DMOC
Mar 20, 2010, 10:24 PM
Hello everyone and welcome to the first planning topic for the Team Mavericks intra-team pitboss game (which will be different from our multi-team demogame). Basically, what we’re going to have is a “private” pitboss game that will be composed of the team members. Now you won’t be able to abuse the AI’s incompetence anymore, since you’ll be up against a field of humans in a pitboss game!
Speaking of pitboss games, here’s how they work. A map is created that will be hosted by one computer – most likely mine – and other players can connect to that map via IP address. Please refer to classical_hero’s excellent guide on how to start and exit a pitboss game HERE (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=357470). (Be sure to remember to exit to the main menu and not the desktop!) As long as my internet connection is stable, the game will remain “available” for logging in at all times, so you can log in before you go to work or school, or you can log in during the evenings. Added on to the game is a built in feature called the turn timer. Usually, pitboss games have a turn timer set between 20 and 48 hours, where the timer sets the length of time that each player has to play his turn before the turn rolls over to the next. In other words, if you fail to log in the pitboss game throughout the duration of the timer, you miss your turn. This isn’t as bad as it sounds, though, since you can easily queue up technological, unit, and city build orders. In addition, production in cities will proceed normally (if you have five turns left for a granary and you don’t play the turn, you will still have four turns left to complete the granary next turn – which is correct). For those of you worrying that a long turn timer might delay the game – don’t worry too much. If everyone finishes his or her turn before the turn timer is up, the turn will automatically “roll over” to the next turn. Be sure to actually end your turn, though, by clicking ENTER.
You can tell who has or who has not ended his turn by seeing if there is an asterisk (*) by his name, or by looking at CivStats, a very handy tool for keeping track of a pitboss game’s progress.
With the game hopefully starting soon, it’s time to get some guidelines and rules straightened out. Pitboss creates a sticky situation during wartime, where the player who goes last in the turn order can play his turn, end it, and start the next turn. Effectively, he gets two turns to move his troops in which his opponent cannot react to that – clearly unfair. The solution to this is to make sure we avoid double-moves and we can do that to the best of our ability by discussing with our opponents the order we should make our turns. For instance, Civ A declares war on Civ B while there are 21 hours left on the turn timer, and Civ B has not logged in the game yet. Assuming we’re playing with a 24 hour turn timer, Civ A should immediately contact Civ B by sending a PM on CivFanatics stating the turn order, (Civ A goes first, then Civ B goes second for the duration of the war). Double moves get complicated with three or more civs at war at the same time – so that will hopefully be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. You can use CivStats to check if your opponent has ended his turn. (We can also adopt the same rules that will be used for the demogame as a whole - input please! :) )
A second issue involves city gifting. In the interest of fairness, I think that we should ban city gifting with one exception. The reason is that, if Civ A declared war on Civ B and was about to capture Civ B’s city, Civ B could gift Civ C (who Civ A is not at war with) the city, which means that Civ A won’t be able to capture it unless he declares war on Civ C. Furthermore, if Civ A, B, and C are all on one island together, Civ B could gift every city except his capital to Civ C, creating a monster Civ C that could destroy Civ A easily. The only exception to this rule is that you can always gift a city to the person threatening you in war – perhaps in exchange for a conditional surrender or a peace treaty.
In order to start the game, we need to think about map settings. The most important thing for us to know is how many players are interested in participating in the intra-team pitboss game. If we get fewer than ten players to sign up, then it might be best to go with a smaller map. However, if we get 18 to sign up (a possibility, since our team roster outnumbers that), then we’ll definitely have to use a huge map. If there are some players not interested in a huge map, due to their computer’s ability to run CIV or other factors, then please consider teaming up with one other player to form one civ led by two players. This is especially great for players who may not be able to play every day – one day, the first player can play and in the second day, the other player takes over. The pitboss games over at Realms Beyond Civilization forums have utilized the method of having two to three players teaming up to control a single civilization, and it’s worked well over there. Obviously, coordination between the two players is a must.
Here are my recommended map settings:
1. Game Speed – Normal
2. Barbarians – Normal (But not raging)
3. Difficulty Level – Monarch (So maintenance costs are reasonable, tech advances slower which extends the usefulness of military units, and barbarians are somewhat threatening but nowhere to the extent of immortal/deity)
4. Map size – Depends on players, but preferably Huge
5. Vassal States Off (Eliminates colonial maintenance, and prevents humans from being voluntary vassals to other humans with the intent of making that master more powerful)
6. Random Events Off (It’s already been proven that you can circumvent bad events anyway)
7. Tribal Villages Off (It’s not fun when you pop 5 barbarian warriors from a hut, or when your neighbor gets Horseback Riding for free)
8. New Random Seed on Reload
9. Allow Duplicate Leaders (OR – allow unrestricted leaders, but NO duplicates, which is similar to how the Realms Beyond Pitboss games work)
The other three options that we need to discuss are if tech trading should be on, off, or brokered, the turn timer, and the type of map. My personal preference is that tech trading should be off, the turn timer should be 24 hours, and the map should be a balanced map, custom made by an outsider (hopefully we can get someone like Krill to make a map for us ;) ). However, I’m all for listening to your suggestions. Here’s why I support my reasons:
I prefer tech trading off, because if it’s on, that forces players to be involved in a technological alliance, and can become frustrating for diplomacy when someone is the odd man out just because his scout happened to die on the fifth turn in the game due to some bad luck so he never got to quickly meet everyone else to negotiate tech trade deals or embargos. In addition, with tech trading on and humans playing instead of the AI, we end up with games where Liberalism could easily be discovered in the BC’s, and tanks can be reached by 1000 AD, which kind of takes away from the military side of the game if units become obsolete so quickly. With tech trading off, we’re looking at longer, but more exciting games, where wars are more feasible and players have to really analyze their situation to decide what they want to research. Now, we COULD decide to play epic speed (yes obsolete ;) ) but that means that the game will take much longer to complete and drag on. A compromise between no technology trading and technology trading allowed is the setting “no tech brokering,” which is an interesting option. It still forces players to be involved in technological alliances, but it won’t affect the game as much in terms of world teching speed than with normal tech trading. Also, no tech brokering might be a nice way for someone really advanced to help out a beginner player struggling in technology. In conclusion, I prefer no tech trading, then my second option would be no tech brokering, then my third option would be tech trading normal.
The second option I support is a 24 hour turn timer. The pitboss timer is slower in real life, so the actual time might be 26-28 hours depending on how often players login the game, since when players login a pitboss game, an extra minute or so is added on to the turn timer. However, having a timer at 24 hours is still nice since it’s an easy number to remember, and it also guarantees a small window of playing your turn should you be without access for 24 hours without internet and CIV. Having a timer less than that (say, 18 hours) and you risk too many players missing their turns. Having a timer much greater than 24 hours, such as 48 hours, means that the game drags on and more players are likely to “drop out” and require substitutes. Also, with 24 hours, you can easily divide up the time into 12 hour segments for wars (i.e. Civ A is allowed to play for the first 12 hours or so during war, and Civ B can play during the second 12 hour segment, or as soon as Civ A is finished with his turn and the asterisk appears on his name in the scoreboard and in CivStats.
Finally, the third option has to do with how the map is created. I would STRONGLY suggest that we have our map custom–made, if possible. (And preferably by someone well known around CivFanatics.) I have seen so many maps which put a player in an isolated piece of ice with no chance of winning, while putting a player who has Darius as his leader right in the center of the map with gold, floodplains, and horses. In an effort to have a fair map, I would suggest we ask someone not playing the game to create a balanced map for us. Furthermore, I would also suggest that we play with a pangea-like map so we all have contact with each other before Optics (but not exactly like the pangea that the standard Civ map builder creates – since there would be different challenges in being the central civs and being a coastal civ). The second Realms Beyond Civilization pitboss has a really good map design where the map is loosely shaped in a ring, and everyone starts on the coast (with, I believe, at least 1 land food resource and 1 seafood resource). The central part of the map is water, but has an island with resources not found on the main continent. In addition, each player has his own small “pocket” island next to his capital. What I really liked about the map is that the player is given a ton of valid options, including moving inland, settling on the islands versus the mainland, and going to war with their neighbors. The ring map makes it easy to get coastal trade route connections and it also makes diplomacy important, since each civ is guaranteed to border a minimum of two civilizations. In addition, a player could also perform a risky gambit of attacking across the world, assuming a cylindrical or toroidal map design. The best part of all is that if someone gets defeated, they simply can’t use the excuse “oh I had a bad start.”
