"Valhalla" The Hotseat Community Tavern

[Mithridate]

Id agree to no moving bribed units for the full lapse of a turn unless aid have been stationary for a turn ( and would thus have MPs ), bribing and usung siege units can lead to some pretty catastrophic turns of events^^

Much as you can counter against these things, and its annoying having walls of rules... It would be nice.
Same would go for mercs, and perhaps a rule against hiring mercs while inside forts under siege.

The turn order is especially important when the sea is involved, the possibility to hire a single ship to carry over armies against an enemy with naval advantage can be massive

[Uriyaca]

Id agree to no moving bribed units for the full lapse of a turn unless aid have been stationary for a turn ( and would thus have MPs ), bribing and usung siege units can lead to some pretty catastrophic turns of events^^

Much as you can counter against these things, and its annoying having walls of rules... It would be nice.
Same would go for mercs, and perhaps a rule against hiring mercs while inside forts under siege.

The turn order is especially important when the sea is involved, the possibility to hire a single ship to carry over armies against an enemy with naval advantage can be massive

Yeah, merceneries while inside forts under siege can be particularly annoying, especially when you used them to defeat Lyn at Akorah (tho luckily for me I had to replay )

[The Norseman]

Do totalwar.org or totalwar.com not have any hotseat forums like we do? I was curious and tried searching but it seems they dont, atleast not easily accessible, but I do remember some .org guy coming here and asking people to join for hotseats so they must have some kind of sub-forum for it... Anyone know or have any links?

[Loose Cannon]

Do totalwar.org or totalwar.com not have any hotseat forums like we do? I was curious and tried searching but it seems they dont, atleast not easily accessible, but I do remember some .org guy coming here and asking people to join for hotseats so they must have some kind of sub-forum for it... Anyone know or have any links?

The org's Throne Room is here. We're putting together a new KGCM game now.
http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumd...38-Throne-Room

Totalwar.com is Creative Associates site and it's not really for players. It's just to sell the games. They have a total of 932 threads and 6250 posts in the entire M2TW forum. Their heaviest action is in Shogun 2 forums

There is a small amount of action over at heavengames (one KGCM game to be precise). There are others in Spanish and Italian that I know of but I don't have their addresses right now.

[The Norseman]

Why dont they have map updates... Takes a lot of fun out of the game, and it seems they do a lot of autoresolve..

[Loose Cannon]

Why dont they have map updates... Takes a lot of fun out of the game,

I agree but maybe it has something to do with the way that forum uploads thing. They actually have a place to upload the save to and it seem like images are hard. But every game gets a custom portrait at start they're just not important I guess.

and it seems they do a lot of autoresolve..

No, they actually prefer lead battles against human players. And you know how the AI plays defense with YOUR army? It's way worse than autoresolve. But it is quite satisfying to find and destroy 2 armies in one battle.

[Uriyaca]

This is stupid, why not join the HS forums together then? . Put both communities in the same place and so we could fill up more Hotseats

[Mithridate]

They want us, we want them.

Lord knows ive tried to garner attention for both sites on both sites

[invicta]

I'm leaving the HS in this forum. I gave yesterday a warning to all my allies, since knowing it could affect their campaigns they could find a replacement if the find it appropriate.
The Gaming staff system is ,imo, just turning into a system that would allow a circle of friends to affect the results of the game the play in, covering each's other back.
Yestarday the official admin of a HS (vodz) took a decision, and a gaming staff member jumped in as temporary admin,
reverting such decision in favour of 2 of his friends (one of which a Gaming staff member Mithridate, who contacted him to change the decision).
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post13119693
DrMac, played half of his turn and asked his ally Mithridate, to sub him. In a post which has been conveniently deleted, Mithridate claimed he followed DrMac instructions.
Instructions that led Mithridate to break to important rules, and allowed him/DrMAc (since they both are fighting the same players) to win about 10 decisive battles (it's all in the ss upoloaded by Mithridate as archives) that otherwise they couldn't win. It was a massive rulebreaking/cheating. The Forgotten and Matto16 fell for it without noticing anything.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post13115698
Their situation was critical (this is what the admin Vodz told me).And the same couple cheated together in the past,caught by me:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post11575045

