I would like to kick-start a PBEM game during Thanksgiving. I would like to have 4-6 humans (including myself) and 0-4 AI players. Number of AIs and other options are subject to negotiation and I assume will depend largely on how many people sign up. I am also open to some minor modifications to the game, like for example starting with extra units and/or accelerated production.

I would have one requirement though: at least two, but maybe three 3-4 hour sessions during Thanksgiving (Nov 28-Dec 1), during which we can play through that first boring period.

If you are interested, please reply to this thread with the time slots where you would be available. The 4-6 people with the most overlap will play. I don't plan to play more than 4 hours a day, unless everyone agrees to, so don't be afraid to specify a large time span.

I am available every day from 6am to 11pm PST (Los Angeles, GMT -8).

Available for most of the holiday, except the part on where we go to the relatives for Turkey. 7am to 12pm EST.

Good idea..
Available times: 9a to 1p PST all four days, want the Spanish, live in San Diego

Sounds great
Available 9 to midnight PST. Suggest playing with the 1.04 patch installed. Prefer playing a standard game, Emperor or Monarch level. I'll take the Ottoman's. In San Diego also.

Hi guys,

first of all please send me an email to delmar_underscore_gopher_at_yahoo_dot_com to confirm that you want to play. I will distribute the email addresses to the other participants.

(Translate the things between the __ to the appropriate characters, of course.)

I have two other candidates from other places. I asked them to join CivFanatics, not sure if they will (in fact I am not sure if Panzer really wants to play). Anyway, to summarize the situation, here is what I gathered so far in terms of availability:

AnnC from ACOL: noon to 6pm Pacific Time
Panzer from 1bigcommunity: 8am-12pm
HarshBadlyDiet: 9(am I assume?) to midnight PST
sp3: 9a to 1p PST
Hobbes: 7am to 12pm

Hobbes, Panzer: is 12pm noon or midnight for you (I think it's noon officially but I hope you meant midnight :) ).

sp3 and AnnC: would 11am-2pm be a big inconvenience for you?

As for the difficulty level, I think Monarch level would be good.

If we assign the tribes, then I take China. Consider playing with random Civs, though. It's fun! :)

Do you want to have any AI player? Please cast your vote.

I would also like to hear suggestions for avoiding a terrible starting position for one or more players. I feel this is important otherwise someone might drop out too soon. In another game I am playing, we started out with 4 games and then everybody rated his/her starting position from 1 to 10. At the end of the first round, we calculated the deviation of the ratings withing each game and picked the game with the lowest deviation. This way we think we managed to pick a game where everyone has about the same chance to win. Let me know if you like this idea or if you have a better one.

How about the map size? I would suggest a small map for 4-5 players, standard for 6-7 and large for 8 or more. Opinions?

Barbarians: either random or roaming. Opinions?

Patch: I installed 1.14f already so I think everyone should do the same.

Anything else we need to discuss?

Cheers,

Delmar

Boys and girls,

I have a proposition for ya. :D

A fellow civver is organizing another PBEM game over at Apolyton. He wants a game with 8 humans and we have currently 4. So I promised him to recruit some more. Please check out this:

http://www.apolyton.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=68972

and send Shamus an email if interested.

Note that this is an addition, not a replacement for the Turkey PBEM.

Yours,

Delmar

11am - 2pm Pacific Time would be fine.

Random civs are ok with me. If we don't do random civs, I'll take Iroquois. My other preferences are...

No AI, just human players. If we don't have AI civs then the difficulty level only affects the corruption multiplier, right? If that's the case, I recommend Chiftain level to minimize corruption effects.

Map size: standard.

Barbarians: sedentary (first choice) or roaming.

I agree that we should restart the game if somebody has a terrible start position.