Hopefully I was able to give an effective introduction while suggesting some game settings for our eventual pitboss game. If you’ve got any comments or questions you’d like me to add or clarify, feel free to post, and hopefully we can start up a second game thread in which we can sign up to play our selected leaders! :goodjob:
Speaking of pitboss games, here’s how they work. A map is created that will be hosted by one computer – most likely mine – and other players can connect to that map via IP address. Please refer to classical_hero’s excellent guide on how to start and exit a pitboss game HERE (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=357470). (Be sure to remember to exit to the main menu and not the desktop!) As long as my internet connection is stable, the game will remain “available” for logging in at all times, so you can log in before you go to work or school, or you can log in during the evenings. Added on to the game is a built in feature called the turn timer. Usually, pitboss games have a turn timer set between 20 and 48 hours, where the timer sets the length of time that each player has to play his turn before the turn rolls over to the next. In other words, if you fail to log in the pitboss game throughout the duration of the timer, you miss your turn. This isn’t as bad as it sounds, though, since you can easily queue up technological, unit, and city build orders. In addition, production in cities will proceed normally (if you have five turns left for a granary and you don’t play the turn, you will still have four turns left to complete the granary next turn – which is correct). For those of you worrying that a long turn timer might delay the game – don’t worry too much. If everyone finishes his or her turn before the turn timer is up, the turn will automatically “roll over” to the next turn. Be sure to actually end your turn, though, by clicking ENTER.
You can tell who has or who has not ended his turn by seeing if there is an asterisk (*) by his name, or by looking at CivStats, a very handy tool for keeping track of a pitboss game’s progress.
With the game hopefully starting soon, it’s time to get some guidelines and rules straightened out. Pitboss creates a sticky situation during wartime, where the player who goes last in the turn order can play his turn, end it, and start the next turn. Effectively, he gets two turns to move his troops in which his opponent cannot react to that – clearly unfair. The solution to this is to make sure we avoid double-moves and we can do that to the best of our ability by discussing with our opponents the order we should make our turns. For instance, Civ A declares war on Civ B while there are 21 hours left on the turn timer, and Civ B has not logged in the game yet. Assuming we’re playing with a 24 hour turn timer, Civ A should immediately contact Civ B by sending a PM on CivFanatics stating the turn order, (Civ A goes first, then Civ B goes second for the duration of the war). Double moves get complicated with three or more civs at war at the same time – so that will hopefully be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. You can use CivStats to check if your opponent has ended his turn. (We can also adopt the same rules that will be used for the demogame as a whole - input please! :) )
A second issue involves city gifting. In the interest of fairness, I think that we should ban city gifting with one exception. The reason is that, if Civ A declared war on Civ B and was about to capture Civ B’s city, Civ B could gift Civ C (who Civ A is not at war with) the city, which means that Civ A won’t be able to capture it unless he declares war on Civ C. Furthermore, if Civ A, B, and C are all on one island together, Civ B could gift every city except his capital to Civ C, creating a monster Civ C that could destroy Civ A easily. The only exception to this rule is that you can always gift a city to the person threatening you in war – perhaps in exchange for a conditional surrender or a peace treaty.
In order to start the game, we need to think about map settings. The most important thing for us to know is how many players are interested in participating in the intra-team pitboss game. If we get fewer than ten players to sign up, then it might be best to go with a smaller map. However, if we get 18 to sign up (a possibility, since our team roster outnumbers that), then we’ll definitely have to use a huge map. If there are some players not interested in a huge map, due to their computer’s ability to run CIV or other factors, then please consider teaming up with one other player to form one civ led by two players. This is especially great for players who may not be able to play every day – one day, the first player can play and in the second day, the other player takes over. The pitboss games over at Realms Beyond Civilization forums have utilized the method of having two to three players teaming up to control a single civilization, and it’s worked well over there. Obviously, coordination between the two players is a must.
