[SPOILERS] RB PB7 LURKER Thread

[dazedroyalty]

You can constantly swap civics of an opposing player.

Which is bad because they stay in permanent anarchy essentially.

[Bigger]

You can constantly swap civics of an opposing player.

ah yes, I can see espionage effects that target the whole civilization being broken. Espionage that targets one city or stealing tech\gold don't seem broken to me at all, though.

is the "swap civic" ep unlocked with alphabet, or later? you can defend it by placing defense spies in as many cities as possible and building security beureau's w/ democracy. Although I guess that is significantly harder than actually going on the offensive.

[Bigger]

Which is bad because they stay in permanent anarchy essentially.

not really. You can switch a civic then switch a relgion - then they won't be able to make a change for 5 years on normal speed(so you won't be able to EP them).. If it's a really a problem they can adopt your religion and civics - you can only switch them to your civics. Although I guess if you are a spiritual civ you can keep switching around to force them to keep switching. (again, every 5 years)

[kalin]

I actually sort of feel bad for LP. Why did this game bother saying "we're not going to legislate double-move rules except for the 2H rule to simulate the 8 second live rule" and then everyone freaks out everytime someone double-moves? Seriously, if you're going to get mad everytime someone does something perfectly legal, why not just use the PB4 ruleset? LP signed up for a game where double-moves were explicity allowed and people jump on him every time he does double-move. Creating a game under one ruleset and then enforcing a different one halfway through is dumb. Someone invokes the word "casual" every time they it up by leaving a settler unprotected like somehow it's supposed to be LP's fault that they ran a settler out into the fog with no defenders.

Don't get me wrong - some of LP's shenanigans HAVE been stupid and I'd be 100% annoyed if I was everyone else too... Just pointing out that they created a ruleset that specifically enabled his kind of play so don't be shocked that one person in an 18-player game is exploiting it. And actually it sounds like Mackseven have done the same exact thing a few times - stuff like ending turn but not moving all units and being sneaky like that is really no different from what LP has done. The only difference is Commodore doesn't seem to blow up like ASM/Azza do.

+1

I think plako's intention was indeed to have as few rules as possible to avoid excessive debate over the precise meaning of the rules (e.g., the turn split). That degenerated into excessive debate about the meaning of the word "casual". I think the idea of anybody being "honorable" (whatever that means) simply will not work. If people are not too burned out, I suspect that there will be a next game with maybe the same rules but without the word casual

Kalin

[T-hawk]

SMAC was like FFH, in that the entire game was unapologetically not well balanced, so there's not much need to call out particular subsystems as broken. Sure, you can easily steal a tech... or get the AI to sell it to you for 25 cash, or get it by conquering a city, or use the Planetary Datalinks (Internet-equivalent wonder), or pop it from a pod/goody hut/alien artifact. More generally, tech in SMAC and earlier games was much more free-flowing and fungible; it was not yet established for the Civ series that technological progress was the defining factor of an empire's power.

At least SMAC allowed reasonable measures for espionage defense, which is probably the biggest difference between it and Civ 4 BTS. Probes are visible on the map, and can be killed or dispatched by any enemy military unit. And if you have your own probe in a city or on a particular tile, the enemy probe would first have to defeat it in combat. BTS allows almost no meaningful defense against spies; stationing your own spies and running counterespionage only reduces the enemy's chances which he can easily overcome with simply more spies.

Can you explain what is so broken with espionage? I have only started playing around with using it heavily in SP recently (mostly after reading the intro to seven's thread in this game, and a similar thread on CFC).

As Krill says, a few missions can have impact way out of proportion to their EP cost. Influence Civics and Influence Religion are the big ones, since the target has to eat a turn of anarchy to switch back, a productivity hit that could be 10 or 100 times the spent EP. Which means that the target will never switch back and is stuck with the spy-inflicted civic. And Incite City Revolt can perpetually prevent a culture victory.

For multiplayer, the other big concern is the visibility that spies incidentally provide. Civ 4 combat is very much balanced in favor of the defender, in raw numerical values, logistics (whip/draft defenders), and the fact that siege initiative usually decides a big stack battle. To stage a successful attack, you need either overwhelming force of several times the defender's, or an element of surprise. Many Civ 4 MP games settle into defenderish buildfests without much attacking. Banning spies is done largely to preserve the possibility of a surprise attack and keep some excitement in the game.

