Rules

From GXCWiki

Contents 1 Rules 1.1 Objective 1.2 Setup 1.2.1 Control 1.2.2 Placement 1.2.3 Recruitment Mode 1.3 Energy 1.3.1 Earning Energy 1.3.2 Energizing 1.4 Combat 1.4.1 Actions 1.4.2 Advantages 1.4.3 Turn Processing 1.5 Polls 1.5.1 Commanders 1.5.2 Spies 1.6 Special Features 1.6.1 Force Shields 1.6.2 Special Territories 1.7 End-Game 1.7.1 Losing 1.7.2 Winning 1.7.3 Ranking 1.7.4 Scheduling 1.8 Sportsmanship 1.8.1 Community 1.8.2 Accounts 1.8.3 Penalties

Rules

Objective

To conquer the entire map with the rest of your team, gaining more territories than your opponents and expelling your rivals from the playing field.

To win eternal glory for you and your team. To totally rock.

Setup

The map, usually based on a real-world setting, has been divided into a field of play with territories corresponding to buildings, courtyards or other landmarks you know. Each turn (which usually lasts about 24 hours), you receive energy which you can spend to move, attack, and defend within the game.

Control

Players participate in battle independently from their fellow teammates. This means you have full agency over where you move, whom you attack, and what you defend. You control your own actions.

That said, this is a team-based game. An entire team - not a single individual - will be the victor when the dust settles. It has been found that teams with strong organic leadership, grassroots participation, and consolidated team orders tend to fare better in battle due to their cohesive strategy and strength in numbers.

Placement

To begin playing the game, players choose where on the map they would like to jump into the battlefield by placing themselves on any territory owned by their team upon entering the game. Placement is permanent: once you've joined the game with placement on a particular territory, you can only move to friendly territories by spending energy.

Recruitment Mode

Typically, the first three turns of a game are in Recruitment Mode, during which teams may enter the battlefield, energize and move at will, but cannot yet attack opposing teams. This time is spent recruiting teammates, strategizing where troops should be positioned, and preparing your teams attacks and defenses before the battle is truly unleashed. After Recruitment Mode has finished, full turns commence and teams are free to attack each other as usual.

Energy

Earning Energy

You can spend energy to perform various actions in the game. Each turn, you acquire more energy, and your unused energy from the previous turn rolls over into the next. Every player earns energy per turn just for logging in. In addition, players can receive more energy through various bonuses. Bonuses may differ for each game.

1. Reliability Bonus: Extra energy for having logged in and energized consistently for X or more turns (usually five).

2. Conquer Bonus: Extra energy if your team has conquered one or more territories in the previous turn. Note that this does not scale with the number of territories conquered (i.e., you don't get 3 bonus energy for conquering 3 territories).

3. Empire Bonus: Extra energy if your team has an 'empire' of X or more adjacent territories. Earn an additional amount of a energy for every additional adjacent territory in your team's 'empire.'

Energizing

In order to use your energy in battle, you must 'energize' daily. Once you have energized, you can use your energy to:

• Move to territories controlled by your team
• Defend the current territory
• Attack an adjacent territory controlled by an opposing team

Your orders can be modified at any time over the course of a single turn, but are finalized and put into action at the end of every turn.

Combat

Actions

There are three types of action you may perform. Actions are processed in the order below.

1. Moving: You can move to any territory owned by your team in a contiguous region. This means you can move to a location on the map several territories away (so long as there is a contiguous path of territories owned by your team) by spending the requisite amount of energy to do so. Since movements are the first type of action that is processed at the end of every turn, you will need to attack or defend from your destination territory (the territory you have selected to move to).

Note that moving farther distances in a single turn is more costly than moving shorter distances. Exponentially so, in fact. Moving x territories in a single turn costs 2^x - 1 energy, where x is the number of territories you're moving. For example: moving to a directly adjacent territory costs 2¹ - 1 = 1 energy. Moving three territories will cost 2³ - 1 = 7 energy. Moving ten territories will cost you 2¹⁰ - 1 = a whopping 1,023 energy!

2. Attacking: You can attack a single adjacent territory owned by an opponent by allocating energy for attacking. As an attacker, you are subject to a 45%-55% attacker-defender disadvantage. You only lose energy if you lose a battle while attacking. When all your energy allocated for attacking have been spent, you automatically retreat back to the territory you were attacking from. You must have at least one energy remaining in order to move into a newly acquired territory after winning a battle.

3. Defending: You can defend the territory you are on (or move to) by allocating energy for defense. As a defender, you receive a 55%-45% defender-attacker advantage. You only lose energy if you lose a battle while defending. When all your energy have been spent, or if an opposing team has just conquered if the territory you were defending, you automatically retreat to the nearest territory owned by your team. The nearest territory is calculated as the territory with the closest geometric center, which not necessarily a territory that is connected.

