mudfighter wrote:For me, this situation is not unclear.
First, intentional deadbeating IS an abuse as stated in the rules. In this case it is also not hard to prove. If someone misses his three last turns in a game with round limit and at the same time is taking turns in other games, this is obvious for me.
In my opinion, the rule, that one player gets all the troops of the other player, is not the best anyway.
Second, I am annoyed, that some players just think they have to take every action for their benefit, independently from any moral point of view.
• If you are cheating on your girlfriend or wife, even if there is not any law against it, you should not do it, unless you agree from both sides on an open relationship, but maybe that are just my values… In my opinion, if you see a whole in the rules, you should not just use it, unless you confirm officially, that this is accepted by the community. If you use it under the knowledge, that this is not accepted by everyone and a huge part of the community is against it, you just should not do it, at least if you have any sense of honor.
• Also you should think about the consequences for the games. Is it really according to the intention of the game and the community? Play a 4vs4 with limited rounds and you play the last 3 rounds in 3 weeks with just 6 people deadbeating. What a fun! I also think that this move has nothing to do with strategical intelligence, just brings a dirty aspect into the game. And I got also the impression, that you guys are thinking, that this may be legal (what is wrong, how I stated above), but you definitely don’t see it as a super clean move. If your answer to the question is “no”, just leave it and ask the mods to fix the whole.
• Think about your reputation. It seems to me, that your reputation is quite good, and is it really worth it, to put dirt on that, because just you think you are right in that discussion and you need a clear rule, that this kind of gameplay is forbidden?
Just my 2 cents, but I hope I could add another point of view. The points I stated above are not just relevant for intentional deadbeating, but for every kind of “half-legal” or dirty move. I think it is sad, that some players are not able just to play such games the way they would play it with their friends sitting together at home with a beer and just relax a little and not to try to take advantage of any dirty move, because it is not forbidden officially.
Well, I have to admit that you have made many remarkable comments here my friend and I tend to agree with you in most of them, or maybe even in all of them. But still some points we have mentioned and are the reason of our action has not maybe into account by you.
1. All I (and mc I guess) would like to have is a statement that intentional deadbeating for strategic purposes (or for exploiting the team games-round limit combination) is against the rules and we are not going to lose the rest of our games by this tactic. This may or may not include further cases like losing 2 turns in a row to lure two remaining players to kill each other. It is a huge problem playing such a game and not knowing what your opponents will do. I am trapped in those games because I did not thought of this trick before creating them. Check this game for example.
http://www.conquerclub.com/game.php?game=11332881
round 18 begins. We are winning under all reasonable circumstances if all players make their turns.
My turn to play. I know we are winning, but I do not know if opponents may deadbeat and "steal" the victory. I do not know if this action is ilegal and I do not expect to get a clear answer if I ask the site, nor do I want to ask the opponents (its like asking for trouble), so I deadbeat to be sure, waiting to see their actions.
Blue's turn to play. Blue sees I have deadbeated. Many things may have happened now. 1. He catches the point. "Good idea. I will also do it. He may have lost his turn unintentionaly but he gave me a nice idea, I will deadbeat and we will win if he makes his next turn. Is this legal? I do not know, but I will give it a try" 2. He already intended to use this trick himself. "Not good. They also have thought of this tactic. What can I do? I will lose my turn as I was intending anyway, hoping he will make his turn and we will win." 3. He has thought of the trick and does not consider it to be fair. "He is doing it. This is not good, not fair. Is he doing it as a means to win the game or he is doing it out of fear that we may use it if they do not? After all, they are winning the game, they do not need to do that...Hard to say... He may do it energeticaly or as a defence. Anyway, as he has done it, I will also do it." 4. Blue has spent a wonderful night with his girlfriend and just fails to make his turn in time. Blue, one way or another also loses his turn on round 18.
Round 19, my turn to play. He lost his turn as well. I see it. Did he do it on purpose or not? Is this a reaction to me doing it or they intended to do it anyway? Hard to tell. May as well be any of the 4 senarios above....If I do not deadbeat, i may lose the game. I will lose another turn.
