Proposed Rules

[BigFree]

This set of "rules" and known game exploits/shortcuts/whatever was posted at the UN. It was complied from many sources; some even form Apolyotn I believe. We need to discuss whether or not this list needs to be amended in any way and then decide what list we would vote for at the UN to be included in the rules of the game.

0. General Rules

0.1. Team members

All teams must list their members publicly without exception.

0.2.a) Out of game Espionage

Any espionage in form of trying to hack the secure team fora, continously logging team chat channels, inserting moles in an opponent´s team, hacking screenshot or savegame upload locations, etc. is strictly forbidden.
And team involved in such activities should face severe consequences up to exclusion from the ISDG.

0.2.b) Team membership

A person may only be member of one team. A double membership is considered espionage and the offending person will be banned from the ISDG.

0.3.a) Team members switching teams

We need to have exact guidelines on that as well!
For now I´ll suggest that a team member may only switch to another team with the consent of both teams involved and also those teams that were in contact with the team he/she leaves!
Switching to a team in the other group should be allowed I think.

0.3.b) Members of defeated teams

Similar rules as mentioned in a) might be applicable here.
But as we have a qualification round and then successive finals, we might also want to disallow members of a defeated team to join another team as "refugees".
A team should stay more or less as it is for both games.


1. Diplomacy and Alliance tricks

Basically the idea of most points in this section revolves around two teams flipping back and forth between peace and war to abuse certain game mechanics.
As well as other diplomacy tricks.

1.1 Getting double-duty out of artillery and Workers

Two (or more) teams can get double (triple...) use of bombardment units and Workers by using the units on their respective turns, then letting their "enemy" capture and use them in turn. When facing an alliance of two civs with 20 Catapults among them, it's quite disconcerting to have to face 40 rounds of bombardment.
The simple solution is to require alliances and peace treaties to be respected through in-game diplomacy.

1.2 Sharing a Luxury or Strategic resource

Two teams can get the use of a single resource by repeated gifting and then cancelling of the trade. One Iron should only supply one civ at a time.
Repeated cancellation of trade is okay for supplying bursts of a resource for a civ upgrade, as long as it is not also being used for making a dual supply out of one resource.

1.3.a) Generating Leaders by sacrificing cheap units

A team can build a bunch of Warriors and let another team slaughter them with Elites, in hopes of generating a Great Leader. This is actually quite costly, but the results can be dramatic (fast Forbidden Palace or Palace) if the teams get lucky.

1.3.b) Generating Workers by sacrificing cheap units to Mayans

Similar to leaders, you can sacrifice units against a Mayan civ to generate more workers early one.

1.3.c) Provoking a GA by sacrificing cheap units to UUs

Don't provokate the GA for a friendly civ by "offering" a unit to kill.

1.4 Declaring war for happiness

Two teams can declare war on each other for purposes of generating a little Happiness, which can lead to increased production through WLTKD.

1.5. Contact to another civ before actual contact

Teams should not contact other teams for any in-game purpose until they have contact in the game.

1.6.a) Exchanging map/minimap information before Navigation.

In Conquests, map trading is pushed back to Navigation. If two teams can exchange maps out-of-game, the Seafaring trait becomes a lot less attractive.

1.6.b) Exchange of contact

Since you cannot really exchange contact, you can resort to simply telling that you live next to XX. A possible rule is to disallow a team to tell others about it´s neighbors before Printing Press.

1.7 Teams "joining" each other

A team likely to be defeated soon can gift all he has to another team. This can result in a dramatic shift of power and is especially powerful in the qualification game.
Another possibility is for one team gifting all but one city to another one to allow them to wipe out another team or two, so that both advance to the next round.
Therefore, gifting cities (and maybe techs and gold as well) should be limited. Suggested was a max of 3 cities per 20 turns and 1 city every 5 turns.


2. Metagame tricks

2.1 Reloading to alter unwanted random results

It is possible to alter the results of combat (even with preserve random seed turned on) by reloading the save and playing out the turn slightly differently (i.e. by attacking in a different order, or basically by playing around with things that trigger the RNG). This can result in finding highly one-sided battles, and the appearance of an inordinate number of Elites and Great Leaders.
This is considered cheating!