[darrelljs]

This, FTW!

Darrell

[Kyan]

Lets not forget that both times it was ASM who started the out-of-thread talk. And that ASM also didn't see anything wrong with this and even scolded lurkers (naming them drama-queens) after he was told to not talk oot.

Whilst this is true, at least he admitted it. Parkin tried to hide it and knowingly did it a second time despite being warned and well aware that it was banned. I agree ASM is the worse of the two, but Parkin is nowhere near innocent on this one.

A lot of the mess this game turned into is ASM-fault for his a)law-breaking and b) his constant bitching over double-moves even when LP has several hours (~6-8) between his logins. IMO ASM is the real ass here and not LP.

I agree with this. In my opinion, ASM is fucking mental and should be banned from RB for how far beyond the line he stepped. Of course, there are many, many good reasons why i'm not a moderator.

[Gaspar]

I'm sure I'm going to get flamed for this but I think its absolutely no coincidence that the players who are most vehemently sticking up for LP in this thread haven't played any games here. His name has nothing to do with it - he was completely unknown to the playerbase here prior to PB4 and managed to piss off virtually everyone he was playing against with the notable exception of rego and sunrise. Its really his attitude.

Someone upthread made a comment about "so what if he logs into the game a lot" as though his turn-timer games are only related to that. In PB4 he engineered it so he played last for something like literally 90% of the turns despite logging in with the opportunity to end turn also literally dozens of times each turn. I wasn't stupid enough to signup for another pitboss after that experience but from listening to the other players he was doing precisely the same sorts of things here.

I've chatted with him a bit in other venues and I don't think he's a lousy human being. I think he completely and utterly lacks self-awareness and empathy. But he's not doing it on purpose, he cannot help it, its who he is.

That said, I 1000% agree that ASM and Azza's ire is mostly directed to cover up the level of they have been perpetrating. And I also think after a while he's become a pantomime villain. But the idea that he's somehow poor, misunderstood, picked-on Parkin is patently absurd - he's made his own bed with his actions and if is thoroughness with combat sims doesn't show you that - he is also completely aware of what he is doing.

[Bigger]

SMAC was like FFH, in that the entire game was unapologetically not well balanced, so there's not much need to call out particular subsystems as broken. Sure, you can easily steal a tech... or get the AI to sell it to you for 25 cash, or get it by conquering a city, or use the Planetary Datalinks (Internet-equivalent wonder), or pop it from a pod/goody hut/alien artifact. More generally, tech in SMAC and earlier games was much more free-flowing and fungible; it was not yet established for the Civ series that technological progress was the defining factor of an empire's power.

At least SMAC allowed reasonable measures for espionage defense, which is probably the biggest difference between it and Civ 4 BTS. Probes are visible on the map, and can be killed or dispatched by any enemy military unit. And if you have your own probe in a city or on a particular tile, the enemy probe would first have to defeat it in combat. BTS allows almost no meaningful defense against spies; stationing your own spies and running counterespionage only reduces the enemy's chances which he can easily overcome with simply more spies.


As Krill says, a few missions can have impact way out of proportion to their EP cost. Influence Civics and Influence Religion are the big ones, since the target has to eat a turn of anarchy to switch back, a productivity hit that could be 10 or 100 times the spent EP. Which means that the target will never switch back and is stuck with the spy-inflicted civic. And Incite City Revolt can perpetually prevent a culture victory.

For multiplayer, the other big concern is the visibility that spies incidentally provide. Civ 4 combat is very much balanced in favor of the defender, in raw numerical values, logistics (whip/draft defenders), and the fact that siege initiative usually decides a big stack battle. To stage a successful attack, you need either overwhelming force of several times the defender's, or an element of surprise. Many Civ 4 MP games settle into defenderish buildfests without much attacking. Banning spies is done largely to preserve the possibility of a surprise attack and keep some excitement in the game.

okay, good points all around. I get it.

[Ceiliazul]

His name has nothing to do with it
...
managed to piss off virtually everyone
...
Its really his attitude.
...
he played last for something like literally 90% of the turns
...
ASM and Azza's ire is mostly directed to cover up the level of
...
I also think after a while he's become a pantomime villain
...
But the idea that he's somehow poor, misunderstood, picked-on Parkin is patently absurd

Yes to All. I haven't played against Parkin, nor will I ever. ASM is right next to him on that particular black list.