First of all, AnnC welcome to CivFanatics. :)

Second, we have four humans (see below) and we seem to have agreed on a time frame of 11am-2pm PST. I would say that's half victory! :)

Since we have no collision between the favorite civs, I'll suggest that everyone goes with his/her favorite:

Ann -- Iroquois
Harsh -- Ottomans
sp3 -- Spain
Delmar -- China

(I plan to use the above names in the game so let me know ASAP if you want something else.)

Now as for the other settings, people seem to want quite different things. Let me try to summarize:

Barbarians: Ann -- Sedentary, maybe Roaming, sp3 -- random, Harsh -- ?

I think we should take Roaming here.

Difficulty: Ann -- Chieftain, sp3 -- Monarch with AI else Regent, Harsh -- Emperor or Monarch

To your question, Ann, difficulty affects a bunch of things not only corruption, even if there is no AI. E.g. number of citizens born content, research cost, bonus against barbarians, hell knows what else.

Number of AIs: Ann -- 0, sp3 -- 4, Harsh -- ?

Map size: Ann -- standard, sp3 -- standard with 8 players, Harsh -- ?

Ann, I am not sure if assumed that there will be 8 humans when you voted for the latter three or you simply want to build a huge empire and you hate the AI. If the former, then I will suggest that we play (#1) with 4 AIs, on Regent, and standard map. If the latter, then I would suggest that we play (#2) with 2 AIs, on Warlord, and standard map, and I offer you a mutual protection packt against the AI :).

Now if you (Ann) really-really hate the AI, and Harsh and sp3 don't mind to have only 4 players, then we can play (#3) on Monarch, with 0 AI, and small map.

I am strongly against 4 players on a standard map because it will take ages to meet. Nonetheless, if all three of you like that then I don't mind either.

Now, please let me know (all of you) which one of the 3 proposals you like, or I'll generate 3 different games and you can choose after you took a look at your starting position as well. I think I will do the latter to save some time if I don't see a reply from everyone by 10am tomorrow.

We haven't discussed Land Mass, Water coverage, Climate, Tempreture and Age. To avoid a wide spread of opinions, I give you two choices:

1. all random
2. continents, 70%, normal, temperate, 4 billion (these are the default middle values)

Please choose (all of you) 1 or 2. If there is a tie (because someone abstains or doesn't vote before 10am tomorrow), I will choose #2.

Finally, we need to decide whether we want accelerated production or not. Again, please vote, if there is a tie I will choose not to have accelerated production.

Huh! :crazyeye: I think that's all. I'll be online for about an hour now and then starting at 8am tomorrow. See you!

PS: Ann, do I know your email address?

Guys,

pls take a look at this and let me know if you are interested:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=69155

Thanks,

Delmar

Thanks for the welcome, glad to be here. :)

Except for my civ choice, my preferences are just... preferences. I would be happy to play almost any kind of setup, and I'd be willing to play any difficulty level except Deity.

I assume that the choices are 4 humans on a small map or 4 humans/4 AI on a standard map? I can go with either.

I vote for random map parameters just because it would be interesting to go into the game not knowing what kind of map was generated. But if the other players want default parameters, it's ok with me.

My email address, using delmar's notation, is webmaster_at_planetacol_dot_com.

One more thing... are we going to make it a rule that players cannot conduct diplomacy until they meet on the map? (That's what I recommend.)

Originally posted by AnnC
One more thing... are we going to make it a rule that players cannot conduct diplomacy until they meet on the map? (That's what I recommend.)

Thanks for asking this. Of course, you should discuss things related to the game only with people you met in the game.

Originally posted by AnnC
Except for my civ choice, my preferences are just... preferences. I would be happy to play almost any kind of setup, and I'd be willing to play any difficulty level except Deity.

I assume that the choices are 4 humans on a small map or 4 humans/4 AI on a standard map? I can go with either.


Thanks for the clarification. Then I propose 4 human/4 AI/Monarch/standard size. Shout if anyone doesn't like this.

Folks, there is a thread here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=36070

that asks us not to post too many short messages (that are usually associated with PBEM games) to this forum and to use IRC instead.