2.2 Manipulating a savegame file

Crafty players use the PBEM savegames to obtain information, or worse.
Again, let's play Civ3. If we allow tools like MapStat, then the door is wide open for any other file-manipulation program, which is a can of worms.

2.3 Loading a save while zoomed out

A team's turn-player can configure his or her game to be zoomed out, then load a PBEM savegame, which can reveal certain facts about the previous team's location.
Solution: all teams must agree to zoom in before loading the savegame and/or zoom in before saving the game.

2.4 Renaming units/cities to confuse/mislead opponents

Cities can be renamed to names of techs ('Monotheism') or sums of Gold ('210 Gold') or anything else that can be traded in the diplomacy screen. This allows a team to screw over another in a very weird way.
Worker and Settler names can be interchanged to hide their identities in stacks (since their stats are the same). Units with identical stats can be renamed for the same effect (Enkidu Warriors and Spearmen, Ancient Cavalry and Gallic Swordsmen).
Units/cities, therefore, may not be renamed for the specific purpose of fooling opponents.


3. Game Mechanics tricks

3.1.a) Fortify All

Anything relating to "Fortify all." This includes last player-fortifies stuff, as well as Fortifying a boat in waters at the end of a turn to increase its visibility in the coming turn at start. Just don't use the bloody command!

3.1.b) Fortify a boat passenger

Same as Fortify All a boat you can just fortify a unit in the boat for increased visibility next turn.

3.2.a) Hitting F1/back-forward to change production

It is possible to use F1 to go into city views and change production before a city has been reached in the pre-turn production queue. This can result in tech-enabled units and Wonders being completed the very turn the tech is researched, or production to be changed in response to an enemy's actions (like Walls if a stack moves toward a specific city and not another).

3.2.b) Hitting F1/back-forward for double tile usage

Furthermore, usage of F1 or back - forward buttons in the city view during the pre-turn production queue can be used to use the same tile by 2 or more different cities in the same turn.

3.3 Using GoTo/Auto-Explore/Auto-Workers to get extra movement

The last civ in the turn order can issue a GoTo command to a unit, and have that unit move twice before the next turn begins. This is very strong in war-time.
Every civ has that option, that's why i wanted that no one use go-to.
And it's not that you got extra movepionts with that, you only use the movepoints for the next turn early -> mean 2 turns in 1 and 1 you can not move the unit.
Similar results can be achieved with auto-explore and auto-workers.

3.4 Chaining naval transports to quickly move land units across water

It is possible to wake a land unit at sea, and transfer it from one transport to another. Given enough ships, a chain can be created to instantaneously move units across bodies of water (by ending in port).

3.5 Teleporting units by abandoning or gifting cities

A team can instantaneously transport units from any city back to their capital by simply disbanding it or gifting it to another team. This results in very weird strategy.

3.6 Accepting a Peace Treaty from a civ then immediately declaring war

A team at war with another can accept the latter's Peace Treaty, then declare war afterward in order to eliminate War Weariness from that civ. This results in a huge advantage if the peace-seeking team is not aware of the trick.

3.7 Staying at war to upkeep War Weariness but not actual fighting

This is considered exploitative by some, but the game mechanics gradually decrease WW unless actual fighting or units in enemy borders is happening.
However being kept in the game by a friendly civ with a single city for the SOLE purpose of inflicting WW to an opponent is questionable.

4. Miscellaneous

4.1 Punishment for breaking the rules

We need to define how to punish a team breaking a rule. Obviously, it can´t be the same punishment for all rules.
I suggest the following levels:
A: Exclusion of the team and all members from the game
For repetitive (proven!) cheating. For out of game spying. For repetitive breaking of several "minor" rules and ignoring the warnings of the admins.
B: Forfeiting a turn (admins skip the turn)
For exceeding the time limit. For repeated breaking of a minor rule (e.g. F1 double tile usage). For proven cheating. For ignoring multiple warnings from the admins.
C: Official warning from the game admins
For breaking a minor rule once or twice. For inappropriate use of language in the UN, in team negotiations (excluding RPG-type talk of course ), etc.

