Test Of Skill

[TheArchMede]

Well i did see him crash right after the last rehost and noted so. But since Daniel didn't comment, i presumed that we didn't want a new rehost again. After that i kinda forgot about it thou, till Sicily revolted from Naples atleast, when the subject were brought up again.

Daniel needs to get his act together about GMing. If he is not prepared to take notice of in game chat, then you need to be sole GM during the game Aladar. If a time critical decision is needed, such as a player crashing while at war, then the first person to realise it should pause, because allowing the clock to run could severely disadvantage the crashed player in ways that it is impossible to compensate. If the situation is not critical then there is good reason not to pause because it interupts the flow of the game.

So, when I had a loading glitch, I described the problem, but didn't pause because I prefer to let the game flow. The GMs were content to let the game continue, and for the sake of avoiding a rehost I was prepared to put up with the inconvenience. If a player chose to take advantage of my blindness to unit affiliations, then that's no more or less than I expect from some players. I am disgusted that a GM should do. Remember, everyone that if you get hit by the same sort of graphics glitch that I had or the pop-up bug that Tonio had, Daniel is liable to let play go on and use that to cover an attack on you.

Daniel finds it convenient as a player to be able to deny having read chat. This is Ok. Stalling and denyability are useful diplomatically. It is not Ok for a GM. Players need to be able to assume that a GM is aware of an extended discussion going on via chat.

Daniel can stay ignorant during the game provided it is clear that Aladar is in charge, and Aladar is the only one that pauses when he decides that he needs to talk to Daniel.

 

[-Lyko-]

hmm ok that sucks. well onething for sure is that i want sicily back and no damn rebels maybe? well i gotta see the save first.

 

[unmerged(49182)]

You should of course get Sicily back, and get Malta cleared of rebels, as all this occured after your sub had dropped. I dont know what else happened after he dropped so I cannot take a stance as to what edits should be made.

 

[TheArchMede]

About the MT, I think it should be changed, as it is now, I, and a few other nations, will get slightly above 2 in MT, even though one of them (Saxony) more than doubled in size. Perhaps we could change the number of men that has died in battle to the size of your army when we end?

This is even easier to fiddle. Sit there at peace for the whole session and then use the money saved to recruit at massive army at the end, and be rewarded by a couple of mega leaders. At least there are severe disadvantages to the country that lets rebels/enemies be in control of its provinces.

Saxony grew in size by diploannexing, so it is not surprising it has a low MT. Spending money on diplomats rather than troops should have that effect.

As I pointed out before the last session, a lot of countries spent their initial 1000 and stretched themselves by taking loans. It is to be expected that their MT will be a lot less this time. Not only did they have a lot less money to spend, the decay of nationalism in their conquests from last session will have pushed up the cap too. Those that kept some cash in hand, got poor generals this time but could afford to recruit casualties this session.

The other factor is the vassal manpower bug. Most games have some sort of rule to prevent exploitation of it. In this game there is no explicit rule, but countries that exploit it will suffer in their MT. Saxony chose to vassalise a lot and then diploannex. Good for BB but bad for MT.

If you want to get a better MT in future you need to spend your money on using troops aggressively. Might I suggest that Moldova as an attractive target Hard to miss when you attack something that big, and the Livonian Order's experience shows that a war with Moldova is an excellent way of increasing your MT. Satisfaction guaranteed. MA available to discerning rulers who wish maximise ratio of combat to attrition losses.

 

[-Lyko-]

hmm ok. 1 problem i still have elios DP sliders. i'm suppose to have +2 towards land and 1 towards centralization. but instead i have 8 innovative since last session? thought u guys changed this. well anyway don't know what we should edit because i don't know what my sub did at the moment.

hmm after 1 look on it. the only bad move the AI did if it was the AI that controlled naples at the time was a great increase of inflation. if i look in the stats i cna see a steady increase since 1432 but later a great increase of inflation. and then i think the AI took all the money my sub saved a build troops for it and other stuff so i don't know what to edit. have to talk to the sub first.