Advantages

All battles are comprised of a series of duels between two individuals at a time. In every one-on-one duel between an attacker and a defender, a defender-attacker advantage is employed. The odds are weighted for the defender in the ratio of 55% to 45%. Each duel results in one of the players being reduced to zero energy and the other remaining victorious.

If the attacking player wins the duel, she will continue attacking in subsequent duels against further defenders until defeated or until the target territory has been conquered. If the defending player wins the duel, she will continue defending in subsequent duels against further attackers until defeated or until there are no more attackers left to defend against.

There is no attacker-attacker advantage. Attackers can engage opposing attackers in battle. When this occurs, both sides have an equal (50%) chance of winning the battle.

Turn Processing

Turn processing occurs at the end of each turn, which is typically once per day.

First, all players with orders to move to a particular territory do so. These players move into their target territories, and then all orders for attacks or defenses are executed from the new territory just arrived at.

Second, attack and defense orders are processed in a calculated manner through a series of duels. Every attacker has a chance to duel a random defender, one at a time, until all defenders have been defeated (and thus the attackers conquer their target territory), or until all attackers have been defeated (and thus are forced to retreat).

Before defenders are engaged, attackers duel opposing attackers on the borders between territories. (Hence, there is no way to 'swap' territories.) If there are no attackers left to duel, they will move into the opponent's territory and begin dueling defenders. After being defeated as an attacker, attackers will have zero energy left for attacking and will only be eligible for defense with whatever energy they reserved for defending. Defenders (i.e., players who reserve all their energy for defense) will not attack and will only duel opposing attackers when their own teams' attackers from that territory have all been defeated.

Polls

Every player has the ability to participate democratically in their team and exert influence on its direction by using the polling system. By going to the "Players" page, any player can recommend opening a poll in order to:

1. Nominate a Commander: Elect one or more outstanding players on your team to lead you and your compatriots to glory. Typically, two nominations are needed to open a poll for a teams first commander, and five nominations are needed for every commander poll thereafter.

2. Impeach a Commander: Remove corrupt or incompetent leaders from their undeserved position of privilege. Typically, five nominations are needed to open a poll to impeach a commander.

3. Capture a Spy: Convict someone of espionage or treason! Only commanders can nominate a fellow player as a spy. Typically, only one nomination (by a commander) is needed to open a poll to capture a spy.

After the requisite number of nominations for an individual in any of the above categories, a poll will be opened for the whole team to voice their opinion and vote on the individual at hand. A poll is opened for team-wide voting as soon as enough nominations have been reached, and remain open until the end of the subsequent turn (i.e., if a poll opens during Turn 5, it will close when Turn 6 ends). Simple majority rules apply for all polls.

Commanders

Commanders, elected by their teammates, are players that have special administrative and leadership privileges, including:

• Ability to send a custom email to all members of their team
• Exclusive rights to editing their team's Battle Plan for everyone to read
• Recognition of their commander status in the chat

Just as they must be elected to gain these privileges, commanders can also be impeached through nomination and popular vote.

Being a commander is more than just simulating leadership - it's about actually leading! If you can't inspire your team or even convince them to follow your plans, even the most brilliant strategies are destined to fail.

Spies

Spies are players who have secretly joined an opposing team and may be collecting valuable intelligence and passing it on to another team! It is the responsibility of all players on a team to browse the Team Roster on the Players page to ensure there are no spies amongst their ranks. If a spy is successfully captured in a poll, she will be immediately kicked off the team and unable to join or play on another team for the rest of the game.

Spying is a legal (albeit socially and strategically risky) aspect of the game. Spying can be an incomparably effective weapon... or a shallow, useless tactic. It is not against the rules to spy, although doing so may be looked upon differently by different teams and different commanders. Teams are free to institute their own policies on spying, and all players are encouraged to play fair and show respect for their teammates as well as their opponents.

---

Special Features

Force Shields

A Force Shield is an invisible defensive shield that protects all of your team's territories (and thus the players within those territories) from attack. It allows players protected by the Force Shield to attack opponents in adjacent territories, but it prohibits from opponents attacking players within the territories under the protection of the Force Shield. Force Shields are activated for an entire team, not just for specific players.

A team is eligible to activate a Force Shield when they control three or fewer territories on the map. If there are one or two commanders on the team, any commander can automatically activate the Force Shield. If there are three or more commanders on the team, the commanders can vote to activate the Force Shield. As soon as 50% of the commanders vote "yes" for the Force Shield, it will be activated immediately.

When a force field is activated in the middle of the turn, all players with orders to attack a territory under the defense of a Force Shield will automatically revert to orders to defend their current territory. A Force Shield remains activated until three turns have processed, at which point it disappears and the territories under its defense return to their normal state of vulnerability. A Force Shield may be activated by a team only once per game. Use it wisely.

Note that if a team acquires new territories while a Force Shield is activated, those newly-obtained territories will NOT be protected by the Force Shield's defenses.

