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Old July 22, 1999, 17:44   #31
MariOne
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I gotta admit that I dislike it so much, I hardly tested its whole effects. If I recall correctly though, it allows you to roughly see elevations, but not the whole terrain details. For instance, if I have to plan the location for a new base, I will not get the same information with FoW on or off. I'll pay more attention next time. Then, if I move a plane, don't tiles turn grey immediately after the plane is passed, or do they indeed remain exposed all the turn long?

And more important, bright light seeriously disturbs my eyes, esp when I wear my contact lenses, but watching too dark images trying to figure out what they represent is too much of an effort the other way round too. I tried with the gamma, but when you make it clearer the colors get dull, not bright, and that's depressing...

Thinking it over, I'm sure too that when I watch at AI's moves after my turn in HiTechII, I can see Yang's units moving beyond the see limit of my units, bases or borders.

I'll give it another try, but when I put it on the impression remains, I have less photo-visual references to trigger my direct connection betweem memory-instinct-strategic_thought.

MoSe
- PS: I loved JAM's meta-comment, why you say he got me on that? It's the kind of reactions I look for, to feel that we don't walk alone on this planet...
[This font has been edited by MariOne (edited July 22, 1999).]

PPS: Odissey deprivation brings you to lurk in our thread???
[This message has been edited by MariOne (edited July 22, 1999).]
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Old July 22, 1999, 17:56   #32
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a different frame, yet before testing it.

FoW on might show me what I can actually see.
In THAT turn.
It prevents me to look at tiles I can't see in that turn. but even if that information is not up-to-date, it's anyway better to see it rather than not.
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Old July 23, 1999, 04:27   #33
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M.Y. 2191 to the Spartans.

MoSe,

I agree that FoW is harder on the eyes, initially. It is certainly uglier and in the areas that are beyond your sensor range, it can be annoying to have to guess at the exact terrain (or right click for info on tiles). But, using it does tend to provide incentive for building all of those sensor arrays to cover gaps in your visible areas and to minimize dead space in your empire.

Of course, with as many supply crawlers as you like to build, I doubt that dead space is much of a problem for you! I must admit, I've never seen anyone build so many. Must be nice for rush building those SP's.

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Old July 23, 1999, 06:34   #34
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I gave it another try as promised, and I have to correct my biased memories: FoW only applies a diagonla shading on the tiles, but with some efforts you can still view all terrain details.

I still think it's disturbing for the eyes and for my consent-ratio.

I admit too that my builder character drives me to postpone all defensive items till a danger is probable. I won't build perimeters for instamce when I still have no idea of where other faction are, I take a little of a gamble, hoping that the investment in more fruitful items will make me able to face faster to any odd. And sensors too, can help me spot & defend from fungus, but I always end up to prefer some forest or solar, and say I'll have time for sensors after. I could have saved couple of units here if I had sensors....

And I can gurantee you that I didn't develop a strategy for scrawlers, till I begun to play PBEMs, before I used just some of them.

Then, after some forum discussions, and after seeing how Pagan got ahead of me and Mongoose belching mountains of crawlers out of his factories, I decided that if you can afford the initial time, it'a a worthy investment. The main goal is not to use them in projects, but to increase your resources production exponentially (you use the first to convoy minerals to build the second and so on, then the successives can convoy nutrients to make the city grow and work more tiles...)
At some points when you need to build a SP, you can sacrifice some of them, so that you can build the project in one turn and not give the opponent hints on what you're up to.
In the meantime they've far more than repaid their initial cost.
Dead space, I learned to build many crawlers exactly in order for dead space not to be a problem, not the opposite. In Civ II I got mad if I had to leave a workable tile out of a city radius, here I do not have this problem. I never mastered tho the Prerogative style to cram lots of bases one near the other and send crawlers to work distant tiles. The problem is you should dedicate them only to mono-resourced tiles.
If only I didn't bide my time and got the EG 3-4 turns earlier, as I could easily do...

Hey, these cultural exchanges could have deserved a thread on its own!

MoSe

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Old July 23, 1999, 13:23   #35
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M.Y. 2192 to the Spartans.

---

MoSe,

You gotta quit kicking yourself over the loss of the EG! That's MY job.

But seriously, that project has got to be the (along with the WP) most important early game project there is. I was so nervous when I gave you instructions to cover for me in Newhon, that you were going to use the knowledge against me in this game. I am happy that I beat you to the punch.

