Vanilla Game?
- Thread starter DNK
- Start date
Port16
Prince
Nah. You can always email the game by hand, just attach it like any other file.
jbieksha
Regular Joe
I am GMT -4 or 5 depending on the season.
I'll PM my email to DNK
I'll PM my email to DNK
jbieksha
Regular Joe
I Preferr: Qin Shi (China), Musa (Malinese), Kublai Khan (Mongolian)
We could always use another, I guess. I haven't heard from my cousin in a few days, so I don't know what's going on with him. If he doesn't get back to me by late Monday, you could play for him. But I'm not sure what we'd do if he is in.
Any requests? What's your AI difficulty level? Leader?
Any requests? What's your AI difficulty level? Leader?
Port16
Prince
Have you heard back from your cousin?
He's looking at his work for the game. He doesn't know if he has it or not, so he might have to order it again. I haven't heard from him in a day or so and am getting tired of pestering him over it. I promise I'll let you guys know as soon as I hear from him.
Contingency plan: if he's not in what do you guys want to do if we just have three players?
Contingency plan: if he's not in what do you guys want to do if we just have three players?
jbieksha
Regular Joe
We could:
go with a normal PBEM against each other with other AI in the mix.
Team up against AI on a higher level (Monarch or above). Either official team play, or separate civs and team together.
Pick an AI as a team mate and do option 1.
Find another and sick to the 2v2 option.
I'm failrly easing going.
go with a normal PBEM against each other with other AI in the mix.
Team up against AI on a higher level (Monarch or above). Either official team play, or separate civs and team together.
Pick an AI as a team mate and do option 1.
Find another and sick to the 2v2 option.
I'm failrly easing going.
Ulfang
Balrog
I maybe interested. I've just replied to DNK's PM with a few questions. I've only played one Civ IV pbem game before and it wasn't long after Civ IV came out but only lasted a few turns due to lots of dropouts so am not well experienced with Civ IV PBEM's. I have played a few M2TW hotseat games though. In that we post the saves as attachments on the game thread (on the forum) which tends to be easier tham emailing them although i'm not sure if that would work with this game? The hotseat games are all password protected. Civ PBEM has changed a lot since I last played it I expect...!?
Port16
Prince
I'm not too picky either. I expect we'll be playing for awhile, so I'm not in a terrible hurry, but I'm also fine with jbieksha's options too.
As for Ulfang's suggestion, I didn't think that Hotseat games were password protected. I play with my wife, and never have to enter a password. The PBEM games can be password protected though.
As for Ulfang's suggestion, I didn't think that Hotseat games were password protected. I play with my wife, and never have to enter a password. The PBEM games can be password protected though.
Ulfang, your description sounds just like PBEM: e-mail an attached savegame file to the next player, each one has his own password. Since you have an expansion on, I guess it doesn't matter.
To the options posted. I'm not a huge fan of playing 2 humans vs 1 human and 1 AI since you can't coordinate with an AI at all and there's no way for the AI to actually "team up" with the human without bending over backward to get the AI to be friendly.
I'm also worried about 3 player since it'd be too easy for two people to gang up on the other.
And 3vAI co-op just wouldn't be as fun as 2v2, or at least a 4 player FFA. I mean, if we're going to invest months into this, lets make sure it's worth our time. I really like the teamplay aspect of multiplayer, so I vote to wait until we have an even number of players, or at least leave co-op as a last resort.
To the options posted. I'm not a huge fan of playing 2 humans vs 1 human and 1 AI since you can't coordinate with an AI at all and there's no way for the AI to actually "team up" with the human without bending over backward to get the AI to be friendly.
I'm also worried about 3 player since it'd be too easy for two people to gang up on the other.
And 3vAI co-op just wouldn't be as fun as 2v2, or at least a 4 player FFA. I mean, if we're going to invest months into this, lets make sure it's worth our time. I really like the teamplay aspect of multiplayer, so I vote to wait until we have an even number of players, or at least leave co-op as a last resort.
Mitchum
Deity
Hi,
Here are some thoughts on multi-player based on my limited experience with PBEM.
Maintaining Interest: In my experience, my interest level is the highest in games that progress at a stead pace. I'm in a game with 3 players and we average 1 turn per day. I'm in two games with 4 people and we average 2 turns in 3 days. I'm in a game with 5 people and we average 2 to 3 turns/week. I'm in a game with 8 people and we average less than 1 turn per week. Games can be delayed by many things: players out of town, turn sequence not optimized, players not serious, etc. I suggest that you try to get people that are motivated to play and willing to check their e-mail as often as possible. Ideally, all players would be able to check e-mail and play once in the morning and once in the evening if there is a turn waiting for them. This will ensure that you get in at least 1 turn per day.
