rules - single player win in FFA no-diplomacy game
Wed, 07/01/2009 - 02:10 — kevin551
Shall we change the rules for FFA no-diplomacy games?
Currently Rule 10 of the site rules is
- 10.1- The only successful outcome of a team game is for one winning team; either by
- a) militarily defeating all other teams;
- b) arriving in the first spaceship;
- c) for all opposing live teams to have surrendered (if all live players agree to it).
- 10.2 In all other games arbitrary players (with arbitrary win share) may be considered the winner of an LT game if they agree to it, and if all live players agree to it.
I suggest changing rule 10 by adding a new subsection (current 10.2 becomes 10.3):
-
10.2 The only outcome of a no-alliances game is 1 winning player. either by
- a) militarily defeating all other players;
- b) arriving in the first spaceship;
- c) for all opposing live players to have surrendered.
- d) if an end date has been set then on reaching that end date the winner will be determined using a method agreed before the game starts.
Shall we change the rules for FFA no-diplomacy games?
Poll deadline: 2009-09-01
Yes
58% (11 votes)
No
42% (8 votes)
Total voters: 19
Comments
I have doubts about it
I would vote yes, but I'm not sure if it won't be fiction - noone will want to play game until one winner is elected and in result there will be game without a winner.
So we will have unofficial winners :).
And official rules regards official ranking, but there is no official ranking yet. We have only Marduk's ranking, which is semi-official.
Defending winner
Could we add to this rule a defend-winner?
Like game will end in T180 and someone who is top on score box is winner.
LTXIV was realy long game, I think we dont need to play more then 6 months games.
I dont think that there will be so long game ever.
We can set number of turns in a poll.
Endyear
This rule should correspond with the 'endyear' setting.
End Game
Ben wrote some really good suggestions about this recently.
http://longturn.org/forum/lt-x...
Some live players wanted to end the game militarily so we ignored these ideas at the time, but it may be good to agree such an end date and an end method before the next game starts.
LTXIV took six months and 11 days to complete. As the victor I would have been annoyed in this situation if an arbitrary date had denied me victory just before the end. But had the rules in LTXIV disallowed a group victory then the game may have lasted much longer indeed.
So I am in favour of adding an extra clause about the way a single player can win.
10.2 The only outcome of a no-alliances game is 1 winning player. either by
* a) militarily defeating all other players;
* b) arriving in the first spaceship;
* c) for all opposing live players to have surrendered.
* d) if an end date has been set then on reaching that end date the winner will be determined using a method agreed before the game starts.
If you think this is good wording I will edit the poll and change it to this.
wording change
I just changed the wording of the poll to add the allowed methods of winning.
I think that now rules are
I think that now rules are even worse. Not only that rule will be dead, now rules lost their simplicity.
Not eligible?
Not that it is terribly important to me, but since this is a site rule, why am I not eligible to vote on this poll?
--
Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil. -- Niccolo Machiavelli
Not eligible!
Sorry Pipo there isn't an option in the poll form to make it open for everyone. You are correct this poll is about site rules and not a specific game. In fact this rule may not even apply to LTXVI - if we vote to turn diplomacy on it won't be. I chose to post the poll now because this issue came up in LTXIV and I waited for that game to finish before posting.
Kevin
Thank you Kevin, for the
Thank you Kevin, for the clarification.
I believe that there should be an option in the poll form to make it open for everyone.
non-alliance vs non-team
By non-alliance do you mean non-team? Or, are non-alliance and non-team games different? In other words, is there a LT game type called "non-alliance" in which alliances are banned?
Yes, non-alliance are non-team are different.
The 3 kinds of game referred to are
1> Team games, a team is automatically allied and shares all tech and vision. According to the new rules only one team can win. LTXV is a team game.
2> FFA non-alliance, is when all players are separate and cannot form alliances because diplomacy is turned off. This poll refers to this kind of game. LTXIV was FFA non-alliance game. But a group of players won LTXIV together because the rules allowed it. This poll will force FFA non-alliance to have a single victor.
3> FFA with-alliance, is when all players start separate but can form alliances because diplomacy is turned on. An arbitrary number of players can win this kind of game.
There will be a vote to choose whether LTXVI will be a game of kind 2 or kind 3. That vote is called LTXVI set diplomacy. (I hope it goes live soon).
There will be a vote to
I would presume that will end up being a #3 game. I see no obvious reason for banning diplomacy anymore. If you feel there is a reason, please discuss here!
