Multiplayer Forum Rules Thread - Dominions 3: The Awakening

This forum is intended for organizing and running multiplayer games. MP games have always generated more than their fair share of friction and controversy in every Dominions 3 community I have ever seen, which is why this forum is going to get a few more basic ground rules to start off than the general discussion forum. These rules will be amended whenever necessary.

MULTIPLAYER FORUM RULES:

DO NOT post blacklist threads!
Any threads that try to produce lists of players considered backstabbers, betrayers, NAP breakers or anything other such are going to be deleted on sight and the person who posted them will get to have a chat with the moderators of the forum. Such threads never lead to anything good and usually just generate flamewars and more grudges. They have no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Don't carry over grudges from one game to another.
What happens in one MP game stays in that MP game.

When setting up a game, make a clear indication of whether it is a serious game or a casual game.
Casual games usually have more leeway for various sorts of things and people won't be playing them with quite as hardcore intensity as serious games.

Don't sign up for more games than you can find the time to play.
Large games with many players and/or big maps can take a long time to complete and while the initial turns are quick to do, the time required per turn increases dramatically the longer the game goes on. Two or three big games is more than plenty for most players, even veterans.

Don't sign up for serious games unless you intend to follow through to the bitter end.
Going AI or just abandoning the game and staling several turn in a row can screw up a game for everyone else involved. Abandoning games or going AI without sufficiently grave reasons is going to have an impact on your reputation. While blacklist threads are forbidden here, it does not mean that people won't talk on other forums, over private messages or email or on the IRC channel. Word gets around.

Always inform the game admin before setting yourself AI.
The other players might prefer to look for a substitute to replace you so the impact of your leaving the game will be minimal.

Don't try to use diplomacy in no-diplomacy games.
If the game rules (posted in the game thread) forbid diplomacy, then don't try to get around it via PM messages, email or other means. This is another way for alienating people.

Don't misrepresent your skill level.
This means that if you're a veteran or an intermediate skill level player, don't sign up for newbie games in order to score quick and easy victories. This is a another quick way of gaining notoriety and is likely to lead to ill feelings and strife in the community that are not needed. Conversely, people who don't have much experience should stay out of veteran games unless they want to get eaten alive and provide whoever beat them with an easy advantage over the other players. That will not make you many friends either.

Don't sign up multiple times to the same game under different names in order to gain an advantage. This is a really underhanded trick and will ruin the game for the other players who expect each nation to be played by a different player. It is yet another quick way to gain notoriety and lose friends here. Getting caught doing this more than once is also one of the few ways to get yourself banned from this forum in short order. Other forms of obvious cheating such as hacking the game client and similar actions will be dealt with the same way.

Don't use well known exploits where a strong consensus about them exists.
This includes things like flooding another player's magic lab with useless trinkets such as slave collars through the send magic item function.
One thing that everyone should keep in mind, newbie and veteran alike, is that Dominions 3 multiplayer games are by their nature multislayer games. At the end, there can only be one and toward that end, more or less any and all tricks the game allows are fair game unless the rules for a particular game say otherwise.

Non-aggression pacts, alliances, betraying NAPs and alliances, scheming to get others embroiled in mutually destructive wars while you sit back and gain strength, ganging up on someone who looks either too dangerous to leave alone or too weak to be able to defend against anyone and many, many other things, these are all fair game in the absence of in-game rules to the contrary. If you get the short end of the stick and lose because somebody used them against you, it is no reason to bear a grudge. At the end of the day, you should treat it as a learning experience to become a better player.

Given the length of Dominions 3 games and consequently the relatively small number of games one player can simultaneously participate in and the number of players in any given game (which can be considerable), actually winning a game is a fairly uncommon feat. Finishing second or third or even fourth is no cause for hanging one's head in shame if it was a large game.

STANDARDS OF GOOD CONDUCT

The "rules" in this section are more or less agreed upon standards of good conduct in multiplayer games and should be honored unless the in-game rules say otherwise. However, they are not strict rules like the items on the previous list.

• If you manage to charm or hellbind heart Bogus the Troll or his companions, do not copy their orders to other units. Their orders (such as fire at magic users) are normally not available and are not intended to be available to regular commanders and units. You can leave the orders on the charmed commander, though.

• Previously made trade agreements such as x gems for item y or x gems of type A for y gems of type B should be honored even if you're in the process of stabbing the trading partner in the back by betraying an alliance or breaking a NAP.

Edited by (in order): Edirr, Calahan., Edirr