Preponderance - Big Team Game! [1-2 subs needed!]

[JimMorrison]

I am very unhappy with the current situation. It is dissatisfactory on so many levels, I can't hardly begin to describe my own feelings on the whole thing.

We have been crafting a specific strategy for this team, and not I do not expect a sub to grasp it quickly (anyone ever hear that Jomon is not considered easy to play well as it is?), nor do I have any hope for this current chain of events to have a positive end, as a gaming experience.

Say what you want about Madfrancis, not knowing his personal character, or how he reacts to and treats those around him - but many of you have seen me stick through a rough patch just to play it out for the sake of the game. So even though I have done dozens of turns for a hopeless nation, to keep a game intact for others on multiple occasions already - I am not alright with this, and I will drop out if Madfrancis drops out. I signed up for a team game, and I made a competitive team, with a competitive gameplan. We worked on it for weeks. If people want to demand that all of our time preparing for this gets wasted to justify the few minutes it took you to submit your turn 2, then that's fine, but I won't accept that. Zeldor cut a corner in notifying due to frustration, and Madfrancis cut a corner due to frustration. Those events crossed paths, and we all got bitten for it.

The irony is that if there hadn't been such resistance, the turn could have been rehosted a couple of hours ago, with minimal disruption or heartache..... There was a miscommunication, it crippled a team, we found the problem and it had an easy solution. Now everyone wants to paint Madfrancis as a bad person, and by proxy, due to my support, probably paint me as such as well. That's fine, but it certainly isn't going to inspire or encourage a better solution to this problem. And it is a problem, people need to just accept that fact.

[MadFrancis]

Originally Posted by Micah

I don't see how checking the forums and your email once a day is an undue burden on your time, especially compared to the hour or more of time a turn takes to do late game. Oh, and the time you've spent posting here about the stale. Twenty three people managed to figure out what was going on with the game without any problems, which leads me to think that the fault does, in fact, lie with you, and not the game admin.

If you don't like your position play a few turns so it's less obviously damaged by the stale and then find a sub for it, it'll probably take less time than I spend on a single late-game turn to do so.

Wow ... you obviously didn't read a thing I stated (at least not read it correctly). I do check the forums and emails everyday and I said as much earlier. But when I was told that Perponderance was no longer viable and that the new game was PreponderanceNew I stopped checking Preponderance emails. I also said that I check the forums everyday, but do not have time to sift through the threads (usually I am too busy with school and work, but today is the first day of winter vacation for me, hence my time spent of the forums now). I check my PMs which, until the game-start email, was how every other message for this game has been delivered.

As far as my position in concerned, it is fine. I would just like to have been notified in a reasonable manner consistant with all other notifications I have recieved regarding this game about the fact that the game had A) returned to its original name and B) started. If that is unreasonable ... well fine, I'm unreasonable.

And I'd like to clarify, I am not holding this against Zeldor. He is a great guy and one of the few people around these forums I have had enough reasonable interaction with to develop a sense of respect for. I think the largest problem is that these forums suck large hairy balls. I guess it wouldn't be a problem if I had the opportunity to sit around all day on a computer with email access, but I don't. Since that is a requirement for MP Dom3 games (apparently) I guess I lose. That's too bad to, because after looking into this game and playing singleplayer for awhile I really thought this game had some great MP potential. But not so, apparently, if you are concerned with fair-ish starts.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by vfb

Chris, if you're going to complain, please make some sort of effort to get the names right. I'm MA Marignon, and I don't need to be prodded.

Um, Dude - I *did* spend a little effort - more than anyone else in fact, to try to make sure that everyone AND THEIR PARTNERS got their turns in ok.

From the Second post in this thread....


6. Ossa - vfb

MA MAri + EA Sauromatia


It makes it look as if *you* are playing EA-Sauromatia, which with three hours to go, hadn't submitted a turn. I have no way of knowing that you and Ossa switched.

But cmon man - I was just doing everyone a favor....


On other topics - Zeldor, I have to say that you did an absolutely AMAZING job with the map, AND with setting up the game.

And before anyone criticizes, if you haven't tried admin'ing a game you have NO idea how hard it is. And generally how thankless.

Now, I know that zeldor did delay hosting for a few hours. But I really do think that everything leadiing up to the game - Zeldor gets an A+ - but I do think a little bit more time and care should have gone to the starting of the game. I have tried to suggest this to others - that ANY time there is a glitch in the forums, or in the game server that extra time be allocated to make sure that everyone is on board. This is another time I think that advice prudent. By my earlier email, I was trying to suggest that with 24 players, it would be a better plan to wait a few hours to get everyone on board than to host on time and risk a game meltdown.

(Game Plug: missed turns are why I created the game Mulligan. Go look at that thread).