A reason for banning diplomacy
The poll about diplomacy isn't about whether the bugs have been fixed or not. It is about whether we want to play alone or in groups. Some prefer to play a FFA alone. I prefer to play as a group of players against other groups.
A good reason for playing alone is that you don't have to talk to anyone else. You don't have to explain your mistakes, and you don't have to care about theirs.
game without diplomacy is:
game without diplomacy is:
- longer
- more interesting for someone (eg. me). You can do more warrior wars there.
Maho can you allow the vote on setting diplomacy
The discussion about diplomacy would better be done on the poll that decides whether we allow diplomacy or not. I hope that vote will go live soon.
A good reason for playing
and it's good for busy people. Game without diplomacy usually can be handled by 5 minutes a day, at least at the beginning.
i see
thx for the detailed explanation. I prefer diplomacy on.
good question :). It was
good question :). It was tied to LTXVI game, now is open to everyone.
I agree in principle...
...but I suggest some changes:
* 10.2 The only outcome of a FFA game is 1 winning player, either by:
o a) militarily defeating all other players;
o b) arriving in the first spaceship (if that option is enabled);
o c) all opposing live players to have surrendered;
o d) having the highest score at the game end date (if an end date has been set)
I changed first line to affect alliance games too because I think it's kinda lame for a bunch of people to form an alliance, conquer all other nations and then say look we won. All you have to do in such a game is join the winning alliance and you're a winner. All FFA games imho should have 1 winner. (Current 10.2 would be removed as there are no other games.)
As for d), I think high score is a method all can agree on no?
I am still not "eligible" to vote here.
Maybe we can open a fictitious games (LTGen?) and register everybody who has a site account. That way, when we have a 'site' vote, we can assign it to that game and make everybody on the site eligible to vote.
--
Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil. -- Niccolo Machiavelli
dammed, something is wrong
dammed, something is wrong here ....
I'm unable to set poll to "no-game-specified" ....
Hehe, thanks for looking
Hehe, thanks for looking into it. That's what Kevin said a few weeks ago. That is why I suggest to create a fake game so we can assign general polls to it.
--
Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil. -- Niccolo Machiavelli
There is no need. I rather
There is no need. I rather should fix the bug in code, or someone who create the poll shouldn't assign it to any game.
Anyway, what would be your vote if you were eligible? I will count it when changing or not ....
Thank you, I would vote yes
Thank you, I would vote yes to allow the change. I am guessing that temporary alliance would still be possible but only onle winner seems good to me for now in FFA games.
alliance
Grendel, I don't agree. It makes sense to have one winner if diplomacy is disabled (as in the current poll) but it doesn't make sense to have one winner if diplomacy is on in which allied nations would eventually have to fight each other. Diplomacy and alliances is an important part of freeciv and we should not limit diplomacy to team games only. If several people ally, others can ally against them. But to avoid big alliances we can limit the maximum number of alliances each player can make.
limiting alliance size
I strongly agree that in diplomacy-enabled games the size of winning alliances should be limited. It happened several times that an alliance of 8-12 people defeated one of 4-5 people, simply because of strength in number. That sucks.
It's quite complicated though. So far two options have been tried, which were not really succesful:
- "gentlemen's" agreement to limit alliance size (since we can't force it through the game code yet)
- giving winning players more points in the ranking list if they win in a small alliance than in a big one (but the ranking list hasn't been updated in quite a while, and it may not be a strong enough incentive for all players)
Would be cool if we could vote about the maximum alliance size before the game starts, and then force this maximum in the game code (so players have 5 'slots' for alliances, when they're full they're unable to establish new ones). I don't know how difficult it is to code this
=== 0h Marduk, thou art chiefest among the great gods! To destroy and to create; speak thou the word, and thy command shall be fulfilled. ===
There is also third option.
There is also third option.
When we notice that some alliance is bigger than limit, then we kindly ask them to unalliance themself. If they won't do them - then administrator will remove whole alliance.
Simple, probably effective.
Marduk, I'm not convinced by your arguments about alliance size.
Preliminary comment - this thread started as a vote about FFA - no diplomacy games. We have never played such a game with current rule stating that only 1 player can win. The argument about limiting alliance size is presumably aimed at FFA - with diplomacy games. The current site rules allow arbitrary number of players to win. Maybe we need a new vote started for the winning conditions of FFA - with diplomacy games.
