[CC2] 2nd Annual Conqueror's Cup!!

[benga]

Any clan can alter rules and add nukes if they both agree on it.

So you say rules can be changed as long the clans agree to it?

[Masli]

Any clan can alter rules and add nukes if they both agree on it.

So you say rules can be changed as long the clans agree to it?

from the first post from chuuuck in this topic :

As was allowed last year, each clan war can adjust the rules slightly to their liking if both clans agree on the adjusted rules before any games are started and they get my approval.

[ljex]

I'd agree to nuke cards being allowed, but wouldn't want to see manual (or restrict manual to Hive - now there's an idea to speed up that game). We have to consider the fact this tourney is open to all clans who have played two challenges (and those challenges don't allow manual) so we'd end up in a situation where a less-experienced clan is going to get steamrollered by one who knows how to best adopt the manual format.

As for nuke, although I seldom play it I believe it's possibly the card game that calls for the greatest finesse. Also (unlike esc) it often doesn't matter if you land two pairs - a problem I have with esc and the luck that that involves. If you own territories for cards you hold you can either stack on them (and obviously not trade) or leave them weak for the oppo to hit. It's actually a very thought-provoking format and deserves consideration.

As for timing out......I think it's fair strategy and not poor sportsmanship. The player doing it is sacrificing a card so is obviously not gaining an advantage - he simply doesn't want to have to trade his cards on the next turn. Who says you have to win a card? Any attempt to try and introduce a rule disallowing timeouts is bound to end in controversy ("The site went down", "My server went down", "My Mum made me go to bed", "I was attacked by a dog" etc). You have to bear in mind the poor sod who deliberately times out has obviously been dealt a crap hand of cards, so why punish him more by disallowing the one tactic that might keep him in the game? I'm fine with timing out. If an opponent does it then it tells me a heck of a lot about the cards he has in his hand.

My problem with timing out is that it is a loophole, and I would view it as cheap if someone played that way against me. You do gain an advantage, not having to cash. Clearly you would not make the play if it didn't help you in some way so how you can argue that point baffles me. Beyond that think about a risk game in rl, would your be allowed to sit there for an hour just so you could not take a card because it wasn't beneficial? To me this is a cheap strategy in both escalating and nukes.

[denominator]

I'd agree to nuke cards being allowed, but wouldn't want to see manual (or restrict manual to Hive - now there's an idea to speed up that game). We have to consider the fact this tourney is open to all clans who have played two challenges (and those challenges don't allow manual) so we'd end up in a situation where a less-experienced clan is going to get steamrollered by one who knows how to best adopt the manual format.

As for nuke, although I seldom play it I believe it's possibly the card game that calls for the greatest finesse. Also (unlike esc) it often doesn't matter if you land two pairs - a problem I have with esc and the luck that that involves. If you own territories for cards you hold you can either stack on them (and obviously not trade) or leave them weak for the oppo to hit. It's actually a very thought-provoking format and deserves consideration.

As for timing out......I think it's fair strategy and not poor sportsmanship. The player doing it is sacrificing a card so is obviously not gaining an advantage - he simply doesn't want to have to trade his cards on the next turn. Who says you have to win a card? Any attempt to try and introduce a rule disallowing timeouts is bound to end in controversy ("The site went down", "My server went down", "My Mum made me go to bed", "I was attacked by a dog" etc). You have to bear in mind the poor sod who deliberately times out has obviously been dealt a crap hand of cards, so why punish him more by disallowing the one tactic that might keep him in the game? I'm fine with timing out. If an opponent does it then it tells me a heck of a lot about the cards he has in his hand.

My problem with timing out is that it is a loophole, and I would view it as cheap if someone played that way against me. You do gain an advantage, not having to cash. Clearly you would not make the play if it didn't help you in some way so how you can argue that point baffles me. Beyond that think about a risk game in rl, would your be allowed to sit there for an hour just so you could not take a card because it wasn't beneficial? To me this is a cheap strategy in both escalating and nukes.

You can only take the real life analogy so far - people miss turns here which obviously would never happen in real life, you generally don't get 24 hours to take your turns, and freestyle is absolutely impossible.

It's impossible to distinguish between an intentional time-out and an unintentional one. Unfortunately, for both escalating and nuclear spoils, missing a spoil can be both a penalty and an advantage, so it's impossible to write rules to distinguish when to apply which rule. I still advocate for the inclusion of nuclear spoils because it is a highly tactical game in team games, which is entirely what clan wars are about. I'd much rather play a nuclear spoils game than some of the farming games we've had to play in clan wars in the past.

[Chariot of Fire]

Just for the record......

"Conquer Club is not associated with Risk! or Hasbro in any way"

Thanks denominator for those good counter arguments of why this game doesn't totally replicate the board game we all know (I wouldn't have thought of those).

Let's take a scenario, e.g. Middle Ages, where I have 4 cards (one of which is my palace and might have to be traded if I win a 5th card of the wrong colour). Do you really expect me to win another card? Or should I just sit out the rest of the game and not attack anything?

Using Middle Ages is an extreme example, but it can apply to many other scenarios (e.g. one's own castle in Feudal, or a territory within a held bonus). It's a crippling thing to have been awarded cards that are so detrimental that one doesn't want to cash them. Thus it's pretty cruel to deprive a player of the one means he has of staying competitive in the game - and that only means is by attacking and timing out.

Deliberate timing out to save one's skin and stay in the game (coz we all play to win I assume) certainly isn't as cheap as farming for points or medals.

[lord voldemort]

id like you to prove i deliberately timed out in a game please sir

[Dako]

Maybe taking other turns after you have started this one?

[drunkmonkey]

If after ending your turn, there was a prompt of "Do you wish to take a spoil?", then there would be an argument. As the rules state, "You earn spoils at the end of every turn in which you successfully conquer a region". Just because you didn't click that button doesn't mean your turn didn't end. It's an exploitation of a loophole, and I'll rate it as Cheap Tactics every time.

[MudPuppy]

Deliberate timing out to save one's skin and stay in the game (coz we all play to win I assume) certainly isn't as cheap as farming for points or medals.

Cheap is cheap. Using the example of a map/setting with inherent risks to validate the exploitation of this loophole is a weak argument. If you're not up for playing a little Russian Roulette, which your scenario provides, then I suggest you avoid those settings just as I assume you avoid playing a lot of Doodle Earth quad games with manual drops.

Yes, we all play to win. Sometimes, however, how one wins is more important than actually winning.

• You may technically be able to deprive an opponent of intel on their own regions and those that border them in a foggy game if you get the first move and act quick enough. But is that what SHOULD happen?
  
• Hypothetically speaking, you may technically be able to win an entire clan war due to a relatively minor and honest bookkeeping mistake by your opponent. But is that what SHOULD happen?
  
• and you may technically wait for the system to time out so you don't have to take an unwanted card. But, again, is that what SHOULD happen?

The taking of a region SHOULD require the taking of a card.

Your contention that a player who forgoes cards via this loophole "is obviously not gaining an advantage" is clearly not true as your own example demonstrates. The argument sounds similar to that of farmers who claim they have no clear advantage over a lesser player because of the luck of the dice and that the 100 lost points for each defeat more than offset the few points they get with each win, yada, yada, yada.... yet their rank continues to rise.

If you honestly believe that spoils are intended to be optional (a valid position), then there is clearly a problem with CC's programming that would allow you to exercise that option only by timing out an hour after beginning your turn. You might want to consider posting something in the Suggestions forum asking for a button which allows you to immediately accept or decline the spoils.

I agree that nuclear spoils is a pretty cool setting and I have no problem with them showing up in future Cups, or in this Cup by mutual agreement. I recently won a nuclear tourney where this loophole was occassionally (though not excessively) used to the advantage of my opponents. There were times where I had a huge stack on a region where I owned the card but would not attack an easily broken bonus because I did not want the extra card that, in my mind, should come along with doing so. Sure, I could've broken it and retreated back to my safe zone over and over again by timing out rather than risk having to cash.... but such an approach just felt underhanded.

[Dako]

How could you retreat if forting ends the turn?

[MudPuppy]

How could you retreat if forting ends the turn?

Yeah, good point. I guess it could work for unlimited forts, as long as you don't hit the end reinforcements button??? Don't know, as I haven't really tried. But the tourney I'm thinking of only had adjacent and chained forts so I probably misspoke about the "retreat" portion of my comment... though I'm sure I had the means to break the bonus and chose not to in order to avoid taking a card even though the time-out loophole was known to me, which was the point of my statement.

