Congratulations to the Dark Servants of Game 85! We killed dragons, we got a hidden MT in the middle of Mordor. Trampled on various nations, eliminating Witch, Dog and Ice. But the tide has slowly turned, DS agents and their 2 curse squads are finally taking their toll. Their smaller nations are running extensive militaries all over the world, amazing that. Emissaries have taken Pelargir while most of Gondor has been character cleared for the very obvious Dark Servant tipping point.
But most importantly, in order to fund their continued character naming, army hiring. major town building and maintenance paying efforts, they very cleverly manipulated the broken code in the program to ensure that, while not breaking any rules (they must have legal training on that team??) they’ve quite proudly been abusing the OBN to their great advantage! They’re so good at it, our previous complaints 10 turns or so ago were investigate and the market at the time was found to be “a little high” but nothing out of the ordinary was apparently causing it!
In the event I’m being read as scathingly puritanical, I apologize. I’ve since been informed by my noble oppostion that “quasi-OBN” is “Standard” play in Grudges. So, providing you get to the same place where you manipulate the broken code for advantage, it’s legal, acceptable, and apparently , DITCOP, but issuing very specific 948 orders isn’t and get’s you punished, likely in-game and out. I didn’t know that I was such a naive innocent.
I’m thinking some clarity and maybe a rethink of the “ruling” is in order. Either, you cannot utilize this aspect of broken code in team/grudge games, PERIOD, or you can, PERIOD - you know, keep it simple. What say others?
Well the Problem lies in that we all know about this – so the only way to fix it – is either fix it at the source or tell players that no one is allowed to hoard over 100k !!
I don’t think you can tell someone running a nation that they can’t get there nation gold reserves up to and over 100k if they want to (unless agreed to upon start of game)!!
Clint and company know about the problem and have thus set out rules to try and prevent a side (freep or evil) from pooling there resources (gold and Product) to get the OBN to kick in !!
This said – if one nation/player gets his own gold reserves up high enough to have the OBN kick in without help (Gold or Product to sell) from rest of team/players or other nations , then this is considered fair game – at least by my understanding !!
Now is this fair – Overall – Most likely no as fax states it is a flaw in the code , BUT with everyone knowing about it and Clint and company having rules in place to make it harder but not impossable to do , I would say YES it is fair !!
There are ways around it that I have used in other games – either by using emmies or agents if a good scorch earth army isn’t available !!
So to keep it simple as fax states –
Yes , you can utilize it in Team/Grudge or even Indie games for that matter (if not agreed upon up front to have a limit or no OBN)
This is another reason why Gunboat games are looking more and more interesting to me
For a player recently returned to the game, can someone link me to an explanation of this OBN thing? One of my current games has an economy unlike any I have seen before.
Last time I looked DS lost 7 starting Capitals and you freeps lost 3 starting Capitals – so guess since you take more capitals you should win – am confused on this one
OBN or One Banker Nation. It has been decisively concluded that the market prices are skewed in the event a single nation holds a great amount of gold reserves. Clint ran some test games and came up with a limit of 80,000. After that point, the prices raise no matter what else happens.
So the “ruling” in the House Rules and in your turn result emails is essentially, players are not allowed to provide gold to a nation such that the turn end reserves of that nation crest 80,000. This is apparently via 948, Ransoming hostages, etc. It’s very clear on GOLD TRANSFERS.
Now, Clint apparently spoke with game designers and they agreed that it was unintentional and “broken” code. So Clint designed a rule to prevent it. But a single nation can easily do this on their own. Harad can amass over 300,000 gold by turn 10 easily enough… THIS is apparently allowed.
In Game 85 we’re arguing about the “intention” of the rule beyond the specific lettering of it. So in a high level grudge, the DS “Team” “allows” a single nation to play “by himself” and just “happen to” amass over 100,000 making the market high enough that the DS are able to sell for market max almost all the time regardsless of production and hire armies, name characters, improve pops to MT’s at their virtual leisure. Without getting into this particular game’s specific’s, this makes it extremely difficult to grind the DS down if they’re able to relocate at will.
So my point is that, regardless of unpolicable “Indie” games, Grudge games have to simply disallow a single nation amassing over 100,000 in gold. This is done because the program causes market prices to rise as a result and is the only reason we would do this. It used to be the way it is, and many didn’t know, many argrued quite passionately that this is NOT what drove the market. But it’s absolutely proven, and in a Team Game, is totally unacceptable. It’s like saying your not allowed to “hit below the belt” so you kick below the belt and that’s okay, because it doesn’t break the rule…
Without the OBN this game would have ended in a “Wow! Excellent Game FP!” FP victory a long time ago. No matter what we burned, the DS just shrugged and made new MT’s to relocate to. Enter assassins and curse squads and we’re beaten back wondering “What the hell???” as they kept on playing…well, now we know what…
Oh, and this is not to discount the excellent reaction of the DS. The blocked and swamped and really pulled off some excellent manoevers as we unleashed the Cloud, QA, Hidden Mordor MT, and off-map HCav St/St assaults all timed within a few turns on top of Elrond poofing multiple dragons (we killed the Free ones where we had the choice…). But we made decisions based on no OBN. Those decisions are far reaching, and the DS emerge as the Victors.
Lets be fair here , so everyone gets an overall picture !!
In game 85 the neutral split was Corsairs and Duns for the freep and Harad and Easterlings for the Evils !!
So we knew we where losing the WK to your side right from turn one and thus moved his characters for us to pick up when the time did !!
