The Realms Beyond - Succession Game Discussions

The Realms Beyond is home to gamers who go beyond the norm, who creatively add depth to good games to make them better, who choose to set our own added limits to gameplay for the purpose of increasing challenge, varying gameplay flavor, and getting more out of the games we love. We discard the usual standards and venture into realms beyond, where we share our passion for gaming with one another, and with those who are like-minded.

We have been holding our succession games here at CivFanatics since the first event. We began with Civ3 SGs only weeks after Civ3's release. Now Civ4 is coming out, and we're back and ready for action!


This thread will be used for discussing game ideas and organizing RB succession games. To qualify as an RB game, the game must observe our rules.

Succession Games Rules - RB SGs

1. To count as a Realms Beyond succession game, the game must observe the RBCiv Exploits List. We recommend observing the Permitted Utilities and Mods List as well, but leave that up to the discretion of the captain of each particular game. (These lists, of course, begin empty -- as there are no known Exploits and no Utilities have yet been created. The game will be out this week!)

2. Anyone from our community is welcome to launch games using the generic "RB" tag. For instance, "RB1 - Civ4 Has Arrived", "RB5 - I Can't Believe We Lost That Last Game On Monarch", etc. However, unless you are highly confident that you can round up enough players to make a successful run of your game, you are urged to talk it over with others first (here in this thread!) and make sure your game will get off the ground. If you "use up" a number in the series on a "dud" game, RB Elders may give you the Evil Eye for a while.

3. If an individual player launches a specific subseries of games (for instance, Sirian's "RBE - Realms Beyond Emperor" series of old) they will set the terms and conditions of their subseries. Anybody is welcome to launch such a series. Captaining your own series of SGs can be fun, but it can also be a responsibility, so anybody doing this in RB's name, please try to be clear about what you intend. Thanks!

4. Ten turns per player is the standard rule for RB SGs. Likewise, 24 hours "got it" and 48 hours (total) to play and post your turn are also the standard rule. Other rules can be used, but must be specified at game launch. Thanks!

5. To be a member of the RB community, you must have participated in at least one of our events: SGs or tournament play. How much participation you should do before leading your own games under our banner, we leave to your discretion. Please choose wisely.


We will open the new RB SG series by revisiting an old favorite. Sulla and I are going to team together to play "RB1 - Cuban Isolationists". If you have been around long enough for this title to mean something to you, we invite you to tune in. It promises to be a fun time! We will start once both of us have obtained our copies, which should be some time later this week.


Looking forward to many fun days of SG gaming! Old friends and new faces, exciting tales and relaxed good times. Civ4! Let's get this party started!


- Sirian

Hi,

Sirian said:

We will open the new RB SG series by revisiting an old favorite. Sulla and I are going to team together to play "RB1 - Cuban Isolationists". If you have been around long enough for this title to mean something to you, we invite you to tune in.

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Aaah, thanks for making me feel old. Here's a link to the original RBD7 - Cuban Isolationists thread for those who want to reminisce in old times or read what we're talking about.

I'm looking forward to this game! Might be a bit odd for the first RB SG to be such a restricting variant already, but it will be interesting to compare the results of these restrictions between the Civ 3 and the Civ 4 version of the isolationists game.

Or as Charis would have stated it: ""


I will get my copy around the 4th of November, and will play one private game first to get the hang of the GUI and such before joining any SGs.

Looking forward to many fun days of SG gaming! Old friends and new faces, exciting tales and relaxed good times.

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"Relaxed"? *cough* Let's see how relaxed it will become for some people, joining too many SGs with severe variant restrictions at once... (Speaking of Charis.... )

-Kylearan

With the release of Civ4 I am hoping to join the RB community. I have been lurking for quite awhile now (1-2 years?), and was always looking for an opportunity to participate, maybe Civ4 can provide me with that chance.

Assuming all goes well in the retail jungle, I ought to be able to get a copy when it comes out. So consider me provisionally in for this one, a nice SG ought to knock out some of that rust in my game. What's the worst that could happen - Cleopatra stabbing me in the back in the Stone Age? Falling asleep at the wheel and building the wrong wonder by mistake? Hopefully I'll at least irrigate the cows before the desert.

Sounds interesting, must subscribe...

I'd expect these games to be pretty popular. Suppose someone comes up with an idea for a specific variant / conditions and the roster fills within a few hours. Do several games start up on the same settings with separate threads? I ask because until just recently, every game which caught my eye would be full by the time I noticed it. The ones I'm in now probably aren't RB games, but full is full...

I'll be watching, as I have been ever since the very start of the Epics, but lost active contact after the Mac patch went out-of-date some years ago.
I do remember the Cuban Isolationists, though, that was a great game to watch.

Despite being a Mac user at heart I've bought the bullet and will be playing Civ4 on my housemate's PC. Unfortunately, that won't be until the European release for me either, but I shall hope to return to the community and play some SGs fairly soon after that.

-Garath

DaveShack said:

Suppose someone comes up with an idea for a specific variant / conditions and the roster fills within a few hours. Do several games start up on the same settings with separate threads?

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Yeah, full is full. That's a good question, actually.

RB1 is already full, for instance. (The original Cuban Isolationists was also a two-man dance.) Sulla asked for that and I agreed. We'll have more to say about that when we launch the game.

