Pink Dot IT Office - Email and technical issues thread - All welcome, all the time

[shadyforce]

I unpaused.

[Exploit]

I would like to request a reload to the beginning of turn 187. I had troops positioned in Zulu territory to reinforce Utumno as of the first half of turn 186. Dsplaisted moved his calvary into position to attack Utumno in the second half of turn 186, after my move.

On turn 187, Dsplaisted and I were both logged in at the turn roll-over however he attacked before I could move the troops into place which gave him a double move with respect to me over a specific location of mutual interest.

[dsplaisted]

Exploit, we're not currently at war. So the double-move rules don't really apply to us. Furthermore, even if we go to war, the base rules of this game don't include dividing the turn. They only require that a military unit wait 9 hours of in-game time (although now I guess it should be 11 hours) between moves (which I followed).

To simplify things, many teams that have gone to war have worked out a split of the turn between them. I am willing to do so with any team I am at war with. I would probably also be willing to follow a turn order with a team such as yours who I am not directly at war with if requested. However, you can't assume that I am going to follow a turn order with you when we never discussed such a thing.

As far as Imhotep goes, I believe he is of the position that he would never want to sign a turn order agreement. When I declared war on him I sent him an email asking if he would like to do so anyway, but he didn't respond.

My cavalry moved into position at 7:03 PM Pacific time yesterday, with 11:19 left on the game clock. The reason I didn't move them earlier in the turn had nothing to do with trying to get a double move on someone, but was simply because it took me a while to decide what to do.

I am likely to declare war on you this turn. So I would propose that we agree to a turn order between us of me moving first and you moving second. Also, I would not attack the reinforcements you were sending to Utumno this turn (and thus won't gain a double-move advantage on them).

I will try to play my turn as early as possible each turn, and will end turn when I am done. After I end turn you will be free to play your turn. Since this agreement is only meant to prevent double moves, I will still be free to take actions in the rest of my empire that do not directly affect the war after I've ended my turn.

Does this sound good to you?

Thanks,
Daniel

[Exploit]

Daniel, sorry but your proposal is not acceptable. By your own timing, your movement took place in the second half of last turn (which took 28.5 hours to complete).

Imhotep's last move took place at the very beginning of last turn. By the rules, you are supposed to allow Imhotep half the turn timer to react to your move. You are at war with Imhotep so you have definitely double moved him. The rules also include double moves for civs which are not at war such as in the case of settlers, which I would argue is the case in this instance.

You have 5 cavalry capable of attacking Utumno this turn. I have sufficient forces within range to ensure that Utumno has 6+ defenders therefore Utumno will survive 1 more turn. That extra turn of Utumno's survival equals 300 beakers of science to me which will knock off 1 turn on my next tech so I must decline any proposal that does not include a reload that prevents the double move.

[sunrise089]

First

On turn 187, Dsplaisted and I were both logged in at the turn roll-over however he attacked before I could move the troops into place which gave him a double move with respect to me over a specific location of mutual interest.

My understanding of the game mechanics suggests this isn't possible.

Second, DSP is right that we don't have a requirement in this game for an enforced turn split. And, my understanding of the double-move rules is that this is currently the policy: "© - During a war all units in enemy or neutral territory, and all units in friendly territory that are capable of attacking or defending versus enemy units at any point during the turn must wait at least 9 hours following any previous move before they may move again."

We're on a 22 hour timer, right? So even if we assume 9 hours should have changed to 11 hours isn't DSP covered?

So ultimately, I'm not sure what the controversy is here. DSP moved with more than 9/11 hours on the clock, there was no voluntary split, and Exploit isn't even at war with either party.

EDIT:

Daniel, sorry but your proposal is not acceptable. By your own timing, your movement took place in the second half of last turn (which took 28.5 hours to complete).

Imhotep's last move took place at the very beginning of last turn. By the rules, you are supposed to allow Imhotep half the turn timer to react to your move. You are at war with Imhotep so you have definitely double moved him. The rules also include double moves for civs which are not at war such as in the case of settlers, which I would argue is the case in this instance....

I also want to say I find some of this puzzling. Some of the above seems very legalistic and very much a stretch anyways. We've always been speaking of in-game turn halves, and the double-move during peacetime rule is pretty clearly only referring to settlers.

I should note that Exploit's actions to me in- and out-of-game have always been very honorable, even when he stood a chance to gain by not honoring existing agreements. So I'm not if I'm missing something or if Exploit is unclear about the rule-set for this game. But as I can best understand things right now, it doesn't appear that any rule was violated.

[dsplaisted]

I don't think my move took place in the second half of the last turn (turn 187). I recorded when I moved the Cavalry into place, there were 11 hours and 19 minutes left on the in-game timer. The in-game timer for a full turn is 22 hours so that would still be in the first half of the turn. I realize that is cutting it close, but like I said it was not my intention to try to take advantage of anything (and I didn't even know you had reinforcements on the way), but it simply took me a while to decide what to do (and I wasn't expecting to be under a time limit/turn split agreement, so I didn't worry about it).

The move took place at 7:03 pm pacific time, and the turn rolled over around 9:50 am pacific time, so there were almost 15 hours of real time between my moves. So according to that measure, it was also in the first half of the turn.

If you still want a reload I would suggest asking some players such as Sullla and/or T-Hawk who are not involved in the game to mediate.

I've left the game paused while we resolve this. Note that in-game I have declared war and made a few moves (no actual attacks though), since I have to go to work and thought you would agree to my proposal.

Daniel

[dsplaisted]

My understanding of the game mechanics suggests this isn't possible.

Exploit was going to move some of his units into Imhotep's city and then gift them to Imhotep, so they would have then been able to defend against my attack.

[Exploit]

We're on a 22 hour timer, right? So even if we assume 9 hours should have changed to 11 hours isn't DSP covered?

So ultimately, I'm not sure what the controversy is here. DSP moved with more than 9/11 hours on the clock, there was no voluntary split, and Exploit isn't even at war with either party.

While the timer may say 22 hours, the last turn took 28.5 hours therefore 14.25 would more accurately represent half the turn. Since the turn always runs over the turn timer limit, your argument makes it perfectly legal for anyone who acts early in the second half to get a double move simply by logging in immediately after the turn roll-over because the 9/11 hour time limit will expire before the turn actually completes.

A double move was clearly made in this instance (in regards to Imhotep at least). I do not believe Daniel did it maliciously or on purpose nevertheless the impact of the double move is severe to my civ.

The way I understand the wording and the intent of the rules is simple, "double moves are prohibited". All of the 9 hour stuff and * explanations in the rules are designed to handle exceptions like someone is delaying the game by not moving in a long time so how long should a player reasonably have to wait before they can make their own move.

I feel the rules lawyering is going on by the people who are justifying their double moves by saying they meet the bare minimum of the rules as written. If I had voted for the rules as written then it would have been with the (perhaps mistaken) understanding that the overall intent was that "double moves were prohibited".

[Yazilliclick]

The move took place at 7:03 pm pacific time, and the turn rolled over around 9:50 am pacific time,

If those times are right then I don't see at all how a double move took place. I'm obviously not part of this but I think you're mixing and matching where you're getting the times from Exploit. If you go by the actual times things happened and the real time for the turn then it wasn't and if you go by the time left in the turn in game and set time for a turn then it wasn't. You can't compare how much time it says is left in the turn to how much real time it takes for a turn.

[sunrise089]

While the timer may say 22 hours, the last turn took 28.5 hours therefore 14.25 would more accurately represent half the turn. Since the turn always runs over the turn timer limit, your argument makes it perfectly legal for anyone who acts early in the second half to get a double move simply by logging in immediately after the turn roll-over because the 9/11 hour time limit will expire before the turn actually completes.

A double move was clearly made in this instance (in regards to Imhotep at least). I do not believe Daniel did it maliciously or on purpose nevertheless the impact of the double move is severe to my civ.

The way I understand the wording and the intent of the rules is simple, "double moves are prohibited". All of the 9 hour stuff and * explanations in the rules are designed to handle exceptions like someone is delaying the game by not moving in a long time so how long should a player reasonably have to wait before they can make their own move.

I feel the rules lawyering is going on by the people who are justifying their double moves by saying they meet the bare minimum of the rules as written. If I had voted for the rules as written then it would have been with the (perhaps mistaken) understanding that the overall intent was that "double moves were prohibited".

Ok, fine, but what is a "double move" at all then? Clearly it is NOT purely ever getting to move twice. Lack of an enforced turn split rule, our rather strict pause policy (requiring a skip first), and the fact that we agreed on a 9-hour rule all indicate that sometimes moving twice in a row is allowed. In this particular case DSP even had an extra margin of moving in the first-half of the turn, and didn't gain an advantage over Imhotep anyways. He did perhaps gain an advantage over Exploit, but Exploit wasn't at war with him, and Exploit and DSP moved in the same half of the turn (right?). Best I can see, what Exploit is asking for is that the peacetime turn order of Exploit->DSP from last turn continue over into this turn. Now that isn't totally unreasonable, but it is certainly different from the double-move rule we've had, and is really closer to a PBEM. At some point here we've got to acknowledge that MP Pitboss games are not SP, and accept that there is a practical limit to trying to preserve a SP experience.

@Exploit - Feel free not to answer, but had DSP moved right away last turn, would you have moved differently having spotted his cavs? At least that much should be true for us to even have this discussion.

Finally, I'm perhaps a bit frustrated in this instance because this isn't one of those examples where DSP stretched the rules and took advantage of someone traveling or working late or whatever. Exploit was logged in to the turn as it rolled. Why not just control-a your units into Imho's city and quickly gift them?