Atrocities or not in human multiplayer games?

[Earthmichael]

I noticed that the stardard rules on this website for multiplayer games do not mention attrocities.  Nor do the setup rules for any of the games that I currently have going, other that 1vs1 games, do not mention attrocities.

So does than mean attrocities are allowed?

My personal viewpoint is that attrocities were intended to be balanced by the effect on diplomacy of AI players.  When there are no AI players in the game, this balance is lost.  The economic sanctions (loss of trade energy) is usually an insufficient deterent if I want to nerve staple those annoying drones or blast my opponent's well defended base into oblivion with nerve gas.

So, I propose that the website standard rules be amended to ban attrocities on games where the majority of players are human, unless the game rules explicity state otherwise.  If the UN Charter is repealed by council vote, then of course attrocities are permitted.

To be explicit, in a 7 player game where 4 players are human and 3 are AI, then this rule would ban attrocities.  If it were a 6 player game where 3 players are human and 3 are AI, then attrocities would be permitted.

What do you think?  Do you think standard rules should ban attrocities in human games?

[t_ras]

I think I agree with you.

[sisko]

from the facebook group:

Nerve Stapling shouldn't be considered an atrocity, but Nerve Gas and Planet Busters should. Simply because Nerve Stapling involves your own cities (it's not like you're nerve stapling your rival's cities).

Citizens of your own country are not property. It may not be a war crime, but it is still an atrocity.

As to whether or not atrocities should be allowed in multiplayer, I agree that it should be down to whether or not the Charter is in effect, if it's tournament play. In the absence of in-game sanctions, it should be considered "cheating" if the charter is in effect.

I remember I built a PBEM once called "What Lurks beneath the Surface" or something like that where I had the AI Spartans and AI Hive committing atrocities against once another, to the point where sea levels began to rise. The human players ended up not being very happy with me over that. FYI on that slant regarding atrocities, especially in PBEMs where players literally spend months working on a game.

[Kirov]

Personally, I believe that whether or not you do atrocities almost never depends on the diplomacy hit. Unless in some very specific conditions, using stuff like nerve gas far outweighs the potential backlash, embargo or offended Deirdre be damned. I never do atrocities because 1) I'm a nice guy 2) I want them on their knees, not dead. But I couldn't care less about their sanctions and I believe other players should have the option to be bad guys.

OT: Is Darsnan still around?

[Buster's Uncle]

He is, and a member here, just not very active.  He has an on-going thread in Modding, though.  You should ping him and say hi.

[Earthmichael]

Personally, I believe that whether or not you do atrocities almost never depends on the diplomacy hit.

In an all human game, I will nerve staple from the outset.  In a game with a lot of AI players, I will not, because this puts me at a significant diplomacy disadvantage.  I can often get some tech trades in with AI players, and some treaties and pacts for awhile.  But if I nerve staple a few times, the AI players generally start beligerent or worse, and very little tech trading or treaties can be done.

In an all AI game, it does not matter, because I can win anyway.  But if I have some tough human opponents who are getting value from the AI, and I am not, then that puts me often several techs behind.  Much more costly than the value I got from the nerve stapling.

[Kirov]

You're right with nerve stapling, it may come in handy in earlier turns. However, if we list atrocities in SMAC, we've got (if I remember correctly): nukes, nerve gas, base obliteration, nerve stapling and genetic warfare.

I believe base obliteration may be very useful and funny to carry out. It's probably one atrocity I would consider using if I feel the enemy's coastal SP base is not protected enough. Nerve gas is powerful and that diplomacy/economy hit really doesn't matter anyway when you go for an all-out war (and you probably do if you go gas). Nerve stapling you described, and genetic warfare is in my opinion negligible (you almost always have better things to do with your probes). With planet busters flying you've got more to worry about than your PR among AIs.

Of these, I'd definitely want to have the option of base obliteration on the table, same with nerve gas and nukes. And as those options are equally open to all human players, I wouldn't say they're overpowered just because there's not enough AI's to b!tch about it.

