Pitboss etiquette

[Old Harry]

That means someone is going to be first in all the wars they play, putting them at a disadvantage for producing units. It could be doable if you balance it somehow up front, but I'm not sure how I'd value turn order.

Actually, was it PB50 that had a snake pick for location, leader and civ? Perhaps you add position in turn order as a fourth option?

Thanks for weighing in Harry.

Years ago a writer I like proposed NFL overtime rules be adjusted to giving the home team possession first, and restore the 'first score wins' rule. His argument was the rule was completely fair on a seasonal basis and it was known and predictable on a per-game basis. That mindset has stayed with me. So long as each player has ex-ante an equal change of getting the 'best' turnsplit slots prior to T1 I think it's no less fair than rolling for starting position and pick order. Now if you want to add some sort of bidding component to assign the order that's even better, but overall I'm becoming more and more sympathetic to a rule like this which lets everyone know where they stand and adapt their own play accordingly. "Roll a die at the start of a war" has some benefit of smoothing out the advantage within the game, but has what I see as a major corresponding disadvantage in that people only know their side of the split once they're in position to declare, and so they may end up playing, ex-post, suboptimally. I think I like the known, albeit random, split at game-start better (especially since this basically already exists in all PBEM games as I understand it).

We did something similar with pb57 - simultaneous for 30 turns, then sequential thereafter (I'm starting to think we should have stuck with simultaneous though, the turns aren't exactly flying by).

I don't think I would play a set-turn-order game without some sort of balancing because we don't play that many games. If they lasted a couple of hours and I played 30 per year then the benefit could even out, but we go to a lot of trouble to balance maps and civilizations and traits because these are long games and you need players to stay motivated. I could see myself losing interest and mailing it in when it turns out I've got the crap turnsplit...

How about if "roll a die at the start of a war" is done in advance so the attacker knows which side they get? That would let them organise logistics, but could actually cause a double move on the turn of declaration, and you might get players declaring multiple times until they get the roll they want. In fact both of these problems apply to rolling a dice the turn you declare, don't they?

[sunrise089]

Also if you match this turn order with the ID from PBSpy you can always and easily check, where everybody stands.

[Old Harry]

Does anyone think number 8 is out of date:
Sending in-game messages with numbers and letters (gold and city names) are a grey area - assume they are banned unless the setup specifically allows them

Gold countdowns have been allowed in the last couple of games I've played (they work well with charriu's new diplo options) and I can't remember the problem this guideline was supposed to address.

[Mjmd]

Just one last thought for settling races as I see most people are in the "is fine as is" camp. There is one obvioius problem we haven't addressed . If people are at war elsewhere and combat happens we can't just do a reload like in this situation (which if it had happened a few turns later this case may have run into this issue)

I would highly advise on a "we recommend sending a PM to establish turn split as reloads may not always be possible". The reloads not always being possible is probably just a good general reminder as we are about to start a large pitboss.

[Old Harry]

The issue serdoa has is with number 6:
In a peace-time turn split (eg a settling or hut-popping race) the turn you realise there should be a split is when the order is established.

I think the conflict is that I see this as a rule applying to the behaviour of the individual who notices the potential split, while serdoa sees it as applying to both parties, even if one of them doesn't realise that it does.

Adding a caveat like mjmd suggests: "when you realise there is a potential split notify your opponent." seems to me to reconcile both viewpoints. I think putting the onus on the person noticing the split is reasonable because we shouldn't reload if combat has occurred and normalising reloads is bad for turn pace.

While we're at it a caveat for number 3 might help as well:
The person declaring war can choose which half of the turn timer they get, so long as they didn't move after the victim on the previous turn.

Caveat: "It's good practice to notify the target of the war declaration on the turn it's made so your opponent knows they need to log in before or after you"

[Charriu]

I would like to ask for the following addition to #3:

The person declaring war can choose which half of the turn timer they get, so long as they didn't move after the victim on the previous turn. If you choose the second half, please let the lurkers know about that in your thread in advance.

The idea behind this is to prevent unnecessary clock games. We had some situations in which both parties wanted the second half and were playing down the clock. If both parties clearly state they want the second half, the lurkers can intervene sooner and decide, who goes second.

[Charriu]

I've been thinking about some of our common clock games and reload issues. I think we can find some technical solutions for those. Namely these.

1. Request war in second half: Often we have two players running the clock down to get the second half in a war.
Solution: We implement a Button titled "Request second half with" together with a drop-down like the one for r subscription to turn roll. For example I choose Superdeath in the drop-down and press the button. Now two things can happen:
a) Superdeath also chooses me. In this case the server knows we both want to go to war. It makes a dice roll and sends out mails to both of us informing us, who goes first and who second. Importantly this does not declare war in-game. 
b) Superdeath does not want to go to war. In this case he will play sometime and I can safely play after him and declare war.
This flag will be reset at turn roll.

2. Sometimes people want the first half in a war, but the other player is playing so fast he doesn't get a chance. For this we could implement something similar to #1. It would inform the players at turn roll about the turn split

3. Sometimes we need to establish a peace time turn split. We could use the other two options for that too. But what I'm thinking about here specifically is settler races. For this I would like to implement something like a settler radar, which informs players about a potential turn split at turn roll, if settlers are near each other taking road movement into consideration.
Now I'm not totally happy with this as it can have some bad consequences namely giving players information they don't have. I still hope to find some better solution with the help of the community

[superdeath]

b) Superdeath does not want to go to war. In this case he will play sometime and I can safely play after him and declare war.
This flag will be reset at turn roll.

Are you sure you need this rule?

[Charriu]

Sorry, I used you for examples.

[Commodore]

Unfortunately, this strikes me as trying to solve out of game problems with in game rules.