As some of you may have noticed Autohost was down today - and the games didnt go on hold when it came back up.

I am in 2 games at the moment and missed a turn in each.

Obviously by now players could have seen the next turn (as could I - I havent but the other players dont know that).

In a perfect world I would have emailed the hosts with my completed files but I havent.
In the case of one game I hadnt even downloaded the turn that needed uploading.

For me I would like regens to give me a chance to submit my turns - the counter argument is that crucial battles etc may have taken place and roll back would cause differences.

What do you all think - oh and I should like to point out the AH was properly down not frozen so I couldnt have submitted turns.

Joseph
PS - I will go with the game hosts decisions but as I am not the only person likely to be affected by this I thought I would open the debate to the whole community (have you checked your games yet .

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[Updated on: Sun, 17 February 2008 19:09]

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joseph wrote on Mon, 18 February 2008 00:44

For me I would like regens to give me a chance to submit my turns - the counter argument is that crucial battles etc may have taken place and roll back would cause differences.

That counter-argument is moot and void and no serious player should attempt to make it. These battles are in effect unrelated to the game being played, as the game itself was disrupted by AH "misbehaving"

It's bad enough that some players will gain extra intel from game situations that should never have arisen in the 1st place, but claiming any right to win "battles" that are mainly the result of out-of-game events would be the same as allowing battlesims to determine the outcome of "real" battles.

Anyone who thinks otherwise can stick to playing the AIs.

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Dogthinkers wrote on Mon, 18 February 2008 01:04

The most fair solution for this quite rare situation of AH becoming totally unavailable AND not going on hold, that I can think of, is to rollback, and wait your normal gen interval so all players can upload modified turns.

I wonder why should anyone who didn't miss the turn be allowed to re-submit a modified turn? Surely that would be more unfair than allowing just those who missed the "accidental" gen to submit their moves?

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m.a@stars wrote on Tue, 19 February 2008 02:06

Dogthinkers wrote on Mon, 18 February 2008 01:04 The most fair solution for this quite rare situation of AH becoming totally unavailable AND not going on hold, that I can think of, is to rollback, and wait your normal gen interval so all players can upload modified turns. I wonder why should anyone who didn't miss the turn be allowed to re-submit a modified turn? Surely that would be more unfair than allowing just those who missed the "accidental" gen to submit their moves?

But what if someone launches a surprise attack on someone who didn't submit a turn? If I launched a surprise attack and then the turn is regenned and I don't at least get the option to withdraw my (no longer a) surprise attack, I'm probably gonna be cross.

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Soobie wrote on Mon, 18 February 2008 16:39

But what if someone launches a surprise attack on someone who didn't submit a turn? If I launched a surprise attack and then the turn is regenned and I don't at least get the option to withdraw my (no longer a) surprise attack, I'm probably gonna be cross.

Surprise surprise, they got another chance to submit. That wouldn't be substantially different than if they had submitted their turn 30 secs before gen to an Autohost behaving normally.

Annoying, of course, but he who sets out to surprise risks to be surprised too.

[Updated on: Mon, 18 February 2008 10:46]

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vonKreedon wrote on Mon, 18 February 2008 18:15

But the hypothetical situation is that the player being attacked has an unfair advantage since that player may now know that the "surprise" attack is coming and the composition of the attacking forces, giving that player the ability to very effectively respond to the attack by either witdrawing or inserting/building forces.

As opposed to, say, him/her just guessing right and achieving the same result?

Since the purported "unfair" advantage depends on AutoHost crashing, then restarting, and then genning w/out pause, I still think the surprise-attackers still got a fair chance of success.

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This is why this issue is so knotty; if players have looked at a turn then they have an unfair advantage in any regen. Given this situation it seems to me that everyone should be allowed to submit a new turn for the regen.

Thorny indeed. So now you multiply the issue of surpriser vs surprised by the total number of players. You have just increased unfairness for all on the off-chance a surprise attack wasn't guessed in the 1st place or the "victim" can ready an adequate response if warned.

And of course, if nobody actually launched any surprise attack, then there's no need for everybody to re-do and re-submit, is there?

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The ideal thing really would be if noone has looked at the accidentally gened turned, then the turn could be rolled-back and everyone could submit the turns they already have prepared. This ideal is unlikely to exist, and is unfortunately incapable of being verified.

100% agree. I am one of those who don't bother to even download "fake" turns owing to "accidental" gens. The fact that I cannot imagine why anyone playing against people (instead of just the AIs) would want to do that doesn't preclude some low-lifes from doing it.

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You definately can't allow only *some* players to upload. Essentially what you would be doing there is giving those players that are allowed to upload a *perfect* foresight into the orders of those that are not allowed to resubmit.

It's all or nothing - you let everyone re-upload, or you let noone re-upload.

This is moot in games I host, because I tell everyone that if AH is down, they *must* email me their turn instead. So if I need to regen due to this sort of problem, I can just use the x files emailed to me (and the ones already present) for the regen - i.e. NOONE gets a chance to submit orders based on the 'broken' gen. This only works if you make sure everyone knows this before the game starts, of course.

[Updated on: Mon, 18 February 2008 19:47]

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Dogthinkers wrote on Tue, 19 February 2008 01:46

You definately can't allow only *some* players to upload. Essentially what you would be doing there is giving those players that are allowed to upload a *perfect* foresight into the orders of those that are not allowed to resubmit.

As opposed to, say, giving *everyone* a perfect foresight into the orders of everybody else? That of course forces everybody to change their surprise-attack orders or face defeat... What if some of them don't re-submit on time for the re-gen?

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It's all or nothing - you let everyone re-upload, or you let noone re-upload.

Forced to choose between two equally undesirable things, I'll go with the 1st.

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This is moot in games I host, because I tell everyone that if AH is down, they *must* email me their turn instead. So if I need to regen due to this sort of problem, I can just use the x files emailed to me (and the ones already present) for the regen - i.e. NOONE gets a chance to submit orders based on the 'broken' gen. This only works if you make sure everyone knows this before the game starts, of course.

A most sensible approach, but it only works if everybody has had the chance to download their m file before AH crashed and emailed their x file to the host before the random time of AH coming back up. So Joseph the original poster is without a solution anyway.

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vonKreedon wrote on Tue, 19 February 2008 17:45

Quote: ... most sensible approach, but it only works if everybody has had the chance to download their m file before AH crashed Not an issue assuming that AutoHost emails the turns to all the players.

That might be too much assuming.

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Actually I do get all my turns emailed, and I have played in one of Dogthinkers games before so I was aware of the email the host.
I guess I was relying on the "Comes back on hold" setting. More fool me . Both the games I was in regened (with no real argument - I think nothing critical happened).

However for the future I will make sure to email the host with my turn.

By the way - my take on Regens would be if you have to have one then everyone should resubmit (or be given the chance to!).

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m.a@stars wrote on Wed, 20 February 2008 03:58

vonKreedon wrote on Tue, 19 February 2008 17:45 Quote: ... most sensible approach, but it only works if everybody has had the chance to download their m file before AH crashed Not an issue assuming that AutoHost emails the turns to all the players. That might be too much assuming.

Unfortuantely that is true. I've had one player in a game who just never gets emails from Autohost (was that you M.A?)

That said... If a player waits until the last couple of hours before a gen to even download the turn... Well, I've gotta say that's a known risk they are taking, that they have a reasonable amount of control over. It takes only seconds to download a turn.


Oh, and if a player misses upload for the regen? Not much different to missing upload for a normal gen... Your orders are kinda predictable, but other players would be foolish to assume you aren't going to upload in the last seconds... Either way, that's a player's own problem

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Dogthinkers wrote on Thu, 21 February 2008 03:16

Unfortuantely that is true. I've had one player in a game who just never gets emails from Autohost (was that you M.A?)

At least temporarily yes, both gmail and hotmail have been known to ignore messages from Autohost.

Also, I've been in places where you could access AH itself but not any kind of web-based email (censorship! ) so the email "fallback" might not work...

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Oh, and if a player misses upload for the regen? Not much different to missing upload for a normal gen... Your orders are kinda predictable, but other players would be foolish to assume you aren't going to upload in the last seconds... Either way, that's a player's own problem

Byzantine!

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