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Trade Bots


Tiberius
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Automated Trading

The use of any script, bot, macro, or other form of automated trading is strictly prohibited in Politics & War. These programs give players who use them an unfair advantage over normal players, and use of them is punishable by banishment.

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01/12 06:44 am BlackAsLight of Native Australians accepted your trade offer. BlackAsLight received $15,727,422.00 and in exchange you received 7,782 food.
01/12 06:44 am Talus of Golgotha accepted your trade offer. Talus received $4,482,578.00 and in exchange you received 2,218 food.

 

I mistakenly put a buy offer in for food at 06:43/06:44 and before I could cancel it the above happened. As we all know TKR will never return those as they do not believe in sportsmanship and fair play.

My suggestion to ensure going forward that levels the playing field is and to stop automated bots, and therefore TKR members, having an unfair advantage over normal players:

  • to minimise the amount of times an automated bot can ping the API for data
  • rather than having a dropdown menu for selecting resources, use a checkbox instead
  • have a minimum length of time that the API updates

and before anyone says the bot isn't automated, the only thing that isn't automated is someone has to click a link, everything else is automated.

Edited by Tiberius
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Hmm... well, there's a few possible solutions I can think of. We might make it so that trade data doesn't show up on the API for a few seconds. Alternatively, you might try setting your taxes to 100% and be granted what you need to operate by your alliance. Failing that, you could perhaps declare war on TKR and force them to stop using their bot or at least refund your money.

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6 minutes ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

Hmm... well, there's a few possible solutions I can think of. We might make it so that trade data doesn't show up on the API for a few seconds. Alternatively, you might try setting your taxes to 100% and be granted what you need to operate by your alliance. Failing that, you could perhaps declare war on TKR and force them to stop using their bot or at least refund your money.

Or you know, people can play within the rules of the game and not have an unfair advantage over normal players.

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22 minutes ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

What 'unfair advantage'? You can look at the trade screen and take advantage of the same opportunities. My test trade has been up for like 3 minutes, more than ten times longer than it takes to double-check and delete after making a mistake.

Edit: Yep, 4 minutes before it was picked up... by NPO. NPO use trade bot confirmed.

Since you forgot to read the OP let me post it here again for you....

Automated Trading

The use of any script, bot, macro, or other form of automated trading is strictly prohibited in Politics & War. These programs give players who use them an unfair advantage over normal players, and use of them is punishable by banishment.

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In my case a minute or less and it was gobbled up. Couple that with a captcha and you have no chance of cancelling it. As well as being a market trader, I will put all my offers for different resources in, and then check I haven't made a mistake. Rather than taking a 1 time spot test, try larger offers, spread out throughout the day and then report your findings on who bought them. I can guarantee the alliances that use a trade bot will come out on top. My goal here is to have trade bots ability severely limited. or preferably banned. This isn't a one time thing, it has been an issue for a long time.

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30 minutes ago, Tiberius said:

Since you forgot to read the OP let me post it here again for you....

Automated Trading

The use of any script, bot, macro, or other form of automated trading is strictly prohibited in Politics & War. These programs give players who use them an unfair advantage over normal players, and use of them is punishable by banishment.

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In my case a minute or less and it was gobbled up. Couple that with a captcha and you have no chance of cancelling it. As well as being a market trader, I will put all my offers for different resources in, and then check I haven't made a mistake. Rather than taking a 1 time spot test, try larger offers, spread out throughout the day and then report your findings on who bought them. I can guarantee the alliances that use a trade bot will come out on top. My goal here is to have trade bots ability severely limited. or preferably banned. This isn't a one time thing, it has been an issue for a long time.

Alright, sure thing, I'll do another ten rounds and we'll see who else gets an embargo ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Okay, seriously, it's taking like 5 minutes for these things to get picked up. If that's the speed of the trade bots then they've got an entirely different problem ?

Edit: That's 20 minutes. I'm starting to feel lowkey insulted.

Edited by Sir Scarfalot
do you guys need help coding or something
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37 minutes ago, Tiberius said:

Or you know, people can play within the rules of the game and not have an unfair advantage over normal players.

Which bots are banned next because some alliances have and others don’t though? People could always use the embargo function in the game to prevent trades with alliances who take advantage of trade offers like these. (Maybe that feature could be useful for some)

This suggestion reminds me of Shifty’s thread with posts by TFP complaining about the war notification bots being clearly against rules; when really they’re not. So I’m not sure how valid this argument against them are when so many other types of bots are fine.

libertyribbon.png

 

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3 minutes ago, Noctis said:

Which bots are banned next because some alliances have and others don’t though? People could always use the embargo function in the game to prevent trades with alliances who take advantage of trade offers like these. (Maybe that feature could be useful for some)

This suggestion reminds me of Shifty’s thread with posts by TFP complaining about the war notification bots being clearly against rules; when really they’re not. So I’m not sure how valid this argument against them are when so many other types of bots are fine.