I do know that with the structure of the game - many lesser nations were bid on - I know that I have spent weeks learning viable strategies for my weak nation - so I fully believe that Jim, being a better player, would do the same.

Now, there was some mention that Jim and Mad Francis are playing on the same CD key, being room mates. I do not know the legality of it - it seems legal to me - one computer has it. They being roomates can play separate nations on it. Huge advantage for coordination of course.

But Jim claims that he has not received a turn. I do know that lama was looking at preventing multiple turns from going to the same ip / email address. This may be the cause for Jim not getting a turn.

Had Jim gotten turn notification, he may well have prodded his partner.

So, here are my suggestions:

First, I got a *great* start - and I can't imagine any start being better for me.
However, I play this game to enjoy it - and I play it to play against humans - to cut my teeth against other breathing and presumably, thinking opponents. I dont think there should be *any* stales in any game.

Every player should be informed of a turn deadline - but just that - a turn deadline. Set the game to just quickhost when all turns are submitted.
If a player is routinely missing turn deadlines, its incumbent on him to find a substitute.

When making the decision about the game, as game admin, I try to decide what is best for the game itself. Our option is to proceed with some nations staling, restarting, or finding a substitute.

Personally, I find proceeding with staling nations unpalatable as it gives a huge advantage to the staling neighbors. Likewise, I think finding a new team to choose nations and play - would require a longer delay than to just restart the game.

And yes, I don't' want to hear anyone who didn't get a national hero on turn one complaining!


Chris

[namad]

whatever you do do not go ai....
this is a team game, AI doesn't know what a team is.

staling 30turns in a row is better than going ai at least your teammate could easily kill you and control the entire starting pocket... if you refuse to play at very least stale instead of going ai

[Zeldor]

Calm down everyone, please. Give me a while to sit and think. We don't want bad emotions like that here. Do it on the battlefield. It's Christmas coming, relax everybody and think twice before posting - while most people here have reasonable things to say, the ways of saying them are far from civilized.

[MadFrancis]

Originally Posted by namad

whatever you do do not go ai....
this is a team game, AI doesn't know what a team is.

staling 30turns in a row is better than going ai at least your teammate could easily kill you and control the entire starting pocket... if you refuse to play at very least stale instead of going ai

Not refusing to play. I want to play very much. I have been working on my strategy with my teammate for weeks now. I just think that I would rather play a game where the people I was playing with were actually considerate of others and interested in everyone having a good time and as fair a start as possible, not just themselves. Why should I waste my time on people who can't even take two minutes out of their day to make simple fix to the flawed start of a game?

Out of respect for Zeldor and HIS efforts on the behalf of others I will not go AI. However, from the little I've seen about the rest of you and your willingness to take other players into consideration... well, you should all just thank Zeldor for being a decent guy.

[vfb]

Usually I am totally opposed to rollbacks, but this is turn 2 and there were no battles at all this month. If there had not been such a mess getting this game started (multiple games on llamasever for the same game), I'd be against a rehost. But there was pretty much a big mess, and the game was renamed, and unrenamed, and there were 2 games with the same name, etc.

Also I think it's impossible that anyone has spent more than 5 minutes giving their turn 2 orders.

So I vote for MadFrancis to email his turn to llamabeast, and we ask llamabeast nicely to untar the saved turn 1 orders, add MadFrancis's .2h, and rehost.

[Executor]

Wow, what the hell happened here?

This game does seem to be cursed!

I don't see what the problem is on either side, stale is bad, but so is plague on turn 1, which 3 players apparently had.
Rollback will take a day but it'll save a week looking for two subs, and seriously I don't know why everyone is making a fuss about this, a single stale turn?

[Zeldor]

vfb:

I can do that myself as a game admin. But from my experience all rollbacks made the problems even bigger.

But rollback will be probably the best solution to calm it down. So expect it within few minutes, with new turn coming in and email with explanations.

[PsiSoldier]

Originally Posted by vfb

Usually I am totally opposed to rollbacks, but this is turn 2 and there were no battles at all this month. If there had not been such a mess getting this game started (multiple games on llamasever for the same game), I'd be against a rehost. But there was pretty much a big mess, and the game was renamed, and unrenamed, and there were 2 games with the same name, etc.

Also I think it's impossible that anyone has spent more than 5 minutes giving their turn 2 orders.

So I vote for MadFrancis to email his turn to llamabeast, and we ask llamabeast nicely to untar the saved turn 1 orders, add MadFrancis's .2h, and rehost.

I second that. I don't care who's fault it was and I hear anyone really objecting to a Turn one rollback. Nothing big happened and far more good than bad can come from a rollback at this point. A roll back just seems to be the lesser of two evils here.

Even if we did have to resubmit turn one how hard could that be. Its not like you have any major decisions to go over again that will take more than 2 minutes.