4.2 Reputation and honor system

The admins should keep track of all official treaties and could possibly set up a reputation system with no specifics but a simple level of "trustworthyness".

4.3.a) Unknown exploits

The teams agree to abide by the rulings of the admin council should a new, previously unknown (to everyone) exploit/bug appear in the game.

4.3.b) Exemption

Issues known by several people/teams in the ISDG are exempt from this rule. All known or partly known issues have to be decided before the game starts. Ignorance of a game feature by one team should not lead to discussion in the middle of the game!

4.4 Fairness Pledge

Every team must agree to a fairness pledge before the game starts.

Here's a 'revised' game pledge that Lucky from GCA ( ) wants participants to take.

Intersite Democracy Game Pledge


As the leader and representative of my team, I give you, the other leaders and team members in the game, the following promise:

I, and my team, hereby promise that we will fully abide by the rules and the spirit of the rules in this multi-team democracy game.

We will not play ahead or abuse the game save in any manner. We will not use the game save in any way to view another team's position.

We will not attempt to enter or view any private forums. We will not fabricate e-mails or other forms of messaging or falsify our identities in any fashion.

We agree not to communicate with another team in any meaningful way regarding the game until that team is actually contacted in the game. Minimaps, or other similar re-creations providing a teams location in the world, will not be traded until maps can actually be traded in the game.

We will not engage in any double identity or double log-in activity, nor will we condone it. If we become of aware of such activity, it will be made public to all teams immediately. Any members engaging in such activity will be banned from ALL teams involved in the game. Any information revealed by a double identity player will be made known to the other team involved, and the neutral administrator, and appropriate compensation, as either agreed by the teams, or if agreement is not possible, as determined by the neutral administrator, will be provided.

I agree to create and maintain a current members list in a public area of my home forum.

We will do our best to quickly complete our turns and make the save available for the next team prior to the deadline. This deadline is 24 hours per team per turn. The 24 hour rule notwithstanding, we acknowledge that a time counter will be used to time play, and all reasonable efforts will be made to play the turn within the constraints of the time counter, which provides 4 hours per turn per team, in aggregate fashion. Each team will start with a 'bank' of 100 hours.

In the case of game process issues and previously unknown exploits/bugs, we agree to acknowledge and abide by the ruling of the neutral adminstrator council. The neutral administrator council for this game will be Elucidus, Strider and Bootstoots from CDG, who will not be, and will not have been, a member of a team in the game.

Furthermore, we will expell anyone from our team who willingly breaks these rules.


We wish you all the best of luck and good civin'!

[jordie]

So we have to re-pledge then? Alright, if so then I re-pledge with this new one.

[MJW]

i pledge

[Octavian X]

We're making suggestions for change, not repledging.

Who starts a ruleset with 0? I mean, really?

I'd allow people from destroyed teams to move on to others as refugees. I really don't see what's wrong with that.

Punishment/forfeit of turn: That's just stupid. For a simple misunderstanding, a team could be set back for good, possibly causing them to lose. That's just not fair.

Rep and Honor System: WTF? That's just useless, and plain wrong. What one teams sees as dishonorable could be viewed by another as honorable. It's just useless branding that will end up needlessly disadvantaging others.

'Fortify all' trick: allowed only for legit use.

[conmcb25]

Octavian is correct.

You guys already took our pledge and we will as a "team" eventually take this pledge.

I think 3.7 needs to be strenghtened. Staying at war after losing strictly to perpetuate war weariness is an exploit plain and simple.

[BigFree]

Lucky worded 3.7 himslef. He's full of BS too. WW does not reduce itself: "the game mechanics gradually decrease WW unless actual fighting or units in enemy borders is happening." This is simply not true. What does happen if the fighting stops is that WW stops growing; it doe snot get any worse, but it persists at the level that it was when the fighting stopped. WW never goes away until peace is declared and held for a certain period of time.

