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

[rdonj]

Yeah, I have the turn as well, with sauromatia having staled despite there still being plenty of time left on the clock when I last checked. 12 hours is generally not equal to 3, so there is clearly something going on here. This is a problem we need to get fixed.

I am against rollbacks on principle, but I can understand the frustration this causes. If we do a rollback, let's please keep it short and sweet. Us Devas are busy repelling hordes of invaders at the moment and we'd really like to get back to that.

[Septimius Severus]

Ha, we seem to be doing a rollback every 10 turns. Maybe we should schedule them regularly.

Generally, I am against any more rollbacks, especially for a single player, and especially given we've had two already. However something seems to be amiss this time with the server, I am investigating and will contact Gandalf.

The turn was NOT supposed to host till 08:00:00 AM PST on Tuesday, Jan 5th, those were my explicit instructions. The displayed timer last time I looked seemed to be on target as well. But I've got a fatherlnd file with a timestamp of Jan 4th, 10:44 PM and I show 2h files from everyone except Sauro. The last one to get in their turn was Pangaea at 10:43 PM. So something has occured.

We will likely know, hear something from Gandalf by tommorow morning/afternoon.

You all know I have always been in favor of honesty and fairness to all. I also expect honesty from all players. If a rollback is done, we must be consistent in our policy (last time we only allowed the three who were affected to resubmit).

If we do a rollback, ONLY SAURO will resubmit, and I expect and demand that Squirreloid, not revise his turn, not look at the new turn, but simply resend the old .2h file he should already have ready to go. If it discovered that Sauro has acted on any new information, I am empowered to deal with it appropriately. But I am sure that if done, Squirreloid will get it in quick and we will all move on. He will be honest. Right Squirreloid?

[Squirrelloid]

I still have not looked at the new turn (since its not real, there's no reason to).

My turn is timestamped by the e-mail sent to my team's e-mail account, which can be forwarded as appropriate.

[Septimius Severus]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

I still have not looked at the new turn (since its not real, there's no reason to).

My turn is timestamped by the e-mail sent to my team's e-mail account, which can be forwarded as appropriate.

Well, there ya go, it can be handled nice and easy if necessary. In fact, if Gandalf doesn't already have the old .2h file, it can be sent to him or me directly (my email is available on the team forums), without even bothering to put a few hours on the clock for him to do it (and thus avoiding reopening the old turn for submissions and preventing any sneaky business).

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Septimius Severus

Well, there ya go, it can be handled nice and easy if necessary. In fact, if Gandalf doesn't already have the old .2h file, it can be sent to him or me directly (my email is available on the team forums), without even bothering to put a few hours on the clock for him to do it (and thus avoiding reopening the old turn for submissions and preventing any sneaky business).

I cannot find your e-mail on the team forums. As i'm still up anyway, mind PMing me either yours or gandalf's e-mail (whichever you'd prefer i used)?

[chrispedersen]

just to chime in here, I've commented on this twice before - that it has hosted hours earlier than it was supposed to.

I still want to say thanks to gandalf for hosting..

[Gandalf Parker]

My apologies to Sauromatia. The game did indeed quckhost without receiving his turn.
All files are rolled back.

It actually happened due to one player sending in two different 2h files (16 files received of 16 needed so the stupid hosting script AI hosted). I will look into trying to add (yet another) check on player actions to the script. Now I understand why LLama has put so much time into his scripts.

Gandalf Parker

[Tollund]

That's not quickhosting, that force hosting without any sanity checks on the inputs.

[rdonj]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

My apologies to Sauromatia. The game did indeed quckhost without receiving his turn.
All files are rolled back.

It actually happened due to one player sending in two different 2h files (16 files received of 16 needed so the stupid hosting script AI hosted). I will look into trying to add (yet another) check on player actions to the script. Now I understand why LLama has put so much time into his scripts.

Gandalf Parker

Ah. That would be me. I actually sent in three turn files for turn 31. I do this semi-frequently so there's no wonder that multiple turns have hosted early, if indeed this is the cause.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by Tollund

That's not quickhosting, that force hosting without any sanity checks on the inputs.

Quite true. But we are writing this as we go.
The incident would have been handled automatically by direct connect. I never appreciated how many checks and balances Johan as written into the direct-server.
Or it could have been caught by a pbem game where each turn is manually processed by someone.

But trying to write a script to cover everything is "fun". So far Ive had to add checks for
A) corrupted .2h files (badly attached)
B) enough .2h files
C) no .2h files from previous turn hosting
D) matching serials
E) .2h being sent in that doesnt match the present turn

And now apparently turn files being sent for other games than this one.
And there are still 3 other requests for checks which have turned out to be more complicated than they seem worth.

Gandalf Parker