I am the same way in my games, taking chances on defense, in order to accelerate infrastructure, so that I am able to maximize the exponential growth of my bases and output. For example, in this game, my power graph is only a pathetic fraction of what it could be if were to spend five turns building modern military units and upgrading my vast numbers of garrisons and reserve units. Something I could easily do, but am avoiding, because I don't want to frighten you guys and provoke a misunderstanding of my intentions and possibly, a foolish global war.

Yes, we could start another thread, but this one will do fine, as well. The more threads that I have to keep track of, the easier I get lost! Besides, other than Mongoose the Lurker, you and I are the only ones using this thread, apparently.

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Old July 23, 1999, 17:11   #36
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Mongoose the Lurker, indeed! Harrumph!

Lurkers don't post. I have more posts here than half of the players in this game.

I read these threads to keep an eye on my opponents in other games. You never know what juicy morsels of data might be found!

Sometimes, I can't resist the impulse to add my $ .02 as well.
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Old July 23, 1999, 17:42   #37
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well, we (Dreifels and me)are playing now our turns with ICQ online contact
hope you won't consider this illegal, after all each one makes his own moves in the end...
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Old July 23, 1999, 19:43   #38
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2193 UP >> MI
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Old July 23, 1999, 21:55   #39
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M.Y. 2193 to Duke Veracitas.

---

Mo(ngoo)Se,

Indeed, (you do at that) I would consider it cheating, if Dreifels had his turn rerunning at the time, or on a second computer to avoid the reload tattle, or worse yet, if you two were sharing passwords and walking thru each other's turns. If there is something that I missed, I might or might not consider it cheating, depending on the situation.

However, if you are simply comparing notes, asking for advice, coordinating future plans, conducting diplomacy, reviewing past mistakes, et cetera, I do not consider that cheating. Perhaps, to reduce any possibility of cheating being accused, you should specify exactly how you two are using ICQ, to all of the players and the CMN.

In my email pass-off messages to the Duke, I've sometimes given detailed information, i.e. an IoD outside of his spotting radii, but loaded with worms and possibly headed in his direction. I have no objection to information being passed between turns, I'm a little concerned about possible abuses of real time kibbitzing, though.

Please shed more light on your practice.

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Old July 24, 1999, 14:25   #40
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M.Y. 2194 to the Spartans.
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Old July 25, 1999, 15:28   #41
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2195 UP >> MI
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Old July 25, 1999, 18:01   #42
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That's a delicate matter.
The problem has been brought to my attention in THC, where my opinion as external CMN was asked. No conclusion was made, but no evidence or argument in favour of the cheating line has been reasonably produced. Thus since no agreement was made in our game, I held I was informed enough on the matter to judge if it was worth to stop the game or not. As a matter of fact, it didn't came at all to my mind to ask permission about it in my previuos post, I was just informing.

If before doing it I had thought it was possibly a cheat, I would obviously have refrained to. Or if I intended to cheat (which I never do, just because it spoils my fun, if there weren't other reasons), I would have simply shut up and go ahead.

Now, simply what's happened (but even if had happened more, plain logic would claim it legal):
- we have a pact (you of course know it)
- we decided to cooperate deeply
- this means not only we tell what happens, but we plan together our moves by mail
*so far, nothing to object, I hope. And we agreed (didn't we, Bing?) that once communication is legal, any mean is allowed. E-mail is just a handy choice. But many pointed out that screen-shots too have nothing illegal in them. And anything that can come to your mind. If I had lived in the same town with Dreifels, we could even meet at home.
- we agreed on principal goals for our common research.
- since we were both online when he took his turn, and the tech of election didn't show up in the panel for his choice, HE asked me for my advice with ICQ. I told him what I thought, but in the end he was free to accept my advice or not. Note, that he could have just as well left the game open in the background, mailed me adn waited for my reply. Saying that e-mail is allowed, never was talked about it being legal only before opening the turn.

Should you apply for disallowing that, I could accept only if for the same principle ANY form of out-game communication would be completely banned, which of course you could never practically enforce.

Now, to some other interesting issues you raised, not actually related to our current situation.