Dedication: A PBEM game only advances if each player takes his turn and sends it to the next person. I'm not aware of a way to substitute a player with an AI. That means that if a player is getting killed and knows he will be out of the game in the next 10, 20 or 50 turns, he must still be willing to play his turns so that the rest of the players can continue to enjoy their experience. I would stay in a game that I was losing for no other reason than to be a royal pain in my attackers side. The game goes on and my bitter enemy suffers while trying to finish me off. If I can get others to dogpile on him at the same time, who knows, he may die before me...
Optimizing play order Strictly going by time zone isn't always the best alternative. For example, I can play at work if there is a turn waiting for me. So, I can pretty much play from 8 AM to 10 PM. On the other hand, if there is a player that can only play during a small time window (e.g. 6 PM to 10 PM), it is best to ensure that there is always a turn waiting for this player at 6 PM so that he gets his turn completed for the day. Arrange the players accordingly based on their availablity to play in order to make this happen.
Difficulty Level: Most players tend to think that difficulty only relates to how hard the AI is. However, it has other implications that affect game play as well. Changing the level of the player affects multiple things including beaker cost per tech, hammers per item built, happiness/health cap, etc. If you set the level higher, not only will the AI be more difficult, but it will take longer to reasearch techs, build things, etc. Since things are already slow in PBEM, I would steer toward a lower difficulty to increase the tech rate and increase the build rate. This is about playing other humans, not about facing tough AI, right?
Game Speed If you set the game speed too fast, by the time your units get to their target, they could be out of date. If it's too slow, the game will last years. Normal seems to be a good balance. I've never played on quick.
Map type Do you want a game that gets interesting quickly? Or would you rather go into builder mode where everyone is racing to complete as many wonders and found as many religions as possible (i.e. you don't like wars and conflict)? If you prefer the former, pick a map where everyone is on the same land mass. If you prefer the latter, pick tiny islands or multiple continents.
Tech Trading: The downside to tech trading is that a player can give away all his techs and change the game completely. The upside is that it adds more meat to the diplomacy aspect of the game. The upside of not allowing tech trading is that you get what you've earned. There is no free lunch. If you focus on building military at the expense of research, your 10 warriors will be slaughtered by 2 longbows. The downside of tech trading is that players that fall behind will have difficulty catching up.
Team Play: Civ is typically a single-player game (unless you play in some of the Succession GOTMs). Even when playing PBEM, there isn't much interaction going on between players as each silently takes his turn and sends it to the next person. There is a diplomacy aspect of the game, but the interaction between players is still minimal most of the time. Playing in teams allows the players to interact, discuss strategy, make war plans, etc. It's a great way to learn from each other and get better. The downside is that it can potentially slow down the game if players take a long time to play their turns due to disagreements on what to do next (I have not seen this hapapen yet).
If you get the right combination of players and game settings, PBEM is a lot more fun that playing against the silly and often stupid AI. If you get it wrong, you could end up investing a lot of time into a game that dies before it ends.
Good luck!!
Here are some thoughts on multi-player based on my limited experience with PBEM.
Maintaining Interest: In my experience, my interest level is the highest in games that progress at a stead pace. I'm in a game with 3 players and we average 1 turn per day. I'm in two games with 4 people and we average 2 turns in 3 days. I'm in a game with 5 people and we average 2 to 3 turns/week. I'm in a game with 8 people and we average less than 1 turn per week. Games can be delayed by many things: players out of town, turn sequence not optimized, players not serious, etc. I suggest that you try to get people that are motivated to play and willing to check their e-mail as often as possible. Ideally, all players would be able to check e-mail and play once in the morning and once in the evening if there is a turn waiting for them. This will ensure that you get in at least 1 turn per day.
Dedication: A PBEM game only advances if each player takes his turn and sends it to the next person. I'm not aware of a way to substitute a player with an AI. That means that if a player is getting killed and knows he will be out of the game in the next 10, 20 or 50 turns, he must still be willing to play his turns so that the rest of the players can continue to enjoy their experience. I would stay in a game that I was losing for no other reason than to be a royal pain in my attackers side. The game goes on and my bitter enemy suffers while trying to finish me off. If I can get others to dogpile on him at the same time, who knows, he may die before me...
Optimizing play order Strictly going by time zone isn't always the best alternative. For example, I can play at work if there is a turn waiting for me. So, I can pretty much play from 8 AM to 10 PM. On the other hand, if there is a player that can only play during a small time window (e.g. 6 PM to 10 PM), it is best to ensure that there is always a turn waiting for this player at 6 PM so that he gets his turn completed for the day. Arrange the players accordingly based on their availablity to play in order to make this happen.
Difficulty Level: Most players tend to think that difficulty only relates to how hard the AI is. However, it has other implications that affect game play as well. Changing the level of the player affects multiple things including beaker cost per tech, hammers per item built, happiness/health cap, etc. If you set the level higher, not only will the AI be more difficult, but it will take longer to reasearch techs, build things, etc. Since things are already slow in PBEM, I would steer toward a lower difficulty to increase the tech rate and increase the build rate. This is about playing other humans, not about facing tough AI, right?
Game Speed If you set the game speed too fast, by the time your units get to their target, they could be out of date. If it's too slow, the game will last years. Normal seems to be a good balance. I've never played on quick.
Map type Do you want a game that gets interesting quickly? Or would you rather go into builder mode where everyone is racing to complete as many wonders and found as many religions as possible (i.e. you don't like wars and conflict)? If you prefer the former, pick a map where everyone is on the same land mass. If you prefer the latter, pick tiny islands or multiple continents.
Tech Trading: The downside to tech trading is that a player can give away all his techs and change the game completely. The upside is that it adds more meat to the diplomacy aspect of the game. The upside of not allowing tech trading is that you get what you've earned. There is no free lunch. If you focus on building military at the expense of research, your 10 warriors will be slaughtered by 2 longbows. The downside of tech trading is that players that fall behind will have difficulty catching up.
Team Play: Civ is typically a single-player game (unless you play in some of the Succession GOTMs). Even when playing PBEM, there isn't much interaction going on between players as each silently takes his turn and sends it to the next person. There is a diplomacy aspect of the game, but the interaction between players is still minimal most of the time. Playing in teams allows the players to interact, discuss strategy, make war plans, etc. It's a great way to learn from each other and get better. The downside is that it can potentially slow down the game if players take a long time to play their turns due to disagreements on what to do next (I have not seen this hapapen yet).
If you get the right combination of players and game settings, PBEM is a lot more fun that playing against the silly and often stupid AI. If you get it wrong, you could end up investing a lot of time into a game that dies before it ends.
Good luck!!
Thanks a lot, Mitchum. I think I agree with what you said completely. Lowering difficulty but setting it on normal might be best. I also don't particularly like quick for the obsolete unit issue.
And this is my biggest problem with my cousin: I'm not sure he's really committed, and has obvious scheduling/time constraints.
But then we need someone else. Was that a yes or no, Mitchum?
And this is my biggest problem with my cousin: I'm not sure he's really committed, and has obvious scheduling/time constraints.
But then we need someone else. Was that a yes or no, Mitchum?
Ulfang
Balrog
Yea I was referring to the hotseat game in M2TW which is PBEM not to Civ. As I said I wasn't sure how the Civ system worked these days but believe that BTS adds more options for PBEM. I just mean't that if it was a similar type of system for both games in relation to playing PBEM/Hotseat then it might be easier to post the saves on the forum as everyone can see who's turn it is and can easily download the games but it all depends on the system I'm sure Civ IV PBEM is probably totally different to M2TW
I'm fairly sure I won't be able to play this as I have BTS and don't intend uninstalling everything and then re-installing just the vanilla game. I have also found a BTS PBEM as well although would have been happy to play both.
Good luck with the game guys (assuming I can't play) hope it goes well and thanks to DNK for contacting me about it.
Port16
Prince
Ulfang, I have BTS as well, but I can still launch Vanilla Civ. You should try it before you count yourself out.
Mitchum, thanks for that. I think all of your points make perfect sense. One thing that a friend brought up is that with quick game speed, a city can pretty much churn out units as fast as you can kill them, so it makes it really hard to fight. With the slower speeds, you're more careful with your units, and you have to make sure you have a better defense, since you can't churn out 20 units in 5 turns.
Of course, the slower the game, the more true this is.
As for timeframe, during the week, I can usually play a turn in the morning, between 05:00 and 07:00, but it may be a little dicey. In the evening I can play a turn between about 5:30 PM and 10:00 PM.
Mitchum, thanks for that. I think all of your points make perfect sense. One thing that a friend brought up is that with quick game speed, a city can pretty much churn out units as fast as you can kill them, so it makes it really hard to fight. With the slower speeds, you're more careful with your units, and you have to make sure you have a better defense, since you can't churn out 20 units in 5 turns.
Of course, the slower the game, the more true this is.
As for timeframe, during the week, I can usually play a turn in the morning, between 05:00 and 07:00, but it may be a little dicey. In the evening I can play a turn between about 5:30 PM and 10:00 PM.
Ulfang
Balrog
Well I wondered about that but DNK didn't want any mods and the expansions full of them. Surely if BTS players have a different patched version to vanilla though it's going to cause problems?
I'll be interested of course if I don't have to uninstall anything. I don't tend to get access to my comp at hime till after 12am though. I usually do any PBEM turns between 12am to 2am
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