[Tassadar500]

Re-made 3.7 ruling

3.7 Staying at war to upkeep War Weariness but not actual fighting


This is considered exploitative, however WW does not grow if no fighting takes place. Nevertheless being kept in the game by a friendly civ with the SOLE purpose of inflicting WW to an opponent is punishable.

[Tassadar500]

I also don't see much reasoning in including regulation 4.2. If someone can give me a reasonable explanation on why it matters and how it actually help it would be much appreciated The only thing I can imagine this regulation will do is hinder diplomacy. I see NOTHING wrong with a team denying or forging a diplomatic agreement if that is what 4.2 is about.

[BigFree]

Boy, this game is going to take a while to get underway. We need to seperate this list into what we think should (1) belong on the list definatley; (2) be voted on as a seperate issue at the UN.

That way everything that is on the list and is recognized by all teams as neccessary to be on the list can be voted for in one poll. The items that we don't agree with either have to be re-worded, stricken, or voted on by all team representatives at the UN with each in a seperate poll.

This could get messy and will take some time and major effort. But, I think it will be worth it to have the games' rules known beforehand and it will minimize the risk of issues popping up mid-game.

[civman2000]

1.1...The simple solution is to require alliances and peace treaties to be respected through in-game diplomacy.

This should be clarified to say that if you at peace out of the game, you are at peace in the game. This should NOT apply to alliances. Note that requiring this more or less also covers 1.2-1.4.

1.7...Therefore, gifting cities (and maybe techs and gold as well) should be limited. Suggested was a max of 3 cities per 20 turns and 1 city every 5 turns.

I think this should only apply to when you're losing a war and giving cities to someone far away, not when someone far away is providing a new home for a dying civ. I'm not sure how that could be precisely defined though...

2.4...Units/cities, therefore, may not be renamed for the specific purpose of fooling opponents.

I think this should only apply to cities.

3.1...Anything relating to "Fortify all." This includes last player-fortifies stuff, as well as Fortifying a boat in waters at the end of a turn to increase its visibility in the coming turn at start. Just don't use the bloody command!

This should be more specific--do not use it if some of the units in a stack have no movement left, and do not use it with ships.

3.4...It is possible to wake a land unit at sea, and transfer it from one transport to another. Given enough ships, a chain can be created to instantaneously move units across bodies of water (by ending in port).

I don't think this is an exploit.

3.7...the game mechanics gradually decrease WW unless actual fighting or units in enemy borders is happening.

As others have said, this is not true.

4.1...B: Forfeiting a turn (admins skip the turn)
For exceeding the time limit.

This should not be punished, or at least should on receive a warning.

4.1...C: Official warning from the game admins...For inappropriate use of language in the UN, in team negotiations (excluding RPG-type talk of course )

I don't think inappropriate language in negotiations, even if not RP, should be punished.

4.2...The admins should keep track of all official treaties and could possibly set up a reputation system with no specifics but a simple level of "trustworthyness".

...Why???

4.3b...Issues known by several people/teams in the ISDG are exempt from this rule. All known or partly known issues have to be decided before the game starts. Ignorance of a game feature by one team should not lead to discussion in the middle of the game!

How are we going to remember to talk about all of these issues? What if we forget one? Isn't the purpose of these rules to cover the already-known exploits anyway?

[conmcb25]

Originally posted by BigFree
Boy, this game is going to take a while to get underway. We need to seperate this list into what we think should (1) belong on the list definatley; (2) be voted on as a seperate issue at the UN.

That way everything that is on the list and is recognized by all teams as neccessary to be on the list can be voted for in one poll. The items that we don't agree with either have to be re-worded, stricken, or voted on by all team representatives at the UN with each in a seperate poll.

This could get messy and will take some time and major effort. But, I think it will be worth it to have the games' rules known beforehand and it will minimize the risk of issues popping up mid-game.

I concur BF. The question is how are we going to separate it out.

