That is a good question @Sassy_Wolfie! I'm sure a lot of veteran players have discussed this term before, so I wonder what the Utopian Lords would have to say. Thank you for your input! :D
-DM <3
That is a good question @Sassy_Wolfie! I'm sure a lot of veteran players have discussed this term before, so I wonder what the Utopian Lords would have to say. Thank you for your input! :D
-DM <3
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Not agreeing with your premise, but even if true - isn't it commendable that if someone unwittingly broke the rules, that he'd try to find out what they are to make sure they don't get broken again?
In any other community, that would be lauded as good behavior, rehabilitation and a sign that someone is truly trying to reform.
If you get pulled over by the cops and given a speeding ticket, would it be suspicious and shady and in bad faith if you then started paying very close attention and researching to find out what the speed limits are on the roads around you so you don't speed again?
No, if anything that shows you learn your lesson and are going above and beyond to make sure you don't speed again. In fact, any Judge would probably find you not remorseful and acting in bad faith if you didn't make an effort to figure out what the speed limits were after you were given your first speeding ticket.
Hmm, I never thought of it that way and you do have a point.
That said, the premise of that isn't that different from "No PK" rules right? If you don't have to collect science and rebuild a bunch of provinces from scratch, you have gained time to load more honor/pump sci (even more so since you were literally reduced to 0.
More of an academic example that, since I actually don't think I've ever seen, or be likely to agree to no massacre/no AW, though I have seen "no abducts" which is roughly the same principal (removing a resource that you can only regain by literally sitting around waiting for a week.
Though this might be a good example to discuss the reasoning behind the "No Fake War" rule and the considerations that come into play.
On the one hand, my understanding of the broad rationale behind preventing fake wars is preventing abuse of the "protection" aspect of Wars, whereby a KD is protected from outside hits, and hence gain an advantage in terms of charting over KDs that are not so protected, and have little feasible way of targeting them.
In that respect, agreeing to not allow land grabs on certain provs is a classic example of a fake war, as it allows a province to grow unmolested by outside forces. However, in terms of saying, no AW, this reasoning is unaffected - because outside KDs, if not hostiled, don't have access to AW anyway. So saying no AW doesn't give a province in war relative protection compared with being out of war, so in that regard there is no abuse of war protections. (In that regard, no abducts, for example, could be, as it lets a KD run like 50% labs and stock up on science in war with no universities, and be "protected" from outside abducts.
Another aspect is preventing people from farming out acres and benefits to one KD by agreement (rather than by merit), and thereby artificially boost the chances of one KD in charting beyond what that KD could achieve in a fair war or out in the open.
In that regard, banning AW doesn't artificially boost one side by transferring resources from one side to another, it just prevents the destruction of a resource - so no AW doesn't go towards this aspect directly.
Another aspect could be in making sure someone is not skewing the risk/reward balance in the EOWCF boost, which, I believe is probably balanced to achieve goals of 1) counterbalance the disincentives of war, and 2) allow for recovery time to minimize downtime, but at the same time, to make sure the rewards are not so great such that a non or less warring KD cannot compete. It is arguable that banning AW, by decreasing one of the "risks" of warring, while still retaining the "reward" of EOWCF could have a skewing effect on that risk/reward balance by taking away one of the risks.
And I think another aspect, of course, is the game owners would want to increase activity, participation, and the players in the game (because, obviously, the financial success of the game depends on that =P). And encouraging more frequent warring is one of those, so there's a balance between not allowing abusive wars to maintain a fair competition environment, while still allowing common rules that KDs use to counter otherwise disincentives to war. Allowing KDs to agree to provisions to minimize wizard destruction is one of them, since, destroying a KD's wizards, say for example AWing a DE Heretic reliant KD's wizards down to .1 WPA, would essentially mean that you have 25 players out of commission for 2-3 weeks repumping wizards, and some of those are going to get bored and quit. So that, I'm, sure is an aspect that has to be kept in mind too.
Wow, just wow. Can we give it up for @changeling for such a great and thoughtful writeup! :D I seriously hope to see some input from the Lords on a few of the issues you have brought up.
And I love your analogy; Ignorance is not a defense, and how do you combat ignorance? With Knowledge! That is the goal here for the Cavalier's Club; to inform the player base! An informed community is a strong community!
Keep them coming! Any questions, or opinions on this, let's see them! :D
-DM <3
Last edited by Zombies are people too; 22-11-2017 at 08:00.
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I agree that a kd who doesn't have their wiz killed is in a better position to fight later wars. But the rules don't state that you are not allowed to agree terms in a real war with the aim of putting you in a better position in later wars - you can't exclude certian provinces form a war and the war has to be real.
It would also follow from what you are saying, but to a lesser degree, that if I war a KD of 20 provinces / 80% of my nw (or whatever the minimum is these days), and you war one with 25 provs at 100% of your nw, I am more likely to be in a better position in a future war because there are fewer opposing provs to AW/massacre / whatever me. But I don't think anyone would suggest that is against the rules, provided both are genuinely real wars. So there has to be a line somewhere which isn't based solely on whether there is a benefit to the KD in question in a future war.
