A new exodus marking "rule"?

Rill wrote: Marking armies should be used for when a city is actually moving -- either a settler or an Exodusing city.  This is a courteous way to say "heads up, something is happening here pretty soon" and can prevent problems with 2-3 cities piling up at the same location.   If a player sees a marking army within 5-10 squares of where he/she desires to place a city, it is prudent to contact the owner of the army to ask if there is something going on there, particularly if one is planning a Tenaril move.  Otherwise, you may Tenaril a city adjacent to a square to which someone already has a city Exodusing or settling, and that's a giant headache for all involved.  It's usually better to try to negotiate the space BEFORE you have 3 cities all hoping to claim the same high-food square. A marking army is thus a point at which to begin negotiations.  The nature of those negotiations will likely be determined by the relative power and interests of the parties involved (such as proximity to an alliance hub, previous history between the players in question, blah, blah).

So, just to clarify, if a siege was ongoing to prepare for a Tenaril move to a location with 0 cities in the 10x10 area, in your opinion, this would be a legitimate reason to send a marking army? Since the location was definitely going to be teleported to and the siege was already en route.

In my opinion, if someone sees a marking army they should scout it, contact the player involved and ask their intentions. I agree, placing marking armies on squares you may or may not wish to settle is ridiculous but in the cases of complicated moves (e.g. terraforming) where a player is actively seeking to improve the map by placing 7 food squares in strategic locations, respecting marking armies is imperative as these take a lot of preparation - especially if the siege army to destroy the 450 pop city has 1 week to travel to the newbie ring (which is usually the case)

Imagine how you would feel, having gone to the trouble of finding a square which as devoid of anyone in the 10x10, sent a marking army to the square to hold it whilst waiting for your siege and by the time you went to teleport, someone had settled/exodused too close >.< That seems, to me, a very disrespectful thing to do and one would hope in such scenarios that the other party would be very understanding.

I deal with a lot of newbies who exo/tele and as soon as they start researching exodus, we begin scouting for locations. Spots are marked a few days before they intend to move and they absolutely WILL move to those squares within the week, two weeks maximum if there are complications such as waiting for confed requests to be accepted. I have always expected their armies to be respected and we always seek permission from all in the 10x10 range before moving. Remember that these players can't teleport until exodus finishes and they pick their teleport spot to be close to their exodus one.

It's common practice for us, as with many, and people ignoring them causes a huge headache - especially as if these people would ask and hold off, we'd be perfect happy for them to settle a reasonable distance away once they have, for instance, teleported in.

Exodus!!! 

Edited by Aral - 15 Mar 2013 at 05:45

In general I would agree, after all if they are in your 10 square area and have not sought your agreement for them to settle there, you are within your rights to attack that occupation.