End Game Slaughter Moves

[Tuidjy]

Who did this? I would set him to AI, and I will never play with him.
Please send me a personal message, if you feel uncomfortable posting
his name here.

[kasnavada]

Sigh...

That is the reason why a hall of shame is a bad idea. Mob-lynching and hasty judgements. The person who did it may just not have known.

In France, there is some thing that is called "pr�somption d'innocence". It means that until someone is found guilty of something, he is innocent. In that case, it seems to be a MP game, if, once contacted, he apologizes and agrees to rollback the turn, and use another strategy, there is no need to blacklist him, whoever it is.

If he doesn't, however... or does it again in another game...

[Tuidjy]

He did not know? Whom are you kidding?

This exploit was explicitly described in DangerPudding, when Fomoria, maybe
accidentally, used the sword of storms and the armour of virtue on the same guy.
I know, because my uncle asked my advice on that. And I gave him examples, which
he posted in the thread.

At that time, the Tien Chi player was a participant in the game, and posted after
the discussion. The discussion ended with three people posting that it is on the
short bug list, and should not be used.

So arguing that this is not an exploit is OK (albeit wrong) but saying that
Tien Chi did not know is ... naive?

[Zeldor]

There should be at least list of exploits so people know what is forbidden by community [and things like should be really blocked in game ASAP]. It could be especially good for newbies, so they can spot behaviour like that. In my latest game I made a rule that anyone that uses exploits will be either force subbed or set to AI. Though I wish llamaserver had a way to detect exploits, as you cannot spot many things [for example copying Bogus company orders].

[kasnavada]

Hum, I didn't know that. If he had an occasion to see that it was an exploit directly and abused it in another game... that's abusive.

[DonCorazon]

I'd like to see, and would be willing to help on (though my knowledge pales in comparison to the vets), a stickied post that was called something like Standard House Rules. It would have a list like:
1. No Mist of Enchantment / damage spell / retreat
2. No stealing Bogus commands
3. etc.

Similarly, it could have a definition what is generally prohibited in a NAP with numbered items, e.g
1. No attacking w/o x# turns notice
2. Stealthy troops are allowed to pass through a NAP partners lands
3. etc.

Then when starting a game, you could say all Standard House Rules apply. Or, if there is something you don't want to follow, you could say for example, we'll use Standard House Rules except for #2, 5, etc. NAP rules except #2.

Maybe it is just the (ex-) lawyer in me's love of clarity but I think it would be useful and save a lot of time. I realize there is no consensus on anything, but that is why having numbers would let the host decide what to include / exclude. And would help noobs have a compiled list to refer to at the beginning of a game w/o anyone having to always re-type this stuff out.

[triqui]

So, perhaps a list of clearly forbidden things in MP should be made, separated from the general bugs list.

That would be a nice thing, yes

[Zeldor]

DonCorazon:

Well, you need 1 sections with rules that you must obey ['do not exploit bugs' + list] and a list of definitions of common things [NAPs here, also words like thug, SC, etc.].

[Baalz]

There's been a couple attempts at such, but as I mentioned the mist of deception exploit is unique (as far as I know) in that nobody really disagrees that it is a game breaking exploit synonymous with cheating. There's a fairly large camp (including me) who feel like generally quirks in the game are fair play. There was an exceedingly long discussion about this like a year ago but it boils down to:

1) What's an exploit? Lots of interesting things in this game seem to be possibly unintentional ways things interact.
2) We're playing the game as delivered, not some abstract perfect concept even if we could agree on what that is. Everything from archer screens to vengeance of the dead spamming to the way communion mechanics work *is* part of the game.
3) Strategy is always about being clever to avoid fair fights. Why is it "fair" to bring cavalry against your enemies archers, but not "fair" to copy Bogus' scripts? Is it "fair" to mind hunt a nation with no astral mages? Etc. etc.
4) With the exception of the aforementioned Mists of Deception I'm unaware of any exploits which are as powerful as things you can unequivocally do in game such as casting the forge of the ancients or being the first one to construction-8.

As for a standardized NAP, same problem again, no consensus as to what that means.

[thejeff]

A shortlist of exploits generally considered forbidden would be good, though I suspect there'd be much debate over what got included.

I'd rather not see NAP rules formalized, though. Maybe a clear statement that different people interpret NAP differently, so you should spell out what you mean.
Anything that reduces diplomacy further towards: "NAP-3?", "k" is a bad thing.
I'd much rather encourage a little more roleplaying and actual negotiation instead.