I exchanged some mail with Bingmann in Newhon2 (where he plays and I am CMN), and he pointed me out that saving halfway in a turn, doesn't trigger the reload warning, as long as you don't load the same file twice. I never even thought of trying it, so I wasn't aware, and held that it should have been just cheating as reloading, and I showed Bing how it could be used to gain illegal infos.
So, as the game stands, once you regularly produce the official savefile, and don't touch it, and send it on, what are you allowed to do? Anything you want, since the game is now past that point. This means, if you want to rehearse your tactic or strategy, or wanna check the actual figures, or if you just forgot something, you can with clear conscience reload the very same turn you just played, as long as the first runs is safely stored and remains untampered (if it's already on his e-way, how can anything you do later on your PC affect it?).
Thus, if an ally asks you for advice (we can think by e-mail, ICQ would be just a different mean) as you could reload to check something for yourself, the same way you can to have under your eyes what you've been asked for. Or taking it off the top of your mind would be more legal?
The main thing, is each one takes his own turn. Even restricting to inter-turns e-mail, one could ORDER to a less experienced player "next turn you wiil do that and that", and if the second has a weak personality, he would just obey. And they'd be doing a questionable thing using only "legal" means and procedures. You see, IMHO realtime is not really a divider here. (was that you was referring to with "kibbitzing"? I couldn't find it in the OED)

Passing one's turn to another is a very hot potato too (do you use such saying too?).
THC broke up for that reason. I don't like the practice at first thought. Further, but that's my own private preference, even if shared by many others, I'd NEVER give my own password to another player of the same game, for any reason.
But when my opinion was asked for there, I tryed to stick to logic, and not a single argument could be found to sustain such position. cousLee was on my very same standings, even if he needed much more less words to express it, and better too.
If you allow e-mail, if you want you can convey ALL the info you need to with it. So, sending a turn, beware, a past turn, it just a faster and easier way to do the SAME thing. If only you hadn't to pass the PW too...
Once you saved turn, as I said you can do what you want with the beginning of that same turn, and none has been able to explain why that should not include passing it to an ally, in any formn you can think of, from words, to pictures, to the turn itself.
The whole matter unleashes taboo-like reactions in SMACers, it's very interesting, and funny if you want, from a sociological point of view. Now, don't ask me what I think about sex between adult relatives...

"I think it can't be said illegal..."
" NO! NO! NO!!!"
"But WHY?"
"er... BECAUSE!!!"

Of course I could think by myself of the deadly downside of passing your password ("hey, it HAS to be passed, it's in its name" ): if the trusted ally turns his back he could profit of the other's password, and ruin the game for all. But if a player can come to this mean action, he'd be to ban anyway, even without the stupid gift of the password from a naive opponent. And the password issue is collateral, we could play a game w/out PWs, just based upont the trust of each other, and all the above issues would stand the same.

You saw that, as in the FoW matter, I am ope to change my position if someone shows me with logic where I am mistaken.
But on this issue, so far, it seems logically acceptable for me to play in a PBEM where or any form of out-game communications are allowed (after in-game contact is made), either they are all disallowed.

I guess I'm beginning to repeat the same concepts over and over. Two talking turns to you then now .

MoSe

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Old July 25, 1999, 19:31   #43
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Of course you are free to use ICQ and email to communicate at any time after in-game contact.

I am against passing save files and passwords to players who are not the owner for 2 reasons:

1. Taking a literal interpretation of the rules, reloading save files is illegal. The only save file that anyone should be loading is the "current" save file, and it will only be loaded once because a fresher one will be created with Save & Exit. You are not free to do whatever you want with old save files.

2. Sharing passwords with other players defeats the whole purpose of having passwords. I would be inclined to say that if you give your password to another player, that you intend for them to play your turns for you, and you can have no complaint if they actually do that.
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Old July 25, 1999, 19:45   #44
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---

MoSe,

I'm not too sure on the absence of reload tattle for turns, once passed. I do know that you can play a partial turn, save and continue FROM THAT POINT without a tattle. I do it often, when I'm playing at work. My work computer runs Win98, while the facility software is DOS based and doesn't like to multitask, too reliably. So, if a customer comes in, I save the game and replay from that point, when I have the opportunity. If this method is open to potential abuse, I'd like for you to point those out to me, as I'm unaware of any.

