Re: Pitboss BTS: Fog of War - Signups

**Munro** · 10-01-2009, 12:40 AM

Any chance of getting someone from PitSUC to replace Shaq? I only recently realized how big his civ still was. Bit of a shame to have it running headless, especially during a war..

**Bernout** · 10-01-2009, 01:57 AM

Originally Posted by Munro

Any chance of getting someone from PitSUC to replace Shaq? I only recently realized how big his civ still was. Bit of a shame to have it running headless, especially during a war..

I'm a bit surprised he hasn't come back yet. I'll have to check my old messages but I thought it was temporary.

I'll see if I can dig up a sub.

BTW, I haven't heard from HAK either so I assume he is done as well. Do we need a sub for him too?

Bernout

**Ebenezer** · 10-01-2009, 07:41 PM

The Babylonian empire would like to announce the destruction of the Parkistan Empire.

Well-fought Louis. You did as well as could be expected. Thanks for taking over for Emperor Parkin.

**Dandridge** · 10-09-2009, 03:54 AM

About the city gifting trickery that took place on previous turns (1560-65 Ad). Is it quite accordant with the TG's Gaming Philosophy? In this case to gift back and fort a city where the Mausoleum of Maussollos is built to enable several civs to tricker a 50% longer Golden age. It smells a bit just a way to evade the basic rules of the game. Kind of turning a World Wonder into a "National Wonder"?

**Ebenezer** · 10-09-2009, 06:26 AM

Mausoleum and Cristo Redentor both have this issue.

And several others I guess could be exploited somewhat (handing around kremlin for rush cycles? handing around Internet in a no-trading game?).

But is it really any worse than handing cities around with unis/banks to build (or destroy to rebuild elsewhere) national wonders? I haven't paid attention to see if that has gone on in this game, but it sure got done a lot in Terrible Twos. Or even gifting L3/6 units to unlock HE and WP.

It feels like gaming the rules to me. But I traded cities with my partner (and even with a non-partner ally) in TTT too, so it would be hypocritical of me to say "No".

**Bernout** · 10-09-2009, 11:04 AM

Originally Posted by Dandridge

About the city gifting trickery that took place on previous turns (1560-65 Ad). Is it quite accordant with the TG's Gaming Philosophy? In this case to gift back and fort a city where the Mausoleum of Maussollos is built to enable several civs to tricker a 50% longer Golden age. It smells a bit just a way to evade the basic rules of the game. Kind of turning a World Wonder into a "National Wonder"?

Ahhh....I was wondering about the change in scores on CivStats and why players would be gifting cities with WWs. I guess I'm not wired to think that creatively. lol Thanks for clarifying that Dan and bringing it up here for discussion.

It is true that there was a lot of it in TTT and we had a discussion along similar lines. In the end, since it was a team game, I think we basically agreed to let it slide even though it seemed exploitive.

However, this game is not a team game and while I might buy the argument that maybe it should be permitted for a permanent alliance, I don't believe we have any of those yet.

Can we agree to a ruling that no city gifting will be done that is intended to be temporary? This would be in combination with the existing understanding that you don't gift to someone to keep them alive in a war indefinitely.

Bernout

**Dreylin** · 10-09-2009, 11:40 AM

Well I built the Wonder, so I say you should just give the city back to me!

**Dandridge** · 10-09-2009, 01:43 PM

lol, Dreylin.

Originally Posted by Bernout

Can we agree to a ruling that no city gifting will be done that is intended to be temporary? This would be in combination with the existing understanding that you don't gift to someone to keep them alive in a war indefinitely.
Bernout

I guess that kind of rule might be ok. Although temporary city gifting can also be used in a way that is not directly an exploit. And on the other hand a permament city gifting can also be used in exploitive ways. But in this particular case it just clearly seemed to be an intentional way to use a WW as a NW when the Maussolls city circulated in the hands of 3 players during 2 turns.

**Ebenezer** · 10-09-2009, 06:14 PM

So to distinguish between valid and invalid transfers.. Shall we require that gifted cities be held a certain number of turns or something?

And I seem to remember in some other games that gifted cities required both parties to have matching wars. Mainly to avoid issues with kicked units and such, but it seems applicable here as well.

Another use for cityswapping. Allowing transfer via fort/canal of naval units. Loss of food, hammers, and GP points is a pretty expensive canal, but there's probably a situation where it would be worth it.

**Munro** · 10-10-2009, 01:41 AM

Originally Posted by Ebenezer

So to distinguish between valid and invalid transfers.. Shall we require that gifted cities be held a certain number of turns or something?

That seems like a good way to do it. Enough of a barrier to make most exploits cost prohibitive, but permissive enough for most 'normal' trading.

The 10 turn rule we had for this in C&C2 worked well, although 15 would probably be even better (higher deterrent without probably having much meaningful impact on genuine trades).

