PEACE has cheated

[Googlie]

2 factions have built turn simulators which closely parallel the original game (that's what all the mapping attempts were) - they are being used to forecast techs that come on offer, potential drone problems, etc etc They can be valuable as the simulator can play ahead several turns (since the planner is also playing the other faction moves in the sim)

All factions are able to play a parallel turn for the purposes of contacting the AI to get their response to possible tech trades or purchases

We (Tass and I) have no way of policing whether parallel turns are being played for other reasons other than what gets posted to the private forums. So if results get sent by e-mail we are in the dark. We already rapped knuckles with PEACE when Hobbes first joined and he did some "parallel exploring" with their probe cruiser. I leveled the playing field by giving the CyCon its co-ordinates.

We have always allowed simulated battles, as the odds are a poor substitute for planning aforehead (and some teams have better technical players than others - Kody and Minute Mirage come to mind).

The key is that these are not reloads trying for a different result - they are advance planning and testing before the turn gets played at all and we are confident that the faction leaders are not allowing playing ahead for discovery or mapping purposes, or to scout enemy movements

And I have seen no evidence of that happening (except for the aforementioned Hobbes initial foray)

And as for pod popping, any tests are irrelevent as the official turn player just has one try at popping (unless they have a convincing reason for explaining away a reload) - so multiple simultaneous popping would be worthless as none of these turns could be used

So I don't think anything has changed from what has always been the case and understood to have been the case from the beginning

Also, there haven't been many battles yet, so the incidence of such pre-planning is small

G.

[Archaic]

Speaking of which, I really should see if I can get MM to become active in this DG again. Now that he wouldn't have the whole weight of the faction on his shoulders, he could be a great boon to our alliance while letting him, well, still have a life. ^^;

[GeoModder]

Originally posted by Googlie
2 factions have built turn simulators which closely parallel the original game (that's what all the mapping attempts were) - they are being used to forecast techs that come on offer, potential drone problems, etc etc They can be valuable as the simulator can play ahead several turns (since the planner is also playing the other faction moves in the sim)

And those poor predictable Cyborgs continue to swap their 'simulations' and 'strategic plannings' under the rug.

Looks like with the Unification and some minor mistakes that happened in our faction most of their 'forecast' is for nothing.

I wonder if that was the reason why some members of other factions were so verbal about the joining of CC and PUT. It came completely out of the dark.

The jokes on them, I think. And I hope it gives them a lot of wasted time everytime we jump off in another direction.

[Maniac]

Thanks for the clarification, Googlie.

Originally posted by Googlie
We have always allowed simulated battles

Just to know for sure what's allowed and what not, are these simulated battles in a parallel turn of the original game, or in the "simulator game" you mentioned?

Originally posted by Archaic
Speaking of which, I really should see if I can get MM to become active in this DG again.

That would be great.

[GeoModder]

Originally posted by Archaic
Speaking of which, I really should see if I can get MM to become active in this DG again.

MM? Haven't seen anyone with these initials in the PUT member list.

Was he your strategist in the old days?

[Maniac]

Minute Mirage

[Drogue]

I have authorised him now. Sorry for the delay. Have been at a party from monday night until thursday night, and have been out with Louise a bit, so haven't been on 'Poly on my computer for a while. Been a fun week though. Long live half-term

[Kody]

Hrmm I didn't realise we were allowed to do that, but I guess I just simulated it anyway.

[Makahlua]

O.o

.....

Whoa, eyeopener of a thread

For the record I'm suprised they didn't kick me off from all the 'blonde moments' I had (and I'm brunette!) I always worried about getting it in under the 48 mark, so sometimes would start w/o consulting :/

And I love you Googlie even if we gave you an ulcer

[GeoModder]

Better next time, err Makahlua?

[Snowflake]

Originally posted by Maniac
This situation with reloads and (un)official turns etc made me think about another hypothetical scenario. I was wondering, what would you decide if a member, who is not at all an official turnplayer, without permission played the turn well before the deadline has passed, and clearly diverged from the official orders already written at that moment?
There is the case of Jamski playing the turn and declaring Vendetta on the Angels IIRC, but that was when the Hive deadline had already long passed, so that's a special case AFAIK.
Recently t_ras also posted the Hive turn while there was apparently an order wrong executed, but I don't know what is t_ras' position in the Hive, and to what degree he misplayed the turn, so I don't know if that resembles my hypothetical situation above.
Just asking so I know more clearly what the rules are.