DrMac was given no punishment and further 24hrs to play the turn or find another subber. Since he was unable to find a subbed and due to the sever rules that were broken, his turn was skipped.
If we have to believe the word of the subber, Mithridate, claimed that DrMac gave him the instructions on how to subbing and so how to break rules in a post that is now conveniently deleted (there were no insults
and the moderator cancelled it after I made them notice why DrMac is at fault, since they were denying the evidence despite Mithridate's same words).
Dux and EoH not only changed the decision of the official admin, but gave a risible fine of 5k for breaking 2 rules which would have gave them
a massive unfair advantage. I got in another HS, a fine of 20k, for breaking a rule (as a subber, liek Mithridate) which didn't have any effect (the killed fm, had no skills at all).
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post12814101
Dux the player affected said he was unhappy with the punishment despite things got fixed by moving a more skilled fm on the front and got 10k as compensation. Now those are 2 different mods, still 5k for breaking 2 rules (claiming he didn't remember those, but one of those was wanted and advocated from him:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post12994906 ), prove me how players (and in this case worse, admin and gaming staff members) change their view depending on who's affected.

But regardless of how everyone will judge such case that's not the main issue: seeing a Gaming staff member going to call 2 other gaming staff members who are also his friend to change a decision already taken by the official admin raises too many concerns. And I fear this might just being the begin of it. And players will be shut their mouth (of course they can still send pms to the jumped in admin- who can read the pm or not, or simply making a wall even in front of evidence) and unable to discuss things publicly like we always did in the past (obviously as long as there are no insults). And this is another main concern: same moderators/admins applying/adopting certain rules (interpreted their very own way) or policies only inc ertain occasions rather than always.
Every can read any thread in every HS thread and see that decisions have been always discussed in the past and that post were deleted only in front of insults . Certainly never been deleted because a player questioned the Admin bias or decision. In the same thread, in post the were deleted, Mithridate and DrMac argued the admin decision, and DrMac threatened to leave if he was not ruled in his own way.
The temporary admin who jumped in , took my post (which was a reply to DrMac) but said nothing to DrMac or worse to Mithridate .
Admin/moderator cancelled posts even though there were not insult in it, just because his decision and his credibility and the method he used to intervene was being argued. Admin's decision have always been argued publicly, and for good reason too.
-Since it's transparent (all the players have the right to know what's going on, and how the admin judge certain cases ), and the admin has nothing to hide.
-Admins have been biased in the past, and players should be able to give their opinion, since admin decisions affect everyone.
-Historical fairness: so taht if the same case present in the HS, players can check that admin used the same severity in judging similar cases.

And I hope no one will censor this post, since players should be free to discuss things, especially problems about a system which has been imposed and never was discussed with the players who actually play the game.
At least not discussed with most of the players. And this should have been discussed obviously publicly before being blindly implemented that way.
Also this is not any particular HS thread, but the Valhalla thread, created to discuss-among the other things problems concerning HS.
Moderating the forum is a thing, having players who have a different status who could jump in a HS they do not take part in and taking decisions, is another one.
Players decide to join certain HS based on the players and the admin of that HS. Many player joins or not join HS if certain admins are in. This system skew all that because one way or the other you have to deal with the fact that certain players can jump as admins whether you like it or not. So after having played for months, you'd risk that someone who proved to be biased, or that anyway you didn't join if you knew he would be the admin.
This system just make lose players control over the HS they joined and remove the freedom of choosing who to play with.

So before this happens again or get worse, I leave all the HS, and I invite you to find proper replacement.
I wish gl to everyone, and it's been a true pleasure to play with most of the players in this community.

[Desley]

So if I would make a hotseat and be the only admin, and lets say 15 members play in it. Gaming Staff have more to say about the rules then I do?