Main comment - In many games one small alliance takes a big lead and then the rest of the board gangs up against the leading alliance. Limiting winning alliance size would force the big group to carry on fighting each other after they have defeated the main threat. There haven't been any FFA games recently where a big alliance formed at the start and then won the game. (I am choosing 6 as the limit for a small group)
In LT10 Marduk was in the small leading group, a team of 12 managed to come from behind and win the game. I congratulate them for that. Not dismiss them for being a big group.
In LT11 the small elite group outplayed a much larger Grand Alliance. The big alliance was about 20 players and lasted most of the game. The different factions within that group never worked well together partly because we were still competing for the best position in the end game.
LT12 was won by a small group.
LT13 was won by a small group.
LT14 was a team game won by two teams working together. This is now explicitly banned in the site rules.
LTX111 was a team game with a single winner.
LT1V was won by a small group.
LTXV was a team game with one winner and a size 2 team surrendering at the end.
Kryon, I don't agree with
Kryon, I don't agree with you.
It does have sense to have one winner in non-team diplomacy game. Simply - when you make alliance, you know that at the end you will fight with your allies, because there will be only one.
The problem is, that probably at the end of the game allies won't fight with themself, but they will simply stop playing, or something like that, so game will be formally not finished.
As for d), I think high
You're wrong - I cannot agree. Score is only estimation, but it isn't ideal.
And in your corrected rule - what would be if player A defeated everyone (a), but player B has higher score (d). Who win?
As for d), I think high
As for d), I think high score is a method all can agree on no?
It is unfortunate that scores are no longer published like they used to be in 2.0 games.
I believe you can only get scores by forming an embassy - something that may never happen in some games.
scores
it would be really cool to have the scripts that display the statistical graphs and the map after the games end.
Well, score is the game's
Well, score is the game's benchmark to determine who is winning. It's only an estimation, but it's the same for any other game or sport that uses score to determine who is winner. Score the most points before the time runs out, you're the winner. It's true score in the game was never meant to be used to determine winner, but this is only for case d), to be used when time is up.
I'd be curious to know how scores are determined actually. Anybody care to look at the code and tell us?
Your 2nd point: Player A wins. d) only occurs if the game ends due to having reached the last turn. Since A defeats everyone before that, he wins.
Another wacky idea:
Game ends when an alliance of players defeats all opposing players. Player of that alliance with the highest score wins the game.
This way you might have people in the alliance either just saying, oh well, Player B wins. Or you might have some players split into a new alliance to try to beat Player B.
I just strongly think FFA games should only have one winner. It's the name of the game. It's a free-for-all, every man for himself, trying to be the one on top. Allowing a group win is just turning an FFA game into a Team game, where the teams are not determined at game start and are changeable.
I dislike the idea of limiting alliance sizes because it's artificial and you can't stop people from allying outside the game.
Well, score is the game's
No, it's rather like phone poll comparing to results of election. It's good to estimate something, but I think it's too easy to "cheat" ....
... simply, as you said score was never meant to be used to determine winner, so I think Freeciv developers didn't pay lot of effort to make them very accurate and fair (whatever it means :D).
Note, that score reflects not only your current position, but also your position in the past. So, eg. in early 2.0 you could borrow city with wonder, from your ally, give it him back, and you had instantly increased score by some big factor.
So, what I'm afraid - that if we allow score to be method of determining winner, people will start doing things which will increase their score, but are stupid in normal conditions. More - those who will spend time to look into sources, will have "magic knowledge" advantage.
Your proposition doesn't mention anything about points precedence. When I'm reading your proposition, I see that all points have equal meaning.
What is free-for-all ?
There is nothing in the phrase free-for-all that stops players from working together. Each player chooses their own best strategy as they see fit.
You seem to dismiss the fact that alliances are changeable as a minor difference. But I think if you look at past games you will see that FFA with diplomacy may involve broken alliances, betrayals and backstabbing. These are often major events. It has also happened quite often that vision is inadvertently shared with your opponents. None of this is possible in a team game.
I see one danger - what if
I see one danger - what if we DON'T agree endyear method?
Extend the deadline here please.
Maho can we extend the deadline on this poll please.
Much of the discussion here has been about whether LTXVI should be a game with diplomacy enabled or not. That is a separate discussion that finally has its own poll. see http://longturn.org/ltxvi-set-...
poll had no deadline set :).
poll had no deadline set :). I have set it to 2009-10-01