1st Age of Imperialism PBEM Continued

[AnthonyBoscia]

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This new thread is for the first Age of Imperialism Play-by-email game that was started by RickFGS and will now be continuing. Since a number of players have left, we will begin with those players still dedicated to playing and will be on the lookout for any new players looking to join. If you are a current player, please let us know if you are not on the roster and still wish to play.

If you would like to join the game, please post in the thread or PM one of us and we will get you started!

Our current roster as of 16 MAR 14:

Player 1 - Portugal - AI
Player 2 - France - Bengal Tiger
Player 3 - Russia* - AI
Player 4 - Germany - AI
Player 5 - United States - Hawklord
Player 6 - Japan - AnthonyBoscia
Player 7 - Great Britain - Jureil
Player 8 - Italy - Acronym
Player 9 - Lowlands - AI
Player 10 - Balcan Nations* - AI
Player 11 - Ottomans* - TomYo689
Player 12 - Brazil - AI
Player 13 - Argentina - AI
Player 14 - Scandinavia - ?
Player 15 - Austria-Hungary* - AI
Player 16 - Spain - AI

* do not start with colonial holdings but are afforded many of the overseas builds

Here is the list of civilizations originally provided by El Justo in the AOI thread for further information:

Spoiler :

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Italy: this position starts with a small colonial empire, a weak industrial base in the southern part of the peninsula but an industrious northern section. the Italians also have their own line of sea units and can pack some punch if the right circumstances are present. as such, this position would probably fall somewhere in the middle with regard to difficulty.

Balcan Nations: this is a 'merged' position in that it encompasses three (3) nations (Greece-Serbia-Rumania). the industrial base is meager to begin with but its starting navy has more teeth than one would think. she is however surrounded by potential enemies but has the ability to exploit the 'Colonialism' resource. this civ is certainly a challenge but not nearly as difficult as some of the others.

German Empire: this position starts with a beefed up industrial and economic base as well as several colonial holdings in Africa and in the South Pacific. the unit lines for this civ are some of the best in the game in that there's lots of goodies to build. empire managment though may pose to be more difficult for the Germans due to their lack of coastal cities. however, they're definitely one of the most fun top-end positions to play.

Russia: this position starts off in bad shape. Russia's economy is lacking and she is vulnerable on several flanks. she does however possess a humongous population base and if managed properly, the human player can build up the Russian position and potentially wreak havoc in Europe and elsewhere. the primary negative with the Russians is that they do not start with a colonial empire and are therefore behind in the VP race. note though that they are able to capture enemy colonial positions and administer the standard colonial mgmt procedures.

China: The Chinese position is surrounded by potential enemies. she also lacks sufficient firepower to expand but the population base is tremendous. thus the manpower advantages offer something in return. China is definitely one of the harder positions in v4.0

USA: the American civ has perhaps the best industrial capacity in the game. she starts off a little weak though but once the production starts rolling, this civ can become a beast. the US starts with only four (4) colonial outposts but has several nearby targets to decide upon. she also has one of the beefiest naval lines in the whole scenario. the US is one of the top-end civs in the game.

Japan: the Japanese civ is definitely a force in the East. a good economy and a semi-developed industrial base enable the human player to build up in a hurry. the naval line for them is also one of the best in the game. accordingly, this civ has a great chance of exerting dominance in the western Pacific rim and is at the top with regard the best nations in the game.

France: this civ has the second largest colonial base in the game (GB is no. 1) and with that, a great deal of attention needs to be paid to managing the colonial holdings and shipping the goods back home. there's potential enemies all around but as one of the most highly industrialized nations of the world at this time, production and economics are on the high end. France is definitely one of the most fun positions to play and is a nice challenge.

Persia: nestled between the Ottomans to the west, the Russians to the north, and the English to the east, this civ is certainly one of the more challenging positions to play. the population base is good although this position lacks the top-end industrial improvements.

Central America: encompassing the modern day nations of Guatemala, Honduras, Nicarauga, Costa Rica, and Panama, the Central American civ is relatively weak. lacking the industrial and economic infrastructure, the Central Americans are quite a challenging position. they do enjoy a sealed off northern border w/ mexico however.

Boer Republics: this landlocked position starts off relatively weak. however, this civ can be quite a thorn in the side of the colonial powers in southern Africa. a de facto house rule on this position is that if you can 'liberate' all of the British holdings in South Africa, you're a winner. easier said than done.

