Game rules
(a) Any reference throughout the whole set of regulation to the tournament director may be applicable to any of the assistant directors.
(b) Any reference throughout the whole set of regulation to the team captain may be applicable to the lieutenant (assistant captain).
(c) Persons are referred to as “he” for a simpler text, but that may be applicable to a female person
(a) Each game is supervised by a game master who takes care of its smooth running and performs the adjudication if the system is manual or if the automatic system is failing.
(b) In case of a tournament, the director (and, possibly, several assistants) of tournament is the game master of all the games.
For a team tournament,
every player is supervised by a captain responsible for guiding him on the system and taking action in case of his defection.
there is a captain for every team.
(d) Every player will have to communicate his real identity (names and first names) in addition to one possible pseudonym.
(e) Unless tournament requires anonymity, this identity is available to anyone.
(a) The games are completed on one of the following conditions:
Outright victory of a player (“victory with 18 centres”),
Vote of end of the game,
Stop of the game from the game master due to stability of the centres over three (3) consecutive diplomatic years,
End of the last diplomatic year to be played (The year value is defined in the tournament specificities for the round).
(b) Scoring system is defined in the tournament specificities for the round
(c) Tie - breakers for a specific game are defined in the tournament specificities for the round.
(a) The duration of the deadlines will be roughly:
Deadlines for moves: one week at most,
Deadlines for retreats: two days at most,
Deadlines for adjustments: four days at most.
(b) The delay for the moves may be lengthened of 50% at the time of the first diplomatic year.
(c) For tournament games an approximate calendar is established before the beginning of the first deadline.
(d) An adjudication may be carried out before the deadline if:
All the players who have orders to submit have expressed their agreement,
No player without an order to submit has expressed his veto.
(e) The adjudication will be carried out no later than 24 hours after expiration of deadline (when all orders are present).
(f) A Game master should never freeze a game, in the sense of not accepting modification to orders and still not publishing the result of the adjudication for longer than 24 hours.
(g) Requests for deadline extension to have more time for negotiations shall require to be expressed at latest 12 hours before deadline.
(h) In exceptional circumstances, if no player of the game expresses his opposition (in private or a public), a game could be appreciably accelerated to mitigate a long planned absence of a player. This is in order to avoiding an unpleasant replacement.
(a) To intervene on a game means to explicitly send a message in diplomatic, strategic matter or tactic with one or more player(s) during the course of the game
(b) Contrary to the face to face games, the negotiations are authorized during all the phases of play - except after the deadline for a player who did not submit the requested orders.
(c) Contrary to face to face games, a player eliminated from a game can always intervene on a game and can take part in the negotiations to determine the winner of the game.
(d) Unless specifically authorized at tournament level, a player who never ever belonged to the table (prohibited cross gaming) and a player who left a game (he is not thus any more player) cannot interfere on a game.
(a) The system may allow anonymous public statements, yet the real identity of the author of the messages will be known to the system administrator, and upon official request by game master or tournament director anonymous messages may be suppressed.
(b) The system and the game master should not authorize falsified public statement, i.e. usurping the identity of another player of the game.
(c) Normal courtesy is required in the contents of the presses. It is possible to complain about the contents of a press to the game master, who will be able to take the adequate measures.
(d) Game masters should not comment any games.
(a) The vote of end of the game can be requested at any moment by a message addressed by a player to all the others players of the game.
(b) The players will have to vote with the adjustment orders.
(c) The vote is positive only if all the players still part of the game expressed themselves in favour of the stop (unanimity) except that a player in civil disorder is supposed to have voted for the stop of the game.
(d) A player who proposes the end of the game has the full right to secretely vote against this proposal.
(e) The detailed result of the vote is and remains secret (except if the vote is positive) at least until the end of the game but the overall current result of the vote is available at any time.
(a) It is forbidden to directly broadcast orders (moves, retreats and adjustments) without using the system or a game master.
(a) It is necessary to have an electronic e-mail address to take part in a game to be able to consult it or use it regularly. Even if negotiations are on the site, the email is used by the site to inform a player of the events on the game.
(b) Players using several e-mail addresses (typically professional and personal) for negotiations are requested to inform the other players and game master of their game, so, more particularly, not to await a response to a message during the weekend on a professional e-mail address.
When a message transmitted towards another player returns in error,
for a team tournament : it should it be announced to the captain of the faulty player (and, optionally, to the lieutenant of the team of the faulty player, specially if the faulty is the captain).
directly for a non team tournament of if the problem persists for a team tournament : it must be announced to the game master of the game (and the tournament director if different.)
A Game Master may expel a player from a game if his email address causes too many problems.
(d) Falsified messages are prohibited (i.e. messages likely to mislead others by exploiting a better competence in the data-processing tool.)
(e) To forge a pretending to be received message and to transmit it as such to a third party does not enter within the framework of this prohibition.
(f) It is authorized to transmit part or totality of a received message of another player. E-mails and other communications are the intellectual property of their author, but the game master and players, by virtue of agreeing to master or play in the tournament, freely give permission for the use of those e-mails and communications by other participants as part of the play of the particular game for which the e-mails or other communications were sent.
(a) Except for informal tournaments and anonymous tournaments, replacements must obey strict rules and should in no case to be treated lightly. During a replacement, replaced player must diffuse a message to all the players and game master of the game to introduce his substitute. The substitute must present himself in the same manner. At no moment, there should be any doubt in the mind of the players and of the game master on which is the player with whom to negotiate on the game - i.e. which player will submit the orders.
(b) It is however possible - in exceptional circumstances, in a team tournament - for the captain (and the lieutenant) of the team of a player to submit the orders on the flight, on request of the latter last or following a failure of the latter. The player must then assume these orders. The latter will be able to be however opposed to it, and in this last case, if the player is late, the captain or the lieutenant will not be allowed to interfere on the game.
(c) A player who left a game cannot return to it (this restriction applies only to the players of the game and not to the game master) unless he specified at the time of his departure that his replacement was temporary.
(d) Temporary replacements by a player of the team are tolerated in a team tournament.
(e) A substitute who played in more half of a game (in a consecutive way or not) will be no more be considered as substitute thereafter (one must count the number of seasonal orders for which it had the responsibility.)
(a) The defects of orders are regulated by a system of number of NMR (No Move Received – orders are missing at adjudication) tolerated before issuing a CD (civil disorder – al units are ordered to hold) and threshold of alarm.
(b) When one is normally on the point of adjudicating (that it is in a manual or automatic way) and when are missing one or more orders, then the game master or the system sends a message of recall to the latecomer player (and all the player of the team in case of team tournament). Moreover the game master or the system decrements credit of power(s) in question. If one of the powers whose orders are missing still has credit, then the adjudication is postponed 24 hours. If at the time of the new adjudication attempt, the orders are still missing, the game master will be able to put in civil disorder the countries of the latecomers.
(c) Exception will be made for the move orders of Spring 1901 for which no country may be declared in civil disorder. The player will be immediately replaced. The credits of latenesses will not be affected.
Exception will be made for the moves of the other adjudications of 1901 for which no country may be declared in civil disorder. The player will be immediately replaced. The credits of latenesses will not be affected.
In a game of team tournament orders from team captain are tolerated.
In a game of informal tournament orders from Artificial Intelligence are tolerated.
(e) Exception will be made in case of a tournament when the games are synchronized; the director of tournament will be able to directly declare the countries in civil disorder in the event of defect of order. The credits (number of NMR) will still be affected.
(f) The number of NMR tolerated before issuing a CD may be averaged and calculated in a certain way according to the specificities of the tournament
(g) A player is flagged green if he was at most once (1) late, flagged yellow if was twice (2) late, flagged orange if was three times (3) late, flagged red if was four times (4) late and flagged black if he was at least five times (5) late.
(h) On will adopt the following behaviour for a NMR:
|
Civil disorder if phase is: |
And player colour |
|
Negative adjustments/Retreats |
Orange or worse |
|
Positive adjustments/Movements |
Red or worse |
|
Eviction if phase is: |
And Player colour |
|
All |
Black |
(i) It is the accumulation of the published NMRs of a player (or a team) which is taken into account, given that that a NMR is not published until the adjudication is carried out.
(j) Should occur a situation where it is necessary to await certain players and not others at the time of an adjudication on which there are NMRs, the latter profit from an unhoped-for leniency and will be able to submit their order in the interval. However, should follow a situation where only players - not to be waited - remain late, the adjudication may be carried out immediately.
(k) Penalties following NMR occur for all game phases (moves, retreats and adjustments).
(l) A CD occurring during a move phase causes a direct CD on a retreat during the next phase and/or negative adjustment during the next phase in order to save time (no second NMR inflicted).
(m) A CD occurring during a retreat phase causes a direct CD on a negative adjustment during the next phase in order to save time (no second NMR inflicted).
(n) A player that invalidated his orders after the deadline is at risk of being in the same situation as a late player
(o) A player who builds his play by expecting a civil disorder of another acts at his own risks.
(a) A third (3) set of orders of movements submitted by the captain in a consecutive way for a team tournament leads to the eviction of a player of the game (black flag).
(b) A second (2) set of orders of movements in civil disorder in a consecutive way, (even if the team takes a responsibility in the transformation of the NMR into CD - for a team tournament), leads to the eviction of a player of a game (black flag).
(c) If the player has been evicted from the game and the game is waiting for the replacement by a human player, the country is in civil disorder without anybody being able to submit the orders for the player (except in informal tournaments where Artificial Intelligence orders may be used, provided players are informed and should not expect the CD orders in that case).
(a) When a game master detects the failure of a player, he should not announce it to the other players of the game before the adjudication of the phase in progress or the arrival of the substitute
(b) A game master never gives information to the players about the chronology of the submissions nor on the identity of the country(ies) whose orders are lacking
(c) When the replacement is caused by the absence of a player and that the substitute did not have possibility to express himself during a phase of play in entirety (i.e. his orders have not been taken into account in a movement adjudication) and that the replaced re-appears, he can take again his place this being announced as for a normal replacement (and the game master is compelled to notify at least a warning to him.). The return gives place to an extension to leave the other players time to resume the negotiations.
(d) A player may be removed from a game because he has not identified himself on the site for a too long period (at Site Administrator discretion)
(a) Only latenesses of more than one hour (compared to the moment when the game master wishes to treat the orders) are treated with the corresponding paragraph “N.M.R.”
(b) The modifications of orders after the deadline but before the adjudication are possible but without any guarantee of positive result.
(c) The requests for extensions are encouraged (especially in the games in advance on planning of the tournament) to avoid the risks of NMRs in the submissions – except for the games in tournament when synchronized.
(d) Each player is entitled to at least on extension.
(e) Games within a tournament may be extended while bank/school holidays, at game or at round level.
(f) It is up to the game master to judge if the repetitive requests for grace are not excessive and if it is necessary to require the replacement of the player in question. Thus, when a player announces that it will be temporarily unavailable :
either the duration is very long (he must be replaced in a final way)
either it is sufficiently short (the game is blocked while waiting for its return.)
either one needs a temporary replacement (by a member of the team not player in another game)
(g) System or game masters must make sure that the times of submission (for the phase of retirements and adjustments) entirely included in one weekend do not embarrass a player.
(h) System or game masters may cast individual and/or broadcast reminders of the deadline but the lack of a reminder will not serve to excuse failure to submit orders.
(i) A player may be removed from a game because he has caused too many delays in all the games he plays on the site (at Site Administrator discretion)
(a) The four (4) trophies brought into play to reward the teams whose players will have proven following qualities:
Trophy “General Boulanger”: (each player of a game nominates the most pleasant player - with which one wants the most to play again),
Trophy “Napoleon”: (each player of a game nominates the best strategist and tactician - which impressed the most the table by its qualities of play),
Trophy “Machiavelli”: (each player of a game nominates the most infamous traitor - which carried out the most spectacular treasons),
Trophy “Balzac”: (each player of a game nominates the player whose prose was the most abundant),
(b) There will be an additional informal trophy brought into play to reward the teams whose players will have proven following qualities:
Trophy “Huygens”: (each game master or the system itself nominates the most punctual player – who issued the fewest delays),
(c) At the end of each game, before the diffusion of the last report, the system or game master will be charged to collect make the players insert their votes for the trophies (the ones determined by the players themselves.)
(d) When a player is eliminated from a game, he is advised to collect or insert in the system or send to the game master at once his votes and to preciously preserve them.
(e) The votes for the trophies may be expressed only before the game closure.
(f) The vote of the players shall respect the following constraints:
For each trophy, the vote is expressed by appointing a player (or a line of players).
The negotiation before the vote is not necessary but is not prohibited.
It is authorized to abstain from for one or all the votes.
It is forbidden to vote for oneself.
If the voter would be a substitute, he is advised to him to consult the opinion of the other player(s) of his team having taken part of the game in case of a team tournament.
If a player takes too long to vote, the game master will be allowed to consider that he abstains and close the game.
(g) The results of the votes for the game will be visible only after game closure (in the form of the number of voices collected by each player).
(a) Any correction of the situation (continuation for example to a litigation, an error of resolution, an unexpected replacement) gives right an extension for the players.
(b) The new deadline must be shifted of at least half of the time passed at the time of correction since the faulty publication.
(c) The principle of the referendum is not excluded a priori. It is not used to regulate the litigations but to obtain the approval of the whole table (thus the vote can be positive only unanimously players still in the game) to carry out a morally legitimate distortion with the official rule.
(d) Adjudication mistakes must be pointed out and will be corrected as soon as possible. If they are not pointed out and another adjudication is published, without correction of an error, the error will stand on the condition that the mandatory period was allowed between adjudications.
(e) Rollbacks (ie allowing players to resubmit orders for a turn that has been adjudicated) will only be permitted with the express consent of the overall TD.
(a) It is strictly forbidden to attempt to mislead a game master or tournament director in any manner.