Unless we go with Makeo's school of thought above (in which case any agreement at all about anything related to the war would be prohibited), I can't see how this could be an issue. And yes I still come across KDs wanting to agree no dragons.
Your bolded text sounds fine to me. I agree that people don't really think about what PK means.
A few ages ago I had a KD say to mine that they would war us if we agree to various things, which included no PK. I would have been happy to war without any terms, but they wanted them and I wanted a war, so I agreed to their no PK. It was 3am and I didn't bother to try to debate what that actually means. War started and we chained as usual. After a few chains, by chance we chained one of their players who didn't know how to deal with being chained and didn't release much / anything. We had already moved on to attacking someone else. I wasn't following the specifics at the time, although I had seen his peasant count was getting low but assumed he was just cutting things fine with releasing. But then I woke up one morning and his prov had died :P We weren't opping or attacking him at the time and literally made no attempt to PK him. He wasn't anywhere near to 0 acres (can't remember the amount but certainly over 100).
To their credit, the KD in question didn't complain that we had breached the war terms. The prov in question didn't even recreate in that KD, so maybe it was an inactive/semi-active we managed to PK. But it did demonstrate your point quite well. I assumed at the very least that "no PK" would mean that their KD would take normal reasonable steps to stop their own provinces dying after being chained... :)
Thank you @Chris121 and @changeling for your well written input on theses issues! I'm sure newer players will garner something from your experience :D
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Yes, after quite a few bad experiences with disagreements and both sides accusing each other of "deal breaks" when a generic "no PK" rule is agreed to, I've since been trying to get more and more specific, based on experience of common situations in which the line between allowed attacks and intentional PKing will get fuzzy.
I'll put my current version below, so that the community can see and have a base of what I consider a formulated "no PK" rule, and to of course, check that it's within the rules.
Last edited by changeling; 22-11-2017 at 18:00.
Diamonds accepted an offer of a free WW in exchange for killing off certain provs after the war. If you believe that could possibly be unwitting FW for anyone with two brain cells to rub together, or anyone with eyes to read the actual written rules, perhaps you'd believe me if I said the word gullible has been taken out of the dictionary? :)
The Devs do not do everything perfectly that is for sure, they are only human not really Lords, there are grey areas, but that situation isn't one of them.
Things like agreeing no dragons are not even grey areas to me - there is no requirement to send a dragon in war its optional. There is no requirement to AW, there is no requirement to use any specific strategy at all in order to win. It is not even a rulebreak to call in your friends even though it's ****ty play and gets you a bad rep (hello Alliance of Diamonds). Not everything can be a hard and fast rule because context is really important, lots of situations are analogue not digital. Cheaters like digital and do not like the use of judgement and application of common sense. That's why the Devs decide on a case by case basis.
What is not optional about a war is genuinely trying to win.
Is it legal to war a kingdom you know you will beat? It seems to me the outcome is predetermined whether you message and agree to terms or not. How is warring a kingdom like WsK any different from arranging a farmwar functionally? They both achieve the same results regardless of intent.
A personal example of "legal" pre-determined outcome: I've always found it easier to war kingdoms that don't know they're about to be at war using players who are taking ages off to join and deliver buttons. I have taken comfort in the fact that this is a legal move since the monarch/kd in question are indeed clueless and no multi is used for delivery. I sincerely hope that I will not have to change my tactics under the new administration.
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I have found in the past that agreeing to a "No Intentional PK" rule, without further elaboration, can tend to lead to disagreements about what PK actually is. While we all recognize that FB and Kidnaps on a deep-chained province with low peasants is the characteristic hallmark of intentional PK, there are other situations where the line is not clear - i.e. massacring a chained T/M to remove opping power, or noting when exactly is peasants too low.
The following are designed to minimize risk of PKing, while balancing against legitimate war needs that increase the risk of PKing even if not intended to, and to provide a framework whereby that can be done safely.
(I normally assign actual acre numbers to the following based on average numbers, not use percentages. So if we start off with a KD of mostly 1000 acre provinces, I use "250 acres" instead of 25%, but I give percentages in this post to better convey the overall meaning).
1. Define "Semi-Chained Provs" as provinces that have been taken to below 25% of original acres, define "Deep-Chained Provs" as provinces that have been taken to below 10% of original acres.
2. No Kidnaps or Fireballs on either Semi-Chained Provs or Deep-Chained Provs below 500 peasants.
3. No Massacres on Semi-Chained Provs below 200 Peasants without notice pursuant to section X. No massacres on Deep-Chained Provs at all without notice pursuant to section x.
4. No attacks on Deep-Chained Provs on land defense below 120 peasants.*This one is per my earlier post that I was asking about, I do not currently use it, but am considering it and would like to see if I can get a mod to approve, as I'm not sure if it is within the rules, but at the same time it's to address that attacks on land defense provinces do kill peasants, and in sufficient number can be used to PK.*
5. For the bans on actions in sections 2, 3, and 4, the burden is on the attacking party to obtain up to date SoTs and intel to ensure that the peasant levels and acreage are high enough to meet the requirements for whichever action the attacking party is intending.