 

[Tonioz]

Saxony grew in size by diploannexing, so it is not surprising it has a low MT. Spending money on diplomats rather than troops should have that effect.

At the beginning of the session, i was in wars with 12 AIs at the same time.
- "Looks at wars of Saxony " - someone told

 

[unmerged(6147)]

one question to the GMs:
what kind of intersession edits are allowed?
i agreed a pact with tonio that includes province and vassall swappings. are these allowed to be done by edit?

The basic idea is that no edits will be done except the session rewards. Exceptions, as in the case of Ghouma when the GMs erred, may occur.

So province swappings you have to do yourself. Feel free to suggest something else. I do not think enither me nor Aladar think this is a vital question in regard to the main objective, i.e. skill. It is more a question of having a simple rule that eases the burden of the GMs.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Daniel needs to get his act together about GMing. If he is not prepared to take notice of in game chat, then you need to be sole GM during the game Aladar. If a time critical decision is needed, such as a player crashing while at war, then the first person to realise it should pause, because allowing the clock to run could severely disadvantage the crashed player in ways that it is impossible to compensate. If the situation is not critical then there is good reason not to pause because it interupts the flow of the game.

So, when I had a loading glitch, I described the problem, but didn't pause because I prefer to let the game flow. The GMs were content to let the game continue, and for the sake of avoiding a rehost I was prepared to put up with the inconvenience. If a player chose to take advantage of my blindness to unit affiliations, then that's no more or less than I expect from some players. I am disgusted that a GM should do. Remember, everyone that if you get hit by the same sort of graphics glitch that I had or the pop-up bug that Tonio had, Daniel is liable to let play go on and use that to cover an attack on you.

Daniel finds it convenient as a player to be able to deny having read chat. This is Ok. Stalling and denyability are useful diplomatically. It is not Ok for a GM. Players need to be able to assume that a GM is aware of an extended discussion going on via chat.

Daniel can stay ignorant during the game provided it is clear that Aladar is in charge, and Aladar is the only one that pauses when he decides that he needs to talk to Daniel.

If you need the attention of a GM and it appears you do not get it, e.g. because they are silent, then you pause the game and make sure you get it.

If you have a problem with a "graphic glitch" and are in war you will of course ask for a rehost. If you do not and suffer from it you will have to face the consequences.

The GMs in this game take part in the game as players. Since it is a test of skill no bigger demands will be allowed to be made on their behaviour during the regular game than on any other player except, of course, that if you pause the game and adress them they will be there to assist you as soon as they see what happens.

Regarding the war between you and me you DOWed my ally and I rejected to join. Then a year or two later I joined. You could detect this from the fact that I broke the RM. If you at this point want to make war under better conditions it is up to you to make sure you get your situation fixed at that moment, not some 3 months later when my army finally arrive in Northern Lithuania and attack you.

------------------

As for the attacks on my personal honesty I suggest you think about it for 24 hours and then come back. The attack in itself, regardless if it were true or not, is against the basic requirement of being nice. Being nice and reliable are the two foremost requirements we have on the participants.

If you then still believe that I may
"use that to cover an attack on you" or believe that I had seen your comments on the glitch and chose to disregard them or in anymore of your personal insults, such as that I "find it convenient as a player to deny having read the chat" then this game is not for you.

I must say that your character attack on me is quite beyond my imagination.

 

[TheArchMede]

At the beginning of the session, i was in wars with 12 AIs at the same time.
- "Looks at wars of Saxony " - someone told

You also claimed to have spend the money you raised from those wars on diplomats. Besides, beating up 12 AIs with one province each is easy. Its not too difficult if they have a good leader each and you have none. But when you have the leaders and good leaders too and they have none, ... it is surprising you took as many casualties as you did.

The solution to your MT problem is simple. Follow the example of the Livonian Order. The worst MT from the first session but 50% increase in MT due to war with Moldova in latest session. Attack Moldova now before someone else beats you to it. This offer is only available while stocks of Moldovan troops last. You wouldn't want to arrive late and find that a rival had taken all the MT boosting they had to give. o Don't worry about any AIs in the way, trample them and just take the casualties and welcome the slight increase in MT.