Brazil: this civ is certainly one of the best in South America. while the industrial and economic base is somewhat undeveloped, the capacity to grow is certainly present. potential enemies surround the Brazilian borders but it's fun kicking the colonial powers out of northern South America. Brazil is a mid-grade difficulty imo.

British Empire: the preeminent civ in the scenario, this position controls roughly 25% of the entire globe at the start of the game. as such, the management of the colonial holdings is task no. 1 and the responsibilty to defend them is also mandatory. potential enemies are all over the map but this civ is one of the best in terms of units and the naval line for the Brits is outstanding. a tough position to play due mainly to the management aspects and having to defend far-flung regions. however, for the 'full experience', the Brits are the best choice and offer multiple fronts and a chance for serious micro-managing.

Spain: this civ starts off the scenario in bad shape. her colonial holdings in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines are in disrepair and with potential enemies waiting to pounce. the Spanish position requires a great deal of investment in improving the colonial infrastructure. with the right touch, a human player could reverse the fortunes of the Spanish Empire and resuscitate the decaying colonial holdings.

Scandinavia: this civ is a combination of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland. for v4.0, Scandinavia is the beneficiary of a new colonial location, the Danish Antilles. this civ also has access to a mix of German, French, and British hardware. the industrial base is decent and nice room for improvement. the pop base is just okay but this position can pose a threat if managed properly.

Ottoman Empire: the "Sick Man of Europe" starts the scenario in bad shape. its economy and industrial base is weak and potential enemies are on all fronts. it can, however, operate a colonial empire in v4.0 (unlike in v3.0). unit builds leave something left to be desired but there are some German arty, mg, and aircraft builds.

Hispañiola: this civ comprises La Republica Dominica and Haiti. it starts off the scenario in tough straits. however, the production capacity is there with the right managment. don't forget though that there's potential enemies all over and the Yanks will sniff around also. no doubt this makes this civ one of the most difficult in the entire scenario.

Mexico: the Mexican position starts off in rough shape but like many of the other mid-grade positions, the right management can result in a nice boost in production and gold. the main negative about this position is its neighbor to the north (the US) which poses quite a threat. the Mexicans can actually branch out some to the south or in the Caribbean if they're able to pacify her northern neighbor.

New Granada this civ is the nations of Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador. like all of the other Central and South American civs, this one has a 'puncher's chance'. production and the economy need work but with the right moves, gains could be had.

Uruguay: one of the tiniest of civs in v4.0, Urugauy is a two-city civ and, no doubt, is one of the most difficult positions. she actually starts with a decent little navy - good enough to stand up to her neighbors in S America. but there is potential enemies all around. but w/ the right management, a human player may be able to make some hay.

Chile: the best part about this civ is the six (6) coastal cities. the Chilean position is like the other Central and South Americans civs in that with the right maneuvering, the human player, in time, can make some conceivable advances. this position has a few flavor sea units.

Austria-Hungary: this civ is stronger that it may appear. while it possesses only one (1) coastal city to start, Austria-Hungary has a decent navy to begin with and some good builds later on. She also has a great industrial base in the western part of the empire. being alligned with Germany also helps. Austria-Hungary doesn't start with any colonial holdings and are therefore a bit behind in terms of VPs. however, she is capable of managing an overseas empire should she capture any of these locations.

Lowland Countries: this civ comprises the nations of Holland and Belgium. the colonial empire is rather large and the routes home are really long so a good convoy system is a must. the industrial base in Europe is good to start. but potential enemies are all around and defensive measures will undoubtedly be a priority.

Portugal: another of the mid-grade colonial civs, Portugal has a decent but unconnected colonial empire in Africa and some other spread out locations. like the other smallish Euro civs, this position needs to pay attention to the homeland defense. in sum, a nice challenge for any human player.

Argentina: this civ is like her neighbors in that the industrial and economic bases need some development. however, the production capacity is good and in time, one can make some nice advances if managed properly. Argentina also has some flavor sea unit builds.

La Plata: aka the nations of Peru, Bolivia, and Paraguay, this position is on even ground with her South American neighbors. the primary downfall of this civ though is the lack of coastal cities (only two to start). however, the production ceiling is decent and the human player could make gains if managed properly.

Abyssinia: this position is nestled in between a few different colonial empires in eastern Africa. the lack of a coastal city hurts this civ a little. however, production is decent so long as attention is paid to building it up. keeping colonial enemies out of your territory will be a challenge.

