https://community.goodgamestudios.com/empire/en/discussion/339475/fair-play-rules#:~:text=Section 2: Fairplay Rules
Here are the rules (copied from that earlier discussion), I would like to discuss them with a view to improving them with more clarity for newbies such as myself:
Section 2: Fairplay Rules
The fairplay rules listed below are intended as a guide for new players and developing alliances and to provide a basis from which to develop an individual player and alliance approach to gameplay and war. Alliances and individual players will indicate in the thread below which of the rules and principles they and their alliance intend to adhere to.
Principles
1. One player one account - all players recognise that playing multiple accounts dilutes their effectiveness, damages their performance and limits their ability to contribute to their alliance and consequently all those signed below commit to play a single account only.
2. The integrity of alliances is recognised and no alliance will conduct warfare with the deliberate and stated intention of forcing alliances from the server.
3. The integrity of individuals accounts in recognition of the time and money invested in accounts by individual players no one player or alliance shall seek to force another player to leave the server.
4. Where a bug or glitch is identified which would enable players to take an unfair advantage the undersigned players undertake to report it immediately to through the Bugwatch thread.
5. Where players identify evidence of a breach of the terms of service they agree to report it immediately to support regardless of whether the player concern plays in their alliance or another alliance.
6. A defending player is entitled to choose the set up of their defence and it is the responsibility of the attacking player to use the tools available to them - spies - to establish the defence set up and select the most appropriate set up for attack. It is not appropriate or fairplay for an attacker to seek to require a specific defence to be set or to force a defender to change their set up to achieve a more beneficial result.
Players commit to adhere to the following guidance:
1. No attacks on a burning castle unless an incoming attack has been launched from the castle in question or the castle can clearly be identified as inactive. An inactive castle is defined as one with no outposts and no activity on the weekly looting rankings. Good practice is to mail a castle to check if the player responds a non response would indicate an inactive account.
2. No attacks on resource villages in ice, sand or fire outside of war. During war the decision remains with alliance leadership and war marshals as to whether attacks on RV's are employed as a tactic to for example to split support. Taking RV's should not be the primary reasons for acting an alliance.
3. No attacks on castles or resource islands in storm
4. Cooldowns should be adjusted according to player level, activity and ability for individuals. For players in the top ten alliances the recommended are as follows: Attacker wins - 7 days; attacker loses - 5 days; evacuations - 3 days; open gates - 3 days.
5. Hits per alliance should also be adjusted to reflect the level, size and activity of the alliance for alliances in the top ten the recommended guide is 3 hits maximum per day from any alliance, or any individual player, on another alliance.
6. Open gates and evacuations - removal of all troops to prevent loss of troops - do not count towards the limits imposed in rule 5
7. No attacks from 20 clicks or less are advised. The only exception would be were a player within 20 repeatedly hits a player who cannot defend themselves in any other way or by the agreement of the two players concerned within a training exercise.
8. If any RV is used as a launch pad for an attack of any distance, the RV can be attacked and if spies confirm other attacks are planned proportional action to combat the threat is acceptable.
9. No hitting players more than 10 levels below your own prior to level 70, with the exception of direct retaliations
10. No hitting players below level 70 from players already at level 70, with the exception of direct retaliations
11. No tool cleaning/sweeping attacks to be launched on any player during normal play. In the event of an defensive war against and stronger aggressor who repeatedly refuses peace request such tactics may be considered in order to protect alliance colleagues.
12. Single alliance vs single alliance wars are encouraged, with further escalation only if one side tries to surrender and the other continues the action. Where another alliances seeks support war marshalls and alliance leaders should provide proportional support which takes into account the situation, the relative level and ability of the players and alliance when deciding what an appropriate level of support to provide is.
13. It is up to an alliance to decide how to respond to breaches of the codes of conduct, but it is assumed that diplomatic resolution will be the first course of action, and further responses will be expected to be proportionate
14. Where possible in conflicts between mutliple alliances for fairplay a balance of player levels, powerpoint and activity is desirable, this is not always possible and alliances retain the right to defend themselves as they see fit against a aggressor to protect their alliance
15. Deliberately moving castles to surround a player or an asset whilst allowable in a game sense it is not considered in the purest sense fairplay. Consistently moving castles is neither realistic or conducive to a fair fight.
16. Setting up false accounts or move multiple accounts is a breach of the terms and conditions and is never acceptable under fairplay rules.
17. Tool exchanges - players will not misuse Resource Villages to exchange tools with players from other alliances or within the alliance. Tools can be provided through our gift buddy scheme or shared through the barterer. Seeking to circumvent tool production is not fairplay.
