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PE-WJ-Diplo [James Howlett]: Something Fishy
Date:Wed, 25 May 2005 18:50:39 +0000

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I've been rather curious about the recent attacks made by Ontario on
Bantumi.  I figured Bantumi or Kalvis would have mentioned it to the
world or me in our recent conversations.  Then this turn I get a
message from Ontario asking for a 5 turn notice of cancelation peace
treaty.  Funny thing is that I can't even see Ontario on my map, but
he says that we "might" have a border soon.  Based on the most recent
news Bantumi still has 11 regions and hasn't once put up a fight for
the 4 regions that Ontario has now taken from him.  The assumptions
that Bantumi is not going to fight back and that Ontario is near my
border with Bantumi lead me to believe that Ontario has seen Bantumi's
map or Bantumi has described his map to Ontario.  I know many people
who don't speak english as a first language play this game and I'm not
insulting you in any way, but Ontario used the exact same kind of
broken english that Bantumi and Kalvis have in the past.  I could be
entirely wrong about this but all these things combined lead me to
believe that Bantumi and Ontario are either friends from outside of
the game or they are the same person.  Either way, Bantumi seems to be
giving his nation to Ontario, all the while threatening me with vast
retaliation if I attack him.  The only confirmed threat is from
Kalvis, who for some unknown reason signed a mutual defense treaty
(that they're treating like a secret alliance) between his large,
successful nation and Bantumi's small nation.  I feel this is
dishonest and ruins the game for those of us who aren't abusing
friendships from outside of the game to get ahead.  Don't get me
wrong, diplomacy, bluffing, and stalling are all valid tactics to use
in a war game, but this has gone too far.

James


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PE-WJ-Diplo [Gregorius XVI]: I agree with James
Date:Wed, 25 May 2005 22:27:37 +0000

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I must say that if there is cheating going on within the game
something must be done about it. I belive the situation should be
investigated by the Dev (short for:Developer)


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PE-WJ-Announce [Moderator]: Assorted Moderator Thoughts
Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 04:19:58 +0000

Announcement from the Moderator to All Leaders:

A few points:

* Ontario knows that Bantumi borders Howlett.  Ontario is swallowing
up Bantumi.  It's natural for Ontario to expect to come into contact
with Howlett soon.  There's no need to invoke a conspiracy theory
here.

* Bantumi's recent messages make it clear that he's unhappy about his
treatment by Howlett.  As Moderator, I've seen a large number of
nations in similar circumstances decide to hand their nation over to a
friendly neighbor, rather than let it be overrun by an enemy.  There
are even historical precedents, and similar things happen in business
takeover situations every year.  Again, no need to invoke a conspiracy
theory.

* It's hard to judge where everyone is from, given the abundance of
gmail, hotmail and yahoo addresses in the game database, but I know we
have a large number of players from all over Europe (Netherlands to
Russia) in addition to our native English speakers.  Keep in mind that
since I generally don't advertise the game, the main way we get
players is by word-of-mouth.  That means a lot of folks here know each
other out in the real world.  And even folks who don't know each other
often pick up enough (from idiosyncracies of grammar, spelling, etc.)
to tell who's likely to live in a close-by part of the world.

* I also know that in a previous universe the person currently playing
Howlett refused to fight someone he knew from outside the game, even
when (to my eye) it was clearly to his advantage to do so.  I expect
he had his own considerations, though - my point is not so much that
he let the real-world affect his gameplay as that I let my knowledge
of his real-world situation make me worried!  I do know other players
who said things to me which lead me to think that indeed they
sometimes let real-world considerations affect their strategy in the
games.  However, it happens less often than I would expect, given what
I know about who-knows-who and what I see happening on the maps each
turn.  Although ideally the real-world wouldn't affect the game at
all, I think it's only human nature, and while we should avoid this as
much as we can, it's counterproductive to be paranoid about everyone
else.

* I am working on some new ways to make it unrewarding for players to
try to run multiple accounts in a given universe.  In the limit where
the universe has hundreds of players, it doesn't matter because
multiple accounts won't come into contact.  But we're not there yet. 
In the limit where there's no communication between players and you
can't tell who your neighbors are, it also doesn't matter, but then
the game's not very interesting.  I have toyed with the idea of
charging everyone a few dollars for each Leader they create, and then
making sure that a given credit-card number isn't used for more than
one leader,
but that seems like a drastic cure.  However, if folks would be
willing to donate a little in order to have a higher level of
reassurance about the non-existence of multiple accounts, I could work
to set something up like that.  The less-drastic path is to make
Player Accounts (based on email addresses) which earn points for the
success of all of their leaders.  That won't necessarily stop fodder
accounts, but it means players will have to focus on the success of
their primary leaders in order to advance their Player ranking.

* I think secret mutual defense treaties are within the spirit of the
rules and do not need to be declared as alliances.  When nations
decide to go on offense together, though, that certainly needs to be a
public alliance.

* I will continue to track the email and IP addresses used by the
suspect nations and will take action if Howlett's concerns (or anyone
else's) can be substantiated with hard evidence.  If you're running
multiple accounts, you really ought to resign all but one and play
honorably.  If you can't get your fix in one universe, just play in
all of them!

Bob the Moderator



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PE-WJ-Diplo [Kalvis]: Too far
Date:Thu, 26 May 2005 06:27:20 +0000

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This all has gone too far.

First of all I think it is no secret to most of you that I and Bantumi
are real world friends. But the last message from James had to go
directly to moderator and not to all leaders. Frankly speaking it has
spoiled my experience of this game a lot.

The actions of Ontario, the diplo messages from Bantumi and my silence
was all part of our plan, but now it looks like we have to defend
ourselves against stupid accusations. The diplo message from James has
simply ruined fun.

To be short, I want to say - the only thing that is against rules of
this game is the last diplo message from James.

Stop crying there, James. Yes, you got tricked. No, this wasn't
against rules.

Kalvis

P.S. regarding the mutual defense pact, they are as much legal and
honorable as peace treaties. The game does not define treaties and
only win conditions (this is why we need alliances to be defined).


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PE-WJ-Diplo [James Howlett]: Other Assorted Thoughts
Date:Thu, 26 May 2005 13:14:50 +0000

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I apologize.  I guess I was making some false assumptions.  I thought
this was a continuation of the Rival Alliances world rules.  I thought
once you had an alliance that you had to declare it.  I thought secret
alliances were a no-no.  If I had known my allies and I could just set
up mutual defense pacts, treat them exactly like an alliance, and keep
our movements more private that's what we would have done.

I do have one outside friend who plays the game.  Unless it's
necessary I don't want to attack that person.  I'm not going to
over-extend myself or break treaties over that person.  That seems
very reasonable to me.  I beleive the Moderator's assessment of the
previous situation is wrong.  My friend and I were the two largest
nations in the world.  With the new region in crisis feature we
couldn't have a friendly race to get enough regions to meet the
victory conditions by attacking other people.  We were roughly the
same size so a war between us would have destroyed us and we both
would have been attacked on all sides by other leaders.  It was a
lose-lose situation.  I guess the Moderator doesn't see that.

I find it ironic that Kalvis whines about me ruining his fun and then
tells me to stop crying.  I'm not sure what he means by "tricking" me.
I made my conspiracy theory known and now it's been confirmed.  I
don't see anything in the rules that makes that illegal.  I now know
much more than I did before.

In closing, breaking treaties is dishonorable.  There is no way around
that.  The only way to make sure people honor treaties is to punish
those who break them.  This is very simple logic.  One treaty does not
allow you to break another treaty.  If you have a 5 turn notice of
cancellation treaty then you have to give your 5 turns notice.  At
least that's the way it should be.

James


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PE-WJ-Diplo [CHICKEN LITTLE]: THE SKY IS FALLING...
Date:Thu, 26 May 2005 14:36:52 +0000

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OH MY!  I SURE HOPE THIS SILLY ARGUMENT IS RESOLVED SOON, BECAUSE I
DONT HAVE ENOUGH TIME IN THE DAY TO WORRY ABOUT SUCH THINGS.



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PE-WJ-Diplo [Acanthopis]: Yikes!
Date:Sat, 28 May 2005 22:24:41 +0000

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My goodness--I check out of this world for a couple weeks and suddenly
all goes to heck. How confusing is all of this scheming for my little
head. Anyway, I know that politically I should not make this a public
message, but I have some ridiculous number of messages after not
checking e-mail while I was away, and I just don't have time to answer
everything individually. So, here goes.

First, I want people to know that I interpret 5-turn non-agression
pacts in exactly the same way that some members of TS interpret them:
namely, you are bound to the letter of the pact whether or not you
have some secret, "overriding" defense pact with another nation. Now,
a pact is only a pact, so anybody can attack anybody they want, but I
would certainly go grumbling to the world if someone broke a
nonagression pact with me after I attacked their secret ally. TS, and
any of my other neighbors with whom I have a nonagression pact, should
all rest assured that I will say publicly that the whole world should
destroy me if I attack any of my friends without five turns of notice.
If anyone really wants, I will gladly provide a list of those nations
with which I think I have a nonagression pact. Just don't ask for the
next few days while I'm catching up on old e-mail! :-)

Regarding secret alliances, I think that I personally have secret
defense pacts with two other nations, although I'll have to look to
see if I finalized the second one. Currently, my thinking is that my
friends are big enough that nobody could wipe them out in five turns,
so the five-turn nonagression pacts would not get in the way. If I
want to enlist in a defense pact that would allow me to immediately
break my promises to TS and/or others, then I would certainly give
some sort of official notice of these pacts. I won't say who my pacts
are with, but I will say that have not agreed to defend any nation
with less than 71 production. ;-)

Anyway, this message is already too long. Hopefully all this bad blood
is now behind us.

-- Acanthopis