Tibet: this civ is tucked away in the rugged Himalayas. however, potenetially hostile neighbors lie to the north (China) and the south (British India). no doubt one of the hardest positions in v4.0.

Siam: the Siamese position is a buffer state in between French Indochina and British Burma. she has access to the sea, semi-decent production rates, and an uphill battle if this state wishes to butt heads w/ her neighbors.

Cuban Natives: the Cuban Natives start off w/ only one city, low-end production, and almost no gold to start. however, the independence movement on the island has begun and your chief aim is to evict the Spanish from La Isla de Cuba. they've got some pretty sturdy trenchworks though.

Philippine Natives: this position is similar to the one above in that evicting the Spanish from the Philippine Islands is goal no. 1. use caution however as the civ starts w/ almost nothing in its coffers, production is grim, and there's only 1 city among its population base. a nice set of earth works surrounds its sole bastion on Luzon.

RULES

Please observe the following rules. Thanks to Tomyo and Eric_A as I borrowed your text to keep things consistent.

• No Raze Patch: The No Raze patch must be used. Ask for assistance if you're not sure you have this in. It can be complicated depending on if you know what to do. There will be no city abandoning by players.
• No Turn Phase Cheating: No "turn" cheating, or any hacking or whatever. Click the spoiler to see further details. Phenomena should occur as described by Fraxis in game concepts. Also no interefence with file from outside the civ 3 game (hacks). You may use any outside utility which does not affect the game nor gives you information that you shouldn't normally have (for example, combat calculator is OK).
  
  Spoiler :

  Civil Engineers: It is not allowed for a team to use civil engineers to contribute shields to the construction of a building, and then rush that building and switch to a unit, as the shields from the civil engineers will carry over when they should not. Additionally, teams cannot partly build a city improvement, rush it, and then switch production to another building and continue this process, as the civil engineers' shields will be counted once for each rush, providing a false number of shields.
  Changing Laborers pre-Production Phase: No breaking into the build sequence and changing Laborers from high commerce tiles to high production tiles by navigating through the city arrows or F1. Changing the Laborers in a city which has already completed it's production phase is allowable though.
  No Gold Mine, I.e. making cities give wealth and production at the same time. First set the cities to produce wealth. At the beginning of the next turn when another city is done building something else you can go to other cities with the arrows above and change the production of the cities that produce wealth to e.g. some unit. That will get production as well.
• 48 Hour turns: You have 48 hours to do your turn as of the previous players declaration of a sent turn. It will be skipped if the admin sends your skipped turn and it is GPSed by the next guy before you send it. Of course if you can catch up before the player after you plays your save will have priority over the skipped one. A reasonable request for extra time is likely to be granted.
• Rights of Passage: Basically don't use right of passage treaty to help you get in position for an attack on the treaty partner. See spoiler for more.
  
  Spoiler :

  If a right of passage treaty is suspected to have been established for the purpose of infiltrating you may be penalized. Take caution when attacking or even provoking one who you have right of passage with & units inside their land. If you are planning to attack someone while you have a treaty you probably should evacuate his land first to avoid investigation/penalty by the mod. If you declare war on a turn in which a treaty is in effect then do it before any units are moved so that the treaty is not abused - no exceptions for this last section.
• Austria-Hungary only: Austria-Hungary cannot gift cities or victory points to Germany (or vice versa but who would want to do that) unless or until the spot in question had been occupied by a 3rd empire. If he wishes to arrange a phony invasion to facilitate that he can be his guest. Only applies to their starting assets in Europe.
• Naval Units: If you are going to rename your naval units the name must retain the identifying tag. Click the spoiler for the specifics. Place it either before or after your custom name. After a nationality prefix is ok. Some categories do overlap such as UB and SS, SS and TR, PG and BB. It can actually be quite useful for the user to put the tag right at the beginning of the name.
  
