PBW ethics, opinions please.

[Cheeze]

Guess I must not be just anyone, because it never occurred to me to try this multiple training centers option. It seems both counter-productive to the spirit of the training facilities design(Hey, you get an advantage in combat, but here's the catch: you have to keep your ships on hold for X turns to get it)and to gameplay itself. The 'competition' explanation can be reasonable if you (as a member of a game or a host) accept it. However, the training is done at one location by one ship/fleet....so this works only if you have a race that can split into different selves and re-incorporate every turn to incorporate the knowledge of each. By the 'competition' logic, you should be able to use multiple system robotoid facilities/time shrines or even multiple planetary factories to boost resource/research/intel generation. I'm sure it's been tried, but the game has been designed to disallow that option. If you can't build multiple training facilities on one planet to avoid this "over-training" in a sector, it seems to me that multiple planets in one sector shouldn't skirt around this stipulation, which might be murder to code in such a checking process without creating unforseen bugs.

It also never occurred to me to use training facilites and psychic training facilities together. This too seems to hedging at the edge of what's allowable, although that would seem more fair. The benefit of a training center is to boost a ship/fleet skill by 1-3% per turn. A psychic facility can do the same but anywhere in a system. Perhaps that's just how I would like to play, that any benefit comes with a cost.

[Gozra]

Well here goes stab II. I was playing a great game long ago in a c-64 galaxy far away. Lords of conquest. I the game you could trade resources for resources. Well I desperatly needed a horse to carry out an attack against an opponet. I traded a fellow player a horse for another horse the key 'Gamey" thing here was I got to pick the place where I could put the horse That I traded for anywhere on the board in any of my territories. Well I put it just right where I needed that horse and a few seconds later I had a new provence. And the player I took it from flew into a rage and accused me of cheating.
So the second definition of gamey is if you think of a clever move first that could be percived as gamey.
In Version 1.67 is it 'gamey' to put a weapons platform on a planet with the talisman with an engine destroying weapon on the platform so that when the enemy fleet attacks and one ship in the fleet has it's engine destroyed the fleet can't move until it is repaired? In other words you can only take one planet per game turn.
(I think it is clever use of your combat resources)
But that tactic can give you a big advantage in a game and it exploited a known bug.(engine destroying weapon in SEIV 1.67)

[Gryphin]

Ethics, Cheat, Exploit, Bug, Competative, Things that don't make sence, Limitations.
When all is said and done couldn't the issue be resolved by checking with the game host? I would think that if there is any doubt as to weather a given action was unethical or cheating that the final judge woudl be the game master. That is the way it always was when I played mineatures.
I have not played much PBW so I could be way off base.
Now that I think about it, perhaps I did something I should not have. I once addressed a message to an ally telling him I was doing one thing. I was actualy doing something different but the message was credidble. I then deliberately sent that message to my advesary. So without thinking I may have violated the intended purpose for ingame communications. What do you think?

[ January 11, 2003, 05:24: Message edited by: Gryphin ]

[Gozra]

Well personally I think you were doing an ok thing if you were playing like a stinking cardassian. But, and I find this true of myself, people tend to have a hard time seperating The SEIV player from the nice cuddly human outside the game. I remember reading in an old Wargaming magizine about the Avalon Hill game diplomacy about the tactics of lying. The Big lie the medium lie and the small lie. It was just part of the game.

[geoschmo]

Heck, now we aren't gonna lump lying in and call it gamey are we? I lie all the time in PBW games. I've even been known to lie in out of character email communications from time to time.

Gryphin, you aren't wrong. The game owner is the final say in PBW games whether these things are cheating. THe only time we get involved is if it's a possible issue of hacking, data file manipulation or something like that. I have at times looked at game files at a game owner request to see if a player is doing a bug exploit. But if it turns out to be true, it's up to him what action to take. I won't ban someone from PBW for that.

Geoschmo

[ January 11, 2003, 05:47: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Gryphin]

Gozra I have to admit I was playing more of a "noble" race. That said, I was also fighting a loosing battle for my life. At the time I saw it as no more than a form of mis-information dissemination that you see in fiction. Sadly I don't know if it worked.
Now that I think of it. I did similar things while playing miniatures. On more than one occasion I left out false equipment list and orders to troops. I know some of those worked. I guess you could say I was exploiting a human weakness.

[Grandpa Kim]

Wow! I would really like to respond to each an every one of the Posts in this thread but even I don't have that kind of patience. I think I'll respond to just a few but let me start by quoting something I wrote many years ago:

"Any organization in need of a Code of Ethics is too far gone to be helped by it."

This community does not need a code of ethics! Just as Canada does not need a gun registry-- the law abiding will be good doobies and register and the crooks will still have their guns. For the most part we are "law-abiding citizens" and guys like Geo (with a little help from general population) will hunt down the "crooks".

Exploits. What is an exploit? I don't really agree with the definition accepted by the community, which is: "A part of the game play that does not conform precisely with the stated rules." The old 100 mine limit problem would fit this definition. The present Temporal weapon problem would not! It is a serious bug.

But as I said, I don't agree that this is the proper definition of an exploit. It is a bug! Albeit minor. I have played many games (dare I say all!) with bugs and you learn to live with them if they aren't game wreckers, and eventually, to take advantage of them. Some are never corrected. Some of them can't be avoided. One good example applying to pre-Gold games is the fact that the lower player number shoots first in any combat. By the current definition, this is an exploit and totally unavoidable until gold corrected it. And if you think thats a small thing, take a look at the remnants of my fleet in "Conquista".

To me an exploit is taking advantage of any part of the game to enhance my chances. When I design my empire, I exploit these characteristics to enhance my game style. I exploit emergency build in concert with empire stats, base design, colonizer design in a way that suits me and maximizes production. I do not leave it on for the full ten turns pumping out colonizers. That doesn't suit me, but I believe my way is better. No one here would say I am cheating in any manner by doing this. Nor would they say it is unethical. It is how you play the game... or at least one way. So if the game is poorly programmed presenting me with a problem and/or opportunity, I handle it as best I can. In fact, I often become a better player because of it. In the game "Conquista" mentioned earlier, when I was able to avoid those nasty warp point battles, I did extraordinarily well, because I was forced to plan and design around an unfortunate bug. In other words, I had to think!

Encyclopedia Malfadorica - PBW Ethics: IMHO there is not one thing in this article that has anything to do with ethics. It is merely a bunch of opinions on the "funnest" way to play the game. Excuse me, but I'll decide that on my own, and join the games that I find "funnest".

I'm still not sure what this EB "exploit" is but I'm beginning to get a glimmer. Let me let you in on a couple more bugs that I have never seen mentioned. Did you know that you can get emergency build to go beyond 10 turns? Without doubt, you can get it to go 11 turns. I found this out entirely by accident. I thought I was going to have to wait for 4 turns of slow build, but surprise, surprise, the ship was built on the 11th turn. And yes I'm quite sure it was 11 turns at E build; even the math agreed. What I'm wondering, is can it go even further? Suppose you have a ship that takes 15 turns at E build?...

The other is the upgrade facilities button. It will upgrade facilities currently under construction. This will not work with ships (it used to in the early Versions) but it still works for facilities. You can have a Monolith 2 with one turn left and upgrade it to Monoith 3 at absolutely no cost. The next turn you will have a Monolith 3 even though you started building a Monolith 2.

from Rextorres:

I've been backstabbed, been turtled against, and had people gang up against me by
trading techs, etc. and I may have been pissed off about it, but I never thought it was
cheating. It sounds like sour grapes to me when players want rules patched out because
they get beat using their pet playing style when playing against humans.

This I grok!

from Gozra:

I do know one player that has a list of folks he will play and not play with.

That might be me. There are no cheaters on my black list... yet! I haven't found any. The ones that are in there have a lack of consideration and commitment. I have no time for these sorts.

So, is it unethical to exploit a bug? No! It is not! You play the hand you are dealt. Is it unethical to exploit a bug forbidden by the host? Yes! Of course! By joining the game, you have agreed to the rules. To break them is cheating, plain and simple.

Okay, I've rambled on long enough. Who's next?