Use this thread for any Civ4, MTDG, team, etc. questions you may have that don't merit their own thread.

I have a question about working boats ... If they serve a similar role as a standard Worker ... does that mean that water tiles can be improved?

Are we looking at Aquaculture and Oild/Gas Rigs and maybe Bridges to conect land one tile away?

Only for fish, whales, and clams on the water tiles (where they build fishing nets), there are no actual "improvements" per se.

1. What is the timeline for one of these games? like 3 months? 6 months?

2. Is there more than one? If so do keep the same team? :)

3. I realize as the constitution is takign form it looks like the president gets to make the moves, are the rest of us (who have cIV) allowed to download and open the save but not play it?
--because in my experiene I find out alot mroe from being in game than from screenies or posts.

4. What type of pace / time commitment is required?
-- I would love to be an active memember and not just a lurker, but am concerned sicne I have my own wedding at the end of june.
--is it like 1 hour a day, 2 hours a week.

5. in the event that a cIV SGOTM starts up do we remain a team, can a fraction of this team becoem a team?

6. Concerning our team email, is there a password? can anyone read it?

7. My question from the constitution thread:
Are you allowed to be appointed to two different departments?
two different departments from seperate offices?
To me it seems to be okay if you were appointed to two seperate departments in the same office, but would it might be a conflict of interest to be in different departmental offices.

Finally if both of the above are allowed, at what point is it too much?
I.E. the maximum amount of departments one citizen may have is 2,3,4,5?

Thanks in advance

1. What is the timeline for one of these games? like 3 months? 6 months? The civ3 MTDG started in the summer, and it is far from over, so it will last a while.

2. Is there more than one? If so do keep the same team? :) I would doubt it, regent man and Ginger ale are already busy enough.


3. I realize as the constitution is takign form it looks like the president gets to make the moves, are the rest of us (who have cIV) allowed to download and open the save but not play it?
--because in my experiene I find out alot mroe from being in game than from screenies or posts.You should be able to load the game and look if you want by looking in the teams email.

6. Concerning our team email, is there a password? can anyone read it?
Once we choose a name someone will set up a g-mail account, and then post the address and password here, so everyone will be able to look in.

Those were the questions that I was really able to answer, someone else will have to fill in the rest, sorry.

1. What is the timeline for one of these games? like 3 months? 6 months?
The C3C MTDG started 10th June with people joining and on 28th July with the first save being sent ... it is now turn 101

2. Is there more than one? If so do keep the same team? :)
Don't think there will be ... only the one mentioned above.

3. I realize as the constitution is takign form it looks like the president gets to make the moves, are the rest of us (who have cIV) allowed to download and open the save but not play it?
--because in my experiene I find out alot mroe from being in game than from screenies or posts.
YES you may open the save ... :nono: but I would strongly advise against moving units into unexplored area, until the president has reported on our turn move ... to explore an area that the President has not is considered to be a breaking of the rules which could result in the administrators to take action (missing a turn, forced anarchy, being told off, maybe even :spank:) ... same goes for combat, goody hut popping, in fact anything that has a random chance of outcome associated with it.

4. What type of pace / time commitment is required?
-- I would love to be an active memember and not just a lurker, but am concerned sicne I have my own wedding at the end of june.
--is it like 1 hour a day, 2 hours a week.
Hardest question yet, you play as much as you wish ... the maximum time allocated per team is 24 hours per turn without asking for an extension. So all going well it will be maximum 5 days per turn. As to involvement, discussions on strategy and polling will occur between turns, as will the sending and receipt of diplomatic pigeon postage. Being a new game, I can also imagine that there will be much inter and intra team discussions on rules and cIV game mechanics, as there will about the game itself. So I guess the answer is ... as much as your new bride will allow :lol:

5. in the event that a cIV SGOTM starts up do we remain a team, can a fraction of this team becoem a team?
Other games have no bearing on the activities our members wish to persue, I am currently playing a SG with a number of the Piffle crowd.

6. Concerning our team email, is there a password? can anyone read it?
We will be getting a g-mail account which will be made available to all members ... hopefully it will be easy to remember and not too random :p

7. My question from the constitution thread:
Are you allowed to be appointed to two different departments?
two different departments from seperate offices?
To me it seems to be okay if you were appointed to two seperate departments in the same office, but would it might be a conflict of interest to be in different departmental offices.
I think that it is possible, if the Ministers agree ... I know that I can argue very well with myself :crazyeye:

Finally if both of the above are allowed, at what point is it too much?
I.E. the maximum amount of departments one citizen may have is 2,3,4,5?
It again depends on the Ministers, however as it stands there are only really 5 positions ... those that are elected, it is then upto the discretion of the Minister if they wish to deligate the full duties of their Department ... I'd also suggest that it will be dependant on the number of active players.

X-Post ... shows how eager we are to help ;)

8. Who goes first?
This may seem like a stupid question at first, and I am sure it is randomly decided, but I mean really when you play single player the human moves first, with the AI comming second. The main advatage of this is technically throughout the game you are 1 turn ahead. (meaning if I build a unit on turn X and get it to your city by turn X+10, you would be 1 turn behind in producing a defensive unit, I could attack on year Y, and your unit would be comming out on year Y of your turn, but since I move first, that unit is unavailable for you)

With 5 human teams, the team who moves first would have a small advantage.

With 5 human teams, the team who moves first would have a small advantage.

The developers cancelled out most of the first-mover advantages. All units are built at the same time, so if you rush a defender in your empty city it will be protected from anyone attacking next turn. All wonders are built at the same time, with ties resolved by the biggest overflow.

8. Who goes first?
This may seem like a stupid question at first, and I am sure it is randomly decided, but I mean really when you play single player the human moves first, with the AI comming second. The main advatage of this is technically throughout the game you are 1 turn ahead. (meaning if I build a unit on turn X and get it to your city by turn X+10, you would be 1 turn behind in producing a defensive unit, I could attack on year Y, and your unit would be comming out on year Y of your turn, but since I move first, that unit is unavailable for you)

With 5 human teams, the team who moves first would have a small advantage.

If it is ordered like the previous one, we will as we are the 5th Team :evil:

I assume that in cIV the barbs move at the end of all players and AIs and are therefore viewed by last player :)

3. I realize as the constitution is takign form it looks like the president gets to make the moves, are the rest of us (who have cIV) allowed to download and open the save but not play it?
--because in my experiene I find out alot mroe from being in game than from screenies or posts.
YES you may open the save ... but I would strongly advise against moving units into unexplored area, until the president has reported on our turn move ... to explore an area that the President has not is considered to be a breaking of the rules which could result in the administrators to take action (missing a turn, forced anarchy, being told off, maybe even ) ... same goes for combat, goody hut popping, in fact anything that has a random chance of outcome associated with it.

I think a little clarification is in order here. Fe was being polite, and I'm afraid that people who haven't played a MTDG won't understand this clearly.

You may not move units, finalize trades, data-mine the save file, or do anything else that will give you information that is not available in-game. IN other words: You can open the save, and check different info screens, and even move sliders (as long as you don't change anything permanently), but you can't tinker!

For instance: If I open our save before the president has played, saved, and sent the turn, I CANNOT move units. If I move a scout onto a hill, he will see terrain (and possibly units) that the President may not reveal when the turn is played. The result is that a member of our team has out-of-game information. (I suppose I could move workers around, not revealing anything not already visible, but what's the point of that?)

There are, I'm sure, many other things that should be avoided, but unit-moving is the most obvious (and tempting!). That's why I think an across-the-board prohibition on moving units is a good idea. If no-one but the President (or turnplayer-designate) moves units, there won't be any problems.

Thank you for the clarification,
This is all very good information.

I am glad however that there is not a ban on opening the file, as I am assuming once this game ramps up that I will be active in discussion, with the game also open at the current point (not moving any units ;) ) but exactly what you said tinkering with sliders, to make arguments, shifting around citizens to see differnt calculated values over 5 turns, 10 turns 20 turns etc. My ablility to do these calculations and forecasts will rely on my ability to extract the data from in game and not soley from turn log and screen shoots.
i.e. it is easier to move the tech slider from
80% 10% 10%
to
70% 20% 10%
in game and see the effect of the libraries, banks, etc. than to sit and figure all that out on paper :lol:

9.Is there any treaty which can't be broken? can that be made a clause?
I am starting to read and learn alot about backstabbing


10. Do all teams get benefit of knowing when a treaty gets broken? (not an ingame one such as declaring war, this would break the peac, I know we would be notified of this) but one such as well will trade all techs until year X

9.Is there any treaty which can't be broken? can that be made a clause?
I am starting to read and learn alot about backstabbing
In SP, I don't think the game doesn't allow a peace treaty to be broken for 10 turns. I assume that is in effect, not sure though


10. Do all teams get benefit of knowing when a treaty gets broken? (not an ingame one such as declaring war, this would break the peac, I know we would be notified of this) but one such as well will trade all techs until year X
In SP, I think the game doesn't allow a peace treaty to be broken for 10 turns. I assume that is in effect in this event, not sure though. In general though, and correct me if I'm wrong, it seems that it's just up to the foreign minister to tell other civs about backstabbing. I would guess that backstabbing would occur less in this event than non team MP.

9.Is there any treaty which can't be broken? can that be made a clause?
I am starting to read and learn alot about backstabbing
All treaties can be broken ... although some teams have more honour than others

10. Do all teams get benefit of knowing when a treaty gets broken? (not an ingame one such as declaring war, this would break the peac, I know we would be notified of this) but one such as well will trade all techs until year X
Teams who are directly linked to the treaty will know ... others will rely on espionage or analysis of information summary screens, or being told ... however teams have been known to exaggearte, under-rate or even whisper wildly screaming lies :lol:




The whole thing about treaties is being discussed in the UN ... under Ruules I think. :D


EDIT ... Thinking about treaties that cannot be broken ... I guess that administrators have the power to set constraints or force teams not to act, etc.

Therefore ... in this case there may be treaties that cannot be broken, because they have been forced onto the teams by the administrators.

@ fe3333au. Is the diplomacy that untrustyworthy in a multi-team event? I would think that, in an event like this, teams would focus on establishing trust and break that only rarely (like a sneak massive and overpowering invasion.) But, maybe it doesn't play out like that.:(

11.What difficulty is the game played on?
Although it is too late now, and probably wouldn't make a difference(to civ selection since expantionist is more valuable the harder the difficulty) since it will be the same for all teams, and I would assume it is noble, the difficulty the game is set at makes a difference for goody hut odds% and such
Should this be mentioned at the UN? if it has already sorry I missed it.

@ kojimanard - Is diplomacy trustworthy?
Hmmm ... I would hope that it is, but some players hold stronger to honour than others. Generally initial deals function as one off tentative trades, with both teams waiting for all the goods to be locked into the swap before it is activated. But if things continue to develop, I believe that later trades are gifted with no security necessary. Alliances and understandings are different, long term partnerships require the human players to draft and agree to various wordings, these types of contracts only come into effect when both parties agree to the terms. These are harder to 'police' and back stabbing occurs when one party abandons or disregards the terms or when both parties interpret the terms differently. :lol: Hope this generalisation works for you. ;)

11.What difficulty is the game played on?
Although it is too late now, and probably wouldn't make a difference(to civ selection since expantionist is more valuable the harder the difficulty) since it will be the same for all teams, and I would assume it is noble, the difficulty the game is set at makes a difference for goody hut odds% and such
Should this be mentioned at the UN? if it has already sorry I missed it.
:confused: I would bring it up at the UN, because as far as I recall it has not been discussed.

The reason I didn't want to bring it up was because if no others teams notice/know/care it could be a small advantage on our team's behalf because everything does change slightly with difficulty level

But in the aspect of fair sport...as well as the fact I am 99% sure it will be noble I will make a point of it. ;)

I didn't think that this quite diserved it's own thread, and this thread fit it the best it seemed however weirdly, so:

In the civ3 MTDG the god was Meleet, named after the beloved (and still beloved! Worry not Rik!) moderator. I don't know if this is too short term, but something to think about whould be to make our god in this game Sirian, after all, he is creating the universe! ;)

It would be rather neat to have the team (for the most part) that "realized" the god for the previous game, to "find" the god for this.

I don't know how we would want to introduce this, maybe with a newspaper like before, although I would not be the one to do it as I am "graphicly challenged" you might say.

I wonder if there is any way they could give each team thier starting position picture (as IN GOTM) so we can have a look prepatch?

That would at least give me something to do at work :mischief: (can't play)
But I can still calculate formulas :evil:

real quick question

1) when is the game itself slated to start (tyring to read as much as I can before this)

As far as I know (and anyone should correct me if I'm wrong here...) the game will not begin before the next patch comes out, which some people (who may or may not know anything) have put around March 30.

That's the best I know..

Question: As I have no experience in MTDG games I can only assume that it is primarily combat based. From my readings on PBEM and multi-players games it appears that its nothing but warmongering. Am I correct in assuming that the MTDG is the same way?

Question: As I have no experience in MTDG games I can only assume that it is primarily combat based. From my readings on PBEM and multi-players games it appears that its nothing but warmongering. Am I correct in assuming that the MTDG is the same way?

The Civ3 MTDG has actually been quite peaceful. Of the 4 teams, 1 tried warmongering early, and is now being punished for playing poorly. 2 teams have remained peaceful, though there have been some tense moments, and have benefitted from the peace.

I think you can expect a similar situation in the Civ4 game. While in many PBEMs people go to war for the sake of fighting, it is difficult to convince a whole team of well-trained players that war is better than infrastructure.

Just to add another thing ... Epsilon is set as a democracy, for war to occur a majority of citizens (that vote at the time) have to agree for it. I assume that the majority of other teams will behave in a similar manner.

This suggests that for war to occur, an extended debate has listed the pros and cons for this action ... and the benefits of an aggressive stance have far out weighed peace or neutrality.

I've found in single and pbem games that one reason for war is boredom, this will not be a factor in this type of game.

While I've not been involved in a war in this type of game, even being near war is also an unexpected exciting situation ... more and more of the peace faction bolster the ranks of the war party, while the dedicated peaceniks continue to argue against. Diplomacy really adds to this environment ... on one hand trying to disuade the aggressive rival from action (while still maintaining a proud stance) ... on the other trying to rally support from neighbours using every trick in the book from bribing to badgering.

If you are a virgin to this type of game, you better hold onto your panties cos you are in for one hell of a roller coaster ride :lol:

I was going to post in the Economy thread ... but as it seems to be purely for reporting I am unsure where to post queries to relivant Ministers.

I have an economic question ... do you see that setting aside a small sum of income for the Foreign Department to be able to tap into at it's discretion could be an option?

Could be related to how much income the Foreign Office adds to the coffers through trade and goody huts.

I'm thinking about the frustration that probably all Foreign Ministers feel when they want to utilise some of the more costly activities open to their department.
ie. establishing embassies and then later sending out the black ops and spies on missions to steal, disrupt production, insite rebellion among the target populous, etc.

So what about creating a special fund which the Foreign Minister can utilise for these darker purposes.

I'd assume some discussion would happen, but when these ideas goto votes, how many times are these ideas rejected because their is always more important things to spend cash on ...

Thinking more on adding to the 'fun factor' of the game.

It makes elections more interesting as well ... questions could be asked about intentions on spending the black purse ;)

There are no embassies in civ4. :p

Yes, it does make sense, though I wonder how much the Economic minister would be willing to give up?

Also remember that it takes about 200 gold per attempt by a spy at destroying an improvement.

yes - also in Civ4 spies don't come until very late in the game. It's totally possible this game won't ever get that far.

However - having a budget for Foreign to use to give/loan to other teams for other purposes is certainly a possibility.

Does it still cost to steal tech and such ... or is this done with a unit?

The Civ3 MTDG has actually been quite peaceful. Of the 4 teams, 1 tried warmongering early, and is now being punished for playing poorly. 2 teams have remained peaceful, though there have been some tense moments, and have benefitted from the peace.

I think you can expect a similar situation in the Civ4 game. While in many PBEMs people go to war for the sake of fighting, it is difficult to convince a whole team of well-trained players that war is better than infrastructure.
Speak for yourself. :p

Here's what the civilopedia says on spies:

http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/5655/spy17yr.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/8012/spy26we.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/783/spy39qu.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


So remember that you have to build a national wonder to be able to build spies in a very limited amount (and only 2 National Wonders can be built per city!), and there is no ability to steal a tech.

By the time we get to spies in this game (if it makes it that far) I will already have children :rolleyes:

With the exception of my first game and the one game I played to spaceship win, I have never made it that far into the tech tree :crazyeye:

I doubt that we will go that far.

Don't speak too soon C_H ... just look at the Civ3 MTDG :p

Proof of the unpredicibility of not only human opponents ... but a meld of differing personalities, playstyles and agendas.

Don't speak too soon C_H ... just look at the Civ3 MTDG :p

Proof of the unpredicibility of not only human opponents ... but a meld of differing personalities, playstyles and agendas.
If I had it my way, things would be so much different. :rolleyes:

It's what makes the game interesting personally, and it isn't like there is just one person, with his/her own personality, it has a large mix of personalities, and so is not quite as easy to predict.

Hello, I think this is where I can ask questions?

Any advice on where I should start to catch up?

How long until we start, now that the patch is out? (that is why I waited to join a team)

How long until we start, now that the patch is out? (that is why I waited to join a team

I think we'll find out in the next few days. I would check the main Civ4 Multil-Team Demogame forum (http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=181). (The parent forum for this one) The projected start date will certainly be posted there.

But there are still a few things to finalize before we start. We have to have a map to play on (Sirian is building a custom map for us); we have to establish the ruleset. There aren't many things to decide on before the ruleset is established, but you can follow the discussion here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=157621)

Memphus proposed that an internal discussion be made and a UN vote be taken about the new option of a civilization surviving until all units are killed.

Judging by GA's (one of the two game administrators) lack of support ... I sense that we are only now waiting for the map to be subitted ... and that he is very very very eager to start the game :D

Indeed I am fe3333au! :)

I can let you guys know the most of the map has been made, we're soon to be testing it out, but other than that, we should be good to go very soon! (Also just waiting on the ruleset, which shouldn't take more than a few days to edit, then a few days to poll).

In the Civ3 MTDG, team KISS is the last to play. Therefore, they are the only team to witness certain events, like Barbarian movement.

Epsilon Team! is in the analogous spot here. Are there any game events or features that we will have sole access to?

Hmmm that is a great question but which I do not know the answer to :(, I will check it out later tonight, but then again who knows what Sirian has enabled/disabled inside the game. Maybe no one gets to see this.

One thing we can note though is on our first turn (well actually any turn) how many of the otherteam founded on site or one tile away.

(If we open up the top 5 cities screen, we can see how many cities were founded before we even move.)

We can also get an idea for what tiles worked by the others team once we know how many cities were founded off the hop. (I'll do the math and post the results)

So with that Mr. President the Domestic Officer asks for screen shots of the
Top Five Cities page
Demographics page

(you can take them before or after you settler our city as our numbers won't affect anything)

Hey - is anyone else having trouble seeing post #31 (and others?) in the State of the Empire thread?

I made a post there a couple minutes ago, and I was able to read it. My post showed up as #32, but I'm not sure I trust that.

I've not been able to view any post after #30 for a couple of days now. I thought it was just my crappy compy, but I've checked it on two others now, and still the same result: Clicking on "first unread post" brings me to post 21 :confused: