The OBN is banned one is in every turn email you get, paste it into a Ctrl-F.
The other 2 are in Clint’s response to our complaints after Turn 12 ran and we got sick of the market. They are not taken out of context. So we continued to play on KNOWING FOR A FACT THAT YOU WERE NOT OBN’ing in Game 85, because Clint investigated your turns and ASSURED US OF THAT FACT.
Now do you understand why my teammates are cashing out and asking for refund cheques?
Brad
Aye – you just picked out the part you wanted but forgot what it says after::
"Gold sent to a single nation with the goal of significant upward increase of market prices is not allowed, whether through caravan transport, ransom demands, or other methods. Gold sent to a nation that brings the nations total reserves to more than 80k gold will have that exact amount of gold sent deducted from its stores. In addition gold received by that nation from other sources such as Ransom demands from team-mates etc will be dealt with similarly.
Such an attempt may be judged to have occurred if the upward increase of market prices occurs coincident to the transfer of gold. Judgement may be requested by the opposing team if it feels this ruling has been violated. The judgement will be made by the moderator with opportunity for explanation by the team in question if requested
And we never did any of the Above !! So read the whole thing and not just the part that concerns what you are trying to prove !!
It’s virtually impossible to prove that the DS in game 85 were playing against the spirit of the rule (and that’s included in the ruling). I think the solution is a better ruling and I’ve suggested one.
I like the idea of a rolling value of 80k + 5k per 5 turns. So on naming character turns the limit goes up (and then 26/31 etc). How does that sound?
Ie turn 0-5 80k
6-10 85k
11-15 90k
16-20 95k
21-25 100k
26-30 105k
etc
As for Individual games, there only real need for gold in the very high levels is for VCs that I can see. But in those games it’s harder to arrange (as a non-neutral) I’ve found. Some of the games you guys have mentioned are older games with OBN involved and that lead to stronger economies and so on so they’re not really valid for an analysis.
I’ll have a look at trying out a game with the actual code changes next to see if they make sense. I think we have got it right but as Ed has warned me many times, be aware of unintended consequences… I’m sure that it will overall impact the market where there is a lot of gold around (my testing shows this), but in that situation I think the economies are already somewhat broken and it will fix them somewhat. I’ve got a GB and 1650 normal game nearly ready but ideally need a Grudge game to test it out on.
Clint
This sounds Like a fair solution to me – and would be easier for ME to keep an eye on in all games !!
“When Clint or whoever looks we have not broken any rules , even though we are using the OBN to keep the prices high but that is part of the game”
That’s pretty possible to me Clint.
We read “Banned, Not Allowed, and Not Allowed”. Everything else Clint has written has confused both the rest of the players and Clint himself, it appears. It’s pretty easy to prove - reserves over 80,000 besides the Eothraim turn 1 sells are an Intent to break the Spirit of the OBN rule, period, full stop.
Brad
Rollling cap. Fine, and not open to “interpretation” like Banned, Not Allowed, and Not Allowed seem to be.
Brad
Least we finally agree on something 
I guess I am still the only person that would like to play the free against the dark servants employing the OBN.
I hope Clint keeps the old code so our grudge team can take on an OBN grudge team at some point in time.
tim
How hard would it be to code gold reserves into the rumor mill? If the FP knew a particular DS is sitting on a 80K+ gold reserve, they could send in their agents to bring it down.
Banal,
Nice way to help counter it I guess.
Still makes it hard to do if the OBN is a single nation with only his capital as the only pop center above a camp, but I like the forward thinking.
tim
Before everyone overreacts to the “quasi-OBN”, it would probably be a good idea to examine exactly what took place in ME 85. We, the DS, have been accused of nefariously plotting to mimic the banned OBN strategy by artificially increasing the reserves of one position (for the record, it was the Cloud Lord). In the interest of full disclosure, I will now list, turn by turn and position by position, all those orders issued by DS nations other than the CL as part of this diabolical plan:
Would you like me to list them again? That’s right, there were no transfers of money, product or popcenters from other DS positions to the Cloud Lord – in fact, the CL transferred away two popcenters (3222 and 4013) and sent out 15K gold on T18. All that happened was that the CL reserves were allowed to grow naturally via a typical tax rate (60%), NatSells and gold thefts. The key of course, was that with one exception, the CL did not send out any aid to his allies.
Oh, I don’t mean to imply that the Cloud Lord wasn’t getting any help – he most certainly was. It’s just that none of this help was coming from his allies. Basically, the game can be divided into two parts. For the first ten turns of the game, the CL reserves were rising; from T11 on, the reserves were pretty constant, mostly due to a rather sudden halving of his taxbase <g>. The largest increase in reserves, from 86K to 173K, occurred from the beginning of T8 to the end of T10. Over that time the CL had three sources of revenue. In increasing yield they were:
OK, so what was the market response to this increase in CL reserves? Taking into account the one-turn lag in response (i.e. reserves are used to calculate the next turns buy/sell prices), here are the sell prices for each commodity. The first number is the sell price on T9; the second is the sell price on T11:
LE 4 4
BR 3 3
ST 5 6
MI 74 74
FO 1 1
TI 4 7
MO 15 26
For the record, this happened to be two turns where food sold at 1; it was indeed commonly at 2. Other than that, the above sell prices were fairly typical. There were anomalous spikes in Mount, Timber and Steel prices the entire game. Since we were not buying, I can only assume the FP were responsible. We did indeed profit greatly when these did occur, though.
Suffice it to say, our evil machinations did little more than stabilize the market – and there’s no telling what might have resulted had the Free Peoples not been so blissfully helping. It is an undeniable fact that getting the market stabilized at those levels is a major strategic goal of any DS team, and in that we were successful.
The real question is whether this stratagem is just a sneaky way of getting around the embargo on the OBN. For this, it would be prudent to reread the original OBN thread. As part of Team Veta Schola, Drew Carson and I were among the first to bring this problem out in the open. Our pitch – and I believe it was the argument that finally swayed Clint – was that the FP had no counter to the OBN as designed. The original plan had all the DS positions transferring their gold to one position on T1, instantly creating reserves of over 200K. Prices immediately rise, Market sell limits rise hand in hand, and the market goes into an upward spiral. The FP have no ability to stop this – at game start, they don’t have the agents available to steal the stacked gold reserves. Moreover, we demonstrated to Clint in the game that we were playing at the time, that it was possible to both generate a second banker nation in response to any threat to the first, and to simply move the stacked reserves around from position to position, making it extremely difficult for the FP to figure out who had the reserves. As a result, Clint put in a very effective embargo, limiting the amount of gold that can be received via transfer – and also, en passant, preventing the DS from protecting their stack by moving it.
I submit that the stratagem that we used in ME 85 has only a passing similarity to the OBN that caused all the uproar. The growth in reserves is much slower, which means that the sell prices do indeed fall from their initial values. Most importantly, and I think little appreciated, is the fact that the Market Sell Limit is have time to fall from its initial 30K per position to its more typical 20K. What that means is that if you are running a 15K deficit, and the sell limit is 20K, you effectively have no capability build any reserves. Ultimately, that was the reason we lost three positions in 85; in each case Sell orders were scotched because the FP burned the capital. Since their reserves were negligible, their deficit drove those positions into bankruptcy.
However, the most important difference is that the FP do indeed have several counters to the stratagem. The first should be evident from the initial discussion above (at least for those not lulled to sleep). The second is more obvious – the FP can steal the reserves and dissipate the gold in various and sundry manners. The gold stack is stationary; it can’t be moved, and there is access to it from any of that position’s popcenters. The FP in 85 certainly had the capability to do this – in fact they twice had agent companies in the CL capital. They also repeatedly stole from the BS en masse, in what appeared to be a fairly silly and desperate attempt to secure a SM artifact. That same effort dedicated to finding the DS gold stack might have lead to a different outcome. We should not be penalized because the FP failed to employ any of these counters.
Clint, I urge you not act hastily and arbitrarily in in an effort to create some sort of ME – Harrison Bergeron hybrid. Frequently, a problem such as this can be solved just by airing out the mechanics and pointing out counters – and I hope this post can start that discussion. This may even open up another arena for the FP and DS to cross swords, adding even more depth to a terrific game.
You wouldn’t even need to do that. Realistically, there’s only a couple of DS positions that are capable of generating substantial amounts of reserves by themselves Remember, no other position can send that position any gold, so it has to be driven internally. If you suspect the market is being propped by a position with elevated reserves, then you set up one turn of gold thefts at those suspects. The one with the reserves will be readily apparent - and remember, that gold stack can’t be moved…
All,
I am not in this game but I had to put my 2 cents in before the OBN gets changed. I disagree with changing the OBN ruling. When I play in any game I ALWAYS TRY TO MAX NATSELL. I never know when I might be forced to vacate my capital and not be able to sell anything so I tend to sell as much as I can each turn. Rarely will I not sell something. As a consequence of that, my reserves tend to rise every turn. With a tax rate of 60% and max natsells, most of my nations can accumulate over 100K in 5 turns even after naming characters and improving pc’s and such. I do send aid to my allies when I play but I do not agree that I should be forced to lower my reserves just because they have risen over 100K.
Scavenger
What is this nebulous “spirit of the ruling”. Was the ruling designed to prevent the the DS from pooling their reserves to create one Mega-reserve? Would then violating the spirit - but not the letter - of the rule be something like transferring popcenters or product so that the receiving position can generate reserves via additional tax and sell revenue? That we did not do.
If however, letting one position’s reserves rise naturally during the game violates the “spirit of the rule”, then yes, that’s exactly what we did. Intentionally, by universal agreement and from Turn 1. From our PoV, it’s not OBN; it’s OMN - One Miser Nation.
In Grudge games there is a constant and critical economic war going on between the FP and DS. The FP want to crash the market, the DS want to stabilize it - and if possible, get it to rise. Traditionally, DS teams had two options on how to do this - specific product buyouts and raising total team reserves via other means. That all changed when the OBN strategy was revealed, when it became apparent that Total Reserves were irrelevant, and its role was ‘occupied’ by the “single largest individual reserve”. Some (many?) of the DS teams switched to try this new stratagem.
So now, thanks to the code, DS teams have two strategies they can employ in the economic war; Market Manipulation (buyouts), and OMN, and both can be countered by the FP. Both have different scales of impact, with OMN being bigger scale than MM - but I suspect that if the FP do succeed in eliminating the OMN gold stack, the effect would be much more devastating than just a botched buyout.
Again, please do not make a broad sweeping rulings, with their undeniable probability of unintentional consequences. Until the code is changed, let it play out on it’s own. My sense of the FP’s frustration in 85 is that they assumed that something like the OMN wasn’t possible. I have no doubt that had they known going in, they would have taken steps to try to counter it. If there are still grudge teams out there that consider OMN some type of immoral transgression, then let them eliminate it as a precondition to the game.
You missed some messages there. The FP complained to Clint on turn 12 about this, and we were assured that any form of OBN (or OMN if you prefer that name) was not allowed. Period.
I am not going to say your team “cheated”. Instead, both teams joined the game believing that a different set of rules applied in this game. When we complained to Clint, he assured us that the rules we believed were in effect were the rules of the game.
Game 85 would not of occurred if OBN or OMN was an allowed strategy by letting a nation’s reserve “drift” up or other “quasi” OBN strategies.
On your OMN theory being viable strategy and should be allowed, well, let’s just say we will disagree on that. I believe it is OBN at its worst. It has already been (almost, one of the forum is claiming he will fight FP against it) universally agreed that OBN can not be countered by the FP. OBN via your OMN strategy makes it even more difficult for the FP to counter, as they do not receive any Nat Messages informing them of mass transfers. Instead, the FP have to figure out which of the 12 nations is the OMN (there are several star DS candidates for this as well). Then they have to use their 1 (or is it 2?) early game agents that are capable of stealing to attempt to locate the OMN. By the time the FP can muster the agents and hit the OMN (OBN), that strategy (for which there is no counter and is easy to implement) renders the FP economic/military moves meaningless. The game designers said that manipulating this broken code (via OBN) creates a distortion of the game that was not intended and destroys game balance and hands victory to the DS. Your OMN is the same as OBN; basically you are saying that transferring gold to OBN is dark-stout beer and not allowed, while OMN is stout-dark beer and is allowed (sorry for any confusion via a beer analogy).
Find it quite incredible that you even think that OMN is a legit strategy.
Wade
I agree, I don’t want to cap gold either (which is to say I wish it didn’t have the impact it did…). But more importantly, if gold above a certain level is Banned, Not Allowed and Not Allowed, then I don’t want the other team to have it and pat themselves on the back for how they were able to do so.
We agree to a boxing match, guns aren’t allowed - I leave mine at home - you bring yours. Then I call over the ref - “Hey, I have a hole in my leg, please check him for a gun” and the ref goes away and comes back and says “Nope, no gun.” This is what happened to the FP in game 85.
Brad
"I chatted to the game designer about this and it’s unintended. It is an error of coding. They come up so rarely in Middle Earth, I’m very glad to say, that action has to be taken now to stop its impact. Due to the enormous impact it has on the game we feel that steps need to be taken now. In most cases it removes the entire need for a strategic economic element to the game and therefore benefits the DS majorly. There is a direct correlation between gold in the One Banker nation (the nation with the highest level of gold) and the market prices and natsell limits.
[snip]
The One Banker Nation (OBN for short) strategy is now banned."
Why is this so confusing to such smart people?
Quick question… what happens if I have 70k in reserve and I steal 30k that turn??
Clearly, if there is a hard cap, I’m violating it… and what do I do next turn? Do I have to send all this gold out to my allies? And does that also mean that I can’t steal gold that turn (cause I know I’m clearly going to go over again)? Seems kinda ridiculous for me to have to spend an order to redistribute the gold that I have worked so hard to steal… and what if I don’t have the cap order… do I have to make one?
I think your hard cap is going to give you more problems than it solves.
So my thought would be to keep the ruling as is…
FP counters:
how about keeping your own reserves at 0? (hence, no gold to be stolen…)
take 1 turn and send all agents to the OBN pop centers… (hey, look, we’ve just lost a bunch of gold… especially if I can get that mega agent at the cap that steals 40/50k), which by turn 15 should be possible)
target the OBNs pop centers via emis… lower his tax base… he can’t transfer off the OBN gold…
and I do like the idea of coding in a nation message… like make it more likely to appear as the reserves get higher… like 25% at xxxxx gold, 50% at XXXXX gold, etc.
And I for one would like to try to play FP against a team that tries to implement the gradual buildup OMN strategy…
What an incredibly selective cut and paste job you’re making. That first statement is intended to explain why the OBN strategy works - notice the reference to the “example belowLeather @23” in the parentheses. Few smart people could look at that and conclude that statement had anything to do with the ‘spirit’ of the ruling
Did you read that 2006 thread that started that started all this? It clearly outlined what the OBN strategy was? It was very specific, and dealt with the DS pooling their starting reserves via T1 gold transfers. That is the reason why gold transfers - and only gold transfers - were banned. In no way was it considered to include all possible ways to increas one nation’s reserves - in fact those with counters were specifically not banned.
Let me also point out that apparently Clint didn’t think we were using an OBN strategy. There is no way he could have missed the 168,496 gold sitting in the CL treasury on T12.
I do have one question - once Clint told you OBN wasn’t being used, what did you think was propping up the market? I’m not trying to make a point or anything; I’m just really curious. I can see that if you start from the assumption that we were barred from accumulating reserves, and that we weren’t attempting any buyouts, then you were left with a complete mystery.
As a player my Fp strategy is to limit gold (and gold thefts by the DS). That’s because the DS suffer more from a deflated market (at least early - mid game) than the FP. That’s pretty much taken. There is a correlation between gold in the market and the price of the market. There is also a correlation between high gold in a single nation and prices on the market (other factors are pertinent but that’s the basic information).
Now the original OBN ruling covered players sending gold to build up a nation’s reserves. The clarification to that is that a nation, and this was discussed before, can build it’s own reserves up (for DS the agent nations are particularly effective at this) and effectively get the same OBN bonus.
There are ways to weaken the “strategy” somewhat, but I don’t think that they are particularly effective hence my suggested ruling that I’ve put forward. It’s not a knee-jerk reaction, it’s something that I’ve both tested and thought a lot about since the original OBN was brought to my attention.
I’d like feedback on what players think of it as a modified and updated ruleset.
New ruling I would like to implement
i) No nation can send gold or product to another nation to bring it’s reserves to over 80k gold. (Ammendment to the original ruling).
ii) If a nation has over 80k reserves at the start of the turn then it must lower its reserves to 80k or below. That can be by buying product, sending out gold. So that will cap the high end of the gold reserves I suspect.
I like the idea of a rolling value of the cap of 80k + 5k per 5 turns.
Ie turn 0-5 80k
6-10 85k
11-15 90k
16-20 95k
21-25 100k
26-30 105k
etc
Clint