That was YOUR WIN firewalkwithme - I have been messed up on food LOTS and starved for many rounds - I take my lumps as it was MY ERROR - if 3 players did this at the same time and left one with an advantage, which he then used, well so be it. 3 players get to starve - IT IS NOT JUSTIFICATION to kick him.

Maplefish stated it PERFECTLY.

firewalkwithme, join my game anytime - I will not kick you if you gain that advantage in one of my games.

Please remember all....in real life he would have sold and got as much as he could for the food as opposed to letting it rot.

As to the "need" justification - be careful what you wish for - someday someone might "need" something you have and will take it because they "need" it.

fire planted food, bad luck hit the other 3....fire's win

    Totally agree with you Michael.  But that doesn't mean I plan on letting you stand behind me anytime soon!

    As I recall two players had to tap their *buttons* at the same time, not their painsticks.

     I pretty much agree with Maplefish, and feel his perspective excellent here.

    I like that you can find out what events happened in the auto-hosted rooms.  I don't want to see this feature withdrawn.

   My favorite is "Run Stubby Run!"  No, that's not name calling.  Just saying.

---The One with the Eye.

    I see nothing rude with saying you won't sell food no matter how much anyone offers.  It just saves other players time from running up in the auction.  It doesn't sound like firewalk acted rude in any way.  If he acted rude, I can see booting him.  But, booting him for NOT selling food doesn't have a justification.  It's simply the wrong thing to do.  It comes as your responsibility to make your own food.  Take responsibility for your actions and accept the consequences of your choices.  One can argue that kicking him for not selling food, in fact, consists of a form of cheating.  After all, he couldn't kick you for not producing food.  The AI only sells food in such a situation because it doesn't have any way to know that it shouldn't in such a situation.  So you basically open up "The Game Genie" since you couldn't beat BattleToads the normal way (well... no one could).

    I think I've had 2 games where I've produced food early, a fire happened, and I ended up with all the colony's food for a round or two, and I haven't sold food.  Pretty sure I won those games because of that.  Some other player had a food plot, but it didn't produce anything/some other player got the package and eventually produced food.  I don't feel any remorse that I cheated anyone out of "fun".  I think in one game I also let everyone starve for 3-4 turns, and then finally sold a food unit or two.  It does seem true to me that you can benefit more by selling food after having everyone starve for 3-4 turns for a high price, since if none of your opponents do anything with their plots for 3-4 turns you really have such a good position that if you have an idea of how to play well, you have a very high probability of winning just from having 3-4 more turns of development.  However, if you don't want to sell food, you can ensure your victory by not selling food in such a situation.  It makes for a good strategic play.

    Funny thing, it seems that firewalk got penalized for his announcement that he would play strategically well, and that he did indeed play strategically well.  If this did in fact happen, shame on the host for booting, and if the other players approved of it, shame on those other players. 

    Other than the food/energy problem, I've enjoyed the beta tests of MULE 2 that I've played, and it looks good to me so far.  I like the direction it seems headed in.

    It's probably too late for this for MULE 2, but after playing a game where I didn't pick up any plots at all, at least one of the other 3 players told me they found it interesting playing a game with just 3 players grabbing land.  Might MULE play well with anywhere between, and including, 3 and 6 players?

    I'll just re-note the food and energy problems we had in the test game on March 13.  They didn't spike once the store got bought out on turn 11, but they rose early and stayed high until the store had plenty of units.  I think the speed of the leggite (which I used a bunch in the test game, if you recall), seems about right (maybe faster if anything).  That it seems more difficult to control fits, as, at least in my mind, changing plots comes as an "advanced" playing technique that takes care to execute well.

    My experience comes at that even though ore can get manipulated, if no one wants to manipulate it past a certain point but you... you'd better have good crystite plots/hope for low crystite prices and/or pirates.  I've seen plenty of games where players with the better crystite plots end passing those who had strong smithore runs late.

    I like the bot:auctions command.

    Here's the link http://www.planetmule.com/hi-score-game/game?game_id=40559

    I got dropped from the auto-hosted room in the middle of a game on March 1, 2011.  The room name was Hosted-289.  Below I have a screenshot of when the room took me out of the game.  I'll try and find the game link, once it's up.

     I thought they indicated they were working on the AI, or planning to do so.  Not sure though.

    I can't say if I played in this beta test and am not allowed to comment.  Actually, I got encouraged to discuss things.  I personally HATE losing the plot of land event, but I do think it makes things interesting.  The idea of a bigger map does make things interesting, and having different races with different abilities which you get to pick every turn I also like.  I would expect it would make things more strategically complex, which as long as you have a simpler game like M.U.L.E. around I would think would make M.U.L.E. 2 also interesting.  I would like to see the ability to sell land back.  I prefer the colony store more in the Atari 800 M.U.L.E. layout than the Nintendo-M.U.L.E. type layout it is in currently.  I definitely like the land grab phase where you run your species out to your plot, instead of the old "wait and click".  Players simultaneously outfitting mules does make things more interesting.  However, it seems awkward with 2 players at one time, and 3 players at another running around.  I don't see why the game should go up to 5 players.  It can sometimes get hard to find a room with 4 humans.  People also sometimes leave for various reasons.  So I would definitely prefer the game to have 4 players instead of 5.  Overall, it looks like it might end up a fun game to play!