18. The convention is that fairplay players observe the rule of no attacking or capturing laboratories or monuments belonging to other alliances once they have been taken
19. Shell accounts / Alliance Farms - to reiterate fairplay players are expected to generate their resources using the mechanisms and systems the game provides, through game play. Whilst it may be reasonable on occasion to protect some accounts of longstanding players or those who through personal reasons are inactive for a time we will not use these accounts to farm resources to artificially increase our individual or alliance resource production. Accessing other accounts to manipulate resources is password sharing.
20. Use of accounts in other alliances to spy - this is password sharing and potentially multi-accounting and is not advised under fairplay rules. Fairplay alliances are confident in their ability and our game supplied spies to assess an opponent's defences and set up. Any player found to have password share or multi-accounting in this way will be reported to support and required to close the account if they wish to stay with the alliance and apologise directly to the alliance concerned.
21. Training exercises between fairplay alliances to support player development are acceptable and encouraged provided they take place outside of alliance tournaments or events where they may unduly influence the outcome of an event.
22. Fairplay players and alliances commit to bringing burning castles back into play as soon as possible supply resources where appropriate to help rebuild.
* A burning castle is defined as any castle currently with flames, and not clearly "leaving" them to avoid attack.
These rules are designed as a guide to remind players of their responsibility but also to help them to understand and negotiate the unique set of conventions specific to the UK server. These rules are designed to provide guidance not to be used as mechanism of control. No alliance or player will be forced to comply with them but rather you are encourage to do so to help create a positive environment in which P v P can develop rather than be constrained. It is hoped that as the game develops so will this guidance.
I will start the discussion in my next reply but need these rules to be nearer the top of the forum so much easier to find - perhaps a moderator could make them sticky?
It really depends on the rules. But, most of the time that's all hot garbage, and none of these rules are even enforceable unless you are a group of powerful players that can make game life unbearable for certain players.FixItDik (GB1) said:Thanks @Poseidon, I have been accused of breaking these rules by an alliance and I wanted to get to the bottom of what the rules were and who enforces them. It feels like they are enforced by the people who run the bigger alliances to meet their own ends rather than to ensure fair play - I have invited members of that alliance to come here and discuss that opinion.
The RV rule and Storm Islands are just a general respect thing. And, so is the general don't try to cap someone's outpost unless it's part of an act of war.
My Elderly Father used to play on an E4K server where the Top 5 Alliance banned together and made a no Outpost attacking rule. And, if you were caught your Alliance would kick you and report you to them to mass attack you.
We've even got Alliance on the Server US1 that in their description it says "We Don't Attack OutPost. Attacking ours is an Act of War." and then just expect by proxy that "you wouldn't attack their outpost."
My Current Alliance has a general don't attack Retirement Alliances policy. Which, some new scrub ends up breaking every other day. That and they generally don't just steal someone's outpost(which I think we weeded out those bad apples).
Unfortunately, I've even spent time explaining to them I can find them a cluster of all 3 per build. But, for some reason, they are obsessed with the ruby buildings being in them instead of being able to defend themselves at all, etc. I mean I restarted and just rebuilt mine from the ground up. And, If I ever POVO for attack position(move my castle towards a target.) I'll be able to POVO outposts as well once I get a good grip on mead.
It really just depends on who and where you are treading with the rules based on how powerful you are.
10-level rule TRASh.... hit a level 12 and 14 on the same day last week. Trust me they earned it.
The close proximity rule though is generally smart to follow. Just for self-preservation. Shorthorns can constant attacks from a close-by player can completely make a castle useless or cause a ton of annoyance.
Really, as long as you don't trash-talk people using horrible language GGE isn't going to step in. On occasion, I have seen them perform bans, or at least I think they have for a person with multiple accounts harassing and bullying.
The only thing is Alliance Leaders basically set up the guidelines for membership in their Alliance and it's up to them to enforce said rules however they see fit.
Poseiden plays on the german server which is still very active - on the gb server a form of these are used as a GUIDE for new players so they don't start wars etc. as to the op thingy - was never a rule ok gb - my op's are defended !FixItDik (GB1) said:Thanks @Poseidon, I have been accused of breaking these rules by an alliance and I wanted to get to the bottom of what the rules were and who enforces them. It feels like they are enforced by the people who run the bigger alliances to meet their own ends rather than to ensure fair play - I have invited members of that alliance to come here and discuss that opinion.
The conversation with the alliance who got the hump came to an end this morning and they said they wouldn't join the discussion about FPR here, which is a shame as I think anyone who lives by rules should be open to discussing their evolution.
I will not bore you with the full details of the incident (unless you want them) but I would propose some clarification, improvement and extension of the FPR to bring them more up to date and easy to access/understand by players seeing them for the first time.
Here are some comments on the existing "rules":
- No problem at all with the "Principles", I am not sure I fully understand #6 but that is probably a good thing, sounds like the less people understand this one the better
Guidance 1:
- We need to clarify what is meant by "burning castles" beyond the footnote (as that is just as vague): The engine itself marks a castle (or indeed NPC) with flames on the world map if it considers it in need of a recovery period and enforces such a period when you cannot attack. However if someone gets sabotaged some of their buildings will be on fire - surely this cannot preclude an attack or capture attempt (if so, a player might simply leave one building burning and then claim that their castle was on fire if someone tried to attack it and get their whole alliance to retaliate - in other words apply bullying tactics).
- My opinion: if buildings are on fire this is simply an indicator that the owner is either very busy trying to put those fires out or has left the game, a simple message to the owner (as suggested) and indeed to their alliance leader if they are in an alliance (not stated) with a stated delay to wait for a response (say 7 days, something that should also be stated) should be sufficient to determine whether this player is still interested in the game or not or indeed if their alliance is actively protecting their properties for them while they are away. I have done this three times, in all three cases no reply from the owner (I monitor the target for a week looking for change then send the email) two of them the alliance replied and said I was fine to attack but not to capture but the third one did not respond at all until I started the capture (causing the whole problem - they openly admitted to ignoring my message)
- I was informed by this alliance that they consider this rule to apply to all outposts not just RVs in the outer regions, if this is something they believe is fair and other players agree then perhaps this rule should be re-written to state that.
- My opinion: This rule is fine as it stands and should not be extended. OPs in the main region are part of the game play - they count as "Other players castles" towards the "Progress tasks" set by the game engine and as long as care is taken (as per rule 1 and emailing owners etc) there are plenty of abandoned castles and outposts out there for everyone to achieve these goals.
- Either way, the final part of the rule doesn't sound right "Taking RV's should not be the primary reasons for acting an alliance." what is "acting an alliance"? Perhaps it is meant to be "attacking an alliance"?
- These sound good as they stand, I am not advanced enough to have experienced these situations to know if they need fine tuning or not but they sound fine
- This is clearly not a rule but advice, I think it needs rewording to make it a rule and then include the same caveats as rule 1 (around messaging the owner and owner's alliance etc). Note that I am sure now that the engine enforces a minimum travel time of 2 hours for Capture forces on top of the 24 hours occupation before the OP is actually captured - this feels like ample time for reaction for active players but the emailing process should cover the less active players.
- Fine as it stands
- As you state I think 20 levels might be a better limit but I also believe that "hitting" needs to be clarified: I would suggest No Sabotage, no Attack, no Capture (and I think there's even "Dethroning" available to higher levels - I am only level 33). Rules should not be open to interpretation.
- I think this needs to be above rule 9 then rule 9 can start with "For anyone at level 69 or less..." rather than ending "prior to level 70" as currently it reads, in isolation, that level 70 can ignore this rule and hit anyone. I might also suggest that we look to include or exclude level 70 players from acting in defence of other members of their alliance in regards to hitting lower levels - I don't mind which is decided to be fair but it should be stated and "in retaliation" does not make it clear enough (I would take that to mean retaliation for direct attacks on their own properties rather than on other members of their alliance).
- Fine as they are
- I suggest replacing "codes of conduct" with "these Fair Play Rules" (unless we stop calling these "rules" and indeed once more start calling the "codes of conduct" - I am sure players will find many amusing ways of using the resulting acronym
- Fine as they are though 14 is oddly worded and 17 is clearly a rule. The rest could be reworded to make them rules
- This should be higher up the list (before #12?) as it is a note for new players and individuals (a new player might be forgiven for not reading the rules for alliances as they are unlikely to be involved in the running of an alliance but may think it a great idea to capture a monument - I saw it done by a new member of my alliance and saw him slapped down, now I understand why, sort of. Again an email to the alliance apparently can sometimes work as some of the bigger alliances have monuments to spare)
- The phrase "The convention is" weakens this as a rule, it should be stated as a rule and if there are exceptions they should be stated too
- Fine as they are, though might be reworded to make them more "rule" like
- This again appear to belong above rule 12, in fact as rule 2 (as it is targeted at individual players as well as alliances and helps clarify rule 1) with much more clarity on what a "burning castle" actually means.
- A rule for alliances that their leader should log on once per week as a bare minimum to attend to messages regarding planned attacks - clearly they should hand over the reigns to a deputy if they know they are going to be offline for more than a week - or just accept the consequences and let their alliance know that they are going to be away of course
- A rule that retaliation for breaking the rules should be notified by message to the offender stating which rule they have broken and including a link to the rules (this helps educate the many, many members who don't know what the rules are or even where to find them). By simply doing this a first offence would most often be a last as long as the rules are deemed to be truly fair and conducive to good gameplay. (Though actually this might be an extension of the wording of the current rule 13)
Boo Masters was formed as the original "anti Bully" alliance and imposed immediate martial law on the server. Anyone who attacked another castle without permission or was found to attack a foreign lord castle (detected through the rankings) would be punished according to the Boo alliance rules.
Players are allowed to attack Barbarian castles on their own, however.