Other bots are in keeping with the rule. Trade bots are not, by definition of the game rules.....

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Just now, Tiberius said:

Other bots are in keeping with the rule. Trade bots are not, by definition of the game rules.....

I don’t think it would require automatic trading for someone to jump on an offer like this quickly though, if it notifies them & provides a link like the war notification bots, it wouldn’t really function very differently. If someone is just refreshing the trade screen; they could also potentially take advantage of trade offers like these quickly as well. It’s not automatic if they need to actively be waiting for a trade offer to show up & click to purchase it. Automatic trading would be if someone can be sleeping & the bot automatically does trades without them doing anything.

So their bot would fall outside definition of banned bots in the rule posted & require a change in the definition of what bots are banned.

libertyribbon.png

 

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5 minutes ago, Noctis said:

I don’t think it would require automatic trading for someone to jump on an offer like this quickly though, if it notifies them & provides a link like the war notification bots, it wouldn’t really function very differently. If someone is just refreshing the trade screen; they could also potentially take advantage of trade offers like these quickly as well. It’s not automatic if they need to actively be waiting for a trade offer to show up & click to purchase it. Automatic trading would be if someone can be sleeping & the bot automatically does trades without them doing anything.

So their bot would fall outside definition of banned bots in the rule posted & require a change in the definition of what bots are banned.

Exactly.

@Tiberius please stop making me upvote Noctis :v

Incidentally, good to see you've taken my advice and done the embargo thing, so the problem is solved if, as you claim, it's purely TKR that's using trade bots

J7xk9cu.png

Edited by Sir Scarfalot
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10 minutes ago, Nizam Adrienne said:

Hi Tiberius,

I appreciate you raising your concerns here but, with all due respect, you haven't even reached out to my members before making an assumption that they won't return it. If you don't talk to them, of course they won't return it.

Our bot has been previously vetted and determined not to be violating these rules because it doesn't accept trades on anyone's behalf. It's nothing more than a notification system that runs off the API, which is accessible by anyone in this game. Any alliance could make this bot if they want to.

Do you want me to reach out to Talus and Blackie for you?

Historically TKR members have refused to repay them back from my personal experience and I know I am not the only one to have experienced that. I would appreciate it if you could do that, thank you.

Apart from a member having to click a link to accept the trade offer it is all an automated process. There isn't rules on bots etc for other stuff, like the war notifications etc i suppose its a loophole in the rules as it doesnt specifically cover semi-automated and lower. It does however give Nations who do use it an unfair advantage, as has been stated above, to get the same advantage you would have to sit and constantly refresh the buy/sell pages. 

 

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6 hours ago, Tiberius said:

Or you know, people can play within the rules of the game and not have an unfair advantage over normal players.

Just blaming for people for hacking is what TFP does. So are you sure you're not TFP? (Sorry Quichwe you're great but your gov co-workers are too funny)

2 hours ago, Nobody Expects said:

Add a 5 minute delay to the API, it would allow people a chance to fix mistakes, but still allow a bot to pick up stuff people genuinely want to off sell cheap.

Or maybe double check your trades before posting them, we shouldn't need to babysit you for any of your f'up's. I've messed up trades before, what I do is ask the person if they'd be willing to return my res/ whilst I return the cash. Thought its entirely their choice to keep it if they want, in that case I eat the loss.

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I have 0 issue with using bots for everything else because there's nothing in the game rules forbidding them. Technically it would be within the rules to have bots carry out attacks for you, declare wars etc my point is the only type of bot that is illegal in the rules is automated trade bots.

So Alex, can you define and re-wire the part of the rule regards automated trade bots so that we are clear on the amount of automation that would be illegal. 

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1 hour ago, Tiberius said:

I have 0 issue with using bots for everything else because there's nothing in the game rules forbidding them. Technically it would be within the rules to have bots carry out attacks for you, declare wars etc my point is the only type of bot that is illegal in the rules is automated trade bots.

So Alex, can you define and re-wire the part of the rule regards automated trade bots so that we are clear on the amount of automation that would be illegal. 

I think it's clear enough as it is. What TKR's bot does is not automation and thus perfectly legal.

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Make the trade available 30 seconds after it's confirmed so you have 30 seconds to remove it after you notice the mistake or put a message that sums up the trade and requires a confirmation before the trade goes online

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If I messed up on a trade offer on the open market, I would blame myself for posting it & be more careful in the future. So I wouldn’t ask for a refund or get mad at whoever took advantage of it.

So my viewpoint is any offers posted are fair game & getting mad over people taking advantage of good deals is pointless.

libertyribbon.png

 

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51 minutes ago, Noctis said:

If I messed up on a trade offer on the open market, I would blame myself for posting it & be more careful in the future. So I wouldn’t ask for a refund or get mad at whoever took advantage of it.

So my viewpoint is any offers posted are fair game & getting mad over people taking advantage of good deals is pointless.

Says the guy that picked up my food offers ?

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