Dealing with a game infraction

Oh I see, seems cheating is of no concern here.

Why thanks for the acknowledgement.

Cheers,

Brian

my suggestion is get the other 23 players to hamstring him for cheating. Agree to divide up his resources and territories and take him out.

No mercy.

Good luck

Excellent idea!! That would work good too with the 5 day peace period!!!

Brian

I recently started two 50-player games, and used the "start when full" option for the first time. Neither game started promptly when all 50 playable countries were selected by human players, and there was a 36 to 72-hour delay in the game starts, during which some less-experienced players were publicly bitching and moaning about why the game had not already started, etc., and during which several, if not most players started building various barracks, infrastructure, air base and naval base projects.

With some prompting from several different game operators from the staff, both games eventually started, but it is apparent that there is a bug in the coding for the "start when full" option which delays or even prevents the normal automatic game start. It would be nice if someone from the Hamburg software development staff would look at this and fix it, because it has obviously become a recurring problem.

As for your question about "cheating," i.e., some players getting the jump during the time period when the 50th player joins the game and when the game actually starts, there is apparently no rule on point. I experienced the same problem in my two delayed-start games on the 50-player map -- knowledgeable, more experienced players began to build various industrial improvements and bases before the actual game start. This is not such a big deal for L1 barracks (90-second construction time) or L1 naval bases (15-minute construction time), but it is an advantage for L1 industrial centers (48 hours), L2-L5 ICs (30 hours), L1 infrastructure (24 hours), L2-L3 infrastructure (48 hours), L2-L3 naval bases (48 hours), L1 air bases (18 hours), L2-L3 air bases (36 hours), etc. Oddly, while the delayed start games do not prevent such improvements, they did prevent any research or unit production. Clearly, this is another software bug and the proper solution would be for the software to prevent anyone from building industrial improvements and bases, performing research, or producing units until the game officially starts, thereby placing all players on the same footing. There should also be automatic notice sent to all players who have signed up for the game -- via both in-game comms and COW email -- when the game actually starts. All of these issues should be resolved via software fixes (hallo, Hamburg, are you listening?).

As for rules violations, generally, I think you will find there are only three or four things that get relatively quick responses from the game administrative staff: (1) comments "denouncing gold," either in the forum or in-game newspaper; (2) comments insulting other players and/or using profanity; (3) comments that mention, by name, the supreme leader of the German Reich from 1933 to 1945, or his very naughty political party; or (4) multi-account in-game cheating (i.e., playing two different countries, under two different account names, in the same game).

WayneBo wrote:

Prior to the game filling up, it is possible to start researching!

When I created the two 50-player games about 55-56 days ago (mentioned above), you could begin building improvements, but could not conduct research or produce units. If you can now conduct research before the game actually starts, that is a huge advantage to those players who know about it and it needs to be fixed so that all players begin the game on on equal footing.

Well, I am in a 22 player game, waiting for it to fill and start.

In "testing", I was unable to get any build or research orders started. I attempted as many different ways as I could think of but no success.

I have not gone and checked with different browsers, since that may have an impact on how it plays.

F. Marion wrote:

Well, I am in a 22 player game, waiting for it to fill and start.

In "testing", I was unable to get any build or research orders started. I attempted as many different ways as I could think of but no success.

Good to know. Interesting problem.

I likely won't know when the last player joins for a bit which means there is an opportunity for some folks to get a head start on building before the official start.

Either the bug needs to be fixed (best) or it needs to be published (less good).

At least if published, we can collectively either play with the irregular start sequence or we can collectively find a way to be honest with each other.

MontanaBB wrote:

That's apparently a new bug, Wayne.

The deeper problem, of this class of game not actually starting when full, has existed on Supremacy 1914 for years.

No solution in sight, either on S14 or CoW?

There are a number of bugs associated with the "starts when full" function that the devs are working on. Sadly, no fix can be created instantly, nor do they all take effect instantly. I'm not sure if @Dr. Leipreachan has added all to the published buglist, but I'm sure I can think of a way to summon him to the thread