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

[Septimius Severus]

There were 5 players who resubmitted 2h files in the time immediately following the last hosting of turn 21. Outside of the (3-1) who staled, it was Pangaea, Neifel, and Arco who did so. However, it is possible that someone sneaked in a turn between the time I resubmitted the .2h files and the time the now current turn hosted.

Rdonj, you may tell me via PM who you suspect this was. I am very curious.

[Septimius Severus]

Originally Posted by Agema

Please accept my apologies.

I had an unexpected and absolute ***** of a weekend and wasn't able to sort my turn or, frankly, much else in any regard. This shouldn't happen again, I'm now fully back up to speed.

Well Agema, I am glad your back, though I had to move forward with the game not having heard from you since the last hosting now well over 60 hours ago. No delay request, no nothing. As much as I knew it might hurt my team, I did not wish to delay any longer.

As a side note, in the future, I need everyone to adhere to our main post instructions regarding delays. If you are able to, a PM and post on the thread is required along with sufficient time to allow us to honor it.

[DrPraetorious]

I object strenuously to the fact that these replacement .2h files were not used. As I've explained to you *repeatedly*, if you're going to do a rollback, you have to let everyone resubmit their turns who wishes to do so.

In my case, I'm actually *at war with Lanka and Kailasa*!!! Even the knowledge that I'm *not* attacking them is potentially valuable. And no, I am not willing to take it at anyone's word that they submitted a turn without seeing my moves. There's an easy fix if you really want to do a rollback.

So, to be perfectly and unambiguously clear: allowing some people to submit turns after having seen the new turn, and not others, is *cheating* and in this case you cheated in favor of your own team. If this happens again I have to resign.

[Squirrelloid]

I really do have to agree with Dr. P here. You can't control for who looked at their new turn file - the only fair thing to do is let everyone who chooses to resubmit a turn file, or just let the stales stand.

[Agema]

I agree with Dr. P too.

Everyone can see the turns, and everyone can take appropriate action including those who staled - everyone must be allowed to resubmit their turn. Rollbacks can cause havoc and are tools of last resort, and have to be handled very sensitively.

We appreciate the effort you are putting in trying to run the game, Septimius, but whilst you are taking part in the game you must either allow conventional Dom3 metarules on these things or secure the explicit agreement of all other team captains to do otherwise (you can reasonably represent the Mysterios in a pinch). It is crucial the game is not unbalanced by accusations of bias. Luckily, I think in this case there has been minimal havoc, advantage or disadvantage, and I think we can move on.

[chrispedersen]

The question is a question of game balance.

Three people staled. Letting 9 people redo their turns based on game knowledge unbalances the game far more than letting 3 people redo their staled turns.

We attacked vanheim by surprise on turn 20. Allow vanheim to redo his turn, and I am sure my remote attack spells will encounter PD and fail. Its a HUGE difference.

Likewises, Dr. P's team is doing huge amounts of manual site searching. Thats 5 blanks you can redo.

The point of the rollback is to make the game *more* fair, not less. Allowing 9 people to redo their turn is *almost* as bad for the 3 people that were disenfranchised as the original stale, since those 9 players will optimize their turns.

Yes, I agree that those three people now have a small advantage. But three people with a small advantage is less disruptive than 12.

However, sept, wheneve there's a rollback I do think you have to allow a full measure of time for the fallout to settle. And finally, I don't think you should have made the decision. You should have left it with Gandalf, as you originally proposed.

On our team, Pangeae was taken over by shard (Thanks shard!) - and due to the time being pushed up - we were not able to advise him how to play the nation. We had critical things we wanted to do - send magic items to our team.

So we advised Gandalf and SS and SS was going to leave the decision to Gandalf. Now I think that our team was probably more damaged than anyone, but even so I think we all need to accept that #!@! happens and move on.

Dr. P; admins have to adjudicate what happens in a game. You can disagree with a ruling without calling it cheating.

[Septimius Severus]

I have done everything I can to prevent cheating in this game. I am ultimately responsible for ensuring no cheating occurs. Yes, I could have put 24 hours on the clock and allowed everyone to "cheat" by having an opportunity to look at the new turns and resubmitting their turns. I did not want that sort of delay considering how long the turn had already ran. I only wanted the 3 who needed to resubmit to do so. Anyone else who had appeared to have done so when I checked the turns recieved file, I merely extracted their original orders file and submitted that.

