[The Elder Scrolls - Unofficial Patch 1.42] Black Drake

[Jadli]

As with every rule break, admin looks into it only when somebody questions a move. Which implies the other side would report it if they could tell a BS happened, like when it retreat across half of skyrim (in that case, you also see the battles, etc...), so cropping images doesnt necessarily hide this. Generally, you can guess where a unit is supposed to retreat to.

Simply, its an exploit, dont delibarately use it. Same as with lot of other exploits, it may be sometimes unclear, thus its partially dependent on your honor and admin interpretation. You could come up with some arbitrary number threshold like you propose for many other exploits, but thats not really the right philosophy Im afraid (what you initially proposed also mostly allowed the exploit lol).

Admins decide disputed or unclear moves, not some arbitrary thresholds (as naturally, the thresholds wouldnt be applicable to lot of cases). Lets not overcomplicate this, as you say. Otherwise we can spend several more pages arguing about how to regulate things that are difficult to regulate based on some arbitrary numbers. I think it would be better for that to happen in other thread, if you want. I think right now we need to work towards moving this HS towards actually being finished sooner than I die.

BTW, last important thing.

Lets not confuse together rules and lists of exploits.

Rules generally tell you what to do, or how to do somth, etc, specific examples for specific cases.

Whereas, the list of exploits generally simply lists the moves that are considered exploits. These lists generally dont tell you exactly what to do in such instances, or how to adress it or how to avoid it, cause its sometimes very difficult to pinpoint specific instances, or regulate it, etc. I believe what we are discussing is simply adding this move to (your) list of exploits. (and then when someone uses it, it comes to things I wrote above, admin decides.)

And If you want a predictability, just ask admin before doing the move...

[Mergor]

I love how you have a problem with arbitrariness now Anyhow, I talked with you in DM-s, and as promised I won't clutter the thread again. But I do have one last I argument I think is pretty good I want to use, and then leave it to the admin to decide instead of continuing it (If somebody questions it, I'll answer in DM-s). But first, something to note: we are making this rule for everyone, as it will be part of the Universal Exploit List, and this will be a rule mostly for pro-s consideration so we should expect that attempts at influencing retreat paths won't cease. Also, I am not arguing anymore to make our move legal, we are past that.

Two short examples. As I said, anything and everything influences retreat paths. If, in Skyrim's save, Brokil is defeated before Skyrim takes Riverwood, Brokil runs into Riverwood; If Riverwood is captured before defeating Brokil, he runs up north. With simply using deliberate in the rule as the defining word, taking Riverwood before defeating Brokil could be banned, as it could very much be a deliberate move to influence the retreat path.
If the orcish army west of Whiterun is besieged by proper armies (so not with single units) in the hopes that Daggerfall cannot beat it (it could, but say we do not know that), it similarly influences the retreat path of the orcish army, which could be argued to be deliberate.

Instead of saying more examples (we could discuss this to infinity) or exactly explaining why these could also happen as either accidents or deliberate attempts, and that we will never know which, I'll get to my endgame here: I believe, that no matter how we phrase it, a rule that polices the intent will never, ever work and will be unenforcable. With jimmy-s move, the genie is out of bottle with what is possible, and hidden attempts and moves to influence retreat paths in one's favor will happen more and more.

So I argue, that we ought to regulate. And I'll say in advance, regulation will not mean a perfect rule, by far. It could even happen, as Jadli said, that regulation allows the exploit in some very limited, harmless form. But believe it or not, that is the goal. Because if we regulate, draw a clear line (even if it is a number we made up), under which we believe the exploit is limited, and predictable, then we achieve two things:
1:Instead of trying to hide away their intent, or bend the rule not to make something deliberate, pro players who wish to use this will instead try to constrain themselves within the limit, so they can legally do it, and probably also explain their move in great detail to prove it.
2: Where this can be used will be predictable and will result this kind of move staying as rare as it is now, as players will knowingly avoid putting themselves into a situation where it can be legally done against them

Regulation is better than policing intent for psychological reasons. Take drug policy in Portugal as a real life example. Due to decriminalizing the use of every drug, overdoses have greatly decreased. For multiple reasons which I suggest you read a paper on it rather than listening to me, the regulation to let it be done in some limited form made the negative effects less prevalent.

Probably my rule as of now is too faulty. I'll try reworking it today, but my main point here is that we should be making a regulation a rule, not policing intent a rule.