And thats why I said we dont have to be in too much of a hurry. This game wont start for several weeks. Thats MHO.

[Paddy]

had a big list of things to write here yesturday, then thought I would think about it overnight.

I would like to see refugees alowed to join nations if that nation agrees to have them. (Bugger, now I am sounding like my own government))))

I feel that it is the right of any nation to be able to move troops, settler etc across any type of water via a set of ships. If they are industrious enough and willing to invest the time to set such a bridge up, then they should be allowed to use it.

I actually do not understand the issue of 'Fortify All' Maybe someone here could explain to me how come this is meant to be so so very bad.

And I agree that the Admins should not set up their own reputation system. Thought they were their to assist in the GAME play.

Oh, and why can't we rename our units and cities to anything WE want when WE want? They are our cities afterall.
(And if this great kids trick fools another player, huh???)

I may be really missing something with this one, if so please be patient with me and let me know, but I would not have thought it would make to much of a difference either way. So a wonder may be at city 'A' and we change its name to city 'B', will not the game mechanics pick that up and the show the wonder is now at city 'B'. Also if the other player is heading for city 'A' and we ave changed its name to city 'B', won't they still be headingn for the same city... just that it now has a fantastic new name?

[jordie]

What they are saying is that if a city is called something like "Monotheism", in the diplomacy screen ("on the table") there is no way of telling the difference between the city called that and the actual technology. So in a trade, a team could be given a crappy city rather then the technology, thus being screwed over.

I don't see why anyone would do this, seems pretty stupid to loose a city, unless i supposed it has no value to the civ.

i think we should be able to change the name of cities to anything we want when we want WITHIN reason. Like if a city is renamed that, or a unit is, then there should be a punishment.

[Paddy]

Hi there neighbour, Ok thanks for the translation.

[conmcb25]

OK guys we need to get back on track discussing this. This is the next big step we have to take in getting this game off the ground.

Like Big Free said above we have to separate into two lists. The list we think is a "good to go" as is.

And the list we think needs to be left out or changed.

Any volunteers for taking on this tasking?

[BigFree]

I can do it as long as I get mor people in here to post their opinions; otherwise I'm stuck with posting the list with only the opinons mentioned so far. For example, if noone has mentioned any objections to certain parts of the list, then I would put those parts on our "acceptable" list while all other would go to our "questionable" list.

[Tassadar500]

Here's a list of rules I don't like:

0.3
2.4
3.4
3.7
4.2

[MrWhereItsAt]

OK, I will add to this post as I read more of the rules.

For the moment everything up until and including 2.4 is
fine.

RE: 2.2 "the door is wide open for ... a can of worms."

Your metaphors are swallowing you up, BF!

RE: 3.1 - First off I think we can change this to saying that Fortify all cannot be left as the final command for any unit or combination of units. It is useful for skipping units during turnplay, and as long as those units are activated and given individual orders before the end of the turn I see no reason not to be able to use it.

RE: 3.2a - are you saying that we cannot fortify ships at all for the visibility bonus? I think there is nothing wrong with fortifying the ships, just again that this is a fortify all issue - as long as we activate every unit we give fortify all to and give it individual orders before the turn end abuse can be avoided.

Re: 3.4 - I didn't know that worked in Civ3!

Re: 4.2 - I disagree strongly. A team can do its own work with keeping track of things. If they are too lazy to keep track of who broke what when then that is their own problem.

Everything else not addressed above is fine with me, and in some cases what I consider to be essential rules.

[Kloreep]

I have no problem and/or agree with the rules not listed. 3.6 and 3.7 I also agree with, but as I say below they need to be more specific and/or strengthened.

