Leader Selection Method

Just thought I'd check in advance here. I presume we'll be using the same method of choosing as last time; that is:

- Each team chooses several leaders and lists them in order of preference.
- If two or more teams share the same leader, the admins approach them and let them know, and give them the choice to change if they wish.
- At this point it is entirely down to the choice of the team: if they are happy playing with the same leader as another team, then they can keep their choice; if they want to switch to the next choice on their list that isn't doubling up with anyone, they can do that too.

To me that seems the most fair way of doing things. It leaves it up to the choice of the individual teams on whether they want to keep the same leader as someone else or not. No-one is forced to change their leader against their will, and no-one accidentally ends up with the same leader as someone else when they would have preferred a unique choice. And no-one gains an arguably unfair advantage by being able to pick their leader after they know that someone else has the same one, because the must EITHER stay with the same leader OR switch to the next-highest leader on their pre-written list. They can't switch to any other leader.

Thoughts?

If the 2 civs thing passes (which seems to be a big if considering the preliminary voting) then what about a draft to picking leaders (or leaders & civs if we go unrestricted)?

pindicator said:

If the 2 civs thing passes (which seems to be a big if considering the preliminary voting) then what about a draft to picking leaders (or leaders & civs if we go unrestricted)?

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I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean by this. Can you elaborate?

There's no rule (yet!) against duplicate leaders.

You may submit a list of backup leaders if you want to avoid duplicates.

I just had the thought of drafting leaders to possibly have some under-used combinations come to play -- but that presumed that there wouldn't be duplicates. If duplicates are allowed then obviously a draft is silly

Lord Parkin said:

Just thought I'd check in advance here. I presume we'll be using the same method of choosing as last time; that is:

- Each team chooses several leaders and lists them in order of preference.
- If two or more teams share the same leader, the admins approach them and let them know, and give them the choice to change if they wish.
- At this point it is entirely down to the choice of the team: if they are happy playing with the same leader as another team, then they can keep their choice; if they want to switch to the next choice on their list that isn't doubling up with anyone, they can do that too.

To me that seems the most fair way of doing things. It leaves it up to the choice of the individual teams on whether they want to keep the same leader as someone else or not. No-one is forced to change their leader against their will, and no-one accidentally ends up with the same leader as someone else when they would have preferred a unique choice. And no-one gains an arguably unfair advantage by being able to pick their leader after they know that someone else has the same one, because the must EITHER stay with the same leader OR switch to the next-highest leader on their pre-written list. They can't switch to any other leader.

Thoughts?

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It sounds sensible enough to me, but I'm just going to play devil's advocate for a while...

It's not clear what happens if both teams want to have different leaders from each other? Do they both change, or do you flip a coin? Either way, could people game the system by pretending they're happy to share a leader (even though they're not), to make sure that it's the other team that has to change?

This might have been discussed at length somewhere already, in which case I apologise, but I don't see duplicate leaders as an issue only for the teams involved. For example, personally I wouldn't want to see two of the same civ in the game at all, whether it was my team sharing or another. I don't like the prospect of being stuck between two Romes for instance - even if one is Augustus and the other Julius.

If there's only going to be 6 civs, do we really need to allow for duplicate civs anyway? There's a lot of good choices out there. I'd prefer to just not allow duplicates, and just get the leader choice that gives the most people the highest choice from their preference list. Just one opinion among many I'm sure though.

Irgy said:

It's not clear what happens if both teams want to have different leaders from each other? Do they both change, or do you flip a coin?

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Flip a coin.

pindicator said:

I just had the thought of drafting leaders to possibly have some under-used combinations come to play -- but that presumed that there wouldn't be duplicates. If duplicates are allowed then obviously a draft is silly

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I think "drafting" a leader to someone is a pretty bad idea. Some of the leader choices are under-used for a reason: they're bad (at least for this style of gameplay). Giving one team a relatively bad leader while another team gets a relatively good leader is not really fair. No, I think it's far better to let each team choose whatever leader they feel is best, and then no-one feels hard done by.

Irgy said:

It's not clear what happens if both teams want to have different leaders from each other? Do they both change, or do you flip a coin?

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As Dave says, the admins flip a coin and inform the other team that they must choose to either keep the same leader or change to their next best pick that isn't a duplicate.

Irgy said:

Either way, could people game the system by pretending they're happy to share a leader (even though they're not), to make sure that it's the other team that has to change?

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No, this cannot happen in the above situation. The admins decide by the coin flip which team is approached to either keep the same leader or change. The only option the individual team has is to either accept the duplicate leader, or change to their next most preferred non-duplicate leader.

Irgy said:

This might have been discussed at length somewhere already, in which case I apologise, but I don't see duplicate leaders as an issue only for the teams involved. For example, personally I wouldn't want to see two of the same civ in the game at all, whether it was my team sharing or another. I don't like the prospect of being stuck between two Romes for instance - even if one is Augustus and the other Julius.

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Rome is somewhat overrated for this style of gameplay. I would be highly surprised if we had two Romes in the same game - but it wouldn't even be a big deal if there were. Befriend one (or both) and fight together against someone else, just like you would any other team. You'll always have the risk of your two nearest neighbours ganging up against you, regardless of who they are. Personally I would be more afraid of a Rome-Persia or Rome-Egypt alliance than a Rome-Rome alliance. But either way, the solution is always the same: diplomacy, diplomacy, diplomacy.