[invicta]

So if I would make a hotseat and be the only admin, and lets say 15 members play in it. Gaming Staff have more to say about the rules then I do?

Well yes it could happen, and that's what happened to me yesterday (since 24hrs is a rule)
But main problem is that you can't avoid that : you might join a HS with Invicta admin, and because you know and trust judgement of Invicta will be unbiased. But if by chance, Invicta has to leave, players (like you) are not able to choose the new admin.
A gaming staff member will jump in.
And at least one Gaming staff member will always keep the admin pswd of each new hs opened: that was what I have been told while opening UtD (by Dux) or Norseman (when he asked me the CS password). That was the policy already mentioned by one of them .

And just to mention another case. In Immortlas HS, a player, the Forgotten asked few hours extensions about a week ago. The player was fighting Mithridate.
Rather than conceding the few hours (about 3-4 ) extensions, the admin sent me a pm rushing me to play his turn quickly. An important turn.
In the Hs I mentioend yesterday, the policy was reverse, and the player DrMac allied to Mithridate, got a indefinite extension (he took in the end more than 3 days) to play his turn.
Policies change depending on who is affected. That always happened, but we had the choice to avoid certain admins. In the end, a biased admin would have seen other players join the HS he would be in.
This helped to control them, since we're all human, and admins even cheated din the past.
No certain players will (or might be) always admin of teh HS you play, whether you like or not. And their decision can't be discussed publicly. The best you can do if something wrong is done to you,
is send a pm, and hope the admin will be honest about it and change his decision.

And basically yes: you could play a HS for one year, and if the admin leaves ,have no choice about the new admin and get someone who -likely- doesn't know the history of the HS, change the way it was admin'ed until then with you having no say in it, unable to discuss with other players the issue about it.

[invicta]

double

[The Norseman]

If you make the hotseat yourself you can decide what you want to do yourself, it is your hotseat. If you want to close the thread then you can do so, if you want to randomly punish people for no reason then you can do so, but then the players are likely to quit, or start another thread with the same saves and what not. I understand that you want to leave the Westeros HS, but why leave the main hotseat forum here, has any unfair admin decision from the Gaming Staff affected you here? It will not happen here, so I dont understand why you leave the Stainless Steel hotseats you are in as well.

[StOuFf]

so you are leaving? bye!

I dont know why you try to destroy the Gaming Staff institution, since i believe its a good thing. But i dont really care either. you act paranoid as usual
(that is a personal statement)

[Desley]

So why is StOuFf gaming staff? I think he's a great guy but he already used the admin password for his own benefit in a hotseat before.
Can a gaming staff member explain why Gaming Staff is a good idea and what the purpose is?

[Loose Cannon]

Invicta, your 5 links in the above post(#4549) lead to "404 not found". Did you edit them? What game is this about. I want to read it.

[StOuFf]

So why is StOuFf gaming staff? I think he's a great guy but he already used the admin password for his own benefit in a hotseat before.
Can a gaming staff member explain why Gaming Staff is a good idea and what the purpose is?

oh yeah because nobody had such dark moments in his past

[The Norseman]

Can a gaming staff member explain why Gaming Staff is a good idea and what the purpose is?

The Gaming Staff is mainly here to moderate the threads if it is needed, say if someone needs a post deleted, or someone are spamming in a thread or having an arguement which is over the top (swearing and/or attacking each other on a personal level)

Another reason is to advertise the hotseat forum and create hotseats if the public wants is. It was done in the Westeros hotseat where several hotseats were made which were advertised on the front page of twcenter.

The other thing I can think of right now is if someone are lacking an admin and requests an external person, who is not in the hotseat to make a ruling, which is rare because hotseats always has admins, but in some cases the admins leave without being able to reply for a long time.

Still I would like to know why you want to leave this part of the hotseat forum because I can promise you that this will not happen here. If I break a rule and a gaming staff is requested to punish me then I want the full punishment and for all the players to agree it is an acceptable punishment, and this goes for every single one. I can give you my word that there will be no biased decisions. In which case some of the gaming staff members will step in and make the proper and unbiased decision. If such a thing happens I will promise to resign and/or send a complaint to GED to make sure those who abuse their powers will be relieved of their position.

