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