CITY GIFTING - BE AWARE OF NEW RULE

[SirPartyMan]

Dear Friends:

I was in a game tonight and two players on my own team violated the no gifting rule. They insisted they didn't know of its existence, despite all the publicity last week.

They were suspended for only 7 days, due to their protestations of lack of knowledge. However, ignorance of the law is no excuse.

You are *NOT* allowed to gift cities to a teammate unless you have 3 cities already.

Plus you cannot REGIFT a city ever.

This type of gifting was judged a game "exploit" by 2/3rds of our membership, and the new rule is in effect.

This is on our home page and in our forums, but I am posting it again to remind people.

Sincerely,
SPM

[dunedain]

From what i understand, they knew of the rule against regifting, but were unaware that the rule also disallowed any gifting before they had 3 cities.

Ignorance is no excuse, but we definitely should all be careful to review the mainpage and the boards regularly for rule changes, and to pay atttention to all clauses of each rule change.

To be fair, the rule was only prominently at the top of the mainpage for a few days before the Nations Cup news bumped it down the page a bit, so be careful to stay current people.

Dune

[Soccermaster06]

EDITED BY ME


Does the rule mean you have to have 3 cities to gift? If i understand it then if you lose your cities you can't be gifted any to try and start your score?

EDITED

[antiquity]

I was just in the 4v4 where i got banned. I knew nothing about the rule and when i was asked if i gave the city, i immiedately said yes. i had absolutly no knowlegde of the rule and did not pop a city after that. i belive aproximatley half of the people in the game had no notion of the rule. the person i gave the city to oviously had no idea. the person i gave the city to mythandir was not even going to get banned by spm until he said that it wasn't fair for spm to ban me and not him. I asked before the game started if there was any 1.2 future rules i needed to know and asked all the questions i could about the game. I gave they city early and we even talked about it in front of spm but not until the reload when someoen else said something did spm fly off the handle. I don't know how I can be banned for something that i had abosluelty no knowledge of and or i can be expected to have knowlege of when it was only posted on main page at top for the few days i didn't play. I dont know what other people or admins woulda done in this situation but i surely hope SirPartyMan isn't exepecting a christmas card.

[grnbaygladiator]

i take it u don't check forums or myleague lately

[Lastride]

I will post my opinion of this once in here and that will be all.

I find this punishment too harsh. These two new nothing of the rule and they did not do it to gain a settler, which is why the rule was put in place. Anti popped a city right beside Myth's land and of course, he gave him the city.

Fine, ignorance is no excuse but 7 days for an innocent, and yes innocent, mistake. If all others who post here think it was a fair punishment then fine, I will not question it.

I am not here to bash SPM in any way, all I am saying is that I feel it was too harsh. Flame and berate as you will, please enjoy yourself doing it though

[Midgard]

Well if it was truly innocent then it is unfair, and besides tons of ppl who still know the rule play as if it didnt exist anyway, they just turn barbs off

[grnbaygladiator]

umm, with barbs off, there's no gifting seeing there are no huts

[grnbaygladiator]

but i do feel 7 days is a bit much for first timew offense seeing some of the penalties that have been given for things such as cton rule offenses

[dunedain]

Turning barbs off would negate the necessity for the rule, as it was designed to minimize settler popping optimization abuse.

Playing without any regard to the rules is cause for suspension Mid, although default rules can be modified by agreement between all players at the start of a game.

All that being said, 7 days for a first offense of a new and obviously not well understood ( or universally accepted ) rule may be a little harsh, but i am glad i dont have to decide such things.

Dune

[bighousered]

Though I feel that regifting back and forth to receive an increased chance of free settlers wrong. I believe the rule against it was even more complicated and wrong.

K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid)

Don't want increased chances of settlers due to regifting? Then turn off barbs.

[SirPartyMan]

If people read the extensive thread on this topic, they'd know that all this was discussed already. I mentioned playing with no barbs - but people felt that was unfair to expansionist civs and others who wanted to get free settlers without exploiting game.

The rule that both Antiquity and Mythrandir violated is simple. It is stated on our home page very succinctly, in one sentence:

"Giving cities to teammates in regicide/non-elimination games can only be done once by people possessing at least 3 cities at that time".

The regifting part takes another two sentences:
"The city cannot be gifted back to a teammate. This restriction remains throughtout the game unless an opponent takes the city, in which case anyone could reclaim the city, and the process can begin again".

Of course people have the option of playing with barbs off - but it's just that an option.

And SoccerMaster, I hope you understand the rule is that the person GIVING the city has to have 3 cities, the recipient can have fewer (and usually would).

Enforcing rules isn't fun, and if Antiquity is mad at me, I'm sorry. People should make themselves familiar with the rules. Try driving 100 miles an hour and telling the cop you didn't know the speed limit.

Best,
SPM

[Soccermaster06]

Tks for clarifing the rule

Shall we start a thread talking about what people do to get out of speeding tickets ;D

jk

[Dr Shot]

I will try this tomorrow. I forgot I had a court date a week ago! Wish me luck!

[Don K Hotay]

House said:

Though I feel that regifting back and forth to receive an increased chance of free settlers wrong. I believe the rule against it was even more complicated and wrong.

K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid)

Don't want increased chances of settlers due to regifting? Then turn off barbs.

Completely agree here. And judging from the poll turnout, I'd guess that the majority of people that voted did not even play future games...in fact there were a few people that joined the discussion, and surely voted, who do not even play civ much anymore let alone future civ games.

By the way, KISS as I learned it was Keep it Short and Simple ;D