I’m thinking about hosting a PitBoss game (using CivStats of course), but was curious about what people would recommend as the best settings for a first PitBoss game? I’d like to keep the number of players low since I’m running the PitBoss server on an underpowered laptop, but other than that am open to suggestions ….. Are there some ‘normal’ settings that people seem to prefer? i.e. does everybody play simultaneous turns? What about 'Take Over AI' (and just exactly does that mean?) How about the various game options, is that a matter of personal preference or are there some options that make more sense for a PitBoss game (I assume 'Lock Modified Assets' is sort of mandatory)?

Simultaneous turns is almost required. It's why people can log on and play their turns whenever they are able. Otherwise they have to play in order, which means turns will last much longer.

Take Over AI means that human players can take AI civs from them. It's not needed, but if it's probably easiest to leave it on to give yourself more flexibility as the administrator. For example, if a player goes AWOL you can Kick him out of the game, which gives it to an AI. Then you can find a new player who can take control of that civ. If there was no Take Over AI then you really couldn't do that. I'd definatly recommend having it on.

Also, I would recommend against allowing a player to take over an AI civ that starts as an AI. Because the AI gets extra units, techs, and faster production it would be unbalancing to let someone take that over on turn 10 or so.

The rest of the settings are kind of up to you, and only really impact the game in ways you'd expect. though you can put them to a vote of your players if you like.

As for my own personal tastes, I think having maps that are a little bit more crowded than normal makes for getting to the interesting gameplay sooner. So having 10 on Standard instead of 7, or i you're playing with five then a small map... .things like that. This could just be me. I like to play on higher difficulty levels on games with no AI, because it only effects the amount of free happy and healty faces, thus making trading resources more important. I feel that makes for more interesting multiplayer.

The nice part is, as the admin, you can do whatever you want! (except make it non-simultaneous turns! ;) )

Simultaneous turns is almost required. It's why people can log on and play their turns whenever they are able. Otherwise they have to play in order, which means turns will last much longer.

Take Over AI means that human players can take AI civs from them. It's not needed, but if it's probably easiest to leave it on to give yourself more flexibility as the administrator. For example, if a player goes AWOL you can Kick him out of the game, which gives it to an AI. Then you can find a new player who can take control of that civ. If there was no Take Over AI then you really couldn't do that. I'd definatly recommend having it on.

Also, I would recommend against allowing a player to take over an AI civ that starts as an AI. Because the AI gets extra units, techs, and faster production it would be unbalancing to let someone take that over on turn 10 or so.

The rest of the settings are kind of up to you, and only really impact the game in ways you'd expect. though you can put them to a vote of your players if you like.

As for my own personal tastes, I think having maps that are a little bit more crowded than normal makes for getting to the interesting gameplay sooner. So having 10 on Standard instead of 7, or i you're playing with five then a small map... .things like that. This could just be me. I like to play on higher difficulty levels on games with no AI, because it only effects the amount of free happy and healty faces, thus making trading resources more important. I feel that makes for more interesting multiplayer.

The nice part is, as the admin, you can do whatever you want! (except make it non-simultaneous turns! ;) )

Thanks for the suggestions!

What about an accelerated start? I’ve notice some games do this and assume it refers to scheduling a session at the beginning when all the players are online together to go through the early turns quickly. But is this done under the PitBoss server or as a regular MP session? Can you start a regular MP session, save the game and then restart as a PitBoss session? Any recommendations on how long (time/turns) an accelerated start should be?

I think you can start a regular MP session and load it later as pitboss, but I am not sure and have not attempted this myself.

A play session at the beginning has been done before. With that, the fewer people you have, the less chance of problems. There are some threads here about connection problems and Pitboss sessions that you should definatly read before attempting something like that, to save frustration. I tried to have such a session and it failed, but others have been able to.

If you are going to start with one, it's best to say so in your recruiting thread, and to set the time to one that works for you. If you get a bunch of people to sign up and afterwards try to find a time to meet it's probably not going to happen.

I think you can start a regular MP session and load it later as pitboss, but I am not sure and have not attempted this myself.

A play session at the beginning has been done before. With that, the fewer people you have, the less chance of problems. There are some threads here about connection problems and Pitboss sessions that you should definatly read before attempting something like that, to save frustration. I tried to have such a session and it failed, but others have been able to.

If you are going to start with one, it's best to say so in your recruiting thread, and to set the time to one that works for you. If you get a bunch of people to sign up and afterwards try to find a time to meet it's probably not going to happen.
Thank you.

If you want to do an accelerated start, do it as a LAN game using Hamachi, otherwise you will have serious problems.

It took us two hours to get started for mine :(