The MVL Rulebook

Published on October 19, 2007 By Mumblefratz In Metaverse

This is where we will keep all the rules used for the Metaverse League (MVL). The point is to have a single place where all rules are defined and so there's a single place where people can refer to resolve all question.

I will continually update this OP to reflect the current state of rules that we have all agreed to. The point is to make this as simple and concise as possible. As we have seen argument and upset occurs when different people have different interpretations of what has been agreed. Keeping these rules as simple and short as possible will help reduce potential conflict.

Rule 1) Rule changes are not allowed in the middle of a round. If an unanticipated situation develops in the middle of a round all effort should be made to deal with it as consistently as possible based on current rules and precedent. In the hopefully rare cases this is not possible the Commissioner will make an arbitrary ruling on how the matter will be resolved for the current round. Once the round is over then the issue can be revisited and a more permanent solution can be decided by the members of the League. Note that this arbitrary ruling can only be made by the Commissioner. Also the Commissioner is the only person that can grant an exception to any rule, but this power should be used judiciously.

Rule 2) Team Size. People may join the League and start playing at pretty much anytime. In the middle of a round a new player should be randomly assigned a new team by either the Commissioner or Vice Commissioner. The only limitation is that at any point in time no team should have more than one more player than any other team.

Also people may have to announce that they can't submit during a round. This can be treated using the scoring rules related to non-submission or if it's early in the round the teams could be re-balanced by the Commissioner. The decision to re-balance or not, and if so who to move, is soley the decision of the Commissioner.

The ideal team size is 5 since it provides some protection against an unforeseen non-submittal without being too unweildly. Team size at the beginning of a round should never be less than 4 or more than 6.

Rule 3) Honor System. Each round of play consists of a game (or games) of randomly selected settings and victory conditions. Very few of the required settings can be verified, namely galaxy size and victory condition. The fact that all other settings cannot be verified requires the league to operate on the honor system.

From time to time various versions of the game may exhibit a bug that temporarily allows some particular exploit. When and if this happens people should make sure the league is aware of the situation but no rule will be made to prohibit the particular exploit other than the same honor system that ensures everyone is playing the same game.

A final point about the honor system is that abuse of the honor system doesn't debase a single game played by a single player but debases every game played by every player. When seen in this light I'm sure that no one would be tempted to risk shaking the foundation of the league just to gain a miniscule benefit by intentionally bending a setting or rule. Also everyone should realize that honest mistakes do happen and if occasionally someone makes a mistake in a required game setting that it's no real big deal.

A corollary to the fact that only galaxy size and victory condition can be verified, along with the practice of taking a game submitted to the metaverse but not submitted to the league as a persons "intended" league submission, results in the rule that people should not have games submitted to the metaverse under their league character that might be confused with a legitimate league game. Note that clearly once a player has made a submission for the current round there can be no such confusion.

Honor System Addendum

The deliberate and determined use by a Player, with full knowledge and intent, of repeatedly and excessively, exploiting bugs, quirks, or other miscellanea in a game to achieve an outcome not normally possible is hereby prohibited in the MVL.

Rule 4) Reported Difficulty Levels and Race Customization in MVL Games

Every MVL player is honor bound to ensure that the effective difficulty of any game they submit is accurately represented by the games posted difficulty. To support this requirement the following guidance is provided.

External modification of any game related files are prohibited in MVL games.

In-game modification of opponent characteristics is prohibited in MVL games. The only choices allowed are the selection of opponents from among the default standard races and default custom race and the selection of their difficulty levels.

All opponent starting relations must be set to "Unknown".

DA games must be set to Allow Surrenders.

Rule 5) MVL Member Behavior

In the case where a MVL member has been found to be cheating, being overly disruptive, or detrimental to the League in some form, the commissioner is free to levy the following punishments as he deems necessary and appropriate. Such punishments may include; the loss of a team Captaincy or other MVL Administrative Position, the loss of the Player's points earned in a particular Round, forcing the Player to sit out a Round, or any other temporary punishment deemed appropriate.

For anything deemed worthy of a permanent ban from the league then besides the recommendation of the commissioner it should also require the consensus of the captains and other MVL administrators to make the ban permanent. Once banned then continued disruption of MVL threads and activities will be appropriately reported to forum authorities.

Scoring

A team's score consists of the sum of "base" scores plus individual and team bonus points.

Base Score

A player's base score is simply 2 points for a win of the designated type, 1 point for a win of the wrong type and 0 points otherwise. A team’s base score is the sum of the four top player base scores submitted. This is done so that a team having more players has no advantage over a team with fewer players.

There are two types of rounds that are treated slightly differently. One is a “Single Victory” type round where all players play for the same victory condition. The other is an “All Victories” type round where each team must submit at least one game of each of the 4 different victory types.

Non-Submission

In the Single Victory round if a player neglects to submit a game then there is no issue as long as the team still has at least four other players that submitted a game. However, if the team only had four players to begin with then they would be missing one potential contribution to the team’s base score. If this non-submission is pre-announced (this is highly encouraged), then either the Commissioner or Vice Commissioner may randomly select another member of the team to submit another game to count towards the teams base score.

In the case where no notice is given, if the player has a single game that fits the rounds criteria as to date, galaxy size and victory condition posted to the Metaverse but not yet submitted to the league then that game will be presumed to be submitted "automatically" to the league during the last minute of the round. If there are more than one qualifying game posted to the metaverse under the players MVL character than the game with the highest score/year ratio will be the game submitted to the league. If two or more games have identical score/year ratios then the submitted game shall be randomly selected from these games by the commissioner or vice commissioner whichever is not a memeber of the team in question. Note that players should make sure that any games that "appear" to match the current rounds criteria posted to the MV do indeed satisfy all the current rounds criteria. This can always be accomplished by simply waiting until your official has been made before posting a game to the MV that might otherwise be confused with the current MVL game.

In the case where no notice is given, and if other members of the team have other games that satisfy the round’s criteria that have already been submitted to the metaverse then either the Commissioner or Vice Commissioner may randomly select one of these games to count towards the teams base score. In this case the team should identify *all* such games that satisfy the round’s criteria for possible selection not simply the *best* such game.

If the non-submission is not pre-announced and the team has no “extra” qualifying games then the team gets credit only for the number of base scores properly submitted.

Note that a team of 5 players with two players that failed to submit a game would be in a similar situation as described above and the same rules apply. The same is true with 6 players and 3 non-submissions, etc. It is also possible for a team to be more than one submission short of the required total of 4 in which case the same rules can be applied to possibly allow the team to make up for more than one non-submission.

Finally these same rules apply in the case of an All Victories round but with an extra qualification. This extra requirement is that in an All Victories round each team is required to submit at least one game of each victory type. In this case the team may be required to use an “extra” game as described by the rules above that duplicates the victory type of an already submitted game. In this case for base scoring purposes that game would have to be considered a 1 point victory of the wrong type. Note that such a game could still receive individual and team bonus points based on the correct victory category.

Individual Bonus Points

In the case of a Single Victory round a single bonus point is granted for the 4 top scoring games and the 4 fastest games.

In the case of an All Victory round a single bonus point is given to the top score and the fastest game in each of the 4 different victory conditions.

The fastest games are determined by the number of years reported by the metaverse. Game speed ties are broken by score and score ties are broken by speed. Any games tied in both speed and score will be left unbroken and both players will receive the identical bonus.

Team Bonus Points

All team bonus points are based on the average of the team’s submitted games. Just as in the individual bonus point case only wins of the correct type are counted. The 1st place team receives 2 points and the 2nd place team receives 1 point in the following categories.

Team Score

Team Speed (speed of game reported by metaverse)

Team Submission (number of days into the round before game is submitted to the league)

Any teams tied in any team bonus category receive the same bonus. However, any fractional result is not subject to rounding and any tie must be exact.

MVL Voting Rules

1. Any MVL member can call for a vote among any number of competing proposals which must be seconded by two other MVL members to be considered official.

2. All votes will occur in the Galciv II Metaverse Leagues forum at the Core and notice must also be given in the current MVL Round thread.

3. All votes should run for a period of time specified in the OP of the voting thread. This period should be no shorter than 1 week or longer than 3 weeks. It's encouraged but not required that votes should be completed before the start of the next round of play if at all possible.

4. A valid vote requires participation by at least 50% of active MVL members. An abstention counts as participation. A proposal requires 60% or more of the cast ballots to be accepted. If less than 60% is achieved by any one proposal there will be a runoff between the two most popular options. The winner of the runoff will be the proposal that achieves a simple majority of votes cast with no quorum requirement.

5. Editing of your vote is allowed although any changes should be made in such a way as to make it obvious that a change has occured.

6. Once the time specified for the vote expires the thread will be locked to maintain an accurate record of the vote. The results of any vote are final and can only be changed by a subsequent official MVL vote.

Rules accepted by Consensus

From time to time minor issues may crop up that may not warrent the full attention of the League. In such cases a limited number of members may discuss the issue and come to some agreement. As long as no member of the league voices any objection to such an agreement and as long as such an agreement has been posted in a prominent thread (the current round thread or the MVL Rule thread) for a period of one week then that rule will be considered to be "official" by the league.

Besides any MVL member voicing an objection to the proposed rule, thereby invalidating the proposal, any member could also move to have a vote taken on the proposal which, as specified in our voting rules, requires a vote be taken as long as the motion is seconded by two other MVL members.

Last update Mar 28, 2008. Added Race Configuration Rule and Honor System Addendum

Comments (Page 3)

Silverbeacher

on Oct 23, 2007

your welcome PJ.

And maybe we should give more thought to Mumble's suggestion (which I put up some math for) and keeping the total points available 22/round; where the points go will be slightly different depending on the victory conditions but at least it will keep things simple for teams knowing exactly what is attainable.

As such, and correct my math if I'm wrong or adding this all up super quirky, but...

In any given round there are 8 Base points (4 games, proper victory submission)

In All Victories Fastest Game/Category= possible 4pts
In All Victories Fastest Team Time= 2pts

In All Victories Highest Score/Category= 4pts
In All Victories Highest Team Score= 2pts

In Any Given Round Earliest Team Submission Average= 2pts

Total = 22pts

In Single Victory Round Top 4 Fastest Games= 4pts
In Single Victory Round Top 4 Scores = 4pts

This still equals everything out to a possible maximum of 22pts for any given team.

Please note that the *likelihood* of any one team achieving the maximum points is minimal as that team would have to secure *each* possible bonus point, not easy by any means. Scores should end up being in the 8-16 range generally.

***With this scoring system it would actually make more sense and be easier to keep ties as is, that is equal in points.***

IF two or more teams ended up having an equal amount of points at the end of the Round, then I would suggest while the two teams would maintain their points, as for actual STANDINGS it would be based on a few things:

First, Base Points would be "worth" more, that is even if two or more teams had equal points, if Team A had all the Base points and Team B only had 6, then Team A would have the higher ranking. The actual POINTS would not change, ONLY the standings. Thus Team A would be the victors for the Round even though Team B matched the earned points.

((This is similar to Rankings developed in major sports, win-loss is taken into account but so is who you've played against, your division ranking, road games, etc etc))

If Base Points are equal then it would move on to Team Bonuses and then finally Individual Bonuses.

In conclusion, this suggestion would do the following:

Keep Points Equal Across the Board for ALL games
Keep Ties Equal in Points
Handles Team Ties

Mumblefratz

on Oct 23, 2007

It looks like my proposal to keep ties unbroken but add a team average submission bonus has reasonable support. However, I'd like to let the idea percolate a bit more so that others have a chance to voice their opinion.

Silverbeacher's summary in reply #32 is pretty much exactly as I envisioned it however he couched everything in terms of the maximum points a team can get for a round. Certainly this is a necessary thing to consider, however I just want to add a little more detail about this average team submission bonus thing.

First off there should be a 2 point bonus for 1st and 1 point bonus for 2nd just like the other team bonuses. As mentioned there's no individual bonus associated with this. Also for simplicity sake I propose we quantify submission to the league in terms of an intergral number of days. For example if the round started on the 12th of the month and someone submitted a game on the 12th then that would be a 0 length submission, a submission anytime on the 13th would be a 1 day submission and so on. Thinking about this we do have to consider that this will be an extra burden on our official scorekeepers, however IIRC Silverbeacher has volunteered to provide assistance to FB for this task.

As far as the point Silverbeacher brought out about standings versus points, his method is as good as any and we may as well use it. In general I don't think that this really comes all that much into play. Previously we just said that team A and team B (for example) tied for 2nd this round. In general leaving the standings like this is fine, however the point that this recent draft brought out is that sometimes standings are used to determine something (like draft order) and we may need a way to differentiate teams that are otherwise tied.

I think this addresses pretty much all outstanding questions regarding scoring except one. And that is the thing about non-submission and base scores.

Currently we have 4 base scores. This makes the most sense for compatibility between a single victory condition round and an all victory condition round. However we could look at this in another way. If all teams have at least 5 players we could conceivably increase the number of base scores to 5. I recommend against this just because it introduces a possible variation from one round to the next and could be an unnecessary source of confusion, however it is a possible way to score things. I think this was what FB was trying to get at in the most recent round, however whatever base number we use it should be the same for all teams. Again I recommend against this.

Another point that I would take on assumption is that in an all victory condition round a team needs to submit one of each type of game. I think overall we really don't need to consider specifically which game is a "dropped" game or not but it is clear that a team needs all 4 types.

This could come into play in the case of a non-submission where the team has 5 players and 5 games but because of the all victory condition the team doesn't have 4 of each type of game. In this case I think the most natural thing would be to consider one of the games as a 1 point victory of the incorrect type. Note that I think this is a special case. In general I think everyone is agreed that only victories of the correct type are eligible for individual or team bonuses. However, in the case a 5th game is treated as a incorrect victory for purposes for bases score in an All Victroy condition round then it still should eligible for bonus points because it is otherwise a legitimate win type for that round. Note that in a single victory round there would be no exception to the rule requiring the proper victory for a game to receive bonus.

One final thing about non-submission. Neilo put in a clause about either FB or himself appointing someone else on the team to submit a 2nd game to cover of an announced non-submission. I think this is as reasonable way to go as possible. Certainly picking a random player is better than allowing the teams best player to always submit the 2nd game which is what would happen if left up to the team themselves. The only thing that I think we should add to this is that Neilo or FB should randomly choose between the players that have already submitted a game. This gives another slight motivation to submit early as well as insure that whoever chosen has a good chance of getting another game in within the timeframe. If no player of the team has submitted then the extra game should probably go to the 1st one to submit a game.

Mumblefratz

on Oct 23, 2007

What I will do is as I said let all these ideas percolate some more and then write up what seems to be a total and complete solution to scoring. I think some time spent on polishing the wording to make it clear and concise as possible is time well spent.

Anyway at that point it would still be just a proposal but at least it will be a complete one that we can open up for discussion as to how everyone feels about it without leaving a bunch of unresolved loose ends.

Silverbeacher

on Oct 23, 2007

Thanks Mumble for expanding on the details; I'm heading up to Michigan for the night so not really sure if I'll be back on here or not; also if we finish the first round of draft picks before I return I have sent Neilo my next choice (well lol depending on availability) in a PM

dystopic

on Oct 23, 2007

However we could look at this in another way. If all teams have at least 5 players we could conceivably increase the number of base scores to 5... This could come into play in the case of a non-submission where the team has 5 players and 5 games but because of the all victory condition the team doesn't have 4 of each type of game (i assume you meant '1 of each type', yes?). In this case I think the most natural thing would be to consider one of the games as a 1 point victory of the incorrect type.

i think i agree with this, but i'm assuming a team of 5 is still penalized for a non-submission if someone doesn't submit without warning, right? or do you avoid penalties entirely as long as you submit 4 games (of the correct victory types, when applicable)?

FireBender

on Oct 24, 2007

you avoid penalties entirely as long as you submit 4 games

You answered your own question.

Mumblefratz

on Oct 24, 2007

As FB quoted "you avoid penalties entirely as long as you submit 4 games".

I agree that this is a bit of a hole in the theory. Clearly the 4 man team would be penalized because of a non-submission without warning whereas a 5 man team wouldn't be. This is how it has been defined so far. We could certainly change it if there was a reasonable way to do so, but I'm not sure there is.

The difference is that basically "by definition" you wouldn't know about an "unannounced non-submission" until the round was over. In this case it would be too late for a replacement game to be assigned to the 4 man team by Neilo/FB. With a 5 man team there is an automatic replacement in the 5th game that would already have been submitted to the league.

I suppose we could intentionally penalize the 5 man team in this case just to make it the same as the 4 man team case, but so far we haven't done so. I look at it as it would be nice to somehow allow the 4 man team the same kind of benefit that a 5 man team has and we have tried to do so in the "announced non-submission" case but we really aren't able to do it in the "unannounced" case. I think the league has been consistent in trying to get out of the business of giving any penalties where at all possible. In this case the more equitable solution is probably to give the 5 man team a penalty when in a similar case we would have to penalize the 4 man team, however this is counter to looking for ways to *not* give a penalty.

Also note that technically there is no penalty for even an unannounced non-submission. It’s just that the team fails to receive the 2 points it would have received if a win of the correct type was submitted. This is only subtly different than a penalty but there is a distinction between actively taking away points that a team otherwise earned versus simply not giving the team points that they failed to earn.

We can certainly discuss this further if people feel strongly about it but I would prefer to not intentionally penalize a team when there is a reasonable alternative simply because we effectively penalize another team in a similar situation because there is no reasonable alternative.

Neilo

on Oct 25, 2007

We could, to even things up, treat an unannounced non-submission exactly the same as an informed one. Even after the round is ended we could assign, perhaps a willing player this time, from the team in question that could complete the challenge quickly as not to hold up the league.

I would be happy with this. Though that leaves no recourse for a non submital....but it seems to work fine i think.

Mumblefratz

on Oct 25, 2007

We probably wouldn't have to go that far. I think it's pretty often that people play more than one game fitting the criteria and submit them to the metaverse before they decide which one to submit to the league. It's probable that among the 3 players that did submit a game that there would be at least one "extra" game already submitted to the metaverse. If we allowed the team to designate one of these games and/or Neilo/FB could "randomly" choose one, then that could answer the problem pretty much all of the time.

Having just finished a round where everyone submitted a game makes this issue seem less important however it is inevitable that it will happen so it's good to be prepared with a policy.

I think I have enough here to round out everything regarding scoring. I would have perhaps liked a bit more input from others but once I write it up in it's entirety it's perhaps easier for folks to see what's there and what they like or don't like.

Anyway I'll write up my understanding of what it seems most people agree with later this evening and then we can perhaps get some more opinion. Other than the general topic of scoring I can't really think of much more in the way of rules. Perhaps something regarding the desired team size and how new players get assigned in the middle of a round. Perhaps something about the frequency and methods of implementing the draft and what to do if folks don't take their picks quickly. However these are more process guidelines rather than rules. It might be nice to mention something about these things but I don't think we need to spend a whole lot of time on them.

FireBender

on Oct 25, 2007

I strongly oppose bonus points for quick submittions. Whats wrong with submitting late? Tie breaking should diffinatly be there if the BP formula is individual based.

In round 3 we put team coordination above individual acheivements. And to further weaken the individual's hold on the BP assignment formula, we reduced 1st, 2nd, 3rd to just 1 BP for best in each victory type. (Reference: Discussion thread, My modified version of Mumble's suggestion into points for each victory type. Don't remember reply number)

Not 1 player scored more then 3 as opposed to Mumble and Motti's 4 and 6 in previous rounds.

C'mon playjeff, if you join me maybe we'll be outvoted to a ratio of 5:1 only.

dystopic

on Oct 25, 2007

i think bonus points for fastest submission on a team level wouldn't allow individuals to achieve any more points than they can now.

and i'm not so sure it'd negatively affect team coordination, either. players/teams who wait to submit were at an advantage in the last round's setup. they could see who's done what and set their own goals accordingly. the proposed submission bonuses raise a new strategic question of play style. should the players on a given team try to submit their best games in the first week? it means the other teams would know what they need to beat for high score and fast game times, but it'd also mean that first team would receive "the early bird special" in bonus points -- but only as a team. i kind of like the idea of rewarding teams who submit early as a means to offset the advantage gained by waiting to submit.

Neilo

on Oct 27, 2007

I think I have enough here to round out everything regarding scoring.

I think enough time has passed on this issue mate, and by all means go ahead and proceed with the rule book. Your proposal seems to have support so i am happy to go with that for round 4.

Round 4 details on soon.

PlayJeff45

on Oct 27, 2007

Well I have to vote nay, Not that it matters. Am I outvoted again?

FireBender

on Oct 27, 2007

Well I have to vote nay, Not that it matters. Am I outvoted again?

No, WE are outvoted. I really don't approve of this bonus point. It doesn't add much to the league.

I mean, no one forced you to submit early. And so what if I have a chance to glance at the competition? We're both playing the same settings.

Mumblefratz

on Oct 27, 2007

Well I have to vote nay, Not that it matters. Am I outvoted again?

What exactly are you voting nay against. Specifically the team average submission bonus or is it something else?

Whats wrong with submitting late?

Basically it's just that it fosters a climate of oneupsmanship where everyone is waiting to see how the other guy did. If everyone were to do this then there would be nothing all month and then a flurry of submittals right at the deadline.

This by no means eliminates the use of strategy by a team. If anything it may add a bit more strategy to submitting games. Like Team C did with the speed bonus in last game you could have most of your players submit early so that your overall average is low but still keep out a critical submission so that you can outpoint the other teams in some other area. That's how Team C managed to get both top team speed and score bonuses last round.

We're just adding a pretty minor bonus for this and we can see how it goes. If people don't seem to like it then we can change it but as of right now it does seem that more people favor it than not.

Anyway, I've been a bit delayed at writing this up due to the Red Sox being in the World Series, but I'll have something posted shortly. Certainly all of this is still up for discussion. People should feel free to comment on any aspect but please be specific as to what it is that you don't like (That means you PlayJeff

Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:

Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting on the forums.
Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
It's simple, and FREE!