[Ventos Mustel]

Its not difficult to judge whether a move has legitimate purpose or not. Taking Riverwood first, thats fine, nobody would ever object to the value of capturing a settlement. Besieging the orcish fort with a siege no, because the rules require that if an army is retreating to a garrison it be allowed to enter that garrison, and surrounding it with units to prevent the army retreating in that direction has no legitimate tactical value. Likewise blocking the path into Morthal would be obviously only for blocking purposes even if it was Hrothmund's full army, since clearly they are weaker than the garrison else they'd simply take it with their artillery.

[Mergor]

After many revisions and with the help of jimmy, I came up with a rule that should: police intention; but a regulation; while being specific.

Using allied or your own units/agents to intentionally manipulate a defeated army's retreat path for the purpose of producing draw-out battles or creating sieges where the enemy cannot sally out. Using ships in any way to influence retreat paths. If allied units have not changed positions for more than a turn, the rule is not applicable for them.

1: This basically bans both what happened here, and another advantage this could yield.
2: It creates a clear line however, as it does legalise the move up to a certain point, but not in any way it matters. This is because, in short, one may only influence which "optimal" retreat path (which the game calculates) a defeated army will take. Jimmy could only guide the orcish army towards one friendly settlement, he could not manipulate exactly where it would go. To not clutter the thread, please write him or me for explanation, but it is impossible to deny retreat through creating walls of units: an army will phase through them if the computer wants to. Bottom line: as far as I know, you cannot make an army retreat to a direction it would never want to go.
3: The allied unit addon is there to mainly avoid witch-hunts over accidents that may happen with an allied army becoming a "constant" over several turns that can influence retreat paths in another players turn. Otherwise it does not allow for walls of units to be made. The allied player would have to do that in his own turn, which would be intentionally manipulating retreat paths and thus illegal.

[Ventos Mustel]

I don't see why it needs to be that complicated. Your version is essentially mine with added riders, and those riders *will* be the cause of dispute.

[Jadli]

Nice, but we agreed its an exploit. I dont understand why are you trying to allow the use of the exploit for when no siege/draw stuff happens?

So if jimmy did all the same, except the last battle, he would be allowed? This rule is not correctly written.

There are many ways to exploit this, not just siege/draw outs. Such as, when you influence it to retreat closer to your forces so that you can defeat it again. Or you just let it retreat next to enemy fort, but no battle, to for example force the enemy to leave the fort next turn, as you could draw them out next turn. Or you just make it retreat half way where you want (or just save it for the next turn when you see if you can exploit it a bit more), and continue next turn when the GB repelenishes, etc etc. All this must be covered by the rule. Influencing retreat paths simply is an exploit and is therefore not allowed to be used. The rule you wrote doesnt say that. I.e. it must include something along the lines of the proposal rule I wrote, i.e., that purposefully/deliberately/intentionally (whatever) influecing retreat paths is banned.

It is an exploit, therefore it cant be used. I dont understand whats so complicated about that guys . Can we just accept its an exploit and move on with the HS (I thought we already agreed its an exploit...)?

EDIT

I added a multiple choice poll to the thread (scroll up for discord ppl I guess) in regards to whether reloading missions should be limited (or rather,, the rewards from the missions... as you technically reload the missions each time you do your turn...), feel free to vote for as many as you like, I suppose whichever has the most is implemented. (see my post 1677 for more explanation...). It feels weird to ban this at this point of the campaign in my opinion, as some factions extremely exploited this (yes, looking at your (minimally) 3 OP Justicar stacks of Mergor's Heritance...), so if it was banned long ago, Im fairly sure for example Heritance wouldnt even be alive anymore (yet you now ask to ban/limit this...)...

[jimmy_dude]

Well my point in making it this way is that, there's lots of ways you can influence the retreat path, and it's difficult to write a rule that bans it without also banning other situations during which the retreat path may be influenced where it is debatable whether the retreat path is intentional. This rule basically avoids this potential debate by saying "you can influence the retreat path as much as you want, but if you influence the path you can't do anything egregious with the retreating army" (in this case, drawouts and un-sallyoutable sieges are the two worst things one can do with such a situation). That's the idea, sure there could be other ways to exploit this situation but they're not as sudden and damaging as these two situations, and then we don't have to even have debates about what retreats are intentional and which ones aren't. I would be open to specifying these other uses in the rule alongside drawouts and un-sallyoutable sieges. Also, I'm not sure if the allied unit thing is needed Mergor, since that overcomplicates it imo.

[Jadli]

I dont see how its difficult, "deliberately influencing" covers all this.

I disagree, pretty sure the other examples I wrote can be as damaging as this ones, if one uses it well. When its debatable, i.e, cant be proven, then the move is fine (such as taking Riverwood..). When its clear it was deliberate, its not fine. When its not clear which one it was, admin is perfectly capable to decide on his own, thats literally his job when dealing with exploits.

I think its generally overcomplicated Tho i guess for this Hs it might make sense to mention allied units, when each side controls many factions...

I would just write " Using your units/agents/navies to intentionally manipulate a defeated army's/navy's retreat path. Allies prepositioning their own units for this purpose is also not allowed."

EDIT

I DMed with jimmy, he agrees on this formulation

EDIT 2

Mergor also agreed...


We are saved, we can play on (hopefully... unless someone else disagrees)
.. actually, I guess we should also wait while ppl vote

[Mergor]

I still believe mine is better, but if jimmy and Jadli agreed, I will not stand in the way of it. But I'll add my own version to the Universal Exploit list.

[Captainnorway]

Good to see people can agree to one definition of the exploit.

Using your units/agents/navies to intentionally manipulate a defeated army's/navy's retreat path. Allies prepositioning their own units for this purpose is also not allowed.

Once everyone (majority) has either made a statement or voted, we can decide about missions and continue.

[PercivallKorrupt]

I vote that you all are a bunch of hooligans. Sorry for long wait. I casted my vote

[Jadli]

Np. Pretty sure everyone who wanted to vote already casted their vote. (Potato said he doesnt care and no word from Kiev).

Its clear more ppl want to limit the exploitation of the missions in some way, and the most ppl voted to not be able to move spawned units for a turn (which is in line with other rules anyway, not being able to move units from rebellions or bribed units, so makes sense). I guess I can add my vote to it as well now, so its undisputably leading by two votes

So I believe we can play on now (with replayed Skyrim turn). I will add these rules and the exploit list into the OP later today

[Captainnorway]

Looks like not being able to move spawned (mission) units for 1 turn won the vote. As with regular rule voting, it shall be implemented one turn from now.

I’ve gotten questions about the exploit list as well. As I stated from my OG post, it serves as a reference list of exploits. Therefore, the interpretation part will not be used.

Unless someone has any urgent matters to bring up, the turn time will start now.

[Mergor]

Skyrim save will be uploaded today at night (CET) hopefully

[PercivallKorrupt]

assassination ~ https://www.mediafire.com/view/44wsr...777_2.png/file

Duchy is up ~ https://www.mediafire.com/file/ocygj...hy_79.sav/file

[Potatoto]

Forebears up
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13Iq...ew?usp=sharing
https://imgur.com/a/gVocFSV

[Captainnorway]

An issue regarding trading settlements in warzone has been brought up.

It’s unclear as to what is considered a warzone, is it:
1. A settlement whose region shares borders with another settlement who’s a war?
2. A settlement which has hostile units in range of it?
3. Another definition?

Please state prefered definition and/or arguements for and against.

[Ventos Mustel]

Our side considered trading away Bravil from Pelletine to Anequina ~5 turns ago to get mission reward ships to spawn somewhere else instead, but we questioned whether it would be alllowed, since while there wasn't any immediate concentration of Black Marsh troops in the region and the nearest, lightly-populated hostile garrisons were a couple turns away, it was still technically on a border with an enemy. So we did what should be done in these situations, and asked the admin at the time (reaktorken):



Helgen was *just* captured the turn before this trade happened, and southern Skyrim is an active theater of war. There's no valid argument that it doesn't count as a warzone, especially given the precedent set by the much fuzzier case of Bravil.

The common sense definition is that if the settlement's region is on a hostile, traversable border (ie, not fully blocked off by mountains, or reachable by one turn of ship travel for unboosted infantry), then its a warzone.

[Mergor]

There is a valid argument, which is a very clear precedent in the TWC Westeros OB battles hotseat, where the interpretation accepted was something along the line of what norway brought up as 2. We have not seen any concentration of armies around Helgen and even though it was neighbouring hostile provinces, we deemed in not a warzone based on that decision. Also, perhaps more importantly, we did that because Jadli argued for a similar, even less restrictive interpretation in that hotseat, so I personally assumed that he would have no problem with this.

[Ventos Mustel]

Different hotseat, different rules. Are you disputing the prior ruling from reaktorken?