My sister and I are playing hotseat/pbem. I seem to recall a situation where she reloaded a past turn by mistake. I was notified by the game of a reload message. I don't intend on having to wade through reload messages every turn, when I open up a pbem game. It would do nothing to foster a degree of trust among the participants. That, if you recall was my major objection to the situation brought up by the HLC players. And, if you recall, the reason for their breakup.

I'm too tired to think much more than this, I'll try to pursue it later.

JAMiAM
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Old July 26, 1999, 03:35   #45
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Old July 26, 1999, 06:37   #46
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Dear JAM, I am positive about the absence of any messages if you load past turns. The ones you experienced were maybe caused by you and your sister playing HotSeat, and not actually PBEM? (i.e. not saving the files).

You have to separate the warning you get when YOU reload (and the most idiot "IF you go on..." message without a "Cancel" button...), from the reload notification the other players get once you reloaded your turn. this is rather straightaway, imagine this frame:
- you load your MI turn, you play it, save it in the SF turn for nect player, and send it. Spartans get a regular file with no message.
- THEN, you reload your MI turn. Of course this way you'll spread no tattle.
- But more, I'm 99,99% sure that the cheating mark will be added in some game/windows registry AND in the file you IRREGULARLY save, i.e. the one at the end of the turn you reloaded, but NOT in the original save.
If you don't save the reloaded game, or if you change the savefile name, the ORIGINAL SF turn remains unchanged. It was regularly played when you saved it, and its contents don't get altered by you subsequent reloads, thus those contents REMAIN regularly played: no cheating marks get added to the original savefile, even if you send it after playing a reload on the same PC, coz what's in that original turn has been played without being affected by any (subsequent) cheating.

I'll check "to foster" on OED when I get home, as I'm unsure of it's semantics (I held it for "leading or guiding, surveying a group in its research", was it so far?).
But I was considering in other games threads, that we are anyway so used to game crashes, that many times we have to accept reload notifications. Even if a player doesn't warn me in advance of the problems he had with his PC, if I see he reloaded his turn, I don't even think of a possible cheating, it's autonmatical for me to think he must have experienced some crash.

MoSe
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Old July 26, 1999, 06:50   #47
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Dear Bing,
many players raised doubts about your point 1., but the answer was that if you need to check things between the turns, specifically, when diplomacy issues are raised between allies which require reviewing details of your last game standing, reloading past turns to be sure of things doesn't affect the turn that is already on its way, thus is not cheating, is not even an issue at all.
The only illegal use of that practice I know, I pointed you out in our correspondence, which I'm forwarding to JAM (FHI).
You have to think that not everybody is on ICQ, able to exhcange ideas having the current turn open on their PC.

Maybe we should gather positions about this issue amongst the whole community of CMNs (but Aredhran is already going on vacation next week...)

MoSe
- Anyway, it's not traceable, and you're the first to say you don't want rules that can't be enforced...
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Old July 26, 1999, 06:55   #48
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about Bing's point 2.

The ONE thing I would complain about in a PBEM, is if a player takes the turn for another player. You can use diplomacy and communication to its maximum extent, as long as each player takes his own turns.
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Old July 26, 1999, 13:06   #49
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MoSe,

My sister and I are playing the same game BOTH as hotseat when we can and pbem, otherwise. The message was generated some time ago, and I may be confused on the specifics, as she is even more of a computer neophyte than I. See my personal emails to you dated today, for more questions and comments. I will send these off to Bingmann, as well. I think you are mistaken on your recon technique, as I cannot get it to work, without tattles. I have asked in the private emails for clarification.

JAMiAM
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Old July 27, 1999, 00:20   #50
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Yeah, I'm not going to do anything about point 1. The main reason for "no reloading" is to prevent people from replaying events to get more favorable results. The reloading message handles this sufficiently, and there is no way to detect the other behavior. That's my decision as far as an enforceable rule. Ethically, I don't like the reloading of old save files. If I don't know what units are in another faction's base but I remember that I had a unit adjacent to it last turn that would be able to see into the base, is it OK for me to reload the old save file to take a look? Is this different from reloading to check something for a diplomatic exchange? If the game were a real hot-seat game and not a PBEM, you would not be able to reload.