And I seem to remember in some other games that gifted cities required both parties to have matching wars. Mainly to avoid issues with kicked units and such, but it seems applicable here as well.

I've always thought that was a bit over the top. Suppose Civ A is at war with both B and C. B makes a deal and gives up a city as part of the surrender. Doesn't seem right to require B to declare war on C at that point. I'm sure there are would be lots of other situations where that kind of rule just wouldn't make sense...

The 15 turn rule probably takes care of this anyway. No more swapping back and forth just to take advantage of the teleporting... the recipient would have to keep the city.

Or if that's not strong enough, just restrict it to situations where the attacking player has units within striking distance of the city being gifted (and just require the recipient to be at war with that specific attacker, not everyone).

(But I think the 15 rule would be enough..)

**Bernout** · 10-10-2009, 02:21 AM

Originally Posted by Dandridge

I guess that kind of rule might be ok. Although temporary city gifting can also be used in a way that is not directly an exploit. And on the other hand a permament city gifting can also be used in exploitive ways. But in this particular case it just clearly seemed to be an intentional way to use a WW as a NW when the Maussolls city circulated in the hands of 3 players during 2 turns.

Can you give me examples of a temporary city gift that would not be considered an exploit and of a permanent one that would?

I suppose a 10 or 15 turn hold on gifted cities would be ok but I prefer to keep things simpler if at all possible; even more so on a rule which we need the players themselves to enforce.

If there are enough legitimate reasons to do a temporary city gift which aren't gaming the game or exploitive in any way then I'd consider the turn limit. Otherwise I'd say lets just go ahead and ban temporary gifting completely.

Bernout

**Dandridge** · 10-10-2009, 05:27 AM

In my opinion we have already the rules set in the TG's Gaming Philosophy that you have referred in first post of this thread. It denies gaming with the game engine. That should be enough. People who streched the rules this time are experienced players and knew what they were doing.

**Bernout** · 10-10-2009, 12:01 PM

Originally Posted by Dandridge

In my opinion we have already the rules set in the TG's Gaming Philosophy that you have referred in first post of this thread. It denies gaming with the game engine. That should be enough. People who streched the rules this time are experienced players and knew what they were doing.

The Primer is a good starting point but as we know, not everything is black and white when it comes to what is considered an exploit and what isn't. In Civ4 it is even tougher because the gaming engine allows you to do a lot and just that fact alone would support the argument that the designers of the game must have intended it.

There's also how you like to play the game. Personally I like to take more of a realism stance but not everyone does.

So discussions like this are useful, especially if they cover something which I, and perhaps others, haven't given any thought to in the past. For the next game I'll make sure to include a section which states the explicit rules we have agreed upon.

Now, for this specific case of transfering cities so someone else can use your World Wonder. I'm assuming most of us will agree that this is gaming the game so it is just a matter of deciding how best to deal with it. Yes, I agree that the players doing it should have known better but that's the risk I take as an admin when I don't use a specific rules list. And I don't think it's a bad enough case to warrant restoring to a previous save. So that leaves us with...

If there are enough legitimate reasons to do a temporary city gift which aren't gaming the game or exploitive in any way then I'd consider the turn limit. Otherwise I'd say lets just go ahead and ban temporary gifting completely.

Bernout

**da_Vinci** · 10-10-2009, 02:32 PM

For the future, if one is trying to have realism, maybe city gifting can only be done as an outcome of war? Temporary city gifts seem to me to always be about extending the some bonus beyond its normal limits: World wonder becomes a shared or national wonder; or one leader's traits or civ's special bonuses get bestowed on another one. If we decide that these uses of the games capabilities (these are not bugs) are undesireable, then perhaps city gifting should be severly restricted?

Although, thinking about the Louisiana Purchase, sale of Alaska, etc., there is realism in selling land (and presumably cities). But maybe for civ, we need a philosophy that the products of one's civ (techs, gold, resources, units) can be shared, but the civ itself (cities) cannot?

Maybe a rule that once gifted, a city cannot be gifted back to the giftor? So if you give it up, you can only regain it by conquest? Would need some way to police phony wars waged for only that purpose, but maybe this is a simple starting point?

dV

**Ebenezer** · 10-10-2009, 06:58 PM

Concessions to prevent a war, or gifting newly captured cities to war allies are reasonable uses.

Dreylin traded a block of land including 2 cities to me for some sorely needed techs to attempt to hold off dV. They weren't near the front, so I didn't have any qualms about making the deal. Then once he was dead, I ended up selling them myself for techs.

Permanent trades could be valid for many reasons. And without city trading, you can't sell land. Handing a city over, even with buildings you built at a discount, in and of itself, isn't the problem.

Oh, and phony wars are against the rules anyway right? No farming XP for your units/generals, no war declarations to teleport units around, etc. A phony war to gift a city would be covered in that as well (besides, it burns a lot of buildings...)

Thread Tools

Display