Capture points, multi-accounts and military action.

  • A couple of questions here...

    1) Does capturing points in the piracy game warrant military action?

    I thought the general etiquette was that piracy is a separate mini-game and shouldn't spill over into the main game. Especially as you can capture points from your own alliance.

    2) Player A has multi-account towns and Player B raids them for capture points. Player A then threatens Player B to stop raiding his "friends" and then attacks Player B.

    Could this be considered circumventing "direct interaction"? Player A's military actions are directly in response to the pirate raids on his multi-accounts.

  • the philosophy of this rule is that basically if you have 2 accounts connected in IP, you have to play as if they were absolutely independent.

    As if they were 2 different players and not both yours.

    So...

    If you have 2 accounts, A and B, and player C attacks A, you can only react against him with your A account, and not with your other B account.

    I know it should be like this

    firma-nuovo-forum.jpg

  • any type of interaction between accounts determines a possible triangulation to get around the settlement.

    even pirate attacks

    firma-nuovo-forum.jpg

  • 1) Yes, sometimes. it all depends whether the players/alliances are strong enough to enforce their rules. If they want to protect their pirate points, a superior army gives them the right to decide that's the common etiquette in the area, or at least when dealing with their pirate supply chain.

    I do like the idea of pirates being a separate mini-game, and have in the past defended the right to treat it as such... But then became powerful enough to defend my points instead, and changed my "opinion"... Welcome to Ikariam politics. ;)


    2) This case isn't uncommon, and I've become so desensitized to multis being part of one single player's tools that I wouldn't have noticed anything wrong if I saw this happening... I do agree that it's against the spirit of the rules, but unfortunately it happens all the time.

    "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -A. C. Clarke

  • I've been playing 12 years and piracy was always a minigame. I don't even play piracy, not interested.

    But now I'm seeing small players asking for military aid from the alliance because they've pirated a huge player and now they're under attack.
    They assumed it was a separate thing. And the huge players just say "they attacked me first" when they mean "captured points".

    I thought the point of piracy was that everybody starts off equal, the little guys have a chance, but if military is in the equation then huge players with multi-accounts have an advantage and can throw their weight about.

  • The general etiquette in ikariam is only one, do not breaking any Game Rules.


    You raid player A multi-accounts that player A use them to feed player B. Player A attack you because of you raid his multi. This is OK and feel free to keep on raiding player A multi and attack him back anytime you want. This is how ikariam game works.

  • Would you be the same Ratna that created my User Sig Image?

    Thanks goes out to Ratna for the awesome Sig

  • Would you be the same Ratna that created my User Sig Image?

    yes i am :)

    nice to hear from you. Good to know you are still playing the game. Was wondering why my signature only shows up on my Apple devices, and not on Microsoft devices?

    Thanks goes out to Ratna for the awesome Sig

  • But what is happening here is Player A has 2,000,000 total score, Player B (the player raiding Player A's multis) has 12,000 total score.

    Isn't this against the Pushing rule?

    3. Pushing

    • It is not allowed to gain an advantage at the expense of weaker players. A player is considered weaker if his total highscore is lower than that of the accused.


    Player B can't raid Player A's multis (which should be considered sepatate accounts) because Player A protects them so gains an advantage.

    At the start of every piracy round nobody has an advantage, everybody should be equal. But if piracy = military and huge accounts are protecting their multi accounts with military then it's not equal at all. The small players without multi accounts are at a disadvantage from the start because they can't raid anybody. The whole system favours big multi account players.

  • As far as I've understood, the pushing rule basically it means that if a big player gets anything from a smaller player (voluntarily given), they have to pay back something of equal value. A bigger player taking anything forcibly is (generally) allowed.


    About the rest, you're right that big players with multi-accounts have an advantage in the game. Not just in pirates, but elsewhere too. It's not against the letter of the rules, and no one seems to care about the spirit of the rules. (Side note: even big players without multis have an advantage in pirates because they have more mobile towns, bigger pirate forts and a stronger military to protect their points.)


    I don't like the current rules either, but I've noticed that it's easier to play the way they encourage you to play and build some extra accounts. Multi-account players won't have mercy on you just because "it's not fair".

