Game 85 OBN Victory!

General
#181

The quote you mention is from Clints test of the impact of various T1 actions that can be done to raise reserves. Only the specific OBN strategy, where the DS nations transfer the reserves to one position resulted in an unmanageable increase which could not be countered (his example was the sell price of LE going to 23). He explicitly did not bar other forms of increasing reserves to impact the market because they had counters. Out of those methods he tested, he only barred the one that involved massed gold transfers.

Let me repeat that sequence: 1) It was discovered that there is a relationship between the highest single reserves and prices. 2) Clint then ran tests to assess the impact of different ways to increase reserves upon the market. 3) He bans one of them by placing an embargo on gold transfers

He did not bar OBN because relationship between a single positions reserves and market price. He banned transfers of gold because the pooling of one sides reserves via gold transfers had such a severe of the impact meant the FP had no effective counter.

#182

You are throwing about terms like “milking the system”, “shame” and “cheat” and “wrong side of the right/wrong line”. Let’s examine this…

Market economics is based on supply and demand. In this game, supply is controlled by the amount of a product, while demand is - currently - tied to the highest single reserve in the game. Using the term “immoral” to exemplify the terms you’ve used (if there is a better term, feel free to substitute it), then please answer the following:

  1. Is it immoral to influence “Demand” by increasing one position’s reserves?
  2. Is it immoral to influence “Demand” by having an allegience lower all their position’s reserves (i.e. “Crashing the Market”)
  3. Is it immoral to influence “Supply” by buying out a particular product to drive up it’s sale price?
  4. If “Demand” were to be recoded and then tied to something like “Total Reserves in the Game” would it then be immoral for an allegience to influence “Demand” by either minimizing or maximizing their reserves

I submit that if your answers for the above four questions is anything but “Yes” four times, or “No” four times, then your position on the topic is at best indefensible and at worst, hypocritical.

If you answer Yes to all four, then you’re basically saying that the there should be no player impact on the workings of the market. I can respect that position - but I believe that the majority of ME players, including myself, don’t share it. I suspect that most ME players do want the players or allegiances to have some impact on the Market (four “Nos”) - but not at the expense of gameplay.

The original OBN - as outlined in 2006 as the T1 transfers of reserves to one position - clearly wrecked gameplay, and was understandably barred by an embargo on massed gold transfers.

What we did in 85 - I’ve termed it OMN to separate it from the OBN of 2006 - did affect gameplay, but in a muted way (see earlier e-mails showing market prices after a doubling of CL reserves). Moreover, due to a misunderstanding, the FP made no attempt to counter such a stratagem, despite the relative simplicity of the countermeasures.

I believe that to react to OMN with such broad stroke remedies as blanket reserve caps is very premature.

#183

Can you produce the evidence to prove this isn’t a grossly self-serving presumption? Most others are quite adamant that Clint did nowhere near enough testing, and much more is yet to be done - but you have him covering a great number of bases in the short time that he was supposedly performing these tests.

#184

Where did you get the T1 from? Geez, now I don’t even know the details, you mean you could have done it on Turn 2 but you decided to play OMN instead of OBN for the challenge?

You make a good point in regards to market manipulation. Consider whether much of what you can call an Exploit to support your previous arguments was intended and whether much of what you call an Exploit to support your previous arguments was most certainly not. I can’t speak to that, but I’ll take a second hand conversation with one of the intendee’s over the inaccurately self-serving theorizing I’ve been reading this debate.

#185

[original quote] 2) ““Clint then ran tests to assess the impact of different ways to increase reserves upon the market.””

Fair enough - I do not mean to imply he had done all possible testing. My point still holds though - he did look at more than one way to impact the market through increasing reserves, and he only barred the one that involved massed gold transfers.

#186

To my knowledge, the games that were called into question all involved T1 transfers (PoWeR 16, Game 33, Game 51 [I could be wrong on 51]). The ruling barred transfers on all turns, anticipating the obvious loophole.

I have little problem with the term - or concept - “exploit”. I believe teams that attempt Product Buyouts certainly intended to do so, and I believe FP teams that lower their reserves to “Crash the Market” also intended to do so. I’m not sure where you are going with that last statement - do you think a team that buys out, say all the Mithril in the market is not doing it to raise the Mithril sell price on the following turn?

#187

It is Immoral to store gold to have a high reserve for the intention of deliberately skewing the market into an inflationary spiral. If over 10 or so turns you have built up your econnomy (as stated in another of my posts, your reserves shouldn’t really be higher than about 2.5 -3 times your deficit) to the point that you require a large reserve, well and good. If you are just creating a large reserve for the sake of having a large reserve (Say 4X your deficit) you are in the market inflation business and that’s not cricket.
The other market manipulating effects have counters and drawbacks. To spike a product requires many nations buying a product, lots of co-ordination. It can be countered with a relatively small sell by the opposition. A flat market has detrimental effects on the freeps (character naming stopped by small steals, limits on army size etc) and is countered by product spiking by the DS. An unusually large reserve by a single nation has detrimental effects on the game, you should be able to justify the need for such to your team, opposition and GM’s.

Regards Herman

#188

Well you’ve watered it down, thanks. But my request still stands: point me in the direction of the source of this assumption. I expect he did look at more than one test game in which he ran various OBN values to ascertain the point at which the slope of the market curve took a turn towards ridiculous, but unless he comes on and substantiates the alleged varied testing with claims of both method and #'s of trials, it shall be my assumption that it’s a figment of your presumption. :slight_smile:

#189

I was going in the direction of: Most of the “exploits” to which you refer were intended and built into a pseudo-supply and demand style economic system. But the person who claims to own the game rights and certainly has a monopoly on it’s English language existence has stated that he has every reason to believe after conferring with game designers that some of what you lump into the same basket “Exploit” does not belong there. (One of these things just…)

It’s one thing to argue bad interpretations of a hastily written rule, it’s another to call Clint and/or Bill by extension to some extent, liars. I think there are a couple of you that either have to find peace with the OBN (again, I defer you to Clint’s definition as he invented the term in the first place…) being a “break” or find a way to prove it isn’t.

If you can perform the latter to the point where Clint’s in agreement, hell, the existing rule is trashed (to whatever impact on the game…).

If you cannot, then you have but little choice other than to defer to Clint’s definition of OBN and realize that OMN is simply another way to get to OBN, but OBN it is. At which point, you’ll see the true extent of the problem as it looms in my view. And this is why, prior to PoWeR Game 16, some of the people who knew about it tried sending private emails to those bragging about it telling them to “Shut Up about this! Don’t you see what it will do to the game???!!!”

Brad

#190

For The DS of 85:

I find it funny that the DS in 85 have no trouble ONBing in at least two games right now months after our ONB ruling. (Just how many games are you boys doing this or have done this to other teams?) The rules in place are there to stop it from happening not to find ways around. Note that DS in 85 did not want to the play FP’s or their next game after it would seem. They are on here, thinking its great fun. They love playing DS simi-ONBing; please Clint dont stop us from our sure win DS ONBing loophole playing. We like it; dont stop us!

There is more talk about the FP’s, not stopping them from ONBing; after its been told to them that they were TOLD by Clint that the DS were not ONBing not once but twice in the game. ONB=One nation holding gold to drive up the market to crazy levels. Thats what it is. Yet still you think we should have stopped you, when we where told you were not doing it? What am I missing? How do we talk more about this?

As far as damage to the CL, we did our fair share; and still he was able to jack the market to Mounts sell for 44. Thats what happens when you know that ONB is so powerful, that you’d let some of your nations go out the game rather the bust up your huge gold stack and lose the whole game as the econ crashs down to normal levels. We sacked his capital and another MT by turn 12ish not to bad in our minds, the CL capital dont get sacked every game that early. Its got to hurt right? The markets got to go down here and the DS stop building like nuts all over the bord at some point here, right? We got to be runing them out of gold…look the IK just went bankrult that means they are low on gold…whats going on they cant be ONBing…

No we did not steal gold from CL. Not that we knew we should. There is no way for the FP’s to know whos ONBing without taking many many game turns trying to learn this info. Yet while this game was going on it was not clear to us the CL had that much gold. It was made clear to us that you where NOT hoarding gold to hold up the market. We kept thinking somehow half the DS team must be rich. Has this sunk in yet? Just how much gold did the CL have by turn 20 anyway? Over 500k? shhh lets not tell…

On stealing gold: Yes the DS stole gold from the FP’s, because at times the FP’s could not run 0 gold EVERY turn. FP’s some turns need to name some new charaters and hire some armies; the order numbers mean we have to be open for thefts. It means we have to have MORE gold then your going to steal some turns to get these orders done. Thats all part of the game DS steal gold, it helps them at times, not the DS ONB.

Your attempt to credit 85 for bad play on the FP’s part yet you where the ones dealing under the table, are not appreciated. As I was mostly over all this issue and not even as upset as some of my teammates until I read post by them; I have to say this kind of talk has hacked me off even more with the 85 DS’s; enough already, we get it. You want to ONBer, you think it was ok to loophole the intent of the rule even though its clear to many doing so is the same thing, and you want to keep doing this in all your DS games. You think its fun, counterable, and you need it to win.

For those that have not kept up with the ONBing story its been said by Bill Fields that yes ONBing was a code error and makes the game run NOT as intended, its broke. (This all came out when Clint put the first set of ONBing rules out there. Even I was shocked, before this, I thought it was just how the game ran. No its a bug.) Now, it was a major bug in all the early GSI games that was never quite fixed. However few people knew just how it worked. Most thought it was total by all nations MUCH harder to do for a DS team so it was not so much of a problem. However now it is known to all and it needs to be fix.

Cry all you like, your going to have to play the game fair from here on out (like the rest of us since ONBing Came out in the open) and its not going to be ok to loophole the ruling anymore. The rules in place now, have to change (thank you) for everyone to stop you and others from doing it under the table and wasting more peoples time and money. What’s done…is done. We will stop crying if you do the same. Embrace the change: ONBing going to end. DS of 85 go back and reread your 85 turns if you want to relive it. Everyone else, lets move on.

Have Fun,
JL

#191

If you cannot, then you have but little choice other than to defer to Clint’s definition of OBN and realize that OMN is simply another way to get to OBN, but OBN it is.

I’d agree with that, the method to get to it is different and slower, but the impact on the game is similar.

As to testing I’ve done several hundred tests now so I’ve got a good appreciation of the code and how it works here, I’ve had the programmer look at it and we’ve come up with a solution that does work, but that I’m anxious that players are used to OBN in very subtle ways. Eg 20k gold reserves with 1k average is much more OBN than 1m reserves and 900k average.

So I’ve removed the elements of OBN in the test code and made sure that there’s a rectifying factor that seems to work very well. It just needs testing in active games. (We run the test code adjacent to the real code for all the turns to be able to check our data and results for example).

So high level of gold in the market (ie rich nations overall) still impact on the market price, but one nation with a “high” reserve does not.

I don’t like having a limit on gold reserves a player has as this removes fun elements. I still feel that OBN counter-strategy (or OMN) is either effectively, within the constraints of momentum and other elements of the game, not possible, or so skew the opposition to make it virtually impossible to implement without damaging the chances of the FP to win.

Thoughts welcome (I took yesterday off so back now).

Clint

#192

Clint,

If I understand your last post correctly your proposal is to make the market reactive to the average gold held; and this will be coded into the game.

I’m hoping that this solution will be met with widespread approval as it appears to make sense!

#193

Or maybe you can set up a tax scale for gold reserves, “the more you make, the more they take”, :slight_smile:

#194

Good idea. We can add in traffic, lawsuits, collective bargaining agreements, morale mod’s based on your tv package (regular, cable, digital), etc. This escapist fantasy game is just getting better and better…! :slight_smile:

#195

Gotta go fiber optics dude, in HD, freaking awesome, LOL

#196

JL, You say embrace change, well I did that, yet now I’m reading all of these other intrepretations of what fellow gamers say the rule states. Sorry, I don’t intrepret it that way, not purposely, but I honestly don’t see other intrepretations. And it’s not the first time when dealing with ME games written rules.

If we were face to face we could talk about it, but I live in California and must intrepret the words as I have seen written. And when issues arise, HQ’s gets the final word. Now I’m being called a cheater because of my interpretation. That’s bull****! As of this moment I’m considering whether to cease all funding.

When you guys asked Clint if we were using OBN, he replied no. Perhaps he said no because he was looking for specific rules offenses and what he saw was the CL had high reserves, but none of the “written rule” or “spirit” of the rule was violated. The CL had high reserves because he sold his product and stole 100k from the Free. FTR, he ended with 202k. Many players say this position violated the OBN rule because he amassed wealth with intent. Personally, I’m sorry you and others feel we amassed wealth with intent. I did not think amassing wealth was against the rules, but transferring the product and gold to amass that wealth was the “only thing” that was against the rule. And I’ve read and reread the rule often and I don’t see anywhere where it says you cannot amass wealth. If they wish to change/add a rule on wealth accumluation then fine. But this thing about cheating is really pissing me off.

I missed most of the game for personal reasons, but I’ve looked closely at the CL position and many of our past emails. Our intent was not focused on the market, as we had our hands full with many of the creative things your team was doing. We simply benefitted from the market remaining steady from the beginning. I don’t appreciate being called a cheater. I don’t play any of my games with any intent to screw over my opponents. If my fellow gamers feel I’m a cheater, then I’ll take my $100 a month elsewhere to enjoy some strategy games. Maybe the rules will be more clear.

Dan

#197

I honestly don’t care what changes you implement. I do care about how you write the rule because interpretation is where the problems begin. None of us should be called cheaters because we interpret your written rule differently.

For example:

DO NOT contact or interact with these players (for this game) except via the 30 word diplo as mentioned in GB Rules 9 (please ask for a copy)

My interpretation of this is don’t engage in interaction for this game. Except via 30 word diplo as mentioned in GB rules 9, which I have a copy of and it states DO NOT engage in interaction unless specifically written on our turnsheets. I don’t view the above example as specifically written to allow dialog. But I’m wrong. All I ask is for less ambiguity.

Dan

#198

When you guys asked Clint if we were using OBN, he replied no. Perhaps he said no because he was looking for specific rules offenses and what he saw was the CL had high reserves, but none of the “written rule” or “spirit” of the rule was violated.

Please everyone calm down. In this particular game I checked for the breaking of the rule - that gold was being transferred to create an OBN situation. I found no such transgression.

HOWEVER, and this is the sticking point here, the original ruling was entirely to try and counter the situation of an unfair advantage that has skewed the game in favour of the DS. It’s removed a large element of economic development (the DS’s major weakness). That’s not a good mechanism in my book. (Similarly if FP also found a bug, ie an undesigned element of the game I would look to take action there as well.)

In this case the first set of rulings were not good enough. I thought that they were, and from what I could tell that was broadly supported. Now that it’s come up again then I’m getting that sorted.

It’s nothing to do with cheating, or spirt of the game. Different players see the game differently, that’s always going to be the case. There’s no point in trying to convince others that your viewpoint is correct, because it’s what you find entertaining and rewarding within the game.

Does that make sense? So one players “spirit of the rules being broken” is another persons “taking advantage of a game mechanism appropriately”. Clearly here one team thinks one system, the other another. That’s okay to have those differences. I’d like to move on from that point if possible. BUT, in order to create a fair game where DS v FP is around 50/50 (and I reckon it swings it more like 60-75% in favour of the DS, and can show with OBN games where that has been going in that direction) then I have to remove the OBN elements. I do not want, and have not seen any arguments that convince me otherwise (with 20 months of debate, and emails and questions), OBN (OMN or quasi-OBN) in the game.

I DO want a strategic game, where economic development has to be off-set against other factors, where strategies can be developed and effectively countered and those counters countered etc. That makes for an exciting game and I think that that is what you guys want as well. Eg running a 100% tax rate is strong but has many weaknesses, going for 4 Ems for DS at game start has strengths and weaknesses. Pushing the gold levels up of a single nation in order to kick off an element of the code that is wrongly coded has very few disadvantages and so needs to be addressed and changes the balance of the game to remove an element of that competition that makes the game so great.

I’ve seen this lots of time before in all the games I’ve run and seen. An example is KJCs persistant star-game. Even now after 15 years the game is being updated and improved when an unbeatable strategy has been developed. I’ve seen it in more modern games such as Star-craft etc where even despite lots of testing, there are elements of the game that are not balanced and so need tweaking and so on and so updates are brought out.

Luckily enough for us the game is both very robust and there is a simple enough solution where the DS still can do market manipulation with a cost to be made for that so that a strategic choice can be made and responded to. I think that because of the strength of the game, where there are so few bugs, so few things which catch people off guard that we’re all un-used to it. Just take a step back, look at it from outside the games you are in and ask what would make the best game to play, ie what game would YOU want to play and how would you go about modifying and fixing things where it is necessary and where to leave it as it stands?

So remember, we’re all people, we all have feelings and try to put yourselves in the other player’s shoes here and understand why they’re feeling annoyed whether that be game DS or FP, 1650 or 1000, 2950 or whatever.

Clint

#199

Hold on a second here Dan, are you illustrating clarity vs mud or are you actually making a statement that this other rule is being broken somewhere? If you think that’s the case, have you addressed it? Things happen, I’ve seen multiple changes in House Rules and various process adjustments over the years. Please clarify, because I’m in such a game and most certainly do not want to find out others are “cheating” or that others consider myself to be “cheating” perse.

Cheers,

Brad

#200

I think Dan is asking for clearer guidelines/rulings. If we can discuss that on a separate thread, or Dan get in touch with me about any confusion about diplos in a GB game that would be helpful.

Clint