The last challenge -- Team game -- Deity trial

I've successfully installed BUFFY 3.19.0.3.whatever.more dots... and opened BoTM 28 with no warnings showing up.

I still need to familiarize myself with the xOTM rules as I've never played one before.

I'd recommend the basic SG rules (no unit moves beyond your set, no city governor, etc.)

Questions: what should be proposed in the plan and how many turns is proper for a set?

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To add to what dingding said:
-general worker moves
-builds/whips
-how to treat with each leader (we'll have to refuse 'We ask for your assistance in fighting ..." every time most likely for example). This will probably be determined early on however.
-special city citizen assignation gp: production for instance)

We can either be very strict about this (plan down every single move) or just make 'general' plans.

Turn set length: well, this depends on a few things. 15 turns sounds right early on (10*1.5) but we know so little about the map that I'd wait before making this final. Sets can be shortened later on when there are many units to move

3. Timing -- The most popular rule is 24/48, which means that you need to download the save and post a "got it" message in 24 hours once last player upload the save, otherwise you are automatically skipped. I think 24 for "got it" is good, but 48 hours to finish the play is too tense as the discussion may take longer.
Your preference and suggestion?

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24hours for 'got it' is good.
I'd suggest the player finishing the round post a 'summary' of things to be done, and the general direction he wanted things to go during his set. This can be done in a post right after the report, or at the end of the report. I'd like to leave around 48 hours for discussion from where the save is submitted. From the time the 'plan' is agreed upon, it depends on how much time the player has. 24 hours could work but I would make this max 48 hours.
So to recapitulate...
-24 hours for 'got it' (hopefully we don't have to skip too often) [0-24]
-48 hours for discussion [0-48]
-24/48 hours to play [48-72/96]

Those should be upper bounds and any longer = skip.
As Duckweed said, if you feel you'll be too busy for playing, just mention it ahead of time so that we don't waste time. It takes 2 minutes of your time and saves the team hours of frustration

Last , we need a captain who can be strict with the Timing. There are other works for captain, such as writing a summary, and checking for divergence. Allow me to escape this since there are better candidate here.

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I don't think the Captain should be 'forced' to do all that work by himself (unless SGOTM rules say otherwise).
The player whose round is coming up should do the summary/check for divergence... this is the best preparation to his turnset.
Duckweed seems the best candidate for strict timing. dingding OTOH is very well worded.
I don't really mind tbh but I'll vote for Duckweed since he's the one that got the team on its feet. (Duck feet, that is!)

kossin said:

I don't think the Captain should be 'forced' to do all that work by himself (unless SGOTM rules say otherwise).
The player whose round is coming up should do the summary/check for divergence... this is the best preparation to his turnset.

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That's a good idea, but summarizing the discussion (rules, pregame discussion of strategy through pm, and ingame discussion of issues with various preference -- although I also think the player who is UP should be responsible for counting the consensus) is the major work of captain. Therefore I still think who is taking charge of this part is the captain and obviously I am not good at it. Moreover, I'll have less time next month.

^^I see.

I might be going away this summer which would greatly reduce my playing time and I don't even own a laptop to play away from home

I could still check in from my iPod or I'll have to $buy$ a laptop and play at the worst possible resolution >.<

From what I've seen dingding is one of the best summary writers on the forums. If he has enough time perhaps he'd "like" the job?

If no one... I can try but as I said I might be very busy this summer [June to August].

Hi.. been away over the weekend..

Not really got much to add to kossin and dingdings points, but my 2cent:

Questions: what should be proposed in the plan and how many turns is proper for a set?

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Overall diplo needs to be adressed so everyone knows what to do with demands and such.
As far as detail in planning, I think that depends on circumstances. Is there anything in particular we've decided to do that needs something to be done in one predefined way (timing of tiles worked, just enough workerturns available to get something accomplished on time etc..)
I think it also could depend on what the team-member picking up the save feels he wants or needs in there to be able to get the turnset done the way the team has decided.

Your preference and suggestion?

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I like this:

-24 hours for 'got it' (hopefully we don't have to skip too often) [0-24]
-48 hours for discussion [0-48]
-24/48 hours to play [48-72/96]

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as upper bounds.

I don't know exactly how much work a captain has to do (never been involved in a team game before), but to reduce resonsibilty can the tasks be split so you have one "timecop" (decision should be easy with timingrules above), one reporter etc.?

As far as summarizing what discussion leads to, that should be up to the player playing the turnset to get together, yeah?

Not sure what checking for divergences means, really?

Also.. in order for turnset summaries to be about equally informative.. is there some rules down to how reporting events that has happened in a turnset should be done?

Hi !
Sorry for the late reply, I will have only little free time this week. It will get better by the 20th of April, so I won't have any problem to follow the game discussions.

I have never played a SGOTM, so I don't have any enlightened opinion to express.
I have played BOTM, though, and BUFFY works alright with my computer.

I haven't read the rules specific to SGOTM yet but I will do so before the game starts.

Regarding Duckweed's questions :

Duckweed said:

1. Active participation -- Your contribution to every set is important. Although everyone might have real life issues sometimes, it's courteous to notify the team of you absence..

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Got it. Sounds right. Individual play serves collective discussion. Or is it the other way around ?

Duckweed said:

Questions: what should be proposed in the plan and how many turns is proper for a set?.