We then managed to get every single one of the Curses arties and drop the freep aligned one inside drink in Mordor as well as every agent arty except for arty 175 !!
I can send you our turn to prove it but we then had one player get his treasury over 100k – yes kicking in the OBN – all by himself with no Gold or product sent to him by another player or nation !!
we bottled up Mordor – furthest you made it was 3221 – even with your hidden MT using arty 41 inside Mordor didn’t work – what did you get in the end – you lost a hidden MT to us and we lost nothing !! SG pushing his Calvary and taking CL capital and 3629 did more damage !!
Corsairs was all ours – Rhovanian was down to 2912 – sea of Rhun would be ours again and with our Third curses squad coming on line with you haveing none we pooled a couple of emmies together to take some of your high loyalty Cities – like 2927
Yes Mike. This game tipped and the DS were on their way to victory. And you don’t credit the OBN for that? Go back and put the market at 1-1-1-40-1-1-1 for 5 turns in a row there and recalculate or recalibrate your remembering…
One ally is potentially out of MEPBM and the money MEPBM gets from me is cut almost in half. Recall, we should be well into our rematch by now (assuming the FP won the first game 5 or so weeks ago…). Lost revenue, hard feelings, etc. Add it up and the DS have less credit to take and less appreciation to expect from MEGames than you might prefer.
Aye – but then we should have agreed from turn zero that no gold reserves could go over 100k or some other limit !! Just as we did on picking neutrals and forts on 4217 and 4228 !!
We were under the impression that it was a House Rule - we didn’t have to agree on it. We were under the impression that an “investigation” happened 10 or so turns ago. The scope of this investigation is in question. If we had ANY idea this “quasi-OBN” was in play, this game never would have happened in the first place because we had NO reason to think that ANY FP team had a hope against the opposition we lined up against WITH the OBN. And that’s a compliment.
It is a House rule I believe – but as I have been stating all along – That no one player can basically accumulate more then 80k gold with the help of any other nation either sending him Gold or product to be sold to put him over the 80k gold !!
Of course I admit that the high prices help us out by letting us sell for max limit each turn !!
BUT I DON’T CREDIT THE OBN with tipping the scales for a victory in this game for us !!
So basically the way I see what your trying to say is – the evils should lose each and every time , if they take a pounding in the begining !!
No, I’m saying we gave you one hell of a pounding and worked very well (I’ve thanked my allies) to push serious FP military, economic and strategic pressure on you. Pressure you’ve admitted you guys weren’t expecting and were very impressed with. This pressure would have won us the game, except you guys were, as Wade metaphored, stealing from the bank. The OBN won the game for you. Period. And I’ve lost enough FP grudges and won enought DS games period, to know that this was one of the most overall effective FP plays I’ve seen.
Yes, that is the rule. That is the letter of the law. Once Clint realized that: One nation holding more than X has Y impact on the game he passed an ineffective and easily circumvented law. He’s not alone there, hell, murderers get off on “technicalities”.
That’s why I’m calling for Black or White. Either Reserves Over X is NOT ALLOWED or it IS. No “this order is not allowed but if you’re creative, than That is…”. BS it is, pure BS.
Well if your calling for Black and white – I would say it has to be allowed if it is within ME’s rules as you can’t tell a player or nation that they can’t have X amount of reserves !!
So if gonna do a Grudge game – then maybe that should be stipulated up front like everything else – by saying ok in this grudge – no nation is allowed to go over X amount of reserves !!
Agreed in principle - Clint has to clarify. Once Clint comes out and clarifies, then the OBN Yes/No has to be considered when creating games OR it’s disallowed 100%. We were under the naive impression it was already decided in this game, you were under the impression it wasn’t. Our game, under our assumptions, would have netted us victory, I’m confident you will allow that. But your game, under your impressions, has netted you victory. And you guys played a hell of a game, it was a hell of a slugfest. Even with the “OBN” it was no cakewalk for you guys, so playing as you did is a compliment. You’re welcome for me setting this game up in the first place…
“It is a House rule I believe – but as I have been stating all along – That no one player can basically accumulate more then 80k gold with the help of any other nation either sending him Gold or product to be sold to put him over the 80k gold !!”
For clarity. House Rules are rules for the game. The house rules are addiitonal rules to the game format and can only be removed if both teams agree before the game.
In this case, OBN is a delicate thing due to the way the market works. It’s very subtle in that differences in gold between nations impact on the market, so a single nation can have a bigger impact on the game than was originally designed into the game. So even 30k gold for one nation, if other nations have little gold, will impact on the market prices. It’s not a fixed limit either, it’s a quasi-linear progression so more gold the bigger the market.
As to what to do next? Well I’ve had a look at market fixes and we’ve come up with some solutions. It appears to work, but I’m wary of implementing that code change until we have the process/print code converted to PC as it’s much simpler to keep an eye on the market then and implement minor tweaks to the equations that govern the market and do test runs to keep an eye on the market in comparison.
One other solution is that gold over 100k must be transferred to another nation. That’s a solution that would similarly work in reducing the impact on the market yet still allow for high levels of gold to promote the market (as is designed). (Mostly the OBN rulings have been applied do work btw). I can’t see that any nation needs more than 100k to run its nation.
What do players think about that? As to game 85 it’s clear that the high levels of gold did impact on the game to me, allowing much needed income by means of natsells to needy nations and therefore upgrades of pcs as appropriate. Now that’s not against the rules, but for some players would be against their perceived spirit of the rules.
