Guidelines:

- Read the FAQ! I cannot stress this enough!
- Make clear in the thread that you are switching (or not) and discuss there if needed.
- Send everybody involved in your game an email as well. This is very important! Some people do not check the thread but play a turn when it comes.
- The first few days when you send a turn, you might want to send a (seperate) email with it indicating what ruleset you are using.
- If the situation prolongs that people in this community do not want to switch, the risk of problems exist. I therefore would advise to back up your turns (v14 AND v13) on a more regular basis as an extra security this coming month.

What can go wrong?
The v1.4 resources are compatible with v1.3. That means you will get no error or restart-messages when you continue the game.
This compatibility is great, and it is exactly what a patch should do. But it also holds some risks: what if, for some reason, people do not want to switch (yet)? The following situations can occur:

Situation 1: We agreed to continue in v13 but someone accidentily played the turn in v14.
You may want to postphone the use of the patch in your very close laddergame (or decide to not use it at all) and you have continued with v1.3. Either by not upgrading to the v1.4-patch or simply using the v1.3 patchresources.
- Replay -> try and track down who accidentily sent the turn and have the player before him resend the turn in v13.
- Continue in v1.4. -> because the changes are subtle, it may be very had to trace where it went 'wrong'. Can save you a lot of trouble.

Situation 2: We decided to continue in v13 but played a whole round in v14 without noticing!
Because the changes are subtle, it may be very had to trace where it went wrong. Perhaps you have been playing a whole round without noticing and nobody has a backup
- Continue in v1.4. -> If the v13 turns are all overwritten, this is the best and maybe only viable option. You cannot replay. The alternative is not nice.
- Continue in v1.3. -> Units will keep their new v1.4 abilities and there might even missing priests (if you had built any in the meantime). It should be possible to continue in v13, but it will be a mess for some time... I strongly do not recommend this!

Situation 3: We are playing v1.4 but someone accidentily had the v13 resources active and sent a turn with v13.
- Replay -> try and track down who accidentily sent the turn and have the player before him resend the turn in v13. Have a backup file.
- Continue in v1.4. -> This is NOT the best idea, but you can. Tell the person to be more careful in the future! The priests might give problems and disappear, so restarting is a better idea!

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- On a v1.3 map: How will I know someone accidentily played a v14 turn when we agreed to continue in v13?
Units already on the map will have abilities added that were previously not in v13. Eg, Knights will have 'block', and archers 'strike', for example. This will be easy to spot.

- On a v1.3 map: How will I know someone accidentily played a v13 turn when we agreed to continue in v14?
Your racial priest would have disappeared. Units built in cities under v14 will have abilities that were previously removed in v14. For example, the Knight will have Willpower (if no crusader). This is harder to see.

- On a v1.4 map: How will I know someone accidentily played a v13 turn?
This is easy, any map made with v1.4 will (very likely) use new structures and terraintiles. These will not appear in the game, then.
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None of the above have to ruin your game, but you will understand that I strongly recommend everybody to all switch. Next to the numerous advantages as listed in the feature list, everybody patching in all situations will prevent the above situations and will make it easier for everyone.

~ Swolte

[This message has been edited by swolte (edited 12-01-2005 @ 09:50 AM).]