In the case of the 3 who staled, I did not have any of their original .2h files and to load up their .trn files would have been unethical with the exception of Lanka from my team. And in that case I did absoletly nothing but simply hit the end turn button, causing him to effectively stale, so I detrimented my own team to some degree just to ensure fairness overall.

I understand your objection, DrP, letting everyone cheat may have been the only fair way to handle it but I did my best to limit what cheating may have occured whilst also attempting to limit the time impact of this rollback for everyone else.

I did not want to do this rollback, you all know how time conscious I am considering how lenient the turn intervals are already. It was a difficult decision. Me and Gandalf did this rollback because it was the only ethical thing to do. Sort of like when you go into a store and see an advertised discount, but when you get to the register they tell you there was a mistake and that that particular discount has expired. The store manager/owner must really do the ethical thing and honor the advertised discount. That is why the rollback was done, even though I knew it might lead to issues.

In the future Gandalf and I will be more vigilante on making sure the timer is correct. And we shall do no more rollbacks unless there is a server error or a game bug. I did not want the first rollback because I thought it was unfair to the other teams and I did not want this one. But what is done is done. This has been a learning experience for all of us as Gandalf has put it. This is a very complicated game to admin, because of the number of teams and the issues we have faced. Gandalf is however only the host of the game, he is responsible for ensuring the timer is correct and that the server operates correctly, but I am responsible for keeping cheating in check. Allowing him to make that decision, I realized would be beyond the scope of his duties. As I realized that asking him to make the decision on a rollback or not was likewise not within the scope of his duties really unless there was a server issue as there appeared to have been.

[DrPraetorious]

Chris raises a legitimate question - and the only solution is to have no rollbacks at all.

To be perfectly clear - suppose Vanheim had staled. Do we then *not* do a rollback, because Chris delivered a surprise attack that turn? Is that fair? Does Vanheim get to see his turn if he staled, and not if he doesn't?

If we all have a chance to redo our turns, then at least Chris has the chance to attack different provinces, or another player entirely, etc. I agree that it''d suck for this to happen to Chris - but this is exactly what *did* happen to me and Illum., and we didn't even get a chance to change targets!

We certainly cannot make exceptions based on specific tactical situations in order to be "more fair". Either don't do rollbacks at all (which works), or, if you do a rollback, for technical glitch reasons or whatever in the future, let everyone resubmit turns before the rollback goes through.

[Septimius Severus]

No exceptions were made for any tactical situations. Just as in a rollback for a corrupt turn file by a single player that causes a server issue, only that player should be allowed to resubmit, not everyone else. If they or anyone else violates ethical rules, I am empowered as the admin to disqualify that player. There's many ways to handle a rollback and various arguments pro and con for doing it one way or another.

Everyone should be adhering to an ethical code of play just like your admin. Shame on anyone who has done otherwise. Take me for instance, I can look at anyone's turn file, I can look into other team's forums, but never once have I ever done this. Never have I been tempted either. I am even hesitant to look at my own teammates turns without their permission.

Edit:

Letting everyone have an equal chance to "cheat" is one way of being fair and we can do that in the future, but we'd also have to give everyone a fair chance to get another turn in meaning another 40 hour delay, 12 hours or 24 hours would not be fair to everyone.

[Gandalf Parker]

WOW. Forum posts, emails, PMs, etc all on this same subject. Let an old outsider toss some things in here.

(A) Everything has its pros and cons. Most of the games have someone making the decisions that is also playing in the game. Why? Because very few people are willing to host, admin, continually read the threads and forums, moderate, and generally keep up on a game they are not in (subtle hint). If this bothers you then feel free to start such a game.

(B) I dont want to sound snobbish but there are 2 levels of comments going on. Those that have, and those that havent. Well actually 3 levels since there are also those that have and have done it enough to be tired of it already. (Im referring to admining a game)

Now my personal take on all of it would be
1) move forward
2) avoid changes, unless absolutely necessary just move forward
3) the game belongs to the person running the game, everything else is please and thank yous
4) I am not the person running the game (I only carry out their wishes)
5) if I wanted to run the game (as if I had forgotten years of lessons in that area already) I would have started the game. I WILL support anyone who for some strange reason wants to take on admining their own game

DISCLAIMER: lack of sleep is making me grumpy or I would have worded this all nicer. Also Im no longer staff so pttthhhhfffff