This situation indeed need to be discussed and a rule needs to be set up for the new ACDG game, in my opinion. The Mead incident of Hive later is another example. Appearantly Mead has had different understandings from the others in the Hive at the time of him playing the turn, dispite that the Hive has had clear instructions (almost for the first time) and a few other players were online trying to stop him. I had strongly opposed his turn to be used. The reason was actually not related to the game itself so much as to the players. We just got Rubin at the time and he was assigned to chair CMC and I didn't want him to be forced out of the game because his authority is not recognized. (From his posts he said things like double comandary system is not necessary and indicated that he would resign.) I do still stick to what I did, and I was willing to go with any rulings from the CMNs. However I understand that it created a lot of turmoils. I think it will definitely help if we set up a clear rule for this kind of situations.

[Maniac]

I tried to discuss this problem back then, but Tass and Hiveans said I was interfering with Hive internal matters IIRC.

[Kody]

You come across as having strong opinions on legality, I guess that's why they didn't want your input.

[Snowflake]

Originally posted by Maniac
Btw, would I be correct to assume the Hive not accepting the PEACE techs is the "major mistake" HongHu is talking about in the turn tracking thread? If so, she has ignored Tass' ruling two posts below in the previous link that a posted turn was final and that the replay needed to be exactly (as much as reasonably possible) as the first play.

***
If the above is true, I really don't feel anymore to continue playing this ACDG. We'd better stop it IMHO. How can we play this game in a decent way when PEACE is pissed off at us and the Gods because they broke the agreed upon rules of the first turn as the final and official one, and when HongHu breaks that same rule only a bit later?? What does the rest of you think about this subject?

I'm sorry that I was among the ones that caused you to feel this Maniac. I wasn't even aware of this at the time.

It took me sometime to find the old threads. The mistake that t-ras made was to use over 100 ecs to rush a unit. I don't remember why I accepted PEACE's tech for the second play. What I can say today though, is that I have never thought about cheating. That replay did cost me a long time, it was very tiring to having to move all those crawlers around and such. If it were any comfort to you, I'd like to tell you that I was half dead when I finished the reply (and so could not be responsible for all the stupid things I might have done ). Also although the other Hivers may be happy if we got to replay a third time so the peace techs do not get to be accepted, I would die if I was ordered to do it again.

[edit] Fixed smilies.

[Snowflake]

Originally posted by Maniac
I tried to discuss this problem back then, but Tass and Hiveans said I was interfering with Hive internal matters IIRC.

The "internal matters" refer to the Hive players (Mead and Rubin) I think. But it should be safe to talk about it now.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Kody
You come across as having strong opinions on legality

Part of that is of course simply because I tried to get the maximum benefit possible out of the rules of the game. I had much less problems about other questionable things that benefitted us, eg the buster deception. Likewise, the Hive and others had problems and complained about affairs which did not benefit them (eg CPU unification, buster deception...), while they had no problems with eg this example of turn replaying.

Originally posted by HongHu
I'm sorry that I was among the ones that caused you to feel this Maniac. I wasn't even aware of this at the time.

I was in general growing increasingly bored of the ACDG. Partially I was just finding excuses to leave.

[Kody]

CPU unification

That was just because the hive hated the university. It was already too late for you to unify anyway, you needed to have done that 10 tens earlier to change the outcome of the game.

buster deception

If one of my team mates did that I would lobby to get him banned from all diplomatic issues.

[GeoModder]

Where did this hatred come from? Was it just for Archaic?

[Snowflake]

I don't know about it, I believe Kody doesn't either. We just inherited it. I don't hate Archaic personally. But somehow ever since we were born at the Hive, we've been told everyday, that the University is our enemy.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Kody
If one of my team mates did that I would lobby to get him banned from all diplomatic issues.

*sigh* Do I really have to do this?

1> You seem to be forgetting that everyone in the Consciousness was aware of this deception and that I was actively encouraged to fully exploit and capitalize it.
Some quotes:

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
My GOOOD!! What a Fooopaaa!

Originally posted by obstructor

Originally posted by GeoModder
Btw, way to go Maniac

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
Superb work, capitalizing on that!