I meant what I said about point 2. If one player gives another player their password, I'm not going to do anything if the second player plays the first player's turn, whether that's what the first player wanted or not. Of course the other players can force a different result by threatening to quit, but I'm not going to do anything about it. Here's my reasoning for all possibilities:

2a. You want another player to play your turn. No problem. If you didn't like it, you wouldn't be doing it.
2b. You want to play another player's turn. No problem again.
2c. Another player wants some other player to play their turn. This is no different from what you are doing now: Both players have the turn up and are consulting with each other via ICQ. What difference does it make who actually presses the buttons?
2d. You give your password to another player and they play your turn without your consent. That's the risk you run for giving away your password. If you don't want it to happen, don't give out your password. And if you quit, who will notice? The other player has your password and can play all of your turns.
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Old July 27, 1999, 19:55   #51
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MoSe- This is taking unfair advantage of the PBEM format. Dissecting and digesting another faction's save file at leisure provides information orders of magnitude greater than the info received from allies in the other games formats - single player, hot-seat, IP multiplayer (although hot-seat can come close). There has to be a balance to this, and I think the risk of losing control of your turn is a perfect match. We have a saying here in New England: "Don't let someone into your house if you don't want them to sit on your sofa." (Actually, we don't say that; I just made it up.)
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Old July 28, 1999, 00:06   #52
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2197 UP >> MI 6 hours ago.

To update any lurker on our debate, thru private e-mails we found whae the misunderstandig was. Of course you get a message everytime you reload a turn. But if the savefile you pass to next player is the one generated after the 1st run of that turn, it doesn't contain any reloading notification, and next players will not see any messages in loading their turns.
If you play real hotseat without saving files in between turns, you can't use a savefile as buffer, and there's no way to avoid next players to see notifications if you reload.

Now, to the ethical issues in reloading old files.
Suppose I have a pact with a player and I am willing to pass him any information he wants about a faction I have infiltrated and he has not.
If I do it by e-mail after I took my turn and before he opens his turn, I assume we all agree this is a legal practice.
Now imagine he wants to know how an enemy base is garrisoned before bringing his units adjacent to that base. If there are only 1-x-1 sentinels in the base, the ally can bring his 4-1-1 infantries adjacent to the base, and attack the turn after. If there are instead also x-1-1 or x-1-2 untis in the enemy base, he must be more careful in his approach.
I could have already passed him such infos by e-mail, and that would be legal.
But what if I forgot to tell him that intelligence, or if I didn't even think in advance he might need it?
Well, I think that in PBEM is still ethically acceptable that I reload my turn, and tell the ally what he wants to know. I am just comleting the information that I could have anyway legally passed him in the first place. I'm doing in two steps what I could have equally done in one, and the proceeding of the game doesn't get altered in its substance.

I don't think you could compare hotseat and PBEM time frames. In hotseat you don't exchange infos by e-mail. If you want to compare the twos, you should think as if two allies are allowed to meet in a separate room and pass information by talking. In which case, it would be as the hotseat player taking the current turn stands up from the PC and calls for a meeting with his ally halfway its turn, to agree on something before he proceeds with playing. If you don't allow this, it's like you're not allowing PBEM players to exchange infos by e-mail at all.
Of course if the ally who's not playing at that moment can't recall the infos the playing one is asking, the former can't reload his turn to check them. But here I claim that the frame and conditions in which you play a hotseat game are quite different from a PBEM game. You can't as a principle enforce the same strict limitations of hotseat to PBEM too, it's a different matter.

About point 2., the (IMHO vital) difference about who actually presses the buttons, is that in the end player A must be the master of his own turn, and take the actula final decisions on the actions to be taken in his turn. He could pretend to accept orders from player B, but behave differently. Or he could simply disagree. If player A has a weak personality, he could let player A "e-bully" him, but that is still his legal choice as leader of his faction.
That makes a whole world of difference from letting player B take complete actual control of his turn.
If player A plays as submissive faction to player B, he must still remain as filter to enact B's orders. Otherwise this would alter the composition of the game.
One thing is playing a PBEM game with 5 human players where player A is submissive (mind, for a given interval of time, which might come to an end eventually if player A revolts) to player B, and a different thing would be if player B actually plays with TWO factions while players C, D and E play their single faction.
That all stands IMHBFO (in my humble but firm opinion).
In conclusion, I disagree with points 2a. & 2b.
I hope I have demonstrated why point 2c. IMHBFO is wrong.
And the risk exposed in point 2d. is the reason (but the ONLY reason) why passing a previous turn to an ally, as easier way alternative to pass him every bit of info by e-mail (a very bulky e-mail! ), is not acceptable. Wasn't risk 2d. present, or were we playing a PBEM without PWs, no objections to that practice could stand.

