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NumNum 
New Poster
Joined: 01 Apr 2012
Status: Offline
Points: 19
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 Topic: To catch a thief?
Posted: 11 Apr 2012 at 08:34 |
What in the world is this player doing and how did he/she do it?
Rill thought it might be a player trying to expand diplo bubble to catch a thief.
This awesome sight passed through my diplo bubble today at 07:09:35 and maintained it's Z shape the whole time.
Five minutes later it looked like this:
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Rill
Postmaster General
Player Council - Geographer
Joined: 17 Jun 2011
Location: California
Status: Offline
Points: 6903
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Posted: 11 Apr 2012 at 08:40 |
If that was player-generated, color me extremely impressed. To maintain the configuration, they would have to be sent from a number of cities and precisely timed.
Thanks for pointing it out, Num.
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lokifeyson
Forum Warrior
Joined: 29 Jul 2010
Status: Offline
Points: 211
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Posted: 11 Apr 2012 at 08:48 |
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now that's how you do it
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Albatross
Postmaster General
Joined: 11 May 2011
Status: Offline
Points: 1118
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Posted: 11 Apr 2012 at 10:16 |
That's someone having the map pointing to an area fairly distant from their town (the suspected source), and doing [click, Send Diplo, (back)] on a line of squares, back and forth. I must say that the timing looks very regular. Incidentally, it would have been more efficient to space them out a bit more, unless the target is really far away. ...and if someone really wants to, they can examine the screenshots to see where it came from :o)
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Albatross
Postmaster General
Joined: 11 May 2011
Status: Offline
Points: 1118
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Posted: 11 Apr 2012 at 10:22 |
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It's probably the first letter of a scrolling message. Morse code (using pulse width modulation) would use less diplos, but would take longer to send. It's incorruptible, but not snoop-proof, though I think Huffman encoding and encryption would be taking it a bit far.
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SugarFree
Forum Warrior
Joined: 09 Feb 2012
Status: Offline
Points: 350
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Posted: 11 Apr 2012 at 13:38 |
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this is outstanding
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Brids17
Postmaster General
Joined: 30 Jul 2010
Location: Canada
Status: Offline
Points: 1483
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Posted: 11 Apr 2012 at 16:34 |
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I kind of suspect someone used a script to pull this off but who knows, maybe they just had some incredible timing...
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HonoredMule
Postmaster General
Joined: 05 Mar 2010
Location: Canada
Status: Offline
Points: 1650
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Posted: 11 Apr 2012 at 17:17 |
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Judging by how far the formation drifted over 5 minutes, it probably took about 10 minutes to launch them all. Over that large a span, the timing of individual launches needn't be all that precise.
With that in mind, it was very likely not intentional, but simply the result of methodically launching diplomats to cover a fan of territory, sweeping back and forth.
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"Apparently, quoting me is a 'thing' now."
- HonoredMule
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Hora
Postmaster
Joined: 10 May 2010
Status: Offline
Points: 839
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Posted: 11 Apr 2012 at 17:46 |
Hi all,
those diplos where mine, actually. 
And those only was the middle part, with two smaller Z's coming in front and after.
The Z happend by covering three rows of land one after the other, using four kinds of diplos, and no program was used here, just some 10 minutes of constant clicking, sending out 170 diplos each on it's own. After those 3 rows I gave up, else it would have become a W... or VW or even worse 
The foto was taken after round about 1.5 days travelling.
It was made out of pure boredom, but I was highly amused about all the theories made above, and the idea to use that to catch a thief really might work 
Edited by Hora - 11 Apr 2012 at 17:47
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Rill
Postmaster General
Player Council - Geographer
Joined: 17 Jun 2011
Location: California
Status: Offline
Points: 6903
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Posted: 11 Apr 2012 at 18:55 |
Congrats Hora -- very nice!
/me foresees a trend of interesting diplo configurations floating over the map.
An Illyrian form of smoke signals?
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To catch a thief?
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