Knights of the Honor Code

[wolf bite]

With all the players rejoining Redwall Warriors I figured many of us have either spent time as emperor or don't have much of a desire to hold that title. Sure, if we do well with honest playing, then we may rise in the ranks. But more important is who should NOT win.

Those Knights in the Honor Code will enforce the ways of Old. Any Beast who does unfair play against one of us, will have all of us to deal with. There is nothing harder for someone to fight than those that care not for winning, have nothing to lose and will relentlessly use every dirty trick against those that played dirty. Likewise, No Member of the Honor will strike a first unfair blow. We will not murder, poison, steal, sack, capture or take you to lower land than those around you in rank. We expect the same!

All for one, one for all. Recruitment has started. All that ask to join will be admitted. Any knight that joins will follow the above rules of fair play and retaliation against dirty players.


Clan Leader ~ "Grand Master Wolf Bite The Emperor Slayer"

[Twilight Shadow]

From an unclanned player, I plan to attack you to about half your current land. During these attacks, I use capture once or twice but knowingly leave your ratio above 175. Is this still a dirty tactic? (people don't want to get gang-banged when trying solo play)  ;)

In general if it is coded that way, what makes "dirty tricks" not fair play if anyone can use the same method?

[wolf bite]

Capture and sack did not exist before. Then when it was added it was considered an act of war to use them. Now people seem to rely on harming others and call it a strategy.

As to your scenario, The attacker really does not know how many leaders the defender has when they steal them or what the defenders intent was for their next run.

Land moves around, we all use it to take turns and does little good to hold when off line. So free to exchange. No real damage to the other is done by taking it. But when an attacker goes after the assets of the defender so that they are trying to harm the defender, this is deliberately targeting someone, or everyone.

When people are in a foot race and they can not win because they are not fast enough, do they trip the other players?

I am fine playing on my own skill without putting a boot on someone's head. I don't want someone else's "stuff". I will not take the first dirty shot.

But .... the game is much more fun when at war. I clearly have no fear and nothing to lose. I am willing to spend 3 months making a dirty player NOT win.

Maybe a better way to look at this is diplomacy. All members of Honor offer all players in the game an agreement of no harmful attacks.


Wolf Bite

[Shadow]

The objection to capture seems silly. Those leaders are all going to desert the moment you take turns anyway, it's not like you would otherwise be keeping them. I guess it slightly weakens your defenses, but until you're sitting on a big stockpile and have people actively at war with you, there's no reason to call captures an act of war. And when you are in that situation, people aren't going to care that you object to them.

Sorry wolf, I think you'll find most people just ignore the objection to captures.

On the other hand, if you don't object to captures then you can use them yourself without being a hypocrite, and believe me, the benefits of using them outweigh the downsides of having them done to you by a big margin in most situations.

[wolf bite]

But Shadow,

Your argument is not cut and dry, it is an opinion, which is debatable. Even someone who is not playing leaders and is attacked lower than their huts, can lose leaders for one turn and recover the land to rebuild the needed huts.


Wolf Bite

[Shadow]

But you lose ALL the leader in excess of 175 ratio immediately when taking turns (or close enough that it is effectively immediate). Even with captures, your land drops fast enough that 21 captures takes your ratio above 175, so you are losing leaders regardless. Capture actually takes less land, so mathematically speaking, you will end up with more leaders after 21 captures starting your run than you would have if you had been hit with 21 drives.

From every perspective except defense ratio, captures actually benefit the person being captured in that they end up on higher land so therefore keep more leaders when they start their run. That's not an opinion, it's math ^_^. Seems pretty cut and dry to me.

[Juska]

I've played multiple promisance servers where 5 consecutive attacks was considered an act of war and the clan would kill you. Anyone has the right to play according to a code or retaliation policy, knowingly violate the policy and you begin a war. That is one of the ways how you create depth and the necessary diplomacy that doesn't exist in the source code.

[Shadow]

I don't disagree. I have no problem at all with such play. I am merely pointing out that mathematically speaking, the stance makes no sense whatsoever. If you want to play that way, that's fine, as long as you are aware that it is happening at cost to you. Maybe it makes for more nuanced diplomacy, and that's a wonderful outcome, but it come at the cost of efficiency. If that's a trade you're willing to make, go for it.

[Juska]

For what it's worth, clan plan with a strong enforced policy that has a couple strong players can really help level the playing field for those players who don't do the math.

[Shadow]

Yea, I do miss the days of the first era when nobody had a clue what they were doing and diplomacy was everything. But I think you need a pretty substantial player base with many strong alliances for it to really work out like that.

[wolf bite]

Yes, it is all about the Honor which once existed in this game. Retto put in all kinds of extra ways to "level" the playing field during war around 2004. And still we only used them when at war. Diplomacy is long lived, very hard to casually do someone else harm than ask them to play nice.

Ah the days when we each played with our own abilities, and those alone. Now that our members are mostly no longer kids, in the work place they can see incompetent coworkers moving ahead be cutting the jugular of those around them.

The clan idea can from bring the honorable standards back to the game. We welcome players who don't care about winning. This will make a better game for everyone. And fun for the Knights. We basically have offered an ally to everyone.

Please send a message to the Knight staff when you ask to join. All willing to be the enforcers of Honor are welcome.


Wolf Bite

[Rough Raiders]

Such honor, attacking warlords 15 ranks below you (you being your clan mate, not you wb). ::)

[windhound]

Depends, right? 
That's the rank they ended up at, not necessarily where they started. 
If they were very far above the attacker would have taken desertions, so either they started at a lower rank and had a decent run or the land return was good enough that the desertions were worth it. 

So far this round the land is accumulating at the bottom, so either is plausible. 
I felt bad attacking someone a few ranks below me, but they had 17k acres.  I can't ignore that when most of the top ten is sub-10k


As far as capture, leaders only desert when you have too little land to support them.  I tend to do split runs where I assume someone is going to take my land, so I check back later and burn some loyalty with the improved ratio.  Someone using capture before the loyalty burn is messing me up. 
Not that they have any obligation to ensure I make resources at peak output, but I personally retal harder for captures.

[wolf bite]

Announcement!

Ereptor (#30) has joined Honor. For those of you that don't know this emperor, he is one of the most evil and viscous beasts that ever walked Redwall. He has promised to behave and follow the rules of Honor. But at the same time is begging to be allowed to start chopping at heads.

Never in the past have I ever had relationships with Ereptor besides teeth to teeth fights to the death .... this should be .... interesting.

At the time we have him chained to a wall in the dungeon. He keeps laughing hysterically. I am not sure if this is a good first sign.


Wolf Bite

[Rough Raiders]

Oh the irony. Ereptor was such a lance in game back then. Good luck keeping him contained wolfy!