And one minor thing - banning nerve stapling means essentially that you lift this pesky -1 POLICE penalty effect for Deirdre and Roze (or rather you give it to everyone). I know, not a big deal, but still why help them.

[Earthmichael]

I guess it just depends on what kind of game you want to play.  In several of the all human games I have played, attrocities are commonplace unless they are banned.  If you don't mind that nearly every unit that you see will have nerve gas, if you do not mind nerve stapling as a common means of drone management, if you do not mind extremely fast water rise constantly, then by all means play a game where everyone can freely commit attrocities.

I personally think this takes a lot of the fun out of the game, which is why I posted this topic.  I think the designers intended for attrocities to be partially balanced by diplomacy effects, rather than to be used indistriminately.

[Kirov]

Well, it wasn't that of a problem in the all in all several games I have played. No, I'm not happy with nerve gas on every unit and I hate sea level rising, but I just refrain from doing atrocities (unless it's "time to take the gloves off") and I'm quite sure that simply not doing them doesn't have to put you at a disadvantage compared to other players. Let's just try not to. On the other hand, base obliteration...  Decisions, decisions. But if I constantly see people (over)doing atrocities, I believe I could change my mind.

Today I noticed that in the PBEM rules there is no mention on EG and I must say I find it a bit striking that you consider atrocities more game-unbalancing that EG. It was banned in all games I've ever been into, for a very good reason I believe. People can go to great lengths not to get infiltrated and EG does it all away. Plus it's cheap, plus the votes. I'd definitely strongly recommend against it in my games and I'll insist on the ban in all the games which I start. For that matter, I remember I convinced some co-players to get rid of CBA, another game-breaker, as well. So it's not like I'm against rule adjusting, to the contrary.

[Earthmichael]

I guess people have different ways that they play, and what they consider important.

On a large map, I consider Merchant Exchange and Weather Paradigm much more important the EG.  One can refuse the council vote anyway, so they other player cannot force a win that way.  And with a large map, the infiltration does not make as much difference to me.  Yes, the other player can get a better idea about how I am going to kick his butt, but he still can't do much about it.  Nevertheless, if it bothers you, I would be happy to ban EG in a game with you, or better yet, give you EG at the beginning of the game, and I get ME or WP .

I agree that CBA is a game winner, which is why I try to always get it first  .  But yes, I could also see banning CBA.

I personally like to also ban Copters.  I think their ability to attack every move is completely unbalanced, particularly since they cost no more than a Needlejet or a Rover.  In games where Copters are allowed, about 80% of all combat units built are Copters.  They just rule.  If Copters are going to be in a game, I think the cost should be modded up considerably.

I have been in few games where attrocities were causing the water level to rise 400 ft/turn or more.  And not my attrocities either; I had been playing it pretty clean except for a bit of nerve stapling.  But it does not matter whose attrocities they are, everyone is affected.  I had over 100 clean superformers just trying to keep my head above water, which is extremly time consuming and boring micromanagement.  It would be different if at some point, the game would figure that the polar ice caps are completely melted, and the water cannot rise any more.  But that does not happen.  Of course, the Pirate player was commiting attrocities as often as possible, and laughing the whole way.

[Earthmichael]

Kirov, would you be interested in a 1 on 1 game?  My favorite scenario is 2 factions vs. 2 factions on the balanced Vets map, but I would consider any balanced scenario.

[Yitzi]

Don't the trade effects of sanctions apply even when there are human players?

As for diplomacy, if people want to be harsher with atrocity-committers, they can be harsher with atrocity-committers.

[Kirov]

I’m splitting my reply into three separate posts so that others could join the discussion in a coherent manner.

Of course, the Pirate player was commiting attrocities as often as possible, and laughing the whole way.

On atrocities:

I join you in your outrage, the Pirate played foul. Still, I stand by my former opinion that in this case the Pirates very little would care about any sanctions you or any number of AIs could throw at him. Especially as the AI is the first to go under water. Consequences, shmoquences, he would do the same nonetheless. The best reaction I’d recommend would be to forge a coalition against the offender.


I understand your concern and I think it’s a serious issue which you may propose as a house rule in any games you’re in. You could convince me to at least a partial ban, possibly in exchange for some of my ideas . I just believe making this a general PBEM rule at the forum level would take things a bit too far.


On the copters:

I remember I tinkered a bit with txt files and I have the impression that increasing the chopper cost doesn’t solve the problem. You’d just have less of them, but they’d still comprise the most of your army. They are simply that good. The idea I can offer is to cut down the movement of air units in half (or by one third). Then you would be forced to rely on ground units.

The same goes for CBA: you double the price and I still happily pay it. Very strong SP which may be only either banned or weakened by weakening air power itself.

I still firmly believe that the best unit in the game is your humble supply crawler.

[Kirov]

On a large map, I consider Merchant Exchange and Weather Paradigm much more important the EG. 

On the SPs:

I must say your opinion really piqued my curiosity about your gameplay. For one, it’s the first time I see an experienced player disregarding good intel so carelessly. I’d pay a medium-sized base to get enemy’s infiltration and then another one not to get infiltrated.

And I can’t really follow your choice of SPs, either. It’s interesting that you make an impression of an aggressive (tho I prefer the term ‘proactive’ ) player, eager to send an armed excursion. On the other hand, you picked the two SPs which only fully shine midgame, with the advent of EcoEng/EnvEcon, and seem perfect for a micro-managing avid builder. So I’m curious, which is it?

I consider PTS to be the best early-game SP, very useful for both fighters and builders. Apart from that, if I wanted to shed some blood, MCC looks really handy. For builders there is VW to grab. Either way, when you switch to FM, it sorts of cancels out with ME until EnvEcon (cap), apart from the base tile and maybe a random energy tile.

Yet another issue I can think of with ME+WP combo is that after IA it kinda forces you to go down the EnvEcon path. If you go D:AP first, it’s this long your boreholes keep humming at 0/2/2 capacity, compared to my forest/FM 1/2/2. And if you go EnvEcon to switch the lights on, you run a high risk of losing CBA.

[Kirov]

Kirov, would you be interested in a 1 on 1 game?  My favorite scenario is 2 factions vs. 2 factions on the balanced Vets map, but I would consider any balanced scenario.

On the game offer:

As I said above, I’d love to watch your gameplay. And if you were serious with that EG/ME trade, I say why not, let’s. However, I must put the disclaimer in and I can’t stress it enough, I do consider the EG vs. ME setup to be hilariously unbalanced in favour of the former. I don’t do this to get a massive advantage (although it is a massive advantage), I just believe you must be several levels stronger than the enemy to make up for this handicap and if you honestly can pull that off, I’d be happy to get my ar$e handed back to me so that I can silently clap my hands in awe.

However, I’d rather not start another game just yet. I’ve just joined one 4-player game and got a HtH with t_ras pending. With a full time job and other pesky RL stuff, I’m seriously worried about my turn turnover in the coming days. On the one hand, I try to be a committed player, meaning I do my turn within at least 24 hours. On the other hand, I haven’t played for years and I believe I need some time with my turns and could also use a warmup. I played an SP game yesterday and it seems there’s a lot to be recalled. I need to see how time-consuming my current games will be (and I’m still waiting for players in another one, maybe you could join it?). I really hope I don’t get hooked up again, not with the global crisis and all. My boss just won’t get it.

I played the vets maps only twice and recall it as fair if somewhat dull, but if you don’t want to ask a CMN for help, we may go with that. Where can I find it and give it a try?

Could we agree on the level of factions to be selected? I give a wide berth to the strongest and/or most boring ones – Zak, Hive, Domai.

However, I’ve never played 2 facs v. 2 facs and I don’t think I could possibly enjoy that. I’d rather stick to 1v1. Detailed rules on atrocities may be discussed (how about “no stapling, no nerve gas, other atrocities allowed only against other human”?)