Are you tough enough to be the "King of the Hill"?

[Slynky]

geoschmo said:
It's a tough call. You built your strategy around the lack of mines. Ratharkalinger spent research and resources setting them up. Neither of you is at fault, being an honest mistake on his part using the available tech compounding an honest mistake by the game owner allowing it.

Well, HE is the one who proposed NOT playing with mines so I figure if I can manage to remember and abide by the parameters he set out (and that I agreed to), so should he. When I first noticed, I started to say something to him but (1) I figured I could depend on him sticking to what we agreed to and (2) I didn't want to tip my hand that I had researched Construction (which leads to fighters). So, I stayed quiet.

I also assumed he was not using mines as I wasn't because we were into turn 35 and I had already glassed 3 other colonies starting as early as 15 turns ago!

As to wasting research on it, I'm not really concerned about any damage he may have done to himself by not adherring to the agreed-upon parameters (despite the option being alive in the game settings). I'll give an analogy: If me and another person agreed to a race using only our feet and no wheeled conveyance and the person setting up the course had mistakenly forgot to remove the bicycles from the footpath, I wouldn't get on one and peddle away.

[Renegade 13]

I know I have no real say here, but I agree with Slynky. If someone fails to abide by a rule and end up getting burned because of it, that's their own fault. Think of the lost research as compensation for Slynky's lost ships, and call it even - as long as an agreement is made for all remaining minefields deployed to be destroyed. Then again since I don't know the game, I don't know if 50,000 research points is equivalent to 3 trained ships at this stage.

[geoschmo]

Sorry if I upset you Slynky. You sound a little upset. Obviously I don't have all the information. You must have had some conversations via email about settings other than what you guys discussed here in the forum, because I don't see where he suggested no mines. I see where he said mines were fine and your next post said you guys had agreed to no mines, so obviously there was some offline conversation going on that I wasn't party to.

I was merely trying to point out that you weren't the only one negatively affected, and from the information I could see from the open discussion here it didn't look as if it was anything more than an honest mistake.

Honestly though I think you made a mistake not mentioning the fact that mines had been allowed as soon as you noticed it. You should never assume a gentlmans agreement. If you had brought it up then the game could have been restarted with very little pain, or you two could have agreed to continue and been perfectly clear on what the agreement concerning mines was to be at that point.

Please know that I am not blaming you, but all three of you have made mistakes here in my opinion.

I am coming from the perspective of a game owner rather than a player. If something is allowed by setting that could be disallowed by setting, then from my perspective it should be allowed in the game. If there is something you want to disallow by gentlemans agreement, that's fine, but you have to make those things clear as soon as they occur. That didn't happen in this case.

[Slynky]

First of all, Geo, I'm not angry with you. I figure you to be an honest and fair person. Much more than the average person.

Having said that, I merely disagreed with you in that if a person makes a mistake in a game, his damage to his game is not my concern. That's my opinion. That's all.

As to not being able to see where no mines were specified, please look to my quote where he said "things like mines were only temporary speedbumps". I took that to mean he favored taking mines out of the game so I specifically listed "No mines" in bold type in the portion of the game settings attributed to his suggestions. (then I added my suggestions below in bold in a different section I referred to as my proposal for settings)

And, once again, IN a game without mines, I chose to research fighters as a good early impediment to attacks. To have told him on, say Turn 10, that I discovered mines had been left in the game, any opponent could have discerned that I had researched Construction in order to see that mines were still available as a research item. AND, since I was reminding my opponent that mines were not allowed, I MUST have been researching Construction for another reason...well...fighters would be the best guess. I felt it damaged my strategy to give that kind of information at that point in the game. By the time he learned of my fighters (and lost 4 or 5 ships to 24 fighters), I had not seen any mines in the game. This was around turn 30 (give or take). At this point, after having glassed several planets already, I assumed (and perhaps that's where I made a mistake) he understood no mines were to be used as SURELY he would have been using them by now!

[geoschmo]

Well, what he actually said was "Everything else can be on if you desire as I can build warp openers as fast if not faster than you can and things like mines are only temporary speedbumps." So he's not suggesting no mines as you thought, merely stating that he doesn't care either way.

Clearly though he agreed to no mines, as you suggested them in your next post and his later posts stated that your suggestions were acceptable. But it wouldn't be the first time someone agreed to something in the game settings without clearly reading them or fogetting them later.

You all made mistakes. The question is whether his mistake is somehow worse then your mistake. If not, then the solution to the problem shouldn't punish him exclusivly, as rolling back the turn and destructing all his minefields would do.

[Slynky]

geoschmo said:The question is whether his mistake is somehow worse then your mistake. If not, then the solution to the problem shouldn't punish him exclusivly, as rolling back the turn and destructing all his minefields would do.

Well, in my opinoin, as you stated, he agreed to a set of parameters for the game. They were written in an easy-to-read format.

So, let's go over (possible) mistakes made by me and my opponent:

ME: I didn't remind my opponent of the settings we agreed to (because I didn't want to give away clues to what I had been researching in the game).

OPPONENT: Agreed to NO mines and then used them because he saw them as available after researching Construction.

I think it's clear who made the bigger mistake. I don't think there is any oness on me to remind my opponent of the rules we agreed to. On the other hand, I beleive there is clearly an oness on an opponent to adhere to settings agreed upon (even if the opportunity to get on a bicycle and peddle away appears).

If we can agree upon that, then who should be "punished" the most? Me? I don't think so.

But, perhaps we can debate this all day long and get nowhere .

What I certainly don't want to see is mines staying in the game! I've patterned my whole structure without worrying about them. Leaving mines in would punish me for making the lessor of the mistakes. The only issue to debate, in my opinion, is what to do about my ships and my plan to advance. One possible solution is for him to fire on (and destroy) two of his ships in that system that give me reason to hesitate my advance (since it's 5 ships to 5 ships considering I lost 2 to mines). Had I been with 7 (or possibly 8) ships, I could advance without worry. Before you discuss the possibilities, I can tell you he has made heavy use of missile ships and I needed the PDs of more than 5 ships in order to advance safely (trained or not).

[geoschmo]

His infraction is not as clear as you make it out to be. You ascribe motive, seeing mines were allowed and using them despite agreeing not too, where simple neglect, forgetting that no mines were agreed to, could sufficently explain it.

On the other hand you saw that the game settings were misconfigured and made a concious decsision not to bring it up. Your motive was completely innocent, not wanting to give up strategy information, but you cannot claim that you simply forgot the setting as he can.

Your race analogy is flawed. It's not reasonable to think someone would simply forget that the race is a foot race. The person could split hairs and say "We never specifically agreed to NOT ride bikes.", but it wouldn't pass a common sense "BS" test.

Clearly there is no perfect solution. If I were the game owner, I would suggest a restart. Obviously though that will damage you in that the element of suprise of your fighters will be lost. You can come up with a new strategy for your next game though. He cannot get his research points back in this game if you were to continue though.

[Slynky]

geoschmo said:
His infraction is not as clear as you make it out to be. You ascribe motive, seeing mines were allowed and using them despite agreeing not too, where simple neglect, forgetting that no mines were agreed to, could sufficently explain it.

Perhaps (although for reasons not divulged in public, I have my reservations). But let's get down to the real world...something that each of us must deal with each day. If you read and agree to something and sign it, the law doesn't care if you forgot. Your just WRONG. Simple as that. So, I don't care if he forgot or did it on purpose. He made a mistake that affected the game. Tell the cop you forgot what the speed limit was.

[Slynky]

geoschmo said:On the other hand you saw that the game settings were misconfigured and made a concious decsision not to bring it up. Your motive was completely innocent, not wanting to give up strategy information, but you cannot claim that you simply forgot the setting as he can.

No, I can't claim that but it's not my responsibility to remind the other player of settings that were agreed upon...especially when doing so hurts my game. Where's the fairness in that?

[Slynky]

geoschmo said:Clearly there is no perfect solution. If I were the game owner, I would suggest a restart. Obviously though that will damage you in that the element of suprise of your fighters will be lost. You can come up with a new strategy for your next game though. He cannot get his research points back in this game if you were to continue though.

And I can't get my ships back, either.

But, to suggest a restart is unpalatable for the following reasons:

(1) I still maintain the bigger mistake was made by my opponent (whether he forgot or not) so I should not be "punished" the most. By the most, I mean put at a disadvantage of a restart for reason #2 below.

(2) Knowing how my empire is set up gives him more of an advantage. While I also know his, his setup is flawed (in my opinion) and it is he who would gain the most by knowing I have, for example, chosen Propulsion. This, is in ADDITION to knowing my propensity for fighters when mines are not available.

(3) The beginning of a game is boring as hell! I hate KotH default settings where you have to check off all the required research blocks and do all the required colonizing. But I do that in anticipation of an exciting middle and end game. Why else would you think I suggest full tech games so often? So, I don't want to do that again by throwing 35 turns away.