0.3.b (members of defeated teams): It is true the team makeups will change if refugeeing is disallowed, but I'm not so sure that's a bad thing. I say allow it. There's no way you could hold this game in stasis; the closest you could come would be forcing teams to elect their ministers for the entire length of the game.
1.6.b (exchange of contact): I see no problem with saying "x is west of us". Don't disallow sharing of info on neighbors.
1.7 (Teams "joining" each other): So one couldn't surrender 4 cities as part of a peace treaty? I think gifting of cities as part of a peace treaty needs to be allowed. That said, helping a team survive by gifting them a city should definitely be disallowed in the preliminary round where it could affect who gets in to the next game. I'm not so sure if it should be disallowed in the final.
3.6 (Accepting peace and immediately declaring war): Agreed that immediate re-declaration is out of the question, but how long should peace be mandatory? Can you just declare war on turn following the peace treaty? Do you have to wait three turns?
3.7 (War Weariness): Certainly needs to be strengthened. Something like NM wrote.
4.1 (Punishment for broken rules): Forfeiting turns is harsh. Let's not do go that far for a few accidental exploits. And if it's a chronic thing, the team needs to be told to either shape up or forfeit the whole game, not have a turn taken here and there.
4.2 (Reputation system): No no no no. This is not how MP diplomacy should work IMO, civs will keep track of this anyway (we just met X, have they broken any treaties with you?), and it gives the admins one more thing on which to balance their precarious impartiality.
Lucky's Pledge: A lot of this should be incorporated into the rules. The pledge should just be pledging to follow the rules and follow the admin's rulings.

[Hot_Enamel]

A few general comments

1.1 Selling artillary units ? Allowing another team to capture your catapults for gold or alliances, and then declaring peace immediately after. I am OK with this, but there should be a rule, that the captured catapults of a friendly civ must immediaately skip a turn, and not move or bombard until the next turn

1.6.b) We should be allowed to give directions to other civs. ie move two turns south and you will meet our neighbour

1.7 Perhaps gifting of cities should be limited to cities that the giftee can reach. ie the giftee must have a unit next to the city before it can be handed over. This will stop intercontinental gifting of cities to save a dieing team. It also probably gives more realism to the gift, as the dieing civ will have “refugees” at the gates of a city.

3.4 There should be nothing wrong with chaining naval transports. It's a valid stratgey.

3.5 Teleporting units should be banned. There are some valid reasons (like when your capital is under threat), but this will leave the door open to different rule interpretation and abuse. We are better off just banning it altogether.

3.7 If one teams wants peace, but another does not. then the Peaceful team can demand the UN force the waring team to declare peace in, say, 4 turns. Within these 4 turns, the waring team can petition the UN to allow it to remain at war, only if it can show that it has the capability to attack and be attacked. The UN can look at the saves and vote.
eg if a 1 city civ is on an island with a wall of units on its shores, it can attack its neighbour by sending galleys, but because it cannot be effectively counterattacked until marines, the UN can force the civ to declare peace.

4.2 Reputation system .. blah. The current system works fine. GCA has done a wonderful job at dirtying our name with GWT in the ISDG. Lets remove this bit entirely.

[conmcb25]

Ok the Admins wanted our lists separated into four categories, straight from the UN:

Okay since the other guys are a no show how about this, teams have your list officially sorted in the following groups no later than Midnight on Sunday 11-Jan GMT.

(1) Agreed exploits
(2) Non-exploits
(3) Amendments to existing items (this is difficult and will require discussion amongst us all)
(4) Additions


Thanks anarres for helping keep me on track.

[conmcb25]

Dam for some reason it wont let me edit the post to clean up the quote.

We have to split up the whole list into four categories and I have to post it in 2.5 days

So we need to get talking and bring this to conclusion.

[conmcb25]

Less than 48 hours and I have t post something at the UN guys, who wants to take charge and make something of this list?

Any volunteers?

[notyoueither]

I have some time this weekend.

[notyoueither]

>>>> 0. General Rules
>>>> 0.1. Team members

Must be publically listed. Fine. Our civ group does that.

>>>> 0.2.a) Out of game Espionage

Fine, except someone added a punishment that could include expulsion for the whole team. This is not a penal law, people, I suggest we oppose the addition.