[invicta]

so you are leaving? bye!

I dont know why you try to destroy the Gaming Staff institution, since i believe its a good thing. But i dont really care either. you act paranoid as usual
(that is a personal statement)

I's against the idea of a group, which alone itself, would divide the community rather than unifying. Creating a groupt-think effect which will affect players outside form it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink
Players have normally different opinions, being part of group brings them to unify their own (especially when they're all friend to start with). Yesterday a Gaming staff members called 2 of his "mates" which obviously agreed with him and retroactively changed the decision of the official admin.
Now I hope you don't take it personally ( although you might find that), because this is not against you and I hope you get the sense of what I'm saying.

You were name Gaming staff member few days after being found admin-cheating (by me) in the Hs you opened. And this caused a lot of troubles in all teh HS you opened.
Admin-cheating is the worst thing, and player have been banned for less (like Sogesu). Pinkie pie was banned too when was found doing the same, and the same player (Mithridate, another Gaming staff member) who advocated and tried to minimize what you did when you cheated (in the SIB thread), used very harsh words against Pinkie pie when he was foudn doing the same. You were not.
After few days you got promoted (it's not a promotion, but I hope everyone gets the sense of what I'm saying)
Now it's not your fault, obviously , that you were named and accepted. That's not the issue. But who named you?For what reason?
And how it's possible, that no one among the Gaming staff member (and I know for a fact that most of them knew about your cheating) didn't say anything against it?
Wasn't that because they were your friend of the other Gaming staff members? Was their judgement thus biased?
And if they were biased in making your name or not opposing it, isn't reasonable that this will happen again in the future when they'll be admins and you a player?

You or anyone else can't say that objectively your nomination was appropriate. And the fact that no one opposed it, proves the groupthink effect which will make this institution very dangerous.
I repeat this is not against you. I just used an evident example of how gaming staff members will act with bias. Now if you're able to see things out of the box, you'll see my point.
Or you can keep your eyes shut because that's would be the most convenient thing.
This happened and will keep happening more and more.
@Loose cannon this was the thread: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...one-King/page7
And this is the link to where Mithridate and drMac cheated jointly in teh past:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post11575045

I'd like to point out that the decision of the admin, didn;t affect my faction apparently (looking at the ss posted, Lannisters couldn;t beat my armies anyway by respecting the rules). And so my decision is not because I wanted any advantage for myself. But because great of of bias was performed imo yesterday.
And if there was at least one of the 3 (or more if someone else had a look on the situation) that could think independently, would have warned them that regardless what they thought of the situation, having 2 gs members
going to revert a decision already taken by the official admin, called by one of them looked bad. Very bad.
And if you think that the one making ddemands was the one who actually cheated, make this even worse

@Norseman: you're not the only gaming staff members playing here. It would be too frustrating put effort in teh HS I played and spending many hours, knowing that this could happen again.

[grouchy13]

I think everyone needs to calm down, firstly there is no collusion between GS in any HS as a rule of thumb I have told GS to avoid playing in HS with each other either as players or admins, the exception is the WTW HS Immortals where GS were participating with a GS admin who was promted to specifically admin that HS.

Both me and Poach reviewed the issue in the WTW HS along with the area admin Dux and found no issue with EoH decision, Dux will elaborate on the details shortly.

GS are here to help admin and promote HS, we also have moderation powers and look to assist in keeping good order in the area, everyone is entitled to there opinion on our actions but I can honestly say this is a not a shady cabal designed to manipulate HS. Far from it we are here to help if you feel otherwise that is your perogative, if you can provide cast iron proof not just conjecture of any member acting otherwise I'll make sure those involved are not only removed from the branch but handed forum bans.

If you feel strongly enough to leave, fine I'm sorry you feel this way and wish you good luck in your TW Career elsewhere