Fly on the Wall

[ShuShu62]

Dateline 4:24
Team Nazgul opens borders

Dateline 4:25
Tree beard orders all of his commanders who are online to go pay team Nazgul a visit and take them up on their offer to become arms dealers to the world.

Dateline 4:26
Team Nazgul notices their new teammates and send the weather goddess to coordinate them.

Dateline 4:30
Team Nazgul realizes what is going on. The Weather Goddess suggests arms dealing might be good for another gold era.

Dateline 4:34
Ursa Major threatens to unfriend ALL of Team Chaos.

Dateline 4:36
Team Chaos chat has a Mea Culpa for popping another econ era

Dateline 4:42
Team Chaos realizes that the return trip is facing tremendous headwinds and their troops will not be back in time for the opening shots.

[ShuShu62]

The Treebeard Affair

Yes, I must admit that I teased Treebeard on his own team chat. He sent the entire seventh fleet off to the South China Sea for upgrades on the eve of a massive battle in the Atlantic. It was fun tracking the planes as they passed over India, the Horn of Africa, Italy and finally Spain before arriving in theater. The battle ended shortly afterwards, although since the opponents were gladiators, it would not end well for the Barbarians. Interestingly, this had a ripple effect as the Barbarians repealed gladiators which team Mongo then adopted.

It was good to have something to laugh about because Treebeard was upset at the possibility that he had upset Ursa Major, and ultimately upset at the thought that he personally had pushed the two Ursas out of the guild games. He would raise it in almost every conversation he participated in of the course of the next 5 hours.

The Ursas completely over-reacted to this. The Nazgul opened borders and one alert leader took full advantage of it. I have told it to Ursa Minor directly, and publicly. Their own teammates also told it to them in game and post-game. For perspective though, by the time Treebeard did this, they had already been taunted by Fenris and accused of being cheaters on global chat. It is a bit hard for the non-English speakers to distinguish between friendly chaotic play and explicitly unfriendly play.

Ultimately, the whole Treebeard affair worked to the Nazgul benefit because
1) Team Chaos popped an era for them
2) Team Chaos did not take SDI from team Nazgul, they just used it in team Nazgul
3) Because team Chaos did not leverage the SDI tech, Treebeard reduced Fenris’s middle finger to a useless gesture having no impact on the game beyond donating 50K beakers to the Nazgul cause.

[ShuShu62]

I thought this was a Guild game

Team Nazgul is just lucky team Mongo did not take a similar advantage of it or that fight would have been almost an even fight. The other guild team Chaos beat because of this also failed to take advantage of the opening team Nazgul created. Just as Team Nazgul should not be scandalized for playing the game well, neither should team Chaos. I was led to believe that guild games were so high level that all teams would have done it.

For Pete’s sake
--- Your opponent is leveraging Gladiators against you and you don’t try to exploit that weakness?
--- Your opponent drops closed borders and you don’t try to exploit that weakness?
--- A third party provides the opportunity to double the amount of troops you build AND upgrade them at the same time and you don’t exploit it?

Well shoot, don’t fail on all of those levels and then complain to me about how the Nazgul are ruining the game because they are too tough to beat. Also don’t talk to me about how taking away all the methods the developers created to prevent runaway strategies is somehow a good idea because it enables a runaway strategy.

Ursa Minor and I debated about whether there is only one way to win a guild game these days. I managed to get him to acknowledge that opening borders introduced risk. He managed to convince me it is a risk worth taking because nobody knows how to exploit it.

[ShuShu62]

Infiltrating team Nazgul

Multiple players proved it is easy to infiltrate team Nazgul. One obvious reason is because Nazgul do not feel threatened by infiltration. Team Nazgul do not feel threatened by infiltration because, well, and I mean no disrespect from this… because you ALL suck at it.

Infiltration is a skill, and it is one that should become mandatory to win a guild game. I will agree that team Nazgul has convinced me that the shield dropping strategy would be hard/impossible to pull off as an individual. Not because the Nazgul are prepared for it, or immune to it. They are not. I could easily become king and have reclaimed the office at least 5 times from what I saw. And yes the Nazgul kept telling me I would not be able to promote myself 5 times because of what they would do, until I kept pointing out the holes they had left…. That’s the whole 'I convinced them it was a risk' part.