6. To accommodate massacres on Semi-Chained Provs or Deep-Chained Provs when necessary to remove opping potential, the following notice provision can be used. If a Kingdom wishes to massacre a Semi-Chained or Deep-Chained Prov, that kingdom can give a "12-hour notice" whereby, a message should be sent to the province, the opposing monarch, and posted in the war forum, stating that at X time, set to no earlier than 12 hours from the time of the message, they intend to massacre X province, and to release 1k peasants by then. This notice will be deemed continuing such that X is expected to consider himself a massacre target, and continuously maintain the 1k peasant number whenever lengthy periods of inactivity are expected. But, if there is a 15-hour gap with no new massacres, the notice will be deemed expired, and a new 12-hour notice will have to be issued to resume massacring. Once the 12-hour notice is sent, the massacring Kingdom will no longer have the burden of checking SoTs before massacring to check peasants levels, and the burden to check on and maintain appropriate peasant levels will be shifted to province X. Note, this rule is not intended to allow PKing after giving notice, but to shift the burden of intel-checking and allow for a reasonable presumption.
7. Both Monarchs also agree to work together and communicate and to hold themselves to a duty to act in good faith. I.e. even if 12-hour notice is given, but you notice someone forgot to release enough and is down to 20 peasants, even though you may have given notice, please do the right thing and shoot the prov a warning and temporarily pause massacreing. That said, if a province is continuously abusing the rules, i.e. given notice, but hovering himself at 199 peasants in the hopes that massacres can be avoided, please still communicate with the opposing monarch, and the opposing monarch should keep in mind that while this provision seeks to ensure communication stays open during a war and monarchs cooperate to make sure everyone fights a clean, fair war, a province given notice is open to massacres, and will not be considered a rule-break if he gets killed - so the risk of keeping low peasants to try and avoid massacres is on that province.
Very good discussion points @octobrev, far beyond my scope to answer, but hopefully further discussion will get some clarification on the issues brought up.
@changeling another great write up! Even outside of discussing war terms, such a great reference guide for avoiding and mitigating player killing(PKs) :D
Just because I feel clarification is required:
@changeling is referring more to a broad concept and not the individual escapades of the 6:2 v 1:9 controversy. This thread is about clarity and guiding players to not make mistakes and, more to his comment, when infractions are made, a good attitude and equipping yourself with the knowledge to not repeat these mistakes should be commended, we got rid of the stocks decades ago lol.
Opinions, answers, questions, come one come all! You're on the air here in the Cavalier Club! :D
-DM <3
Last edited by Zombies are people too; 22-11-2017 at 18:54.
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If you "know" you will beat them, then it's a fake war as the only way you can "know" that is if the outcome is pre-determined. If however you are very confident you will win based on knowing your ability and theirs (or their state of readiness / set up etc), then yes I believe that in itself is within the rules (obviously assuming that there are no other ways in which you are breaking the rules, such as having provs in both KDs!).
The legality of the method of getting into war that you describe is a separate point. Honestly I am not sure if that is against the rules, but I would say it is against the spirit of the rules and therefore illegal.
What I was talking about was an opposing KD making a free choice whether to war with your KD or not (albeit sometimes that "choice" gets made by a couple of provs unwittingly giving out buttons). What you are talking about is having a deal with other people inside that KD to give you the button.
ps I'll have to come back to the other recent posts here when I have more time :)
Thanks for the response Sweetiepie. Thank you for contributing your input into this laudable thread trying to ensure that rules are not broken in the future.
I agree, of course, that the communication Diamonds accepted could be construed as problematic.
I was just pointing out that even if this thread were started by Diamonds (and it was not) as you contended, it would be evidence of good behavior and a good-faith attempt at reformation. It is something that should be encouraged and celebrated by the forum community that we are a community of players, who rather than just fill the forums with vitriol and hate when deleted or otherwise actioned by moderators, make the effort to make lemons from lemonade and use it as a learning opportunity, and more importantly, seek to help better the experience for everyone by working together on threads like this to make sure everyone learns from their mistakes and develop a better understanding of the rules we play by.
That said, this thread has been useful in bringing to light that there are actually more grey areas than we would have expected. For example, there are actually monarchs that disagree with your assessment that no dragons, no AW etc. are not against the rules. So you have just provided an excellent example of why this thread is here, and how unintentional rule-breaking can occur, where we have, for example one monarch like you, who thinks it's clear that "No AW" is clearly OK and not even a grey area, while 2-3 other monarchs here have argued that "No AW" is clearly a rule break intended to set up a KD for future wars. So this demonstrates this thread's usefulness for everyone, so that, for example an innocent leader like you won't get investigated next time when you send a "NO AW" rule request to a monarch who thinks it's against the rules.
Last edited by changeling; 22-11-2017 at 18:49.
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