Policies for Spam Fort Battles

[Syntex]

Dear Cowboys and Cowgirls,

The declaration of more Fort Battles at the same time is a recurring problem on The West and can result the interest decrease for this game feature. We have received a lot of feedback from you regarding this issue and as our goal is to ensure that our community can experience quality and entertaining Fort Fights, therefore hereby we have come up with a solution for this frustrating situation.

"Spam Fort Battles" are those battles declaration, not for any discernible legitimate purpose, that have as a primary effect interference with the gameplay of others. This can include:

1. Intentionally interfering with others' scheduled or planned battles
   - Generally declaring any battles within 3 hours of the previous declaration
   - Declaring any battles with 2 hours before or after an Awesomia battle organized by The West Team.
2. Declaring excessive numbers of "strategic multi" battles within a 1 hour window
   - Generally more than 2 battles by the same player/town/alliance
   Strategic multi = declaring more than 1 battle in such close succession that the defenders can only possibly attend one, so that the attackers have the strategic advantage of knowing which one is the real target.
3. Declaring excessive numbers of battles in a 24 hours period
   - Generally declaring an additional battle within 6 hours of the previous battle when 4 or more battles are already scheduled;

Spoiler: Mitigating factors may include

1. Events that reward event currency, or quests that reward substantial awards for Fort Battle participation
   - Players can declare more battles with respecting at least 2 hours between the battles and not exceeding 6 battles per day.
2. Repeated failed "strategic multi" battles
   - Each time an alliance attempts to employ the strategic multi tactic and fails to capture any fort while turning out >10 attackers on at least one of the battles they shall be permitted an additional simultaneous attack in their next attempt (=they may declare 3 simultaneous battles instead of 2. If they fail again, this number increase by 1 each unsuccessful attempt until the limit of 5 battles is reached).
   - In this situations, the alliance may be allowed to have at most 5 strategic multi battles declared within 1 hour window.
3. Compelling argument for the legitimate purpose, or reasonable mistake behind a Fort Battle declaration
   - These policies are unable to cover every eventuality. The West Team will make decisions in any situation not covered by these measures.

These scenarios may not cover every eventuality. The support team may choose to take actions in cases not covered by these policies.

What can you do?
In case you notice Spam Fort Battles, please contact our support team as soon as possible. Always use the "Contests & Fort Battles" category to report such an incident with the correct World selection.

What will we do?

• The West Team will analyse the situation and make the appropriate steps if required. Usually when a world first faces such a problem we are going to consider increasing the declaration cost for battles within a certain time period; these changes will be always announced under this thread.
• In the case the world has already have such settings applied and the problem persists, we reserve the possibility to warn and punish the players who are involved in the spamming process.
• Also, The West Team may cancel or reschedule Fort Battles which are considered Spam Fort Battles, however this is a non-binding act.

Rescheduling or cancelling battles

• A battle may be rescheduled or cancelled only if there are at least 6 hours before the start or there is grounded reason to do so.
• When a battle was cancelled or rescheduled it is announced via official channels:
  • in the world's saloon chat via Henry;
  • in this thread: Rescheduled or cancelled battles

Please note that we are not a 24/7 customer service, therefore it may happen that we will not be able to react in timely manner and reschedule battles. We are sorry for these situations in advance. These scenarios may not cover every eventuality. The support team may choose to take actions in cases not covered by these policies.

These policies take effect immediately and are valid until withdrawn.

We hope you like these changes! Please if you have any feedback or questions feel free to ask it here or contact us!

Your The West Team
© These policies have been approved by InnoGames as of June 2023.

 

[Goober Pyle]

Adding a point of clarification:

In the event an improper battle is declared, and not yet addressed by The West International Team, a different player may disregard the improper battle when declaring their own battle.

By way of example:
If:
Player_A declares a battle_1 at 01:00,
Player_B declares a battle_2 at 04:00,
Player_C declares a battle_3 at 07:00,
and Player_D declares a battle_4 at 09:00 (violating the 3h limitation)
Player_(A|B|C|E) (but NOT Player_D) may disregard battle_4 and would be permitted to declare battle_5 at 10:00
(not only do they not need to leave a 3h gap relative to battle_4, but they do not need the 6h gap that would normally be required due to 4 previously declared battles)

If, however, The West International Team has addressed battle_4 (chat announcement and/or post on forum) then it may not be disregarded, even if the decision was to leave the battle with a <3h gap (in the example above the next legal battle would be at 15:00)