I have never used IRC before so after I read the above thread I took their advice, downloaded the Dark Style IRC and tried it out. I can't connect to the IRC server Chieftess and Gonzo were referring to, so I am using the default one in DS IRC, which is called Damaged Networks (northwest.ar.us.damaged.net). I created a room called turkey_pbem. I would suggest that you join me there.

Or if you know a better solution then let me know.

Hi,

I generated 3 different games, all with 4 human/4 AI/Monarch/standard size/roaming barbs and with random map settings. Please check out your starting position and rate the games on a scale from 1 to 10, and let me know your ratings. At the end of the first turn we will pick one game (based on the ratings) and continue on that.

Turn order is Delmar, Ann, Harsh, sp3. I sent the games to Ann.

Thanks,

Delmar

Ok, I'm ready to go... it will take me a few minutes to figure out the IRC thing, so I'll play turns first.

If Civfanatics doesn't want us to post short turn-sent messages, we could use ACOL's Games in Progress (http://www.planetacol.com/ubbcgi/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum=Games+in+progress&number=1) forum.

If we're playing three games simultaneously. I recommend that we use a different turn order for each one, so that each player always has a turn to play like:

Game A: Delmar, Ann, Harsh, sp3

Game B: Delmar, Harsh, sp3, Ann

Game C: Delmar, sp3, Ann, Harsh

What do you think?

Duh! We'll pick the best of the three.

Never mind...

Originally posted by AnnC
Ok, I'm ready to go...
Good! One down, two to go! :)

Harsh, sp3, give us a sign if you are online.

sp3 sighted on IRC!!! :)

I found turkey pbem in irc, I'm guest 88143, but lost the connection shortly therafter

Yeah, I can see you sp3, more exactly your message. Can you try to reconnect?

Ann, did you receive my 2nd email? Can you see the attachments now?

My start-postion ratings:

v1: 9
v2: 1
v3: 6

on a 1-10 scale with 1=worst and 10=best.

I sent the turns to Harsh.

Do any of you use ICQ?

I don't know what ICQ is. Any pointers?

To download ICQ, go here:

http://www.icq.com/download/

It's the best instant-messaging system, imho, and I'll email all of you my ICQ number.

I installed the ICQ client. Can't connect to the server to register. Do you know how this thing works (protocol, port numbers, etc)? Or where I can read about it?

If you installed ICQ Pro, which is what I use, click the 'My ICQ' button and select 'Registration to ICQ' => 'Register a New User'.

ICQ is an instant-messaging system like AIM or Yahoo Messenger. It uses proprietary servers and perhaps a proprietary protocol, not sure though.

Originally posted by AnnC
If you installed ICQ Pro, which is what I use, click the 'My ICQ' button and select 'Registration to ICQ' => 'Register a New User'.
I downloaded ICQ lite. Is ICQ Pro free too?

ICQ is an instant-messaging system like AIM or Yahoo Messenger. It uses proprietary servers and perhaps a proprietary protocol, not sure though.
I read the troubleshooting guide, it says it's using TCP and port 5190 for connecting to the server. So I opened that up. It also says though that user-user connections use different ports. If that's true then it won't work.

Anyway, if everyone gets on ICQ then lets give it a try. I guess we will have to wait for Harsh. How long do you think we should wait?

Originally posted by delmar: I downloaded ICQ lite. Is ICQ Pro free too?

Yes, I think so. There's a link on the 'download' page.

sp3, have you installed ICQ? If so, I'll see if I can set up a 3-way chat.

i have delmar and anne awaiting authorization, be that from me or y'all i no not

i keep accepting ... something different maybe?

Harsh,

got your email, forwarded it to Ann and sp3. We haven't started the game yet, so if you want to play you can still join us. Strictly speaking you don't need to have email access to play PBEM. We can post the SAV file for you here on the forum. So again, if you want to play, then give us a sign, e.g. post a message here, preferably before 11am PST today.

Thanks!