Maybe we could devise that practice to implement the otherwise missing option of submissive human faction in PBEMs. If a faction gets submissive to another human player, it has to pass him the password and let him play its turns. If the player wants to cease to be submissive, he just notifies his next player to no more accept savefiles except from himself again...

MoSe
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Old July 28, 1999, 00:53   #53
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M.Y. 2197 to the Spartans.

MoSe,

No wonder the Apolyton threads take so long to load!
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Old July 28, 1999, 02:27   #54
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I wasn't saying that you have the like in other game formats.
I was saying that this way you can't however get any infos, more than the owner of the turn could give you by plain e-mail, or by screen shots if you prefer, if he is willing to (and if he has nothing else to do in his life ).
Thus, if you allow exchage of infos by e-mail... (if you want him to help you build the sofa that perfectly fits your back and your living-room, well.. you have to let him get to know both very deeply )
[This message has been edited by MariOne (edited July 28, 1999).]
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Old July 28, 1999, 04:51   #55
MariOne
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Just to make my position clear:

Let's forget for a moment the passing password and playing other's turn issue.
I had never thought of passing my turn to my allies for informative purposes.
But once my opinion have been asked about that practice (in THC), I pondered a bit, and concluded that this is an equivalent practice to passing every bit of info by e-mail. Thus my CMN position is: if you allow players with in-game contact to communicate via e-mail, you have to allow them to pass their OLD turns each other too for information purposes. If you ban this latter practice, you have to ban too ANY form of extra-game communications in PBEM too.

This, if there weren't passwords in PBEMs. In the real situation tho, I'd never pass my turn AND password to other players, even if allied.
Having to state an official position, apart from my personal feelings, two issues have to be separately analyzed.
- if this could bring to cheating situations (i.e. if any of the two players could this way perform in-game actions that are against fair competition and against the game's [intended?] rules)
- if this could however spoil a PBEM game in ways other than cheating

As said before, my position on the first issue is "NO".

And from my consideration in previuos posts, I am afraid that giving away the password could spoil a PBEM game.
But I have to rethink this position too.
To my (limited) knowledge, you can't shadow other player's mailboxes addresses. So, in a PBEM game, player B is expecting to receive his turn in a mail message which reports in its header "player A"'s address as the sender. If player A gives player D his game password, but doesn't want to let him play his turn on his behalf, ther should be no acutal risk of it happening. Player B will simply not accept turns attached to player D's messages. I player A instead WANTS player D to take his turns for him, he just has to have the D-played turns sent him back, and he will send them to B from his mailbox. Even if we are willing to ban this, there is no way in which we could trace it, so all we can say is whe have to trust each other's honesty as usual. Of course if player D sends player A's turn to player B, hell' get spotted, but I hope no one is that stupid. And player D couldn't spoil the game in any other way than playing player A's turn.
Of course, if both players A & D have an account with the same ISP, and player A gives away his E-MAIL password too to player D, oh well, what the heck!

My boss calls me to work now

MoSe
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Old July 28, 1999, 08:53   #56
Bingmann
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There is a big difference between passing info by email vs looking at an actual savefile. First, with email, your ally never knows for sure if you are telling the truth or lying, either by mistake or on purpose; the save file is always 100% accurate and removes the uncertainty as well as the opportunity for treachery. Second, sharing huge amounts of info by email is self-limiting; you have to endure the pain of composing the "bulky" email to do it. Being able to pass a savefile is just too easy.

As far as playing someone else's turn without their permission, that would require cooperation with other people in the email ring to be willing to either send to you or receive from you the other player's turn instead.
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Old July 29, 1999, 04:37   #57
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M.Y. 2198 to the Spartan Federation.
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Old July 30, 1999, 19:16   #58
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M.Y. 2199 to the Spartan Federation.

I will be out of town this weekend until ~9:00pm, PDT. Sorry, in advance, for any delays.
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Old August 3, 1999, 01:38   #59
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M.Y. 2200 to the Spartans.

We made through 100 years of game play. How many pbems with four players can make that claim? Congratulations to all the players and our wonderful CMN. You should all be proud.

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Old August 7, 1999, 00:46   #60
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M.Y. 2201 to Duke Veracitas of the Spartan Federation.
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