It would not be kosher to grab the same game file and run a second game. There could be spoilers or other undesirable cross-pollenation. Running a second game on a different map instance with the same rules would be OK, although an RB player would have to captain for it to be an RB event. (Lots of us around, though!) In such case, "sub" numbers should be used: RB3, RB3A, RB3B, etc. Each game and thread needs a unique ID tag.

You can also take inspiration from any variant or idea and spawn your own game, including with different rules, etc. Nobody has a monopoly on ideas!

CC said:

a nice SG ought to knock out some of that rust in my game.

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Hey you! Long time no see.

Sorry for the ambiguity about RB1 but you'll have the full story shortly. Things are still a little hectic, assembling the new RB activities and, well, a lot is going on. Things may continue to be hectic for a while here, and it will get worse before it gets better.


- Sirian

I'll be Watching With Interest.

I'd love to join at some point, but there's always so much to do and so little time to do it in, that it probably will be when the sequence numbers get in the double digit stage. In the mean time I'll keep WWI-ing.

Count me in for some SGs if we can round up enough old timers

I started a poll at CDZ to see if people would like to participate in Epics and/or RB SGs. I'm myself very interested in playing Epics ; SGs I still don't know yet, maybe someday... Lurking anyway, as RB SGs are a sign of fun and solid play.

Oh, and Sky ! Are you back on track ?

I'm glad to see so many of the old guard reappearing. I wasn't very active here when most of you were around the first time, but I had fun reading the threads.

I hope to be able to play the first CivIV epic, and I'll definitely be jumping into the odd succession game from time to time. Have fun, all.

Heh, this forum's open for less than an hour, and Sirian already manages to start a thread in it.

For those who weren't around long enough ago to recall the original Realms Beyond series of Succession Games, they were designed to take Civ3 gaming to a higher level; when most Succession Games were being played on Regent, Sirian and Charis were playing on Emperor. And later on, with most games running on Monarch, Sirian founded the Realms Beyond Emperor series of games (all Deity! all the time!) which ended up with a perfect 6-0 record. The goals of the Realms Beyond games are to explore new things, try something different (even if that means playing a crazy hogtied variant! ), and above all to play fairly by avoiding cheating and tactics considered to be exploitative. Civ3 had a gigantic list of such cheese moves that we avoided; the hope is that Civ4 won't be as bad.

I'm sure that we'll see many new faces and old hands alike (I see Kylearan, Carbon, and Skyfish are already here) in the days and weeks ahead. This is by no means any kind of exclusive group; pretty much anyone is welcome to jump onto one of the SG teams and join in the fun. That's how I met up with Sirian and the others almost four years ago now. (The Cuban Isolationists games is full, however. We're planning this one as a two-man show.)

So lurkers sit back and enjoy reading (and maybe we'll even be able to get you to de-lurk and join in)! There will be fun times ahead.

Hey all,

it'll be great to join in the RB tournaments - always the best and most bizarre conditions placed on the game. Darned fine write-ups too.

See you all soon... well, when my friend sends my copy to Busan from London via internal mail - at least something interesting will turn up in my In-tray for once!

Hey Skyfish! I was hoping you'd rejoin the community. I know that Voodoocat is planning to purchase Civ4 upon release as well. Perhaps another CF game for old time's sake.

Ahh, the Cuban Isolationists. What a great game. I look forward to reading it, fellow Ss.

As for me, I'll volunteer to captain RB2 - Brave New World, which could be a subseries game (RB2a, RB2b, etc.) if there is enough interest. Instead of puttering around, learning the game in SP, let's work together and explore the Civics, Religions, terrain improvements, and beautiful 3D landscape together. The more new aspects of the game we can hit, the better!

Rules will be something like this:

RB2 - Brave New World
Version: Civ4 out-of-the-box
Civ: A spiritual Civ to allow us to easily switch between Civics.
Difficulty: Noble
Win condition: Just Win Baby!
Participants: No beta-testers allowed. In fact, I'd like to even do it as no SP games allowed either, so we'll all be truly seeing the game for the first time. But thinking about it, the people who are last in the rotation would have to wait a few days before getting to even try out the game....yeah right! Ideally we should be playing the game with as few preconceptions as possible. So try not to play too many SP games and get the hang of too many of the new concepts. Let's learn together, Realms Beyond style.

So who wants in?

Sign Ups
Speaker
Jester
Own
Skyfish

That sounds like a great idea for RB2, Speaker. You'll quite likely get enough people for an "A" and "B" game. I'd throw my name into the hat for that, but, erm, umm, yeah.... I don't think I fit the scenario concept.

Yeah, sorry about that Sullla. But hopefully the erm, umm, yeah...more experienced RB players will throw in their 2 cents during and after the fact. I hope it won't take too long for some of us to improve to a level where we can play with you without screwing up your games...

Wooo, RB games starting again, good times will be had by all then. Not sure when I'll get my copy of the game (Amazon says Nov 4) but if the second, "learning" SG hasn't started I might jump in on that if possible.

Should be fun, and I wonder what new phrases will be coined this time? lol..

Awright! Let's get this show on the road!

Glad we've got another Cuban game going down. I liked the first one, a real eye-opener about the game-breaking potential of well-planned trade.

So, yeah, as soon as there's another SG opening up, I'll jump in!

I can even count to ten!

1...2...3...2...6...7...10!



-Jester

Jester too? Wow, we've almost got the entire original Civ3 RBD crew back here again (aside from Charis, Cy, and Jaffa - and I expect some of them will show up at some point). This feels more like a reunion that anything else.

I'd like to join RB2 .