But, I realized that they built SDI 5 times during their battle with team Mongo. Heck they managed to build two wonders in a minute just to try and get a 4th Mona Lisa. 5 promotions wouldn’t last more than 15 minutes against the Nazgul because they react so well. The rest of you guys… well, I think your best defense is that you aren’t team Nazgul… hehehe (although team Mongo also built SDI 5 times during the battle)

Given the way team Nazgul would have demoted me, I believe I could hang on longer. Long enough that surfing team Nazgul to a first place finish is definitely how the Baby guild plans to win (errr… try to win) the first guild game it ever plays, if it ever plays. But that would take a lot of effort, effort that would be difficult to do while also simultaneously retreating troops from two players who are completely focused on fielding troops while the rest are pressuring for office.

Now, if an entire guild was devoted to supporting a single player who has infiltrated to drop shields, well then… that is a different story. Also, what would the impact on team Nazgul be if multiple guilds infiltrated team Nazgul with different agendas all trying to win at the same time other guilds were trying to win via more conventional methods? I am not advocating that guilds team up to beat the Nazgul, I am advocating that guilds stop mono-cropping (obscure reference for Praetorian Guard) and start researching better ways to win than just playing for second. Diversity is team Nazgul’s biggest threat at the moment.

[random user]

Infiltration is a skill, and it is one that should become mandatory to win a guild game.

You keep trying to promote this but I really think that it's not in the best interest of the current game, and given the current player base this game can't take a paradigm shift.

I'll use this as an analogy. In Everquest there was a big boss at the end of a zone. Sometimes multiple guilds would want to kill it. On a normal server, there might be some small interference, like pulling trains of monsters to where the other guild was at, or somehow causing the boss monster to behave in a way which was unexpected in order to try and cause a wipe. But that was the extent of it.

But there were certain servers, designated as PvP (Player vs Player) servers, where instead of having to resort to such minor annoyances, you could simply target the other guild and kill them directly. They would fight back and eventually one of the guilds would retreat and let the other group progress.

There isn't a right way or a wrong way, but they are two fundamentally different ways to determine who the "winner" will be, and most people who like to play one way don't like to play the other. If you continue advocating interference and infiltration, you'll change this game from a fundamentally PvE (Player vs Environment) game into a fundamentally PvP game. Like in EQ, I wouldn't say that one type of game is better than the other, but most people who like one type dislike the other type, and this game doesn't have the player base to deal with a shift.

I should also add that for the majority of PvP servers, the fighting was annoying enough that they eventually came to an agreement out of game about rules of engagement which they agreed to abide by in order to not have complete chaos.

[wwjdfakb]

I agree with The Professor. "NO, SIR!! DON'T HURT US! PLEASE DON'T!!!"

[ShuShu62]

Apparently, the Baby Guild agrees with all of you. They have opted to register the COWS OF DOOOOOM (number of O's optional) guild without me... although they have allowed me to stay on in an advisory role.

P.S. I realize the guild game story is not over. It has been a hard one for me to right. Still working on it.

[babynazgul]

Just to let you know I am not one of those 10-12 players who can get 500% without the perfect map but thanks for your vote of confidence 350% is my highest so far

[ShuShu62]

Dateline 4:46
Team Chaos begins the battle without the 7th fleet

Dateline 4:48
Team Chaos chat reads----
‘Can someone make it rain?’
‘Thanks’
Who needs airplanes when you control the weather?

Dateline 5:34
The 7th fleet returns
The other civ immediately begins repealing Gladiator
Team Chaos wins an era battle.

At this point, there are two eras left. There is some discussion about helping team Nazgul to end the game before both Team Chaos’s last battle and the big battle between team Mongo and team Nazgul.

Both team Mongo and team Nazgul want this. Team Mongo jokes about wanting it on global chat. Both global chat and team Chaos chat start lighting up with suggestions of ways to save team Mongo from the Nazgul bullies. It gets so bad that team Mongo repeatedly has to ask folks to allow the battle to proceed without interference on Global chat.

Team Nazgul is silent during this episode on both chats, neither complaining about the aid being offered to team Mongo nor objecting to global chat inferences that they are looking to humiliate team Mongo out of revenge.

That is not as easy to do as it sounds folks.

[ShuShu62]

Dateline 10: something…

The undercard was underway. Team Chaos is clearly going to win another era battle. It appears the opposing team is attempting to draw the battle out in hopes that team Nazgul would end the game prior to their losing in battle, but ultimately, it becomes clear that one team member showed up late, and wished to allow his troops to die with honor rather than have them dissolve away into the ether.

The audience is beginning to swell. Baby Nazgul joins team Nazgul chat, but not the team. Superman shows up in Team Chaos and begins his own civ. In fact, Superman is closing techs so quickly that he is drawing attention. He took the opportunity while in the spotlight to throw down the Gauntlet…

‘Bring it Nazgul’

The research pace begins to slow down as techs start to cost more than 1000 beakers.

Fans are treated to some pre Battle pyrotechnics as both teams steal SDI from each other. It is an impressive display on both sides, more so because it is mostly symbolic. Team Nazgul wasn’t building any troops with it and I doubt team Mongo was either. Furthermore, team Mongo could have gotten SDI and upgrades for free and saved its great people for, well, nothing much really because secret weapon was all but useless given all the planes in the air and boats in the water.

[ShuShu62]

The Battle

The sides are rather close numerically. The Nazgul have a decided technology edge. Team Mongo offset the tech advantage with Genghis Khan’s 500% minigame bonus and Gladiator. The Nazgul have an advantage, but it is in no way overwhelming.

The key weapon at Nazgul disposal is time. Ursa Major has a 500% minigame bonus, but Ursa Minor has none. The mini Game bonus will decay for Genghis Khan and Ursa Major, but the battle bonus will increase over time for Ursa Minor. Attrition would also work in favor of Team Nazgul because each round of attrition would reduce Team Mongo’s heroic power 50% faster than an equivalent loss would against team Nazgul.

As a result, both sides will dance for an hour. Team Nazgul danced because it was waiting for Ursa Minor’s minigame bonus to pass Ursa Major’s. Team Mongo was dancing because girls were controlling the battle…. Err… Genghis Khan said it, not me. To be honest, the weather goddess was control ling the Nazgul troops because Ursa Minor was in the mini-game and Ursa Major was at work… Hmmmm, maybe the great Khan was right.

Despite playing with a debilitating toe injury resulting from a mysterious encounter with a subterranean submarine... Despite being forced to sell her one bomber which she had received special dispensation to build… Despite being unable to play in her precious mazes because the Nazgul had eaten them… Despite not having any troops of her own…. Despite not being allowed to play around with the atmosphere… the Weather Goddess soldiered on commanding the game’s most powerful military.

The girls on both sides danced for an hour until Ursa Minor’s mini-game bonus was now higher than Gengis Khan’s. The end of the Golden Horde was about to begin.

[ShuShu62]

The time of Upheaval

Another Nazgul logged in with two days’ worth of unspent civbucks. 10 civ Bucks went to troops and the troops went to Ursa Minor. The remaining civbucks were held in reserve for the weather.

It was time to change the dynamic. It was time for team Nazgul to take second shots, especially if they could take second shots while team Mongo was all heroic.

This ushered in a time of upheaval on the battlefield as both sides tussled with the weather. The Nazgul with the civbucks would change the weather too early. Sometimes team Mongo countered and the Weather Goddess would counter at the last second. Ironically team Chaos’s control of the weather is much more predictable. Team Nazgul took a civbuck inventory, and team Mongo could outspend their way to the weather gauge but, there really wasn’t a good weather gauge for team Mongo, just less bad ones.

The Nazgul stances were a bit unpredictable here as well. They did manage to register one double hit but that required a high risk… two rounds on all heroic with a minigame jump. Team Nazgul only did that once. Ultimately the time of upheaval settled into a stalemate on a middling wind weather and both sides dancing again.

[ShuShu62]

The time of Upheaval

Another Nazgul logged in with two days’ worth of unspent civbucks. 10 civ Bucks went to troops and the troops went to Ursa Minor. The remaining civbucks were held in reserve for the weather.

It was time to change the dynamic. It was time for team Nazgul to take second shots, especially if they could take second shots while team Mongo was all heroic.

This ushered in a time of upheaval on the battlefield as both sides tussled with the weather. The Nazgul with the civbucks would change the weather too early. Sometimes team Mongo countered and the Weather Goddess would counter at the last second. Ironically team Chaos’s control of the weather is much more predictable. Team Nazgul took a civbuck inventory, and team Mongo could outspend their way to the weather gauge but, there really wasn’t a good weather gauge for team Mongo, just less bad ones.

The Nazgul stances were a bit unpredictable here as well. They did manage to register one double hit but that required a high risk… two rounds on all heroic with a minigame jump. Team Nazgul only did that once. Ultimately the time of upheaval settled into a stalemate on a middling wind weather and both sides dancing again.

[ShuShu62]

The time of Destruction

Treebeard and I were discussing battle options Nazgul could take. Treebeard optied for the familiar grind the Mongols into the dirt over the next 6 hours strategy. I opted for the eat some heroic troops with second shots strategy. I was espousing the same advice to the Weather Goddess on personal chat. It was interesting to watch the translation into Nazgul chat and some agreement in concept, but complete failure on execution.

The key was that team Nazgul had the only wind units. Team Nazgul could leave all units normal, except for the smaller stack of Battleships which would be permanently heroic. That stance across the board gave team Nazgul close to 2:1 advantage. Coupled with Ursa Minor’s increasing min game bonus and Genghis Khan’s minigame decay would lock in a second shot every round. A pattern of:
1) Fortify
2) Standard all
3) Heroic Small boat stack
4) Repeat
This would be extremely low risk with very high reward. Quite frankly step 3) as a static stance is even better as it has the probability for unlimited consecutive shots, but when all they want to do is dance, gotta let em dance.

The Nazgul tried doing it but other than the one lucky double hit, they never got consecutive hits because they danced some troops against momentum and ceded the second shot. They ultimately reverted back to dancing in the wind.

I took to Nazgul chat and asked for the benefit of the viewing audience who had to work the following morning that they end the battle now please. I suggested that permanently taking stance 3 would end the battle in under an hour. Ursa Minor just said… ‘We try something different’ and the troops assumed step 3. Moscow never sleeps… but it really wanted to.

It came time for the second shot and… Team Mongo realized it better change the weather. It got a minor hit on standard troops. Moscow really wanted to sleep so he let it ride. Team Nazgul changed back to wind (I would have waited a round but… eh what can you expect from Nazgul, they are not accustomed to battle subtlety.). The opportunity came for a second shot and… poof… 50 Mongolian planes evaporated.

Three rounds later, another 50 planes evaporated. Team Mongo got the point. They stopped dancing. For some reason, team Nazgul started monkeying with stances again, but it was irrelevant. The two hits on heroic ended the battle. Team Mongo upgraded to Modern fighters realized it was not enough and retreated.

Genghis Khan had said they learned a lot from the battle. I hope it is true, because I feel a little guilty about it. Treebeard’s response was…’what was there to learn? Just bring the biggest army’. Okay, that is valid I guess, but the battle ended hours before it normally would have with Team Nazgul suffering significantly fewer casualties than they would have otherwise. I think there was something worth learning there.

I don’t think team Nazgul fully learned the lesson either, but… I think it is very telling that they tried it with minimal explanation. The bad news for the rest of you all, the Nazgul still have room for improvement, and they are still open to learning more.

[ShuShu62]

Pre-End

The battle was over, but when it ended, the game would end. So the Nazgul started popping wonders.

I am sure the external world was mystified by Nazgul temporary insanity. Sure, building VOD despite having no techs to research could be explained as an instinctual response bred into Nazgul over eons of evolution, but the other wonders made no sense.

Nazgul chat turned to deciding whether to make Ursa Minor the first player with 50K or give the Weather Goddess a guild game Mona Lisa to hang on her wall. Ursa Minor opted to gift the Mona Lisa and so they were trying to demote Ursa Minor. That ultimately failed, so Ursa Minor left and rejoined team Nazgul before the battle ended.

The Weather Goddess was the fourth Nazgul to win a Mona Lisa in a guild game.

[ShuShu62]

Post-game chat - Chaos

The team chats did not end when the game ended. I have already posted the final conversation from team Chaos chat.

There was another interesting conversation in Chaos chat. At one point, Superman began talking about some triple super-secret devious plan to ingratiate the Nazgul Hunter in with the Nazgul. This plan apparently involves role-play and false fronts to make things appear as they are not.

Of course, ingratiating yourself with Nazgul isn’t that hard, just ask if you can join them for a game and they will let you in… even in the middle of a guild game. If you are a good teammate, they will start to recruit you. Even if you are a Nazgul Hunter, they will open their doors to you… in fact, they will open their doors to you even wider if you ask to play with them to learn how to beat them. They can afford to do this because they are the best team, not the team with the best strategy.

Treebeard already requested and received a Nazgul guest professor game that sent the Weather Goddess’ blood pressure skyrocketing as even team Chaos’s best maze mavens don’t know the meaning of the word ‘stop’. And remember team Chaos came in second in the guild game. This is a strong team and yet it was hard to get it to do some very simple things team Nazgul does.

Team Nazgul does like the Nazgul Hunter and trusts her to be honorable when playing against them. Basically making it clear that she is infiltrating them to beat them rather than letting them believe she has joined them to play with them. She ‘could’ deceive team Nazgul that way. And I am aware some feel that is part of the game. It is not. Infiltration is part of the game, dishonesty is not.

Yes spies lie in the real world. They also get shot if they return after lying. The same is true in civ World. You can lie… once. Then you will never be trusted again. You will become a pariah. You will be judged for whom you are, not how you play the game.

Ultimately, Superman may be right that the Nazgul Hunter will parlay the trust she has garnered into a victory, but I don’t think there is a snowball’s chance in Mordor that she will.

[ShuShu62]

Post-game chat - Nazgul

Ursa Minor talked to me about strategy. His belief was that they win because they follow the only winning strategy. He described it as a strategy based on overwhelming military might. I pointed out that he only won two eras from battles and he attacked no one.

Side note… what kind of player with a need to lord military prowess over everyone … attacks nobody during a guild game?

He quickly agreed that his strategy is a tech strategy and overwhelming military might is only used to protect the benefits the tech provides. Military might is also more a benefit of the tech race than the reason for the tech race.

My belief is that they win because they are the ultimate example of an effective team. While he agreed that his team has excellent teamwork, I was unable to convince him that teamwork at that level does not just happen and that his leadership is the ultimate key to the team’s success.

The conversation turned to both Ursas discussing their departure from the game. I had forgotten that although I already knew this from Chaos chat, nobody on Nazgul team chat knew it yet. The Weather Goddess was crushed as she and the two Ursas are the heart and soul of the team. We both spent some time trying to make distinctions between the game and the personal attacks. I also tried to explain that the best in any endeavor are always subjected to personal attacks by some less gifted with a need to climb at the expense of others.

The language is a real challenge here, so I would like to start something that is easy to understand in any language….

[ShuShu62]

Epilog
--Team Nazgul won the game in under 24 hours and ended it in 32 hours.
--Team Nazgul utilized banked Maze Moves, but less per person than many would assume.
--Team Chaos played for second place and got it convincingly.
--Team Mongo played to win the big battle at the end of the game and were not overwhelmed, but could not win.

I cannot speak to the other team motivations, but there were clearly folks on those teams who enjoyed the game none-the-less.

--There were public accusations of team Nazgul cheating.
--There were insinuations that team Nazgul plays the game to humiliate others in various forums and chat rooms.

The constant harassment has the potential to chase away the game's top players

[ShuShu62]

Take back the game

The harassment of the top team needs to stop. We cannot silence the vocal minority, but we don’t have to let them be the only voices out there. Team Fenris wanted to distance itself from the player Fenris in this story. As stated elsewhere, they are two separate entities. But when it came to distancing themselves from Fenris’s accusations that team Nazgul Cheats and that the game would be better off without them, team Fenris seemed less than eager.

The Weather Godlet was chatting about the ‘Fenris person’ who was calling his mom a cheater. My kids keep asking for more details on the people saying mean things about their friends. I have wanted to tell them that they are playing a team of them in our current game. I haven’t and we have left that team alone, because I don’t want the kids to get embroiled in anything personal.

The kids and I want to make a statement here, and encourage all guilds who agree to make their feelings known as well

Team Cows of DOOOOOM Knows team Nazgul does not cheat and are saddened at the thought that the game’s top players are contemplating leaving the game.

[random user]

Honestly, as I think about it, I think that while the primary reason I quit the game was because I did feel it was about time to move on, in retrospect quite a bit of the reason was being called a cheater in each of my last 4-5 games... usually by people who couldn't even figure out that we didn't spend any civbucks (which was the second most common complaint -- that we won because we spent a ton of civbucks when in fact no one spent any).

[troyd]

As a fairly experienced player, and one familiar with multiple approaches to the game, I can say very certainly that Team Nazgul does not cheat, use cheats, or use any other methods to win other than being the best at what they do. I have had the pleasure and the privilege of playing with some of the Nazgul members, and have (as ShuShu describes it) sung the Song of the Nazgul. The beeps are a wonder coming from The Chaos, but they have come. We may not be as masterful players of the song, but we have heard it and have done 5 of the later techs, averaging well over 100k per tech in about 2 hours.

I always envy someone that has a higher amount of production than I do. When other teams first started playing in the guild games and had, what we considered at the time, unbelievable amounts of units and production the word "cheat" flew around the guilds in those games. Sadly I let the word fly on occasion, and I'm very glad now that those erroneous allegations never reached my opponents, who are my friends, and would have been horrified at being accused of cheating.

It is an awful experience to be accused of cheating with absolutely no basis in fact. Many of us have been accused of it by players that have never been exposed to guild play, or know what you learn from playing better teams. The levels of production, gold, and science we commonly produce now, we would not have believed possible 6 months ago, or even 3 months ago. To the common player, this ability appears to be cheating, while to us is common ability.

Why are we, the accused of cheating, now accusing the current best team in the game of cheating? We simply don't like losing as horribly, and know we have been outclassed. Personally, I can't play under Nazgul conditions for a sustainable period of time, nor do I want to. I don't need to know exactly how they do it, if I mirror their results, or can counter their ability in some fashion so I can compete.

Personally, I don't like that some of the Nazgul may not play in future guild games. I want to beat them fair and square, them playing at their best, while I play at mine. Your competition defines who you are as a player, and the better your competition, the better you become. I don't see how anyone would want to have weaker competition.

[spiph13]

I don't think Nazgul are cheaters. I just think they're incredibly boring using the exploits left behind by shoddy game crafting to one-dimensionally dominate every game they play.

Yay.

[troyd]

The only "exploit" they use, if you choose to call it an exploit, is saving moves from one tech when finishing another. I have been told, on good authority, the designers knew of this "exploit" early on and chose not to fix it. Developers don't like bugs that huge to stay for long, unless they mean for them to be there.

Perhaps another "exploit" is the Castle Minigame bonus which can reach 500. This takes a tremendous amount of skill and time to master, and doing it requires submersion in the minigame for hours to reach that score. The ability to go back into the minigame during battle to improve it is necessary for the common player to compete with the Minigame Wizards. During battle it is nearly impossible for them to keep that score, and patience can win out. Those scores drop very quickly when they can't be refreshed, and if you're improving yours while their score is falling, well you just smile. I have fought 3 civs at a time, 1 had a Minigame score over 300 another had the dreaded 500, and still I won all three battles. It's not the end all and be all, just another element to be dealt with.

[ShuShu62]

[QUOTE=spiph13;1538515]... I just think they're incredibly boring using the exploits left behind by shoddy game crafting to one-dimensionally dominate every game they play...QUOTE]

Simple sentence requiring so many responses. And I will never forgive you for making me quote Dr. Phil!!!

Bored people are boring people.

Innability to make the games competitive is our flaw not theirs. Those of us trying to figure out how to beat them are not bored. Sam kept updating me on his latest efforts over the weekend. He managed to take multiple late eras from them while playing less than 48 hours. It doesn't mark the end of the Nazgul reign, but it does show promise.

The guild game rules need to change

The Proffessor said it, Ursa Minor said it and now I have to agree with it... to an extent. The current maze wall spam ruins guild games. Nazgul are incredibly adaptable, which will be a challenge for any team to beat no matter what the rules. But the wall spam feeds directly into their wheel house. The solution is simple. Forbid the use of wall spam in guild games.

They are one diminsional

They are one dimensional because they can't be beaten in the minigame.
They are one dimensional because they can't be beaten in the hammer game
They are one dimensional because they optimize the puzzle swap game
They are one dimensional because their teamwork is unparalleld

Being skilled in many dimensions makes them one dimensional... winning

Their strategy actually does have a number of weaknesses and blind spots that can be exploited. The problem is, nobody tried to exploit any of them in the guild game I watched. I am not saying their weaknesses will lead to their defeat, but attempting to exploit them would certainly make the games more competitive. Some of us are trying to rise to the challenge.

[babynazgul]

Unfortunately there would be no way to enforce the no wall spam rule

[troyd]

When I first began organizing guild games, several of the guild leaders and I tried to establish rules for the games. The problem ... enforcement. What can you do if a guild breaks a rule, and should there be different penalties for different infractions? Is it fair if an unaffiliated civ constantly breaks the rules and guilds cannot retaliate in kind? This is why we decided to let the parameters of the game decide the rules. Except for restricting multiple accounts, they are against Facebook and CivWorld rules.

If anyone is willing to spend the 50 civbucks, to create a game, we have let him/her establish the rules for the game. I may be used to Chaos, but until you have 10-20 players IMing you to tell you their worries, gripes, and accusations while you try to fight a battle, you learn the fewer rules the better, especially when you don't want to just quit a game you paid for.

[ShuShu62]

I understand.

People accuse folks of cheating when the game is preventing it, they will cry even louder when they lose if it is based on trust.

But I would offer up this conclusion to draw instead. People will cry 'Cheater' when they lose, no matter what, why say 'we can do nothing' because of them. Nobody likes to tolerate cheaters either. But it is a much smaller world than before and I think an entire guild cheating is unlikely, and the guild unlikely to continue being sanctioned if it occurred. I do not think unnaffiliated teams could win even if they did cheat.

If the games are going to die because of a game feature that destroys the games, it is best to agree to stop using the feature and suffer with the less than honorable. I heard a rumor that men and women were able to agree on the weather. If that was possible, just imagine the possibilities.

I am not calling for a long littany of honor based rules, just one agreement for something everyone agrees is game breaking.

Interestingly, I think everyone likes the wall posts in non-guild games as it is another daily event to use. The Click-Me Group and team Clik Me sharing should be game features, but other than that is a level playing field.

I would also suggest that guild games switch over to casual pacing to help slow things down a bit there as well.
Is 20 civbucks a day really the minimum civbuck limit when creating a game?

[wwjdfakb]

That guild game was active/green, and it didn't slow anybody down (nazgul beat its own record for the tech tree by 13 hours). And as far as I know, 20 cb is the minimum. I've never created a game, so I can't be sure. I'd love to see a zero cb game, guild or not.

[troyd]

Actually, the slower the settings for harvests, the more harm it does to the teams that are more harvest based. It needn't slow down the teams using maze requests much at all, if any.

Yes, 20 cbs is the lowest setting for a game you create. If we could have a zero cb option, we'd use it every time.

[base]

wow, this thread does confirm most of my experiences, i started to play for fun without playing guilds and could even make nice wins with the right players in a civ BUT since they added the bonus wall links everything went haywire: games went from 1-4 weeks to 1-4 days, with the players gathering the most links winning the games, i hoped the game would stay balanced around strategy and gameplay, but what has harvesting as many links one (guild/group) can find/gather/accumulate from facebook to do with game strategy? Especially since they are not game instance bound. This is a commercial decision trying to get as many facebook members involved into civ world as possible imho, destroying the original strategic gameplay. Apart from that is moving production to the player with the highest battle bonus a very good strategy that fits nicely in a strategic game although the 500% might be a bit high imho.

[ShuShu62]

My games lasted 4-7 games before the wall posts.

Robin described guild games lasting 1-2 days before the wall posts, but the wall posts have definitely skewed the game to mazes and away from all other aspects of the game.

I think the issue is easily solved by limiting the number of clicks you can claim a day as opposed to limiting the number of links a post generates.

This would actually be better for the business because the new players you are trying to attract would not get the 'Too late sucker' message, yet it would stop all potential abuses that a asingle account could use. You get 50 extra maze moves a day, max... Doesn't matter whether 10 people click you or you click 10 people, but you only get 10 clicks.