Here are my recommended map settings:
1. Game Speed – Normal
2. Barbarians – Normal (But not raging)
3. Difficulty Level – Monarch (So maintenance costs are reasonable, tech advances slower which extends the usefulness of military units, and barbarians are somewhat threatening but nowhere to the extent of immortal/deity)
4. Map size – Depends on players, but preferably Huge
5. Vassal States Off (Eliminates colonial maintenance, and prevents humans from being voluntary vassals to other humans with the intent of making that master more powerful)
6. Random Events Off (It’s already been proven that you can circumvent bad events anyway)
7. Tribal Villages Off (It’s not fun when you pop 5 barbarian warriors from a hut, or when your neighbor gets Horseback Riding for free)
8. New Random Seed on Reload
9. Allow Duplicate Leaders (OR – allow unrestricted leaders, but NO duplicates, which is similar to how the Realms Beyond Pitboss games work)
The other three options that we need to discuss are if tech trading should be on, off, or brokered, the turn timer, and the type of map. My personal preference is that tech trading should be off, the turn timer should be 24 hours, and the map should be a balanced map, custom made by an outsider (hopefully we can get someone like Krill to make a map for us ;) ). However, I’m all for listening to your suggestions. Here’s why I support my reasons:
I prefer tech trading off, because if it’s on, that forces players to be involved in a technological alliance, and can become frustrating for diplomacy when someone is the odd man out just because his scout happened to die on the fifth turn in the game due to some bad luck so he never got to quickly meet everyone else to negotiate tech trade deals or embargos. In addition, with tech trading on and humans playing instead of the AI, we end up with games where Liberalism could easily be discovered in the BC’s, and tanks can be reached by 1000 AD, which kind of takes away from the military side of the game if units become obsolete so quickly. With tech trading off, we’re looking at longer, but more exciting games, where wars are more feasible and players have to really analyze their situation to decide what they want to research. Now, we COULD decide to play epic speed (yes obsolete ;) ) but that means that the game will take much longer to complete and drag on. A compromise between no technology trading and technology trading allowed is the setting “no tech brokering,” which is an interesting option. It still forces players to be involved in technological alliances, but it won’t affect the game as much in terms of world teching speed than with normal tech trading. Also, no tech brokering might be a nice way for someone really advanced to help out a beginner player struggling in technology. In conclusion, I prefer no tech trading, then my second option would be no tech brokering, then my third option would be tech trading normal.
The second option I support is a 24 hour turn timer. The pitboss timer is slower in real life, so the actual time might be 26-28 hours depending on how often players login the game, since when players login a pitboss game, an extra minute or so is added on to the turn timer. However, having a timer at 24 hours is still nice since it’s an easy number to remember, and it also guarantees a small window of playing your turn should you be without access for 24 hours without internet and CIV. Having a timer less than that (say, 18 hours) and you risk too many players missing their turns. Having a timer much greater than 24 hours, such as 48 hours, means that the game drags on and more players are likely to “drop out” and require substitutes. Also, with 24 hours, you can easily divide up the time into 12 hour segments for wars (i.e. Civ A is allowed to play for the first 12 hours or so during war, and Civ B can play during the second 12 hour segment, or as soon as Civ A is finished with his turn and the asterisk appears on his name in the scoreboard and in CivStats.
Finally, the third option has to do with how the map is created. I would STRONGLY suggest that we have our map custom–made, if possible. (And preferably by someone well known around CivFanatics.) I have seen so many maps which put a player in an isolated piece of ice with no chance of winning, while putting a player who has Darius as his leader right in the center of the map with gold, floodplains, and horses. In an effort to have a fair map, I would suggest we ask someone not playing the game to create a balanced map for us. Furthermore, I would also suggest that we play with a pangea-like map so we all have contact with each other before Optics (but not exactly like the pangea that the standard Civ map builder creates – since there would be different challenges in being the central civs and being a coastal civ). The second Realms Beyond Civilization pitboss has a really good map design where the map is loosely shaped in a ring, and everyone starts on the coast (with, I believe, at least 1 land food resource and 1 seafood resource). The central part of the map is water, but has an island with resources not found on the main continent. In addition, each player has his own small “pocket” island next to his capital. What I really liked about the map is that the player is given a ton of valid options, including moving inland, settling on the islands versus the mainland, and going to war with their neighbors. The ring map makes it easy to get coastal trade route connections and it also makes diplomacy important, since each civ is guaranteed to border a minimum of two civilizations. In addition, a player could also perform a risky gambit of attacking across the world, assuming a cylindrical or toroidal map design. The best part of all is that if someone gets defeated, they simply can’t use the excuse “oh I had a bad start.”
Hopefully I was able to give an effective introduction while suggesting some game settings for our eventual pitboss game. If you’ve got any comments or questions you’d like me to add or clarify, feel free to post, and hopefully we can start up a second game thread in which we can sign up to play our selected leaders! :goodjob: