JustinSane4

Very nice game!

I have no idea why your previous post disappeared, but I completely agree with what you just said. edit: Did you perhaps post in the round 7 thread? There is a post by you there quite similar to what you've described.

I agree with several of the others. I personally enjoy the concept of ARC, and though I've yet to use it was looking forward to doing so. That is heavily outweighed by not wanting anyone to leave the league because of what has become a divisive issue. I vote that we ban ARC and straw dogs. Proposed rule wording: It is illegal to edit xml files in any way that affects gameplay in MVL games. It is also illegal to use any option accessed by the "create new opponent" button or the "edi

What has changed, and necessitated a second time around this discussion, is that a very skilled player has stated quite strongly that he feels this to be a more significant advantage than what I can recall anyone on either side suggesting it was when we first talked about it. Wyndstar is a much better player than I am, and personally I'm inclined to give a lot of weight to his opinion on how much something effects game balance (possibly a few others do as well). If he is correct in his assessm

To correct my post on the statistics (since I can't figure out how to edit it): Games played with (presumably) non-arc races actually were faster than games played with (presumably) ARC races with an average of 3.2 non-ARC and 4.0 ARC. This further indicates the balance between ARC and non-ARC, so far, hasn't been too bad.

As to a clearly formulated rule that takes care of straw dog opponents: Why not just "no custom race opponents"? That seems pretty clear to me and does not seem to start a slippery slope. Clearly, a player can make a custom race weaker than any stock race, and if you're using stock races, you can only pick the Iconians for one slot. Personally, I think a "No custom race opponents and no ARC" rule might be a more clear formulation than Mumble's proposal, if Mumble's rule is in fact

A lot has been said about how, if using ARC and straw dog opponents are allowed, using them will be necessary to compete. Concern has also been expressed that the competition so far in the MVL has not been fair since some players have used these techniques and others have not. I checked the results so far this round to see whether they indicated whether or not A. people were using ARC and B. whether there was a gap in results in favor of those who did. In a worse case scenario where A

Just to clarify, straw dogs are made within the normal game interface. It's really a seperate but related issue from xml file editing. When you talk about cheat flaggin ARC, you need to be clear whether you mean editing the xml file, which can change characteristics of your own race, or setting up weak custom opponents from within the interface. In any case, I agree the important thing is just to get consensus. If that means banning both ARC and custom opponents, then that is fine

One thing to note is that, through creating custom opponents, you can do quite a lot without leaving the interface. You can set super ability, race pick points, starting technologies and AI. This can potentially have a greater impact on the game than editing your own race via the xml. I think though that this should probably be taken to the MVL rules thread, where there is already quite an extensive discussion of this issue.

One thing to note is that many of the changes to the enemy can be made from within the game via custom opponents. You can select alignment, AI and super ability I'm pretty sure. I don't know about homeworld. The galaxy wide trap you devised can be set entirely legally from within the game. Mumblefratz' proposed rule should help, and I don't doubt that everyone will honestly follow it if it passes, but I do wonder just how wide the spread of opinions on what constitues accurately refl

I think my one year took 3-4 hours without ARC (which I have not yet ever used, though I intend to start a game doing so today). I used Altarians optimized for max research, got to the extreme worlds first, chose good civs + Korx as opponents(so super organizer took care of much of my defense) and found it all went pretty smoothly (though clearly I had a wierdly good starting position, with a +700% research tile on my homeworld and a +700 manufactoring on a toxic world I colonized, as well as h

If others would feel more comfortable at the ToE forums I've got no objection. I had not known that the distaste for the core was so widespread or strong. A pity.

I've always like the core and personally have never encountered any snobishness. When I was very new to the game and knew pratically nothing the Diplomats were patient, welcoming and helpful. The only areas I've only frequented at the core are the Galciv2 general board, the Diplomats board and the team E board, so I can not speak to what attitudes prevail elsewhere, but personally I like the layout and reliability there. If everyone wants to switch I'd have no strong objection to that

At higher difficulty levels, the primary advantage the human has is the ability to make more effective use of resources that the AI also has. Even with equal weapons tech, if you can leverage the money you gained by selling it into some other useable asset, it gives scope to outplay the AIs strategically and rely on better tactical ability to hold militarily in the mean time. If you are running a tech based economy (all-labs for instance), most likely your greatest need is income. Sel

I hate mega events as well and do not understand why they are mandated for DA players. Could someone please point me to an explanation of the rationale behind that? I'm sure there is a good reason, and I would feel much better about that rule if I knew what the reason was.

The Drath are one of my favorite races as well. I think they are the best race in the game for a diplomatic play style. They have a weak economy due to slow population growth and inability to research concepts of malice (the prerequisite for the MCC). However, after a couple of fairly early techs they have +11% war profiteering. Their super manipulater ability, combined with their starting diplomacy bonus and +25% diplomacy unique tech, means that it is very easy for them to get every other

Fair enough. :) Personally, I think I'm going to avoid customizing opponents, since I like bright lines and dislike judgment calls.

Ok, that makes perfect sense. Thanks. :)

Oh, and by way of clarification: I have not used straw dog AIs and was somewhat in favor of them. However, my personal interpretation of "accurately reflecting the reported difficulty level" would allow in-game customization of opponents, since this is quite clearly within the rules of the game and the Metaverse. It would dis-allow exploitation of known bugs that are commonly agreed to be A. bugs, not features and B. of meaningful impact on the difficulty of the game. The AI reset is the onl

One comment on: "Every MVL player is honor bound to ensure that the effective difficulty of any game they submit is accurately represented by the games posted difficulty." I have no problem with this as long as we have a reasonable guidelines in place as to "accurately represented by the games posted difficulty". Who makes this call? The player, the commissioner, or someone else? Personally I think if a game is played at a given difficulty and does not exploit known bugs (

No question, this would have been worlds easier with tech trading on. It especially hurts the all-labs strategy. There are ways to deal with it, but you need some good breaks (+700% research tile homeworld, at least a few close colonizable worlds other) to pull it off in reasonable time I think. On the other hand, I think hard can be good some times.

Oh, we're still around for sure. :)

What about players who only play at Suicidal?

[quote]Hmm, I had no idea we could change the race config in these ways and still play a legal metaverse game. Now that I know, I do not plan to use it.To be quite honest, it does seem unethical to me; much like an athlete using steroids is. The fact that anyone can make these changes does not mean that it should be done. And the fact that we can't really regulate against it doesn't mean we should allow it either.I guess the crux of the problem is that Stardock isn't tagging these games as illeg

I agree with CraigHB that a MVL that specified race configurations would be less interesting. Mumblefratz has also summed up my position more clearly than I did, so nice job on that (I need to learn to express myself more concisely). :) Additionally, I want to respond to a comparison made earlier between ARC and performance enhancing drugs. I can understand being opposed to ARC and feeling that it was unethical, but I do not think this specific comparison is entirely fair.