  Spoiler :

  BB - Battleship
  BC - Battlecruiser
  CA - Armoured Cruiser
  CL - Light Cruiser
  CVL - Aircraft Carrier
  DD - Destroyer
  FG - Wooden Screw Frigate
  PC - Protected Cruiser
  PG - Coastal Gunboat
  SS - Submarine
  TB - Torpedo Boat
  TR - Steam Transport
  UB - German Submarines
• A city may only be donated to an AI spot under specific circumstances. Show for details:
  
  Spoiler :

  Three possible conditions for human to ai city transfer. The ai must have previously had control of that city. The ai must have a direct land border with it. Or an island must be at a maximum of 5 coastal/sea squares away. Impassable mountains are ignored. Island hopping condition does not apply for cities on the same land mass.
• City Exchanges: Any city changing ownership through trade (any method other than military capture) must be empty of mobile units before the transaction is accepted. Immobile trench/city garrison are the only exceptions to this. Come on guys steam transport is the cheapest unit in the game. Specifically this means you have to empty your city before pressing accept on the trade screen. Because trades pop up at the beginning of your turn empty them the turn before. Any city connected to the capital by railroad is excused from this rule so this isn't as much of an issue in Europe.
• Barbarian Resources: Raw resources spawn in the Arctic and uninhabited areas like barbarians. You may collect them. Think of it as an arctic north pole expedition or something.
• Transports: Transports linked for a one-turn ocean crossing is acceptable. Not specifically oceans but the trick in general.

Original Info on the game as posted by RickFGS:
- The game MUST be played with the C3C_noraze.exe present on the "...\AoI\Conquests No Raze Patch" folder, to avoid messing up the scenario.
- Other Info: Game level: Commodore, AI Agression: More, No Barbarians.
- Coastal Blocking is allowed;
- Artillery´s can be bought, since there are so few that are available to all players, this won´t be much of an exploit, in fact this will allow more diplomacy, thus more fun;
- Alliance between Germany and Austria is on;
- Minor factions such as Portugal, Lowlands, Balcans, Tibet, Abyssinia, Uruguai, Hispaniola, Cuba. Boer, Siam, Phillipines and so on, that only have 2 or less home cities received an extra 300gp to allow rushing of home defenses for the first turns.
- Declaration of war in the first turn, or turn 0, is NOT allowed.
- All improvements auto producing amphibious infantry units have been reduced from 20t to 10t of completion.
- No diplomacy with AI on turn 0;
- Social Group for this PBEM is: Here!, so please join!

Link to El Justo's AOI Thread.

Link to RickFGS's original AOI PBEM game thread.

Link to our second AOI Game, unrelated to this one.

We still have our AOI Social Group for discussion!

 

[AnthonyBoscia]

This Post will be for current turn info once we get things sorted out.

Last three turns played:

Glasnost GPS to Bowsling, Oct 22, 2013
Jureil GPS to Glasnost Oct 20, 2013
Tomyo GPS to Jureil Oct 18, 2013

 

[Jureil]

Looks Good Anthony

Glad you put this up I am not as computer and Civ Fanatics savy as you so would have been a pain for me to do it.

Thanks

 

[TomYo689]

Support

 

[Acronym]

If you guys get this going again, I'd be interested in playing, though I might be a bit behind on the diplomatic front. Could I go for Italy or France?


Sent from my mobile

 

[AnthonyBoscia]

Eric_A declined so Italy is open. Bengal Tiger hasn't weighed in yet. France is his if he still wants, but would be open if he doesn't want to continue. I'll put you down to Italy for now. Eclipse, if you're still interested, there's plenty of open space.

If we can get France, Russia, and Germany filled, I think we have a game.

 

[Bengal Tiger]

I've just finished my exams, so I have more time on my hands now, so I'm fine to commit back in, if we can get it going again.

 

[Acronym]

Hope this does get going - are we waiting on anyone in particular?

While we wait - has anyone here ever tried playing the classic board game, Diplomacy? You can play an excellent online version of it at playdiplomacy.com. It's theme is very similar to the Age of Imperialism scenario (same era, controlling one of the Great Powers pre-WW1), and is a game of negotiations and back-stabbing, with no luck involved - just very simple mechanics that create surprising depth.

I don't want to overdo the whole Age of Imperialism theme, but would any of you be interested in getting a game of that on the go? We'd need 7 players and you can play it on the site above for free. It might take a little less coordination to set up & play while we wait for this one to fill.

 

[AnthonyBoscia]

Hope this does get going - are we waiting on anyone in particular?

I was hoping we can get someone to pick up Russia and Germany since they're so crucial to maintaining the balance of power. If they get picked apart by hungry players it would change the game drastically. But it's open ended; if you guys want to resume now we can put it to a vote.

I never played Diplomacy, Acronym, but it looks cool. I can't commit right now but hopefully in the not-so-distant future.