Special Territories

Special Territories are territories that have special properties and functionality in the game. Players who start on an Special Territory at the beginning of a tern are subject to special benefits and/or disadvantages, depending on which type of Special Territory it is. Images of Special Territory symbols can be found at Maps.

There are seven types of Special Territories:

• High Ground: Players on a High Ground territory can view attackers on any Low Ground territory by mousing over the territory.
• Low Ground: Players on a Low Ground territory can view defenders on any High Ground territory by mousing over the territory.
• Fortified: Players on a Fortified territory enjoy a 70% defender advantage instead of the usual 55% defender advantage.
• No Cover: Players on a No Cover territory are subject to a 45% defender disadvantage instead of the usual 55% advantage.
• Medical: Players on a Medical territory receive double their normal allotment of energy each turn they remain on the territory. However, they are also subject to a 40% defender disadvantage instead of the usual 55% advantage.
• Radioactive: Players on a Radioactive territory receive half their normal allotment of energy each turn they remain on the territory. However, they also enjoy a 65% defender advantage instead of the usual 55% advantage.
• Transport: Any movement that begins or ends on a Transport territory is free. You may cross enemy territory when moving to or from a Transport territory.

---

End-Game

Losing

A team is eliminated when all of its players have been defeated (and thus all its territories conquered) in battle. All the players on a losing team are removed from active play and may participate only in chat functions from that point forward. (In some games, players from eliminated teams may be allowed to join a new team.)

Winning

A team wins the game when it has conquered every territory on the map and all opposing teams have been eliminated. However, if a winner hasn't been determined by a pre-specified end date, the team that owns the most territories at the end of the final turn will be declared the winner. In case two or more teams own an equivalent number of territories at the end of the final turn, the first tie-breaking criterion will be the number of total energy for that team.

Ranking

At the end of the game, all eliminated teams are ranked by the turn during which they were eliminated, with teams eliminated later in the game given a higher ranking than those eliminated earlier. If two teams were eliminated on the same turn, the team that was eliminated later during turn processing is given the higher ranking. Surviving teams are ranked on the number of territories held at the end of the game. Surviving teams are always ranked higher than eliminated teams.

Scheduling

Each game has a schedule determined and justified by the game's organizers. Some games may last until a single team has conquered every territory and all opposing teams have been defeated, and other games may have a pre-specified 'game over' date marking the end of play. Please refer to notices and updates at the top of your game page for information of your game's turn schedule and end date.

Sportsmanship

Community

First and foremost: GXC is meant to be fun. GXC is a community, and games are intended to be enjoyed by all players. Friendly social interaction is fostered and encouraged. Participation is always optional, and all players are urged to join in and be a part of a positive, fun atmosphere where everyone feels welcome.

That said, GXC is also a competitive arena. Games are to be played, rivalries should be realized, and feuds will be dueled. A highly charged, competitive environment is definitely condoned. Are you here to have a tea party with your grandmother? No. You are here to do battle.

And ay, there's the rub: it's called 'moderation.' Moderation is crucial. Don't let games get too boring, complacent, or overly politically correct. Take a risk. Employ some humor. Throw around a bit of sarcasm. Take charge. Get into the action. Be rambunctious. Enjoy yourself. Etc. However, don't let games get out of control with temper and offense. Things can and will get intense, but remember - it's only a game. Seriously. Chill.

Respect your teammates - they are your loyal compatriots. But respect your opponents - they are worthy adversaries.

Accounts

Do not register more than one account. Do not create or register email aliases, listservs, or other 'junk' addresses. Each player may only play with one account. It is both illegal and grossly unfair to accept someone else's account, give your account to someone else, or knowingly let your or anyone else's account be harvested by someone else. The creation, farming, use, or toleration of multiple accounts is strictly forbidden. Not only illegal, but using multiple accounts is unsportsmanlike and disrespectful, not only to your opponents but to your fellow teammates as well.

Do not use scripts, macros, hacks, bots or any other automated processes to register new accounts, log in multiple accounts, or perform any other action associated with GXC. Doing so is illegal and unfair to all.

Teams are encouraged to uphold a strict 'zero-tolerance' policy against account abusers, and to publicly condemn those who offer the use of multiple accounts. Account abuse destroys the fairness of the game, and compromises the fun and enjoyment of many for the shallow, underhanded pursuits of few.

Penalties

Penalties for violating the rules will be assessed on a team-wide basis and determined by the scale of the violation. Teams are expected to self-police and use the spy nomination system to remove individual rule violators, although it is understood that teams can't do this perfectly and find every last rogue team member. If excessive rule-breaking is taking place, a team may lose one or more bonuses until corrective action is taken. If problems persist, a team may be disqualified from the game.

Finally, using scripts, macros, hacks, bots or any other automated processes to conduct ANY in-game operations will result in severe penalties for the entire team. Use of automated processes is both illegal and unsportsmanlike for everyone in the game. Play fair.