Hi,

I would like to turn this thread into something of a list of all questionable shenanigans that can either serve as an inspiration or a rulebook of things to avoid tapping into the wealth of our combined multiplayer experiences.

While most of the knowledge shared here could be simply summed up into "don't be a dick", it helps a bit more to know what to look out for. I wish we could move from "it's a meta to do that, you do that or you lose, everybody does that lol" to "yeah, in the ES2 culture, that is called a dick move, you either stop that or you are out".

If you have witnessed a behavior that can potentially qualify as a borderline bug or an imperfect mechanic abuse share it with us, you can also possibly come up with and provide a solution to it. It does not always have to be intentional behavior, but usually is.

Examples:

• Game timers settings - timers:
  • 3 hours into a game, remaining players created an alliance and utilized the set timers to full together in order not to trigger last player timer simply to wait me out and force me to drop out, coordinating over chat in my face in language they thought I would not understand.
  • Of course you can also have a troll in the game, who simply uses up full turn time every turn.
  • Lesson learned:
    • Check the timers, map size, don't get caught up in that with those people again and do not overestimate your own ability to rush a big map in a resonable time.
    • Tech stage and per system timers can be a trap, especially on sizeable maps you can easily end up waiting for 5 minutes a turn. Even at innocent values such as 10 seconds.
    • Don't trust people you don't know to play reasonably and responsibly have settings take care of that.
      Also in 1 v 1 games, watch out for the last player timer, that is the real timer and it's going to be on pretty frequently unless disabled.
• End turn blockade race:
  • You know the enemy ship is coming towards you, you set up blockade on the system and nothing happens.
  • Your opponent knows that ship loss is inevitable - or is it?! He will wait full end turn timer, so neither one of you can engage it at the time it flies there (as the turn ends) and hope to run away at the beginning of next turn! Who clicks first? A game deciding kill for you ended up being 50:50.
  • Lesson learned:
    • Either ask them to stop, or blacklist them. No point competing over this who clicks first and dragging the full timers for that singular purpose. It is a waste of time.
• End turn and system combat locking:
  • One can decide not to decide   ....yet - Oh you engaged one of his two fleets? Cool, wait till end of the turn to NOT see the results and NOT be able to attack the second fleet, after the first fleet dies, since the turn will be... over! Since you can not end turn till it is decided, you are both stuck there waiting for full turn timer.
    The system is basically immune to everything until ongoing combat is lost, ships can't move away, you can not invade, nothing can happen until the other person presses fight, in their own time. This has just too many (ab)uses to list.
  • Lesson learned:
    • Always play with a combat timer on!
• Resyncs
  • Oh, it's a first post election turn and game desyncs... host goes and rolls couple random events (such as minor faction quests) and evaluates if he wants to reroll them, he presses resync without warning to do so.
    Same goes for obtaining critical information and playing differently based on that information post resync, getting caught and killed going in blind, etc.. and of course waste everyone's time in process.
    Yup, people actually do that and since you can almost 100% of the time force a desync by having someone rejoining the game, might aswell do so preemptively, when you can, right? I mean RNG is critical, should aswell reroll instead of complaining rest of the game about it, right?
  • Lesson learned:
    • Generally (un)safe way of avoiding any resync/desync shenanigans is to resync the turn after the desync is detected unless agreed otherwise to eliminate any potential gain from such behavior.
• Leaving games within first 10 turns
  • Right, starts can be rough, and who says they can not get worse? Whatever your excuse is, even if you honestly state that the game at this situation is unplayable and waste of time, we can talk about it, remake do things, just don't leave without finding an agreeable solution.
    Left over AI creates a power vacuum, but also enables diplomacy with AI such as tech trade, stacking a free "at peace/at alliance" bonus etc.
  • Lesson learned:
    • It is now more or less a common practice to ask players if they are comfortable with their starting situation. Having two toxic planets and no resources nor curiosities can be tough luck, but it happens even if you are not riftborn. Just don't overdo it.
• Not so alliance victory
  • Alliance victory conditions scale of number of members
    • No one is stopping you from exiting alliance once you met the single player requirement and winning next turn regardless.
• Joining games without asking
  • I know, it's the stupid host's fault someone left, let's prolong the end turn by joining the game and leaving one turn later after figuring out, spamming "oh wait, i did not pick this race, what is wrong? STUPID HACKER HOST!" and leaving.
  • Chat exists, ask before joining and check turn count, duh.

Reserved for some kind of a list...:

Being toxic.
Retreating and still dying for XP denial

Infinite elections purposely not resolving.