>>>> 0.2.b) Team membership

Fine

>>>> 0.3.a) Team members switching teams

This is tosh. It is an expressed opinion not a written rule, which would allow people to change teams. This is fine, I think, for the first part since both the departed and the new team have to agree. However, he wants approval from all other teams in contact too. Too much, I think, and wait for it...

>>>> 0.3.b) Members of defeated teams

... more restrictions are desired here than from above by the author. WTF?

I suggest we propose to scrap the lot and propose the ISDG rule that people from defeated teams may transfer when contact is made. I think it should be extended to include people from undefeated teams with the approval of the team left. Simple and it works.


>>>> 1. Diplomacy and Alliance tricks
>>>> 1.1 Getting double-duty out of artillery and Workers

Fine, but wording is weak. Actually, the author has stuck quite a bit in with ambiguous judgements. We should have that all struck, and just stick with a list of Thigs That You Shall Not Do.

>>>> 1.2 Sharing a Luxury or Strategic resource

Fine.

>>>> 1.3.a) Generating Leaders by sacrificing cheap units

Fine.

>>>> 1.3.b) Generating Workers by sacrificing cheap units to Mayans

Fine.

>>>> 1.3.c) Provoking a GA by sacrificing cheap units to UUs

Fine.

>>>> 1.4 Declaring war for happiness

Fine.

>>>> 1.5. Contact to another civ before actual contact

Fine.

>>>> 1.6.a) Exchanging map/minimap information before Navigation.

Fine

>>>> 1.6.b) Exchange of contact

Not sure about this. This is telling teams what they can communicate to teams they have contact with in game, and there would be too many ways for people to slip and say 'what about the Hun just over yonder?' It is nowhere as clear cut as not showing them your map.

>>>> 1.7 Teams "joining" each other

Suggested that civ to civ gifts be limited. Ermmm, I can live with it.

>>>> 2. Metagame tricks
>>>> 2.1 Reloading to alter unwanted random results

Very fine.

>>>> 2.2 Manipulating a savegame file

Very good.

>>>> 2.3 Loading a save while zoomed out

Fine.

>>>> 2.4 Renaming units/cities to confuse/mislead opponents

Fine

>>>> 3. Game Mechanics tricks
>>>> 3.1.a) Fortify All

I can live with. It slows down boats exploring is all.

>>>> 3.1.b) Fortify a boat passenger

Have to ask for clarification on this. It seems now that they may not want fortify used at sea at all. That is bull, since the designers are well aware of this 'exploit' to the point that increased vision range for forted (or on sentry) boats is intended, not a bug.

>>>> 3.2.a) Hitting F1/back-forward to change production

I disagree that altering production is an exploit, but I'm not sure if we want to fight about this.

>>>> 3.3 Using GoTo/Auto-Explore/Auto-Workers to get extra movement

Some strange text in this one. I am happy to say that Go-To should not be used. Automate road to? I am not so sure.

>>>> 3.4 Chaining naval transports to quickly move land units across water

Fine.

>>>> 3.5 Teleporting units by abandoning or gifting cities

Well, the writer does not really know how the game works with abandon (I think), but I agree that gifting to blip is a no-no.

>>>> 3.6 Accepting a Peace Treaty from a civ then immediately declaring war

Ahhh, I think this is plain wrong. I would have to test though. WW is remebered should a war renew too soon.

>>>> 3.7 Staying at war to upkeep War Weariness but not actual fighting

Something has to be done about the civ escaped across the waters who keeps up the war to weaken their opponent (and a competitor of the sheltering civ).

btw, I have confirmed by testing in PBEM that WW will decrease while at war if neither you nor your oppo are messing with each other (in each other's territory). If a single unit is in the other guy's borders, neither get a decrease on that turn (it's a bit more complicated but that will do).

WW in general needs a lot more testing. The CFC post is not entirely accurate or complete (or maybe up to date).

>>>> 4. Miscellaneous
>>>> 4.1 Punishment for breaking the rules

Wrong! Bzzzt! This has to go.

