akfaew were gone if someone would have taken the position of a leader and organized some counter attacks. I'm not going to tell you how but at the time I was checking the defenses of our team and it would have been easy for some people. Really easy. It didn't happen because they were afraid of the veterans and because they though the veterans are supermen. In LT31 I was hesitating when it a time to attack (against mmm2) and akfaew simply said how he is not a superman. We won that attack but all that might have been lost for us because of fear.

The veterans are not pulling out magic tricks. Having experience doesn't mean more units by default. Usually it means slightly more units (just slightly) and an idea of using the units at one location. Preparing for an attack and doing that at a moment the enemy is not prepared for. Basically the veterans almost always defend the key cities, build some units for an attack and attack when they have enough units. The new players either build too few defensive units or they use too much resources for the military and never have an exact idea about when to use those units.

Anyway. I think we also could have some kind of limitation for the veterans to team up. This would of course be another out of the game limitation and it's not that good to have lots of those.

"I think it is cheat to not count evan and corbeau as winners of Lt34!!!!"

What would have happened with the survivor limits I have proposed for LT34? There would have been room for only one survivor or someone would have been forced to trade. One less winner means two more survivors.

"If Edrim,Kryon, and Cgalik really wanted to show off their skills they should have won as 3 man team, but instead they choose easy way with overpowered 6 player team. Since they have won with 6 players, there should be 6 players victorious, not just 4. Calling evan and corbeau "vassal" is very big insult!! Evan and corbeau played great diplomatic game and deserve to win since they were clearly allied to Edrim's team!!!"

Why is almost everyone against limiting the number of the veterans/good players for a winning team? It obviously looks like people would like to see this happening but they still say no. It it because so many people would like to ally with a team with tons of veterans?

Also, thanks everyone for the comments. This is how we can improve the game.

[mmm2]

With 49-55 players we would have 7 winners

If you are going to write rules, you should make it clear 7 winners "when game ends".. not during the game.. since it's random start positions, some teams will need to be bigger if noob players, or not as big if veterans. It's possible like in last game that fewer than 7 player team will be winner, but also possible that larger than 7 player team may win. In that case, it might be simpler if we just count the top 7 scores when game ends, instead of declarations of victory thread??

Also, I suggest you drop the "survivor" as it's pointless. With your definition, survivor=loser, so it is meaningless to winning conditions. it has no importance whether included or not, except to add confusion.

[evan]

I think i was the one who first brought up this suggestion of 'survivors', but i wanted it to mean that you don't lose any points, and it doesn't count as either 'Won' or 'Lost' in the rankings.
In the present system the 'winners' divide up P% of the points of the 'losers'
This way they would still get the points from those they conquered, but other players could 'sue for peace'.
Both types of players and playing styles could co-exist.

I'm not sure what your new classsification means. It seems like it's exactly the way things are now, so i agree with Mmm2 - it's just confusing things, if it doesn't make any dfference.

A few comments asked why I would want to be a survivor, and not try to win.
I didn't mean that the player wouldn't be trying to win, but rather after it becomes clear they can't win, they could try to stay neutral and not lose any points.
It's a more complex and interesting game then. Satisfyingly historically accurate too.
I don't say i don't care about winning, but i don't wan't the "winners' calculations system" to distort the entire game.

Anyway, I suggested this because the limitation on the number of winners is too restrictive, and leaves the smaller and less experienced players with no genuine options. This was definitely my experience of LT33.
It's not realistic to expect new players to be able to compete at the same level.
I thought Wieder's idea about having some sort of table was great, but if we can't do that, why can't we just allow a larger group of winners. If the veterans want to gang together for another boring repeat of previous games, good luck to them.

For example, in a game a 50 players, even making it 10 instead of 7 makes a big difference.
There's nothing stopping the veterans from having a group of ten as well, if that's what they want to do. The less experienced players just want to play a game that's fun and stays fun. And it's more of a genuine challenge if it's a realistic challenge.
To be honest, i find it strange the veteran players aren't interested in having more diverse games.

On another topic,

Mmm2, it's very kind of you to say that you think i should have been counted as one of the winners in LT33.
Thank you, but I'm a little perplexed at your ongoing references to my dagger skills.
Did you really think i would just forget about your betrayal in the early game?
Well, I guess you did.
It pleases me greatly to hear you say that was due to my diplomatic skills.
If you look at the final statistics here in the forum it's clear i didn't come 5th through success on the battlefield.

Anyway, maybe you just have a selective memory. Let me refresh it for you.
After many turns of long, friendly and enjoyable chats and planning chats there was
'oh, don't worry about my warriors, they're just exploring'
and then you captured all my workers!

You say I betrayed you, well, it's not betrayal if it's revenge! Ha ha!
Even though my family's motto is Ne Obliviscaris/Do Not Forget, I suppose it probably is best to leave each game behind and not carry a grudge into the next.
I'm naturally a very forgiving person!
I suppose trust is a different matter. But that works both ways