    "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -A. C. Clarke

  • The problem is the pushing rule is vague and subjective. The point of rules is to have clarity about what is allowed and what is not.
    That's why there are many posts about the rules, they're too vague. It seems there was an effort to simplify them but they've just muddied the waters.

    In my example large mutli account players do gain an advantage by bullying smaller players but they can hand wave it off as not being explicitly stated in the rules.

    Bring back the bashing rule, that would fix it and make things more fair.
    Even make it a specific bashing rule for piracy: No military retaliation against smaller players in the current piracy round.

    That would level the priacy playing field a bit and have a rule that's less open to interpretation.

  • I agree that the current wording is very vague. I base my understanding on a post explaining all the rules in detail on the old Finnish forum. Here there doesn't seem to be anything similar in any language that I can read... (If anyone with the power to do so is reading this, it might take less time to write and translate some clarifications than keep correcting misunderstandings.)


    Forbidding military retaliation against smaller players would level the playing field, but I think it would be difficult to enforce. Player A could take player B's points, then player C could a few weeks later empty A's warehouses of any loose items. Meanwhile, A could steal D's points every round and accuse him of illegal retaliation, even if the reason for military action is miracle leeching or something else completely unrelated.


    Besides, I'm personally happy with my current situation, where I can sometimes protect my points with the threat of military retaliation... And conflicts in some way related to pirates are practically the only things that keep anything happening in my current main server at all anymore.

    "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -A. C. Clarke

  • I don't think it would be that hard to enforce.
    If the smaller player does an action in the main game against the bigger player that would normally require retaliation then they are exempt from piracy bashing protection.
    You could make miracle leeching a bashing exemption, that might help fix that problem too.

  • Forbidding military retaliation against smaller players would level the playing field, but I think it would be difficult to enforce. Player A could take player B's points, then player C could a few weeks later empty A's warehouses of any loose items. Meanwhile, A could steal D's points every round and accuse him of illegal retaliation, even if the reason for military action is miracle leeching or something else completely unrelated.

    If you're talking about "forbidding" military action as in a game rule enforced by the GOs, that would really take away from the spirit of the game. There's no rule about who you're allowed to attack. Or when, or why.


    If you're referring to what's considered acceptable, that's an entirely different story. ;) I am of the (un)popular opinion that military retaliation is perfectly legitimate. But it should be done as appropriate to the scale of the original offense. If I'm sitting at 1,000,000 CPs near the end of the round, and some newbie account raids them 1 minute before the end of the round, I would feel no remorse for pillaging that little account for days. At the other extreme, if some little player raids me one time and I had 0 cps because I wasn't even playing pirates, sending a 50K military after him would not be appropriate. A word of caution or maybe even a friendly conversation might be more productive.

    Bring back the bashing rule, that would fix it and make things more fair.
    Even make it a specific bashing rule for piracy: No military retaliation against smaller players in the current piracy round.

    That would level the priacy playing field a bit and have a rule that's less open to interpretation.


    As for the bashing rules, I believe those were removed shortly after occupations were introduced because they were unenforceable. A player being occupied can easily generate 7 or more CRs to create a "bashing" offense without the occupier even being online.


    When it comes to multi accounts, I don't know if there even is a general consensus on that. If player A has 2 accounts and one of them gets raided or attacked, there is nothing to say they can't retaliate with the other account. But this is also similar to alliances defending their members. If one member gets attacked, another member might step in to retaliate and chase the offender off. The same theory is also applied to raids. If a feeder gets raided, a lot of alliances have a high-CS pirate that can step in and raid the offending pirate. Or, the person they're feeding could go after the offending pirate. (This seems to even go beyond the boundaries of alliances.) The situation and complications would still exist even if multis were still illegal.



    Asking GF to remove the option of military action (in any scenario) makes absolutely no sense. Military is a huge part of the game. If a player is outside of godmode, he/she should consider military options/consequences of his/her actions.

    viZb6W5.png


    Turmoil's in the air

    Hold your breath be deadly calm

    Make a final prayer

    Don't forget what you have done

  • the rules keep changing
    I have one question
    Lets say that someone has 2 accounts with the same ip
    He attacks my account with the 1st account then i attack his multi ,and then his multi is attacking me
    Hera may i ask for you assistance ,can you please find me the section of the article that its saying about what i am saying ?
    It used to be somewhere with good examples etc
    At my understanding now everything its ok ,if not the system will not allow you to do an action
    Am i a correct ?

  • If you're talking about "forbidding" military action as in a game rule enforced by the GOs, that would really take away from the spirit of the game. There's no rule about who you're allowed to attack. Or when, or why.

    Are you saying there's nothing in the rules to stop me constantly pillaging a newbie fresh out of god protection till they get fed up and quit the game?
    Or would I fall foul of the Pushing rule by gaining an advantage at the expense of a considerably weaker player?

    My understaning is that Bashing was merged with Pushing to simplify the rules.
    Pushing definitely used to be about unfair trades, Bashing was about unfair pillaging. But now Pushing is about any action that gains an advantage at the expense of a weaker player.
    Is that not the case? If it is then that is a rule forbidding military action in a specific case.


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    Multi-accounts are considered completely separate accounts, as if it is a completely different player using them.
    We all know why they're used and it's not two people sharing the same network IP, that's why we have the fleet contact rule, they must not have any interaction.

    If someone raids your multi-account (piracy or military) it can only really be considered retaliation if the multi-account strikes back.
    A retaliation attack from your main account should be considered as an unprovoked first strike.

    To give an example a common post in alliances is from a small player saying "HALP, HE ATTACK BUT I DID NOTHING TO HIM!!!".
    It then turns out the player piracy raided a similar sized account to himself, not knowing that its owner has another account with insane GS.
    To the small player that is an unprovoked attack from the larger player, they probably have the common sense not to raid a much bigger player but someone their own size is a fair fight.

    The point I'm trying to make is ... either it's allowed to attack much smaller players unprovoked (pillage them out of the game or "retaliate" for your small multi-account with your bigger main account), or it's not allowed to do either.

    The Pushing (Bashing) and the multi-account rules need clarification because just now they are completely subjective and at the whim of the GOs.
    Explicitly state what is allowed then we can move on.

  • Constantly pillaging small players till they leave the game doesn't seem like it's in the best interests of the game.
    Likewise stopping small players trying to compete at their own level by bullying them away from equally sized multi-accounts.
    If that's not what the Pushing rule is about then I don't know why it's even there.

  • Are you saying there's nothing in the rules to stop me constantly pillaging a newbie fresh out of god protection till they get fed up and quit the game?
    Or would I fall foul of the Pushing rule by gaining an advantage at the expense of a considerably weaker player?

    Correct. There's nothing in the rules about pillaging a newbie or bullying. The "policing" force to prevent this is the player base who believe this is wrong and should be stopped, not the GOs.


    Pushing is when a smaller player voluntarily gives you something and you don't give them anything in return.


    My understaning is that Bashing was merged with Pushing to simplify the rules.
    Pushing definitely used to be about unfair trades, Bashing was about unfair pillaging. But now Pushing is about any action that gains an advantage at the expense of a weaker player.

    Bashing is entirely different from pushing. Pushing is receiving goods from a smaller player. Bashing was attacking a city more than 6 times within a 24 hour period. Even when bashing rules were in effect, you could attack each of a player's cities 6 times a day and be within the rules. It also had nothing to do with the player's total score. So a 10 million TS player could legally pillage a 10,000 TS player 6 times a day on every city. If that player had 6 cities, that could be 36 pillages daily.


    The concept of legal/illegal per the rules is entirely separate from the concept of what's right/wrong for players to do. GF provides a platform for players to game in. The players determine what is considered right and wrong and how to enforce it.


    If that's not what the Pushing rule is about then I don't know why it's even there.

    Many people have wondered this. ;)



    My understanding of this (and hopefully Hera will clarify) is that you can attack each of his accounts with your account and be fine. He can only use one account at a time to attack you, but since you only have one account you can do whatever you want to him. :)


    For example, Account A attacks you. Then all of that account's ships, troops, pirate raids, and spies are pulled back. Once they are no longer engaged in any kind of "fleet contact" with your account, the player can use Account B to attack you.

    viZb6W5.png


    Turmoil's in the air

    Hold your breath be deadly calm

    Make a final prayer

    Don't forget what you have done