 

[Aladar]

Archmede i also saw what you wrote about the graphglitch, but as you said yourself no reason for rehost as long as it was not a problem.

Daniel probably didn't see, or forgot after some time had passed, like i did myself. So when he dow'ed you, you should have paused and asked for a rehost due to the glitch. As did didn't you can't really blame anyone for taking advantage.

Tonio had problems with annexing a nation. This ain't crucial to the game in my view, so not something that should be rehosted for. As i remember it, he did manage at some point to DA later before a rehost.

The shipthing was another thing in my view, since i've tried getting those hundreds of popups that drains the computer for all it's memory. Not sure how this was solved, but we did pause a few times for it.

 

[Tonioz]

Tonio had problems with annexing a nation. This ain't crucial to the game in my view, so not something that should be rehosted for. As i remember it, he did manage at some point to DA later before a rehost.

Hannover didn`t annexed despite ready option - diplomat went nowhere. Host saw Saxony-Hannover relation as +195, as i did. Hannover was vassalized about 1420-1421 year. This problem was fixed only by rehost. Before that i diploannexed Gelre.

The shipthing was another thing in my view, since i've tried getting those hundreds of popups that drains the computer for all it's memory. Not sure how this was solved, but we did pause a few times for it.

Flooding window by ships after i DAed Gelre - was very annoying, i could not make any thing, even build bailiff. KJ advice to convert message not to popup was very valuable, but i needed to press "Enter" for around 5 months :wacko: :wacko: :wacko: to remove all windows. And this bug kept helding in my log.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

I must say I am quite unsure about this MT thing.

It appears that the numbers will be much more normal after this session.

But as Archmede and Tonio has pointed out it can be manipulated.

But I do want a fairly simple system. John in-game suggested the number of wars. But I see a lot of problems with that. First that there are fake wars, and perhaps semi-fake wars etc. Then that there is a huge difference between a short war of say 2 years and a very long war, like 15 years. That they should be estimated as equally important appears strange.

Another suggestion has been to count the number of years at war. However, we again have the problem with fake wars. I would hate, as a fellow player, to sit and judge what wars of my opponents that were fake and who were not. A player should as far as possible not be judge. As I have written extensively a playing GM should ideally concern himself only with administration and disciplin, not with judging.

I really like the current solution. It is 100% objective, no subjective views are needed. Perhaps the main problem is the great span between our min and max value, i.e. between 2 and 5.

As I see it there are three alternatives

1. To tighten the span, e.g. 2.5 to 4.5

2. To use the square root formula which means that to get extreme values, like 2 and 5, you need much more extreme (low respectively high) losses than you need today.

3. or, of course, to combine these methods

 

[Tonioz]

2.5 and 4.5 limits sounds good, it prevents mandatory 2-2-2 or 5-5-5 if you reached the limits. It gives freedom to get random.

 

[unmerged(49182)]

But I do want a fairly simple system. John in-game suggested the number of wars. But I see a lot of problems with that. First that there are fake wars, and perhaps semi-fake wars etc. Then that there is a huge difference between a short war of say 2 years and a very long war, like 15 years. That they should be estimated as equally important appears strange.

Another suggestion has been to count the number of years at war. However, we again have the problem with fake wars. I would hate, as a fellow player, to sit and judge what wars of my opponents that were fake and who were not. A player should as far as possible not be judge. As I have written extensively a playing GM should ideally concern himself only with administration and disciplin, not with judging.

I really like the current solution. It is 100% objective, no subjective views are needed. Perhaps the main problem is the great span between our min and max value, i.e. between 2 and 5.

As I see it there are three alternatives

1. To tighten the span, e.g. 2.5 to 4.5

2. To use the square root formula which means that to get extreme values, like 2 and 5, you need much more extreme (low respectively high) losses than you need today.

3. or, of course, to combine these methods

The system we use now rewards bad play, giving better leaders to people that lose more soldiers. I think a new system would be good, athough not too different from this one.

I agree with the numbers of wars, but I dont think fake wars lasts for years so it should not be that much of a problem.