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I would say that the more detailed a plan is, the easier it is to express (dis)agreement. Say... to "polish" it. However, surely the "most detailed" doesn't mean the same thing for me and, say, Kossin. For my part, I plan to mimic your ways.
I also believe that some discussions should be continuous (not specific to a play sequence) : territorial expansion, be it peaceful or military, long term tech objectives & diplo objectives. Also to include : any specific "trick" : wonders, city gifts, GP bulbs/settling, maybe some queue management.
Balance between Expansion / Military / Infrastructure should be adressed in the plans. Kossin talks about general worker moves and it seems right to me.

What about trade opportunities ? Where do they fit ?

Regarding the sequence length...
I'm not sure there should be a "minimum" lenght for a play sequence. Max length has already been adressed. Oh ! Did I mention I've never played Epic speed ? I can't judge if 10 or 15 or 20 turns is the most appropriate.

Duckweed said:

3. Timing -- The most popular rule is 24/48, which means that you need to download the save and post a "got it" message in 24 hours once last player upload the save, otherwise you are automatically skipped. I think 24 for "got it" is good, but 48 hours to finish the play is too tense as the discussion may take longer.
Your preference and suggestion?.

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No preference on my part. This pattern would fit me.
It seems we're split between N-America and Europe (at least). Is there a clever way to make turns ? I know DingDing and I are French (yo!) and I assume most of you are N-Americans.

Duckweed said:

Last , we need a captain who can be strict with the Timing. There are other works for captain, such as writing a summary, and checking for divergence. Allow me to escape this since there are better candidate here.

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No preference either. The captain's role looks important and surely he should be one of you, Deity players. Maybe the one who's got the more availability ?

There are a few things that SGOTM is different from common SG.
1. Saved file can only be uploaded and downloaded through the official site.
2. No reloading from previous turn under any situation. To prevent the tragedy of any unexpected crash/ending of the game, you need to set the autosave interval to 1 so that you can load the autosave file the turn program stopped.
3. Be careful not to click on other team's thread.

Regarding the content of plan, I agree with what dingding and kossin proposed. Details of worker move and city build in early stage is advisable, in later stage, that would be too tedious, especially the worker move. I think we still should mention the big direction, for instance, workers will change the mined hill tiles in capital to windmills and cities ??? will start university and whip it so that capital can start OU in turn ???.

I agree with 24/48-96 rule. Player who is UP should propose his plan as soon as possible after the "got it" and leave other members enough time to respond and refine his plan.

Looks like we've pretty much covered everything we can at the moment.

Captaincy is still to be decided, I think, any more says on this matter?

Lastly, I'd suggest that everyone should play a few offline games with:

• Epic speed
• Emperor Difficulty
• Gandhi of India
• 2 possible leaders that can be DoW'd
• every leader must be alive
• UN win
• Fractal
• No huts/events
• regular setting otherwise
• no reload to previous turn

Basically the SOGTM settings... this should allow us to get a feel for:

• Barbs
• Wonders timing
• Land availability
• Maintenance
• AI teching (or lack thereof)
• AI armies (similarly, it's a big step down from Deity or even Immortal)

We still lack much information on the actual map but this should be a good start to familiarize ourselves with how it might go.

Yeah, I have not play any epic game for very long time, good to practice a little to get familiar with the synchronization of teching and worker move. Also I need to get used to the emperor AI's teching speed and expansion a little bit. Check the winner's save of BOTM series to find out how they pursue the diplomatic and culture victory. They might not be the optimal play, but I'd say close.

Almost everyone expressed their opinion of Captaincy somehow, although not clear. I think kossin is the best choice regarding the writing and time available, unless there are other voices.

BTW, I don't know whether we want to discuss the game through pm by now, since the team thread should be opened in a couple of days

The start looks really straitforward to me. At least in terms of primary objectives (can't say for the "best moves", I need to play some Epic speed, first).

I doubt there will be major pre-game discussions or that they will last forever. I wouldn't mind to wait for our official thread to start discussing the details.
Not to mention I won't have access to a copy of Civ4 until Friday


Maybe the team captain should/could secure 1-2 posts at the beginning of that thread where we could store summaries of important "stuff" we'd have gone through during the course of the game ? Useful ? Useless ?

I find pm's messy tbh
Sure, if something really needs to be discussed now we can start but it doesn't seem that pressing to me right now...

BornInCantaloup said:

Maybe the team captain should/could secure 1-2 posts at the beginning of that thread where we could store summaries of important "stuff" we'd have gone through during the course of the game ? Useful ? Useless ?

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Definitely! It's always nice to have everything sorted out for quick access/review.

EDIT: Well Emperor/Epic is definitely much easier than Deity/Normal... it's not yet 1000AD and I'm pulling 1000bpt and will start fielding Cavalry not too shortly...

I aggree that it should be enough to just play some games with the right settings and look into how to effieciently achieve the win conditions at this level.

The team threads will open soon enough, and we can then move on to more discussion from there.

Hey my dear Ducks:

I'll be leaving for holiday tomorrow. Will be back on 24th.

To my fellow Ducks:

I've changed my Avatar accordingly... Hatty has seen her time

^ Congratulation! Leaving creative addicted means you become really comfortable at deity. I have found that a protective leader gave me the most confidence on a random map.

Nice avatar!

Maybe I should look at the other pics in this thread to see if there's anything I can use

Hi Team!

Looks like our SGOTM thread has finally been opened.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=362034

I've reserved a few posts at the start and will update one of the tomorrow with a draft of what a 'plan' should look like, according to the issues we raised in this thread.

In other news, we're the smallest team, at 6 members.