Chaos and Civ Reload (1-2-08) and Double Turn clarification

[Capsavian Hopewell]

Fellow Chaos and Civility world powers:

There has been some confusion and resulting complaints regarding interpretation of the Double Turn rule between two warring parties.  Also, a significant grey area/loophole has been pointed out by Dandridge.

Discussion on this can be found here:  http://www.chaosciv.com/index.php/topic,126.0.html

Bottom line is that I, as Game Servant, need to make a judgment call here, much as I loathe to do so.  Here's how I see it:

1) Both parties have bent the Double Turn rule, due to the grey area/loophole of being able to log in to study or follow-up move even after finishing one's turn.  I am convinced this was not done with malicious intent, as I would have done the same thing given the circumstances (I may have even done this when I was at war, I can't recall).

2) As of 12-28-07, every player is permitted a single rollback request to the last recovery point for their nation's prior turn.  Levgree used his to rollback to recover his Great Person, and while I would prefer rollbacks not be used during wartime, we have no stipulations otherwise.

3) As a player in this game it's no secret that Viktor (Agarthia) and I (Aidern) were allies against England in a previous war.  That said, you are all trusting me to host this game, even though I am playing in it, and I respect the responsibility that you expect of me as the game host, not to abuse the neutrality that is imperative.

Taking these points into account, I am taking the following action, which will no doubt irritate both players but I feel is the only fair way to settle this issue:

1) I will roll back the game, but not to the previous save point for Viktor as would normally be the case.  Instead, I am going to roll back to the December 30th start-of-turn autosave, which is the day before war was declared.  I will not count this as a rollback against Viktor's quota for the game, however. I realize this means both parties have lost the element of surprise for their respective maneuvers.


2) I am also clarifying the Double Turn rule as best I can:

a) When war has been declared, the defender will be allowed to log in once to counter-move or assess the situation, even if he has already made his move for that turn.  Their status has changed from peacetime to wartime, so it's fair to allow for a reaction. (Rescinding this rule after Drib's strong argument for treating wartime turns as sequential)

b) Beyond that first turn and for the duration of the war, both parties will not be permitted to log in except for taking their turn.  That means no follow-up logins to observe, counter move, nothing.  Logging in twice during a turn sequence while at war will now be considered a double-move. Use Civstats to determine if it's "safe" to take your turn, rather than logging into the game.

c) Both parties must observe the turn sequence as per the start of the war. If the attacker was the second in the turn sequence, so he should remain.

d) A warring nation may not swap the turn sequence, except if there are fewer than 12 hours remaining before the end of turn.  In the event the nation is in a position where they must make their turn as described, the sequence has been swapped and must then be followed in that new order.  Never should a nation be making two turns back-to-back, unless there are fewer than 12 hours remaining on the timer with the opponent still not taking his turn.

I will change the turn timer for Chaos and Civility from 20 to 22 hours now, to provide a larger buffer opportunity, to minimize the risk of a player having his turn leap-frogged due to the 12-hour remaining rule.


I hope these rules make sense--if not, please speak up so I may clarify.



Please consider these an amendment to the Double-Turn rule, effective immediately.


I will reload the game when I return from an evening meeting I am off to, now.  I will make a note in this thread when the game has been reloaded.

Your Game Servant,
Frank
   

[Viktor Ahriman]

I agree with Dribnairb, and I agree with you Capsavian. The one thing I agree with Drib is that when a player declares war, if the other person has taken there turn, he should not be allowed to log back in and make moves.  He would make those moves in the next turn.  I feel this way because if player 1 declares war and attacks player 2 after player 2 has made his turn, player 1 one make his moves and end his turn, thus being second in the turn sequence.  So if player 1 logged in to make some quick moves, player 1 could make those moves, then when the turn clock expires, he could make another move with those moves he did in the previous turn.  This would not be a double turn, but a double move.  I agree with Drib that when at war, when the player logs in, you make all your moves and end turn.  No logging back in.  Like Capsavian said, this can be varified on Civstats to prevent a mistake.  If a mistake does happen, it is the responsiblility of the person to let everyone know of the mistake.  I think this makes it simple.  When at war, one turn (log in and out) and thats it.  With trading, a person would normally make that trade when his next turn comes up, but cannot log back in to make that trade if at war.  Now if you are not at war, i think its ok to log in as many times as you want.  Other than this issue, I concure with Capsavian.