>>>> 4.2 Reputation and honor system

Completely unnecessary, and counter productive

>>>> 4.3.a) Unknown exploits

The teams agree to abide by the rulings of the admin council should a new, previously unknown (to everyone) exploit/bug appear in the game.

I would propose that read should a new issue/exploit/bug appear in the game

There was a time that only I knew of the production bug in the first release of PtW, but I knew about it so it would be allowed in this game by that rule. Also, new and interesting uses of old mechanics can always crop up. Anyone fancy a barb excursion?

>>>> 4.3.b) Exemption

More of the above.

>>>> 4.4 Fairness Pledge

Done already.

[notyoueither]

BigFree, can you give me a hand with this? Can you run down the original, pre-Lucky list?

[notyoueither]

Damn, I see you volunteered first. Perhaps I will help you. What should we do next?

[notyoueither]

I went ahead and put together a summary of the points our team has expressed problems with.

0.3: Paddy the Scot wants fewer restrictions. Kloreep wants refuges allowed.

1.1: civman notes problems. I agree. H_E has comments also.

1.6b: I agree with Kloreep that restricting what we say about other civs early in the game can be difficult. H_E thinks simple directions should explicitly be allowed.

1.7: Problems for civman. Kloreep mentioned a very big, HUGE, exploit. Seeing as this is knock out, a gifting civ can 'put one in the bag' so to speak. Save a far away civ, and then maybe snuff them later themselves if need be, but also possibly screwing other, perhaps larger rivals. The issue of cities being given must be more closely examined.

H_E has a novel suggestion that might work.

2.4: Paddy the Scot sees no problem with subterfuge and renamed cities/units. NM does not like this rule either. I can't say I disagree with them. But, we may want to agree to play a 'gentlemen's game' just to get it going. This could be a hot issue for some others.

3.1: btw was fixed. You can fort all now and ineligble units will not get any benefit. Needs testing though.

3.4: civman does not see as an exploit, nor does Paddy the Scot. Add NM to the list of dissent, and H_E.

3.6: Kloreep asks questions about redeclaring war. I will ask more pointed ones. What if we are sued for peace by a civ we are winning against, we accept. They then move a unit onto the only SP around and fortify, denying us SP for 20 turns. Hmmm? Bad rule. The game allows certain ways of reactivating war. Let the game rule us.

3.7: I have commented on above. H_E proposed a rule that might have merit.

4.1b: civman joins me in thinking it is not so good. Kloreep had it right, if it's a chronic thing, the team needs to be told to either shape up or forfeit the whole game, not have a turn taken here and there.

4.2: NM agrees it is baggage. civman doesn't like, nor does Paddy the Scot. Ditto NM and Kloreep. H_E joins the chorus.

4.3b: civman and I agree it is impossible to foresee all.

[BigFree]

I am going to bed now, but I will seperate the items/issues inot the 4 groups as wanted by the UN tommorow. Thanks for doing what you have done nye.

A couple of things to consider:

1) If only one or two persons on our team have a problem with a submitted rule but the rest of the team is 'fine" with it, what do we do? Do we hold a poll for any issue in which any person brings up and says: "I have an issue with this."?

2) We can add in issues that were not on the original list (Which originally came from APolyton, but then was altered by some people including F-P and Lucky; that's why it reads sort of 'weird') Do we have to hold a poll in order for an issue to be included on the list?

3) This is alot to ask from all the team members, I suggest that the team leader's take into consideration what all the team members who have commented so far on these issues and then use that to guide them into finalizing a list to send to the UN. I will make a preliminary list; guided by what's in this thread and then submit that to the Consuls. Once the Consuls get it, they can edit it and alter it. Then we post that here as one poll and if the majority of the team votes for it to pass, then we submit that list to the UN.

[conmcb25]

Unfortunately I think three is the way to go because and only because we are out of time.

If someone has an issue with something at this point, I say we bring it up, only because if we do the UN is going to vote anyway on it.

If it turns out it is not a "global" concern here then it probably wont be a global concern at the UN.

Better safe than sorry.

But you are correct BF this is a huge undertaking and many thanks to you and NYE for working on this!