If you want to be consistent you should have to ban the entire Consciousness from diplomacy, and not just focus on "one of the team mates".
Compared to those quotes, I think my opinion was rather neutral. I didn't consider this tactic morally "good" or absolutely "bad". I just opportunistically continued with it as it benefitted us for a while. However in the team pledge for ACDG3 there's a clause not to pretend to be someone of another team, so of course I wouldn't do this again.

2> I've read a bit in all open team forum and all factions including mine have lied, cheated and exploited to a certain degree, though some go to great lengths to convince themselves of the opposite. Of course everyone will think that the cheats and exploits of the other teams are worse than those of their own team, but I don't see any fundamental ground why one exploit would be worse than another. So I will note your opposition to the 'buster deception', but I will just see it as a personal opinion like many others, and I won't care a damn if anyone complains about anything I or the CyCon have done in this game. I'll just consider it hypocritical.

3> Quotes from you in the Heart of Fire turn tracking thread:

Also I'm kindof still wondering what Maniac is going to do now. He's been quite the "burn all cheaters" in the past, and it appears now that my actions were more questionable than his.

It already has gone awry. You shouldn't have mentioned Drones....

You seem to be afraid I'll start some flamewars regarding cheats against everyone or so. Please note that I haven't complained about any questionable action of another faction since the fora are open. (That message re buster and super-terraforming was with a ) Instead I've expressed the view (like 3 posts above) that I don't consider any exploit worse than another. You on the other hand have already mentioned your negative opinion about the buster issue several times. Please stop doing that. You sent me a PM a while back you wanted to start with a clean slate and forget the past. Have you changed your mind?


Edit: I guess someone will post next that I should "lighten up". That's what I want to do, but Kody keeps expressing his negative opinion.

[Snowflake]

I started a new thread at the main forum. I think these issues indeed should be talked out. However I would like us to focus on the future, not the past.

You know, just think about it, I imagine if the PM thing happened with the Hive, instead of the CC, most of the Hive members would have exactly the same reactions too. I'm sure you'll feel somewhat differently if you were at the receiving end too. It all comes to different perspectives and angels.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by HongHu
However I would like us to focus on the future, not the past.

Me too. Therefore I'd actually like to discourage commenting on threads in other fora instead of encouraging it. I doubt it can do much good.

You know, just think about it, I imagine if the PM thing happened with the Hive, instead of the CC, most of the Hive members would have exactly the same reactions too. I'm sure you'll feel somewhat differently if you were at the receiving end too. It all comes to different perspectives and angels.

I know. That's what I tried to tell in my two previous posts here.

[Nubclear]

I think *everyone* should lighten up.
I'm seeing this argumentation, Kody, in many threads. Perhaps it was a mistake to open up the forums....

[Snowflake]

Nah, it's ok tass. I appreciate the openning up of the forums. It does help me to gain a better understanding of the game.

And Maniac, I think some comments in other forums is ok too. It's natural that people read stuff and have reactions. I am actually surprised that nobody's commented at the Hive's threads. But then I realize that perhaps nobody's authorized into the Hive forum yet, considering Voltaire can't do it. I didn't apply to other forums until today either. I'm hacking into your forum currently.

/me is proud of her hacking capabilities.

[Illuminatus]

/me reports HongHu

[Snowflake]

/me runs and she runs fast.

[GeoModder]

Originally posted by HongHu
* HongHu runs and she runs fast.

/me was able to follow HongHu in the Hive 'Hello' thread...

How, I don't know I sure as hell can't access the Hive forum yet.

[Googlie]

Googlie looks at the 2714 threads and 749133 posts in the Hive forum and wonders why anyone would want to go there

[Snowflake]

The way I got in here is to search for the posts certain people made in this forum.

I have to admit that lately the threads in Hive do not provide much entertainment value. I would follow the ones that Kody and I listed if I want to get a taste of the Hive delicious spams.

[GeoModder]

Originally posted by HongHu


The way I got in here is to search for the posts certain people made in this forum.

Yeah, guess I did it that way as well. Interesting, the thread which I followed you and the 'hello' thread linked in the main forum are... different. That 'Hello' thread had some comments on the late game happenings.

Weird that we can access eachothers fora this way now and couldn't earlier. Besides, I thought Drogue authorized applicants already?