[Viktor Ahriman]

So let me see if i understand: 

Player 1 makes move
Player 2 makes move and declares war
Next turn
Player 1 makes move
Player 2 makes move
Next turn
Player 1 does not make a move and passed the 12 hour time left on the clock
Player 2 makes move at 10 HRS left.
Player 1 makes move at 4 HRS left.
Next turn
Player 2 now is first does move
Player 1 makes move

Is this a correct example?  Assuming we go with Dribs suggestion and Capsavians rules?

Viktor

[Capsavian Hopewell]

I have updated the clarification, rescinding 2(a) because I concur with Drib's argument.

2(b) stands, unless popular opinion dictates otherwise.

I want to stress that while at peace, you are welcome to log into your civ as often as you like;  There's no reason not to.  But while at war, there is no way for us to verify that troop movements have not taken place, and so we have to be black-and-white about enforcing the "no double logging" while at war rule, as the only simple way to ensure a loophole is not being exploited.


Viktor -- your example is precisely what I was attempting to describe, yes.  Thank you for illustrating it so clearly.

I am reloading the pitboss server for December 30th.

[Capsavian Hopewell]

OK, Chaos and Civility has been reloaded to December 30th, which appears to be before war was declared between England and Agarthia.

Please keep these clarified/revised Double Turn rules in mind, gentlemen, as we proceed.

Thank you, everyone for your patience as we sort out this mini-quagmire. 

[Sonnybonds]

thx for clearing up the Double turn rules. The new rules look real good to me.
There is however 1 thing i dont get:

1) I will roll back the game, but not to the previous save point for Viktor as would normally be the case.  Instead, I am going to roll back to the December 30th start-of-turn autosave, which is the day before war was declared.  I will not count this as a rollback against Viktor's quota for the game, however. I realize this means both parties have lost the element of surprise for their respective maneuvers

I just logged in but didnt find any reload??? And a reload from dec 30th? thats more then a month ago?

[Capsavian Hopewell]

Sonny, this thread you are replying to was from January 2nd.    The reload happened back then.

I only referenced this thread in the Rules update, as this is where the Double Turn/Double Move clarifications originally were posted.

You can safely ignore this thread though, as I've since updated the main Official Rules page at http://www.chaosciv.com/index.php/topic,25.0.html to reflect these clarifications.

Apologies for any confusion!  There is no rollback though, no worries.

[da_Vinci]

b) Beyond that first turn and for the duration of the war, both parties will not be permitted to log in except for taking their turn.  That means no follow-up logins to observe, counter move, nothing.  Logging in twice during a turn sequence while at war will now be considered a double-move. Use Civstats to determine if it's "safe" to take your turn, rather than logging into the game.


Mea culpa ... looks like in the middle of the night, I violated the letter, but not the spirit, of our double login rule.  I think I confused discussions from another game ... I needed to discuss what I saw on the field with an ally before completing my move, so logged out, discussed, logged in again to finish.

A need (or at least a temptation) to do this will be common going forward, so maybe worth revisiting ...

Seems to me that the real problem is login in both before and after an opponent in a war.

In some other discussion on this (another game?) it was concluded that the person going second could log in as many times as they wanted (after the one going first is done) with no ill effects.

Which suggests that the person going first perhaps could also log in more than once, before the person going second has moved, equally with no ill effects.

Here are the scenarios where this might be important:

First player logs in, sees a situation that they want to discuss with allies before completing their move.  Logs out, discusses, logs back in.

First player logs in, sees a situation and would like ally to reposition troops (ally also moves first).  Logs out, discusses.  Both player and ally may be making second login to implement the plan.  But if it is before the second player in the war or other tension has moved, seems to me it is ok.

Final issue is what if the ally had already ended turn?  Can they log in to implement the discussed plan?  Seems to me that end turn is a communication device to other players that they may go ahead, but I don't see why that would prevent any readjustments provided they are before some critical opponent has moved (or even started to move).

As wars get larger, allowing double logins on the same side of the 12 hour boundary may be important for allies to coordinate coherently.  If that is not allowed, a workaround that we don't want is for a player to remain logged in for 8 hours waiting to hear from an ally ... which is functionally the equivalent of the double login on the same side of the opponents move.

Regarding rule language: Technically, I only logged in to take my turn, but it just took two logins to do it.

Maybe what we want to say is that in a war, the player going first is entitled to the first 12 hours to make their move.  Person going second is entitled to the last 12 hours.

Regardless of how many logins that takes.

If first perons ends turn before 12 hours, they now have given permisson for the person going second to login.

Once the person going second has logged in, either after 12 hours or after first person has ended turn, then the first person may not log in again.

But up until the second person has logged in, the first person may continue to access the game.

After 12 hours or after end turn by first person, the second person has right of way and if they log in, the first person must immediately log off if they are in the game.

Now, this completely falls apart if more than two parties are at war and there is a staddle, but a straddle in itself creates all kind of trouble.

dV

[Viktor Ahriman]

Well to sum it all up in a shorter message, yes player one can log in as much as he wants until player 2 logs in and does his turn.  Then player one cannot log in.  The turn sequence must stay player one first and then player 2.  UNLESS player one fails to do his turn and the timer is under 10 hours, then player 2 can do his move, which if player one then logs in, the turn sequence is reversed then.  If player one misses his turn, then the turn order stays the same.

I see your issue with multiply players at war, but its something that is too hard to gauge.  Say in Oyzars position or Levgree where they had 4 nations at war with them.  You can almost certaintly expect that allies are going to share information.  It would be no different in real life where if one nation is attacked by many, the lone nation is at an disadvantage.  But thats how it goes.  In turn though, the lone nation could make an alliance with another nation in where that nation can scout and report news as well.  This is an example, but you see how its not something I think can be enforced.  The rule is set up so there are no double moves (2 moves before the other player gets to move).  There also has to be some trust that a rule will no be abused and that during war, war is not fair.  A guy can always say, is it fair to have 4 against one like in Oyzars and Levgrees position?   But thats the way the world works (in real life, the coalition against Iraq in the first gulf war) and thats the fun of the game.

[Capsavian Hopewell]

Well to sum it all up in a shorter message, yes player one can log in as much as he wants until player 2 logs in and does his turn.  Then player one cannot log in. 

That is an accurate summary, yes.

And yes, technically Player One can log in multiple times, up until Player Two logs in to take his turn.  It would be good in such situations, to notify Player Two of the intentions (as it could easily be assumed that Player One logged in and took his turn, but simply forgot to End Turn). 

To avoid confusion though, it would be best to avoid this scenario as much as possible, and to complete a turn in the same sitting (toggling back to MSN or other forms of communication to coordinate with allies--or better still, if your ally is in-game when you are).

[da_Vinci]

Well to sum it all up in a shorter message, yes player one can log in as much as he wants until player 2 logs in and does his turn.  Then player one cannot log in. 

That is an accurate summary, yes.

And yes, technically Player One can log in multiple times, up until Player Two logs in to take his turn.  It would be good in such situations, to notify Player Two of the intentions (as it could easily be assumed that Player One logged in and took his turn, but simply forgot to End Turn). 

To avoid confusion though, it would be best to avoid this scenario as much as possible, and to complete a turn in the same sitting (toggling back to MSN or other forms of communication to coordinate with allies--or better still, if your ally is in-game when you are).

I agree, MSN and both in game are good ... once you know that you need to be in such contact.  But sometimes the need for the cooperation is not apparent until one party logs in ...

dV

[Capsavian Hopewell]

I agree.  I think it's mostly a question of trying to do what one can to adhere to the spirit of the rules.  I don't think we can cover every potential scenario without creating a set of rules overly complex for the average bear to interpret.