MP: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI. Game Over. Team ACGHHS wins!

[chrispedersen]

Dr. P:

It wasn't a question of having the turns done, or not done. Grudge had his turn done more than 5 hours in advance.

Since we are separated by 19 hours of time zones, we were trying to get time for Squirrel to sign off - that everything was ok.

I specifically asked grudge to act as gatekeeper: to hold off on his turn till an hour before it was due. Despite the fact that it was due very late at night he agreed to do so.

Both he and I noted the timer, noted the time the turn was due - agreed when he was going to submit. Show me where the flaw is here!

[GrudgeBringer]

Arrrrggghhh, LOOK, I only said what I had to do to emphasize that this isn't life, and while I am disappointed if I lose a game on here, it isn't like I just lost my dog or something.

I am a busy person, no busier than anyone else that has responsibilities, but busy. I don't run to my computer and see with great anticipation if the 'turn' came in so I can sit down and do it right then. Or for that matter talk 4 hours of strategy with my teammates, but that's just me.

I DO however manage to budget my time, and the couple of stales that I had before 1 was the timer (agian) and 1 was told to my team that I would be out of town playing.

I schedule my time so that when things settle down I can try and get my turn done, and honestly, this is usually towards the end of the time we have. MY problem with this is that there is no definitive time...its approximate, or around etc. Try working that schedule with your Med students and see where it gets you (about the same place it gets me with my employees I would suppose).

The timer failed...cut and dried, end of story. If you feel you got cheated, hell..re roll it agian until your happy with the outcome. SOMEONE is going to get the bad end of the stick, why should it be you. When I got in this thing, I got in it to learn from very good players that had been around a long time. Instead, it seems I blundered into a game that reputations are on the line, or egos are going to be hurt.

Yesterday, DrP and the boys where going to bow out, I was done, and Sept was going to use his ultimate wisdom to declare a winner.

Bad Blood is forming here guys, and it will last beyond this game if we are not careful. It is not that important to me who wins if I learn something I can use later.

JUST LET IT GO GUYS, the game is screwed and let Sept declare someone a winner. Me, I vote for the AI... the only one with no axe to grind.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by rdonj

Personally I would probably just call it a draw if you quit. I'm not really up to date on how the game is going, but it seems like no one can quite manage to finish anyone else off (even yomi, which has been struggling for a long, long time).

Nah, Grudge isn't quitting. He's just hot headed = ).
Edit: Hmmm I may be wrong = )

[DrPraetorious]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Dr. P:

It wasn't a question of having the turns done, or not done. Grudge had his turn done more than 5 hours in advance.

Since we are separated by 19 hours of time zones, we were trying to get time for Squirrel to sign off - that everything was ok.

I specifically asked grudge to act as gatekeeper: to hold off on his turn till an hour before it was due. Despite the fact that it was due very late at night he agreed to do so.

Both he and I noted the timer, noted the time the turn was due - agreed when he was going to submit. Show me where the flaw is here!

The flaw is that this is not how any of the other teams have done things and I don't think you should be allowed to request extra time for this.

I haven't "vetted" a single turn from any of my team-mates, I just advise them and let them do what they choose to do. Occasionally we look at each others turns but I don't think we've ever handed around .2h files.

They've made a couple of mistakes that I would've caught - also tried a few things that I wouldn't have thought of which worked - but I've been handling this as a team game, which means everyone does their own turn.

SO my revised position is this: I no longer have any sympathy for your supposed time constraints. You guys shouldn't have gotten the extension in the first place, b/c your violating the spirit of the game with your entire turn handling pipeline. This sort of thing is impossible to police, let us be clear that I'm not accusing you of cheating, but if this is your procedure for handling turns then you should be forced to fit it into the alotted timeframe or you should stale.

[Septimius Severus]

3 votes received. No response from Agema.

2 votes for option 3.
1 vote for option 1.

All four captains must agree to option 3. This has not happened.

Option 1 it is. The game continues at least for now. Until all 4 captains agree to accept my ruling or teams concede.

A. The countdown timer has been removed.
B. The delay wording on the main post has been revised from 48 to 24. Request your delays in 24 hour intervals.
C. There will be NO more rollbacks for the remainder of the game, I don't care if the world explodes. A message to that effect will be posted in the opening post and I will instruct Gandalf to display it on the turns received page to make sure you DON'T forget it. If you don't agree, you may concede.

Now submit your turns, stale, or concede. Those are your options. I've been too indecisive this game (though I get accused of being dictatorial), my mistake. Lets have a nice fast moving, no nonsense, end to this game. I've still got a lot of work to do on NaV II, and I'd like to get to it.

(If you need more time for the current turn, please formally request it).

Good luck.

[DrPraetorious]

I think that we are conceding but give me time to poll my teammates.

I'm formally requesting that we turn off the host timer at least until we decide what to do next.

[Septimius Severus]

I'm not going to turn off the hosting timer. I will grant you a 24 hour extension? (I may grant another one afterwards). Do you want that? Speak up now or send me a PM and post when you decide.

[Squirrelloid]

Honestly, I have no idea what's going on anymore...

That said, the server has been remarkably buggy and this is no way to run a reasonable game. People need to be able to know and plan on when the turn is going to host. The way they do that is by an explicitly posted deadline - which we sort of have. Except then the timer does weird things, or it hosts before that time, or other weirdness occurs, so the posted time (as read at time X) isn't accurate half the time.

This is a huge issue. If people fail to get turns in despite submitting before what the posted time was, that is a problem.

Honestly, for non-llamaserver games (whose timer seems to be accurate), I vastly prefer what pashadawg does - sure, it requires hosting by hand, but it always hosts at the announced time and never early for any reason.

[Septimius Severus]

I'm not that familiar with Pasha's games, I assume by looking at the recent rand game that he manually hosts them himself on his own computer or something similar. Don't know how regular the schedule is or anything.

Automatic hosting as used on Llamasever or in Gandalf's server via direct connect seems to be fairly accurate and reliable. So that will not be an issue next game. Direct connect also actually facilitates team play more than PBEM, as a team can use a common password (or post their individual password on their forum) when creating their pretenders enabling the advisors, captains, and all team members to easily view and in some cases submit turns for all team members (the equivalent to what Chris is doing with his common team e-mail box). Direct connect should also result in faster and an in-game accurate timer. No files to move around, get lost, get confused, etc.

I am putting in a 24 hour delay on the current rolled back turn (the last turn in your inbox) to allow more time for decisions, submissions, concessions, etc, as per my last post above:
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showp...postcount=1485
Lets get it on, or get it over with please.

[DrPraetorious]

Yes, we are conceding.

Well played, all!