[Dako]

Well, we know that it is called cheap by some in the CC community and I doubt one of us will convince the other to change his mind.

And that time out rule is impossible to track in terms of cheating. Anyone can be left without electricity anyway.

[nikola_milicki]

Did somebody say manual deployment?!? u cant be serious!?!

[stahrgazer]

To me this is a cheap strategy in both escalating and nukes.

You're right, it's a cheap strategy.

Unfortunately, threads requesting that the spoil be given if earned at the start of the player's turn, haven't been incorporated (I don't think the suggestion even made the "do" list)


ON ANOTHER SUBJECT

When you create your Triples games, be prepared that on the game code [game]number[/game] the first team will show as 3 players like you expect.. the second team will show as two players. This appears this strange way for the game creator, but NOT for everyone else.

According to Master Fenrir, this will continue to show like that on the gamecode until the game fills, then the creator will see the third name.

A bug report was issued, apparently fixing it won't be easy.

[Chariot of Fire]

'Strategy' - A long term objective to achieve a goal.

I'd hardly call having to miss out on a card a 'strategy'. As I've said, the player forced into such a play is already caught in a tough situation. Seems wrong to criticize him for possibly the only recourse he has to remain competitive in the game. And he's certainly not gaining an advantage - he's merely not incurring a disadvantage, and in that there's a world of difference.

[nippersean]

So it'd be a 'tactic' then - short term objective to obtain yer (strategic) goal - gotta love semantics.

Is this actually a point? Not u Si, the discussion - nukes + manual - crap ideas imo - GD discussion

[Chuuuuck]

I think we should play manual deployment games with nuclear spoils and have a setting where each player starts with 5 random cards so they must cash on their first turn! That would get sooo exciting! Almost as exciting as flipping a coin.

[shocked439]

'Strategy' - A long term objective to achieve a goal.

I'd hardly call having to miss out on a card a 'strategy'. As I've said, the player forced into such a play is already caught in a tough situation. Seems wrong to criticize him for possibly the only recourse he has to remain competitive in the game. And he's certainly not gaining an advantage - he's merely not incurring a disadvantage, and in that there's a world of difference.

You keep claiming that not taking a card has no advantage over taking one. In esc sure, in nuclear not having a card is an advantage. In esc you gain troops with cards in nuclear you blow off you right foot for no reason. The entire point of not taking a card is to gain an advantage.

[Chariot of Fire]

lol, it's still not an advantage (is there any material gain?). It's self preservation for sure, but it's definitely not an advantage.

In nuclear games I always want to win a card - and hopefully the right one - as do probably 100% of players on here. But holding 4 cards of which you own a majority is no easy situation, probably leaving you stuck with little choice but to skip winning a card in future.

So....winning a card is an advantage - and having to skip one is not. If I play you 1v1 and I win cards and you don't then the odds would favour me.

Anyway, this is way off-topic. Ending it here and would rather talk about the cup.

[drunkmonkey]

lol, it's still not an advantage (is there any material gain?).

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

If everyone else is playing the game as intended, they will sometimes have to choose between attacking and nuking their own territory, or not attacking to remain safe until they can move their troops out of the targeted territory. However, if a player chooses to use a loophole to both attack and remain safe, then using this loophole was a benefit, no? I don't understand how this can not be seen as an advantage, and none of the arguments have helped shed any light on it.

It's not really off-topic. Some people want nukes to be available in the Cup, and the argument is that they're abused. If discussion isn't allowed, it's not really fair to consider adding the option.

[dowian2]

For CCup2, it's off topic. Everyone's already agreed to the terms of this Cup, and many of the matches are in the setup phase.

For CCup3, it's a topic to be discussed.

Good luck in the Cup, everyone... looking forward to beating anyone in our path

[amazzony]

Question. Shouldn't there be similar tagging of CCup 2 topics? Some use C.C., some CC2, some [CC2] or even something else. Shouldn't there be some consistency for future sanity?

[Dako]

Yes please. Please choose one (I prefer [CC2]) and mods - please edit all threads to reflect the change.

[Masli]

lol, I was just thinking about doing that, all topics start with [CC2] now

[Dako]

Update the 1st post here as well cause it has C.C there.