2015 League General Discussion Thread

[gamerman01]

This will be posted in a stickied thread when it is finalized
I am not posting it here to open every word to debate - I am posting now to give you a chance to familiarize with the rules before starting 2016 league.

However, if you have a major concern or question about something, now is the time

Major changes:

1. League year is 14 months long to get the years to end December 31 from now on.
2. Provision to protect past opponents of players who abandon the site and all their games
3. Master tier added
4. Trial period of 3 games at tier 3 for each player (or using last year’s ranking) changed to 1 game.  When players complete 2 games, it will be like it has been in the past, when they reach 4 games
5. Language inserted in various places to emphasize certain league rules (like bidding) are default rules and the players are free to do what they agree to do (like if you want to give USA or Russia +5 a turn for the whole game or something, instead of bidding, for example)
6. Changed default bump rule to 14 days instead of 9, and made it clear the players can change the 72 hour bump rule at the game start to whatever they agree to

[Shin-Ji]

You’ll want to modify 3a, as there are 5 tiers now.

[Shin-Ji]

Oh, actually, 6!

[gamerman01]

Good catch, thanks, my man!

[Shin-Ji]

Glad to help!  Everything else looks great.  I like the implementation of the deadbeat clause.

[bmnielsen]

Good idea to align it with calendar years, makes it much less confusing.

One more minor fix, in #1 the naming convention should say 16L.

A couple of small suggestions:

• List the time when the season ends, preferably in UTC/GMT so it’s easier for everyone to figure out what it is in their time zone.

• We have default bidding rules to speed up the process of starting new games. I suggest that we do the same for allowable edits as well. In every game I’ve played, NCM edits have been allowed until the opponent posts their next turn. Not having it as a default in the rules means it’s something I need to remember to agree on before every game.

[gamerman01]

OK, good stuff, I’ll see what I can do

[gamerman01]

Not sure how to do that, because
I don’t want my opponents making edits after I’ve started putting work into my next move.  I haven’t posted yet, but an edit could screw everything up.

What is your suggestion for wording that?  I want to be careful not to give too much to the one who is making out of turn edits…. allowing them individually works well for me

What are you saying for each of your games?  That both players can make whatever edits they want as long as the other side hasn’t posted anything?

[JDOW]

@Gamerman01:

Not sure how to do that, because
I don’t want my opponents making edits after I’ve started putting work into my next move.  I haven’t posted yet, but an edit could screw everything up.

What is your suggestion for wording that?  I want to be careful not to give too much to the one who is making out of turn edits…. allowing them individually works well for me

What are you saying for each of your games?  That both players can make whatever edits they want as long as the other side hasn’t posted anything?

In my opinion posting of the map stands, any edits from here depend on the leniency of the opponent. When I am doing edits I am always relieved if I see that the current map is not downloaded yet.

However I have had the situation that I was heavily investing time into a move when the opponent was doing a late edit.
So by the rules I think it is a valid option to deny that edit. the rest is a question of sportsmanship in my opinion.

Once I did an important edit and I was worried my opponent could deny the edit refering he was already planning his move. In this case I made the screenshot which showed my edit and that the map had zero downloads yet. One could take such screenshots as in insurance. However this would only work to reveal bad sportsmanship.

[Soulblighter]

2017 the godlike tier will be introduced at 6:50 :P

[axis-dominion]

What I have found helpful is, if I am uncertain about my turn in even the slightest, or even just feeling uneasy about something but not quite sure what it is, because I posted it in a hurry and left for work, for example, I will post that I need to review and possibly reconsider my ncm. That is, I’ll give my opponent a heads up that I’d like more time to review and possibly change some things, that my turn is not yet complete. That usually will catch them before they download and invest any time, and buys me time to get back to it to review and possibly make some changes.

[gamerman01]

Right, thanks guys, that’s what I think too but I will consider if bmnielsen explains what a rule like that would look like.  Perhaps there’s an improvement to be made?

But I think you might want to just type up your standard conditions once, nielsen, and then copy and paste it for each opponent/game that comes along.  Again, the default policy is what it is to minimize arguments and to prevent people from having changes made on them when they’ve already put time and energy into doing their move.

[666]

@Gamerman01:

I want the league year to end December 31, so 2016 will be a 14 month league year…  Is there some big “con” to this that I’m not thinking of?

No big “con”, IMO.

The initial thought, way back when, when we played REVISED, was to have the season, playoffs and all “wrap” w/in a 14 month time frame. Regular season starts Nov 1, 2007 and championship ends Dec 31st 2008.

The thought was to try to keep viewing interest in the playoffs/championship. That never materialized however as the playoffs have always taken so long to complete….

A bit of a history lesson for those that care…

[666]

@Gamerman01:

I am not posting it here to open every word to debate

Good luck w/that! This made me smile.  :-D

[bmnielsen]

I’m liberal with edits so I don’t mind if something comes in after I’ve started looking at the map, but I can certainly understand if others are bothered by it. As a-d mentioned, in general people are good at giving warning and checking if edits are ok if they come a bit late, so I haven’t really had any issues with it.

I definitely don’t think we should cover all kinds of edge cases in the rules, no reason to have paragraphs covering something that is a nice-to-have.

Here’s my attempt at formulating it concisely:

By default, edits affecting the non-combat movement phase are allowed until the other player starts making their next move. All other edits are subject to the approval of the opponent, though it is considered good sportsmanship to allow reasonable edits.

[666]

4b.2 - isn’t this rule universally ignored w/the NGU inf bid placement?

[lexgreat]

The only thing I want to suggest is a bonus point system, ie if you beat someone 2+ tiers above you, so say a tier 3 a tier 1 or higher, a tier 1 a master etc, give an additional point. Like in Tennis in the 80s. System could be made more complex with even more bonus points the bigger the tier difference etc, but would complicate things.

[axis-dominion]

We need a 2016 general discussion topic for this, but meantime I will post my predictions here.

Round 1:

bmn vs gamer - there’ll be a high allied bid, but still, whoever gets axis here will win

Adam vs jdow - Adam gets axis, easy win. Adam gets allies, will be tight but I think Adam will pull a win here too. He’s really good with allies

Zhuk vs ghost - zhuk will get axis and win

Me1845 vs Juan - me gets a very high allied bid and wins easily (as long as he’s careful about pacific VC)

Round 2

Adam vs (whoever was axis) - if Adam is axis, easy win; if Adam is allies, will be very tough but I think he will win it

Me vs Zhuk - will be high bid for allies, but I think zhuk will win regardless, but not necessarily easily, unless me blunders big like he did against ghost

Final Round

Adam vs Zhuk - whoever gets axis will win this

[bmnielsen]

Who gets first bid in the playoff games? Higher seed?

[gamerman01]

@bmnielsen:

Who gets first bid in the playoff games? Higher seed?

Yes