Irgy said:

If there's only going to be 6 civs, do we really need to allow for duplicate civs anyway? There's a lot of good choices out there. I'd prefer to just not allow duplicates, and just get the leader choice that gives the most people the highest choice from their preference list. Just one opinion among many I'm sure though.

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Fair enough, you're entitled to your opinion. Personally I don't mind at all about sharing the same leader as someone else - I'd rather keep my first choice than risk sabotaging my leader choice in favour of some other civ. But that's just my opinion. With my proposal though, it's up to the individual teams, so if you really don't want to share a leader with someone else then you can lobby for that on your team (our team, I guess ).

I note that you said you didn't want to see any other civs with duplicate leaders, though. Perhaps if enough people agree with you on this point, we could have a team vote on whether to disallow duplicates outright, or whether to go with the system proposed in the first post of this thread?

First thing is that we need to decide on how many civs are in each team and that will make the rest of the decisions easier.

Personally i don't see the problem with having double (or more) up of leaders or civs. The game allows is so i don't see why all teams can't get who they want, even if its the same as another team. Besides every civ has it strengths and weaknesses to exploit. So really its more of an advantage to be different from other choices.

@Irgy- I'd be overjoyed to be inbetween two Romes or two anythings for that matter, because it means you have the same tactics for boths, takes away alot of the guesswork. If you get stuck between Rome and Egypt as an example then you have to adjust and cover two completely different UU's which is much harder to manage. Plus there is always good diplomacy

If your neighbors double team you from both sides early in the game (and the teams are close enough for that) then it's probably over for your civ no matter what civ/leader you (or they) have.

Unrestricted leaders with duplicate civs allowed = Multiple Financial leaders with Rome as their Civ. Should be interesting...

@Robi D - Just curious, why would getting dogpiled in ancient era by two Romes be any less deadly than being dogpiled by Rome and Egypt? Seems to me that you're equally dead either way.

If you get dogpiled, sure. But if your neighbor is just egypt and persia (or egypt and egypt) you will spam spears and feel pretty safe. If you have just rome, (or Rome and Rome) you will focus on axes. Having similar UUs on each border makes preventive force building simpler.

In any case, if two civs come early at the same time, you're probably finished. The question is what happens when you have Rome and Egypt, and only Rome attacks (or vice-versa)...life would have been simpler had you faced Rome/Rome and only one of them attacked.

I'm probably missing the point a bit with my two Romes example. It's more of an aesthetic thing than a practical thing, you could indeed just build a lot of axes (just watch out for the surprise Roman chariot rush! ). It could be 3 Khmers and 2 Americas, it's just the lack of variety that's the problem.

I think my dislike of having the same civs in the game is for the same reasons as my dislike of having absolutely identical starting tiles, it just seems ugly. If people played well then they'd all end up doing the same things. Mind you if *everyone* played the same civ that would be kind of interesting in its own way.

It's not a big deal though, and I think I'm in a minority on this so I'll just leave it at that.

Sommerswerd said:

If your neighbors double team you from both sides early in the game (and the teams are close enough for that) then it's probably over for your civ no matter what civ/leader you (or they) have.

Unrestricted leaders with duplicate civs allowed = Multiple Financial leaders with Rome as their Civ. Should be interesting...

@Robi D - Just curious, why would getting dogpiled in ancient era by two Romes be any less deadly than being dogpiled by Rome and Egypt? Seems to me that you're equally dead either way.

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You've got to spend your time building spears and axes if it is Egypt and Rome but if it is just Rome you can mostly focus on the axes.

Sommerswerd said:

@Robi D - Just curious, why would getting dogpiled in ancient era by two Romes be any less deadly than being dogpiled by Rome and Egypt? Seems to me that you're equally dead either way.

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Pretty much what BCLG said, but a 2 on 1 early on would be difficult to survive whatever combination you face. I was also thinking in terms of preparation it is easier to plan facing two of the same civ because they have the same UU and will have similar tactics.

If you know your faced with two romes from the begining you can always spam out some axes as an insurance policy in case one or both attacks at some stage. If it rome and egypt you have to divide your unit builds to be able to cover both of them

Wait, what am I missing here? Can't Rome build Chariots? Dont regular Chariots own Axes as well? So if one Rome spams Praets and the other Rome spams Chariots... and you are building just Axes... then its just as much GG as Rome/Egypt right?

Sommerswerd said:

Wait, what am I missing here? Can't Rome build Chariots? Dont regular Chariots own Axes as well? So if one Rome spams Praets and the other Rome spams Chariots... and you are building just Axes... then its just as much GG as Rome/Egypt right?

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But I think both Roman civs would be more likely to spam Praets than chariots.

Yeah, spamming Chariots when you're Rome with access to Iron just seems a bit weak sauce. Not to mention you might be worried about the other Rome backstabbing you, so you'd definitely want to add some Praetorians into the mix.

That would an interesting game having just Rome as the civilisation, but i doubt that would happen here.

Sommerswerd said:

Wait, what am I missing here? Can't Rome build Chariots? Dont regular Chariots own Axes as well? So if one Rome spams Praets and the other Rome spams Chariots... and you are building just Axes... then its just as much GG as Rome/Egypt right?

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I'd rather face a roman chariot than an egyptian one, and besides if you rome to build chariots instead of praets i'd consider that a tactical win since you have nullified their biggest advantage