OBN Simplified

General
#1

Subjective sniping is fun, but as the advocate of Clarity from an objective standpoint, I’m thinking a new scaled down thread might meet with majority approval?

Regardless of the stout-dark/dark-stout or Freedom Fighter vs Terrorist arguments over quasi obmn whatevers, the situation is from my understanding:

IF X then Y.

The X in question is:

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.

Ben, you can campaign, but I highly doubt Clint is going to reverse the above declaration.

Starting from that point, restricting 948’s isn’t good enough to prevent the nation with the highest gold impacting market prices and natsell limits, which has an enormous impact, etc… In response to current situations, Clint has posted to date:

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

With some agreement since to actually start this on Turn 6, omitting the area from 0-5. This I personally believe, is where the conversation is best suited to be renewed from.

#2

The OBN however employed is against the spirit of the game and if allowed to exist in any form will destroy it.

I don’t like the idea of a code fix because Clint has already said that he is worried about this because it may well have (and 20 years IT experiance says it will have) unforeseen effects that could be just as bad.

As a leading (Ranked 3 in grudge teams) grudge captain I would happily accept my opposite captains word that they would not use such a device and if someone independantly on my team used this then they would be asked to leave and the opposition informed of that nations balance and what we were doing about it. As such I will be including this as part of the grudge set up agreement from now on. Since I only play grudge games that ends the problem for me.

Rather than lay lots of rules down about what you can and can not do I would say that Harley/Clint outlaw the OBN. If you nations gold gets to more than 80k you should be asked to justify it and do something about it. If you are ClL and stole 50k that turn and also sold product for profit as a result of last turns market buyout (and this turns resale) then I would say fine. Now use the gold. It should be obvious, if you can see all turns, if it is being hoarded for OBN reasons.

So I would say that the only rule we need is

“If you balance is over 80K then you will be asked to justify this to the GM. If you can not then you balance will be reduced to 10k and you will be given a yellow card. Do it again and you get a red card and a 3 month ban”

Lets use the common sense of the moderators since the code fix is very problematic.

Cheers

The Cat (John S)

#3

As stated – I don’t have a problem with an increasing cap on gold per nation – The main problem I have is this , It is now changing the flavor of the game for me as I am now being dictated I have to do certain orders (948 , 315 ) or not do certain orders (325) for a game I am paying for and the only one that should have any influence on the orders that I do with MY nation are my allies.

Go to the other thread and look at the examples I have stated – I am tired of repeating myself on a new thread !!

I don’t know about anyone else but I am always wishing I had more character as I never seem to have enough orders and this is now gonna force me to have to issue orders I don’t want or could have an impact on my nation !!

#4

Whoops – sorry Mr GM – stole to much gold this turn now how do you justify taking away 70k in gold from a player – if that above rule sticks – will save ya the trouble – as I will just QUIT – again this game wasn’t designed to Penalize someone from , stealing selling or hoarding gold and now we are making it like that

#5

And that is exactly why a great many players “in the know” before it became public did not want to make it public… To be fair, this was considered a DITCOP issue before it broke and Clint made his inquiries. Those who knew about it kept it close to the vest and used it when they felt confident they could derive the benefits in relative secrecy - it rarely made it to Indie games.

In fact, the guy who filled me in wasn’t a big fan of it because, well played “The DS are too easy now anyway, why make them invincible?” was his argument.

If Clint never made a rule in the first place, the game would be unplayable right now after it became common knowledge. As it is, only some of the games are unplayable as a result… Mind you, 82 is getting unplayable Mr Cat, thanks to opposite market conditions. As you can see, I’m not on a DS team abusing the OBMN… :slight_smile:

#6

The problem is that now it is known that having an very large reserve has an inflationary impact on the market. What other reason could you have for having a “Turn starting reserve” of over 80K. Very few people in all the games that were played up to about 2 years ago would have hoarded gold for the sake of hoarding it. Now some people are screaming that it is their right to hoard “knowing the effect it has on the econnomy” for no other reason than to have that effect occurr. That is exploitation of a loophole. The majority have said “Don’t want this effect happenning” guidelines have been put into place to limit it happening. :slight_smile:
Now all of you people that want to keep the ONB and have it unrestricted, form a team of Freeps and I think we can find 10 willing people who are dead against the ONB (I’m one of them) to play the DS. Let yourselves be on the end of a couple of quick, sound thrashings and then still see if you have the same opinion. :smiley:

Regards Herman

#7

You failed to get my point – I wasn’t arguing for or against the OBN , My point is that now an 80k cap is being sugggested and if go over it you will have to either waste more orders getting rid of the excess or be penalized or can’t do orders like 325 as might go over it – the example I gave are on the other thread and I am getting tired of listing them again , now the person before this write that take away 70k of the person gold as a penalty !!

Well the point and I shall state it again – is this changes the Flavor of the game as now you are being TOLD YOU HAVE to issue certain orders (315, 948) or be PENALIZED or you CAN’T (325) – you are paying for the nation and have never been told before by an outside source except what you wanted to do with the issue of order on you nations – the game has thus changed as now you would be being told what to do !!

Mike

#8

You are being told there are situations to avoid, ie deliberately having a large start of turn reserve. You are being warned that if you are deliberately doing this you will be penalised. The game has been played for many many years before this “exploit” became known. No one had an issue with it before. We are now aware it is there and are being asked to avoid the circumstances that will start/trigger it. Live with it or if you feel so strongly about it don’t play the game. The choice is yours.

Regards Herman

#9

How about a differential between the One nation and the, say, average of the other top 2…3…4…whatever…?

Clint, you’ve mentioned relativity on a number of occasions in different ways - ie, if the One nation had a lot of gold and the rest don’t, High Market. But if lots of nations have lots of gold, not so high. I think it might be worth a test of the % of all turn-end reserves #1 holds and it’s apparent impact? Was that worked through when you initially devised your “no 948 beyond 80,000” ruling?

Brad

#10

Again – you haven’t been paying attention – Myself as well as others already state we shall quit ME if we are now told what orders we have to issue or what orders we can’t issue , and the game has been played many , many years without now being told what to do – The whole game will have change and for the worse !!

#11

Mike, the original rule told you that you couldn’t issue orders… You’re quite proud that in 85 you followed the rule and didn’t issue those orders. What’s the difference if Clint modifies the existing rule that already, and you agree and follow, tells you what not to do?

#12

Mike, I don’t believe the game will change for the worse. People only got a bee in their bonnets when it became known that they could spiral the market out of control with a high reserve and now aim to create that high reserve. They would not be aiming for that high reserve if they did not know about the effect. High reserve = lots of gold stolen= keep it at a level where you have a safety buffer but dont loose wads to the enemy. I can see where people are going to get a bit iffy with an arbitrary limit, I think a maximum ratio like X times your deficite or a % of the sum of the next two highest gold reserves on the team will keep the market more balanced and the game more balanced. At the end of the day if you are aiming to have a huge whopping reserve you should be able to justify it to your opposition and GM.

Regards Herman

#13

Yes, determining relative impact levels, ratios, etc, is what certainly has to either happen or be ruled out completely.

Clint’s apparently been doing work on this before Game 85 went boom - so I’m quite eager to get an air-clearing from him to fill everyone in on the various concerns they have and give us a full view of what he’s done and what conclusions he’s been able to draw from that.

It seems the original House Rule simply restricted the freedoms of some while confusing others as to how severely… A temporary fix until an extremely satisfactory testing methodology has run it’s course might be to determine a more relative “soft cap” system of %'s rather than hard turn-based values.

And to be honest, until such time, I would prefer less disclosure than others might demand. For example:

Step 1 - Clint comes up with a formula that meets the vast majority of tests (ie, produces OBN conditions that otherwise would not occur).

Step 2 - Clint informs the community that OBN means One Nation with uber reserves that screws with the market to dramatic impact. This isn’t allowed. We are working on updating the code to eliminate this problem. In the meantime, we have found a methodology that tests whether this is the case. In the event you are in a game where market prices are unexplainably high, you may request the GM’s investigate whether the OBN has been utilized by the opposition. If it has, X through Z may occur (redress in game through to possible censorship and game-end in victory for the aggrieved, etc). If it hasn’t, the applying party is simply told “Sorry, that is not the reason.” without getting into what the reason really is.

This would adhere to the “spirit” or “intent” of the original rule (IMO) without giving any actual mechanics away, and is highly unlikely to produce a “hard cap” situation.

In the event as a player you have to ask “Um, Mr Clint Sir, I don’t know if I’m breaking this rule or not, can you please advise if I’m doing so, I don’t want you to have me imprisoned or anything…” then a scaled down model of the OBN formula may be provided in the form of (for example, from my imagination…) “Add up all the gold on your team, this should be easy enough using MEAssist or JOverseer… If the nation with the most is around X% of that total, you might be best served if he shared with his friends…”

Thoughts?

Brad
ps - Robert and Marios, standby to add some calc’s to your eco pages… :wink:

#14

My only problem with puting a cap on is does not fix the origonal problem of one nations reserves forcing market prices higher… If a cap should be allowed it would have to be one that requires no orders for the players to maintain… I still don’t like cap… the origonal ruling was definitely a temporary fix to keep most games in balance and prevents turn 1 abuse… But nations like Harad and Corsiars maybe easterlings could force OBN effect on thier own all the while knowing they was going DS from the start in open games… Grudges are completely different… This also mainly effects only 1650 scenerio… becuase of the starting tax and resources bases with the high starting reserves…

Once again I still believe changing the code to reduce one nations wealth effecting market prices is the best solutiuon… It allows for hoarding some players like to do… Just now the effect on the market would be reduced or eleminated and players could have the huge gold reserves for whatever reason without impacting the game adveresely and keep it competitive for both sides.

#15

I agree that changing the code is the only way forward. I have been in IT for 18 years (before I get combacks from other IT experts) and you can make changes provided it is adequately tested. What you need to do is look at the various scenarios that could happen and try them out and see how the market reacts. Now I accept there is a chance of unforseen side effects, but I think that it is much better than trying to limp on with broken code. First of all the person making the changes needs to understand how they want the market to work and ensure the changes reflect this in the scenario building.

I believe that in the past I’ve been in games where the market has inadvertantly gone out of control through a situation that was caused by this (before OBN was widely known about). New players who don’t understand may end up in a massive positive gold situation and not realise what is the consequence.

Fix the issue - save the game!

Gavin

#16

What would happen if both FP and DS are OBNing, in the same game??? Does it work better for one and not the other???

#17

Doesn’t matter who has them, the market follows the highest reserves.

DS have mages, agents and emissary (toys). FP have armies and economy. Dragons help with the armies. Give the DS an unlimited economy? Doesn’t matter if FP have one too, that’s not the point. The beneficiary of the OBN is the DS.

#18

The Original rule wasn’t telling me that I had to issue orders if such and such happens or couldn’t issue orders if such and such will now happen – that is main point I am trying to get across – now not that I will have 80k gold or higher in my treasury – never seem to have enough – but I will not play a game if told I have to issue orders or can’t issue orders cause of a bug – we never where told in past what order we should issue or couldn’t issue !!

Maybe it the country that people are from – but In USA I am not gonna pay for games with outside big brother making me issue orders or not issue orders !! I am not a Liberal !!

#19

Sorry Mike, the original rule said you are not allowed to issue 948 amongst other rules (“couldn’t issue orders”…) if the other nation ended up with over 80,000 (“if such and such will now happen”) such that Clint would take actions, from removing the gold from play to further discipline against the players involved.

I appreciate your sentiments, you’re just a few months too late. Please don’t take your frustration out on the rest of us now. Note, even Conservatives and Republicans don’t want people rigging the lottery…

#20

You have to be a liberal trying to beat the same issue-- Original rule said you couldn’t 948 gold to one nation – What the hell does this have to do with the New rule that might be put in place with a cap and then haveing to be MADE to Issue order or not issue orders – which is totaly different !!

This is problem i and other have – being forced to issue order or not as might go over the cap !! You are talking about Apples when we are already onto Oranges !!