Blue's turn. He sees I deadbeated again and decides to take his turn. Probably thinking that the game is lost no matter what. Perhaps he wants to accuse me if I lose my third turn as well and wants to be clear himself.
Round 20, my turn. No need to deadbeat. I play my turn normaly and we win the game.
Do I find that whole procudure entairtaining? No, I do not. I prefer I would had never put that round limit in place. But I did and I am now involved in games where this tactic may cause me to lose the games. I ask the mods to state a clear rule and in this case I will be fine. In the above example, there is the case that if I had not pre-emptied blue's actions by deadbeating myself first, we would have lost a clearly won game (and a clearly won one, not like ours that is still playable). Yes, I could report them and ....what? Lose the game, spend some hours in the forums and finaly have the satisfaction that their action has been noticed for the future? Well...not interested.
It is not something that has happened and we are debating about it being legal. It has not happened in our game yet and I ask the arbitor of the game if we can do it. This has to be confirmed as an exploitation or a legal tactic. Not as something that..."maybe will lead to get noted".
2. I did not consider this tactic unethical when we started the action with mc. Our discussion lead to the conclusion "Under those settings, the correct move by both teams is to always lose their turns in round 18 no matter what, unless the game is completely decided." The verdict we reached was a 100% sure statment, similar to " you should make 4 vs1 attacks". and "you should defend your boarders". With your point of view (this is not how it is supposed to be) I could also claim that "having the weaker teammate suicide all his troops in 2 vs 3 and 3 vs 3 unfavourable attacks against the other team's leader across the board on round 20 is unethical. THIS IS NOT THE WAY THE GAME WAS MEANT TO BE PLAYED" Why is this ethical? The rules allow you to avoid taking a spoil in a nuclear game by letting clock run out? Legal. Players mentioned it repeatidly, nothing happened, it is a legal tactic. Since the rules offer the win to the strongest teammate, those things-tricks-tactics-clever moves-unethical methods or whatever anyone can call them enter play automaticaly. When the round limit games were created many players noticed and mentioned this possibility but the rule was put to use anyway. Now I am supposed to close my eyes to this option? What you see as an exploit, I see it as a clever move.
3. The game cannot have situations where one player is encouraged to lose his turn. But it does. Those situations in possibility can be used against me-and they have, but I must avoid them because from some people's point of view, they are unethical? Can we start discussing what is ethical and what is unethical in a freestyle game? Is it OK to use a super speed computer-connection combined with fast thinking skills to make your move 3 seconds before 24 hrs preventing opponent from making his turn? If you play freestyle, then you are vunlerable to those tactics and you are supposed to accept them. I do not like them, so I do not play freestyle, simple. I have lost a game where a player lost 2 turns and the third player attacked me thinking he was going to be forfeited. That player came back and won the game. I did not fill a c&a report. I accepted the loss and tried to avoid the situation in the future, mainly by discussing with the third player in similar situations. I also tried to use the tactic myself, without success. I do not like this possibility of deadbeating and I will never create 20 round limit team games in hive again, but I am now involved in many of them.
4. You underestimate my statement that there is a difference between deadbeating and deadbeating. Deadbeating in the rules does not in my opinion imply situations where deadbeating is beneficial, this possibility had not been thought by the time. This is just my opinion and if the mods have a different opinion, no problem, but they must state it clearly. Otherwise we will start a witchhunt about who deadbeated on purpose and who did not, which is a bad idea.
5. Yes in a 4 vs 4 hive game with 20 round limit, 6 of the 8 players MUST lose their 3 turns. Yes, 18 turns MUST be lost on purpose. Anyone not doing that is making a wrong move. And that is of course a sufficient reason for me to NEVER play this game. But if I was forced into such a game somehow, that is the correct move. The correct move in a Kick-boxing game may be to crush your opponent skull or break his leg. I despise it from my personal moral code and I just will never play this game. But this does not mean I must lose the game for moral reasons if I somehow get involved in one of the games.