If you use the SQRT formula, I will certainly have a problem with that, seeing as I almost flunked the test in that, so please, try to keep it more simple. I entered the game with the current formula in use and if you change it, I will surely need an explanation as how to use it.

Even if you make the span smaller, it still rewards bad play, and a redefined system is needed.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

The system we use now rewards bad play,


If you use the SQRT formula, I will certainly have a problem with that

Well, the square root function is very easy as long as you have a SQRT button. Just write down the number in case on the calculator. Say 100. And then press the SQRT button and the display will change from 100 to 10, i.e. the square root is displayed. And everyone have a calculator these days I guess, at least on the computer.

Regarding the manipulation of the system the possibilities for this will get lesser and lesser the bigger we are. Big rarely have all of their territory under enemy or reb control. But it may still happen for sure.

That it rewards "bad play" is true.

Well, all suggestions are wellcome.

It must be fairly simple, and IMO it must be objective.

 

[unmerged(36826)]

0.5 for starting an actual human-human war.
0.5 for losing or drawing a human-human war
1.0 for winning a human-human war

I am sure you can all tell a fake war from a real war
Alliance wars are based on individual countries. So if A and B fought C, and A beat C and C beat B the following points are allocated. A=1.5 B=1 C=2.

 

[unmerged(49182)]

Well, the square root function is very easy as long as you have a SQRT button. Just write down the number in case on the calculator. Say 100. And then press the SQRT button and the display will change from 100 to 10, i.e. the square root is displayed. And everyone have a calculator these days I guess, at least on the computer.

Good point.

 

[unmerged(49182)]

0.5 for starting an actual human-human war.
0.5 for losing or drawing a human-human war
1.0 for winning a human-human war

I am sure you can all tell a fake war from a real war
Alliance wars are based on individual countries. So if A and B fought C, and A beat C and C beat B the following points are allocated. A=1.5 B=1 C=2.

That sounds pretty good.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Good to hear from you Bob. But where were you the other night? You had said you would be in vnet at 19.00. Luckily Elio was there with a working connection.

 

[TheArchMede]

I must say I am quite unsure about this MT thing.

It appears that the numbers will be much more normal after this session.

But as Archmede and Tonio has pointed out it can be manipulated.

But I do want a fairly simple system. John in-game suggested the number of wars. But I see a lot of problems with that. First that there are fake wars, and perhaps semi-fake wars etc. Then that there is a huge difference between a short war of say 2 years and a very long war, like 15 years. That they should be estimated as equally important appears strange.

Another suggestion has been to count the number of years at war. However, we again have the problem with fake wars. I would hate, as a fellow player, to sit and judge what wars of my opponents that were fake and who were not. A player should as far as possible not be judge. As I have written extensively a playing GM should ideally concern himself only with administration and disciplin, not with judging.

I really like the current solution. It is 100% objective, no subjective views are needed. Perhaps the main problem is the great span between our min and max value, i.e. between 2 and 5.

As I see it there are three alternatives

1. To tighten the span, e.g. 2.5 to 4.5

2. To use the square root formula which means that to get extreme values, like 2 and 5, you need much more extreme (low respectively high) losses than you need today.

3. or, of course, to combine these methods

Run it a bit longer. There is a strong underdamped response to the initial funding impulse. Players tend to get high one session and low the next. But it looks to me as if those oscillations are going to settle down within a few more sessions. A lot of players got megaleaders last session but had to retrench this session. I see no evidence that the swings are getting worse, which would be a good reason to damp the formula in some way and plenty that those that were happy to accept it an upper cap at 5 don't like it when the flip side is that they get close to 2 next week. You need at least one more weeks results to be able to judge what an appropriate damping might be.

While I may criticise Daniel's GMing in other ways, I think he is spot on here. This way of doing it suits Daniel's style for the reasons he gives and I think he should stick with it.

Any interventions in the formula have the potential to make things worse particularly if done each week to correct the perceived imbalance from that week. Wait another week and then make small changes, or longer and then make bigger changes.

Use the same formula next week and then tabulate all the results so far. If any change has to be done now, narrow the caps.