Game Settings Discussion

[Sullla]

Hello, and greetings to Team 2! I've been asked to create the map for the Demogame, and before I get started I need to hear a consensus from each of the teams on some of the game settings. I would like you guys to discuss the following options, and come up with a team answer to the following six settings:

- Huts: On/Off
- Events: On/Off
- Vassal States: On/Off
- Barbarians: None, Normal, or Raging
- Tech Trading: Normal, No Tech Trading, No Tech Brokering
- Difficulty Level: Low (Noble/Prince), Medium (Monarch/Emperor), High (Immortal/Deity)

Be aware that difficulty level affects three main issues with no AIs in the game: research costs, inflation/maintenance, and barbarian strength. It might sound cool to be playing on Deity, but... the game balance frankly is not as good at the highest setting, and the game just generally runs better at the more moderate settings. And while I don't want to prejudice the voting, I would strongly recommend turning off Vassal States, which add little to the gameplay while opening up a number of gamey exploits. Of course, this is YOUR team, and you can tell me to screw off if you like.

I'm asking each team to come to a decision on these six settings by Wednesday, November 19th of next week. You can decide in any fashion your team chooses - how to go about doing so is up to you! Once all five teams have voted, I'll tally them up and see which options won. Each team as a whole has one vote, and 3/5 majority wins. For non-binary options like difficulty setting, I'll pick whatever setting is closest to the group vote (e.g. if there are three "Medium" and two "High" votes, I will choose Emperor as the difficulty level). Assume that any setting not listed here will be turned off for the game. Thus you won't see "No City Razing" or "Always War/Peace" or anything like that.

Good luck and happy voting!

 

[Toch]

Ok here is my opinion about this.

- Huts: On (Makes earlyer exploring interesting)
- Events: Off (It is soooo much uneven)
- Vassal States: On (i asume it would give nice diplomatic option to game)
- Barbarians: Normal (you have to be carefull about setler, worker protection, and there are some early fights, but it is not somehow annoying)
- Tech Trading: Not sure about this i will wait on others opinion.
- Difficulty Level: Emperor

 

[Joshua368]

We'll probably just keep it simple and individually vote and add them up. So... my votes:

Huts: On
Events: Off
Vassals: Off
Barbarians: Normal
Tech Trading: Normal
Difficulty Level: Medium

 

[johnle43]

- Huts: Off
- Events: On
- Vassal States: Off
- Barbarians: Normal
- Tech Trading: Normal/On
- Difficulty Level: Medium

 

[Toch]

I guees maybe we should give some reason why we act so, because i cant understand why johnle43 wants evens and dont want huts.

 

[Joshua368]

No event can instantly give you a second tier tech within the first ten turns.

 

[ForeverNow]

Huts: Off - Random inequality in the early game
Events: Off - Random inequality throughout the game
Vassals: Off - I think this would not be used in an no-AI game. Of course I have no experience in such a game, so what do I know?
Barbarians: Normal
Tech Trading: No brokering - I just hate the thought of someone else making all the profit off my hard earned beeline tech.
Difficulty Level: Medium

 

[johnle43]

- Huts: Off - because we may get some measley cash while others gain techs
- Events: On - usually minor pro's con's
- Vassal States: Off - because we can negotiate with the other teams ourselves.
- Barbarians: Normal - so that people cant spam cities without regard.
- Tech Trading: Normal/On - just another tool of diplomacy. a militarily weak tech may keep themselves safe by barganing away some techs.
- Difficulty Level: Medium - to keep a fun pace.

 

[plako]

Huts: off. Can provide too big of an advantage early, even if they make early game more interesting.
Events: on. I don't mind "off" either because of unbalance issues, but these make game a little bit funnier.
Vassal states: off. In my opinion this is mainly meant for single player games. As johnle said matters are negotiated between the teams.
Barbarians: normal - seems to be consensus here.
Tech trading: On.
Difficulty: Medium. Only reason is that monarch and Emperor are the ones I normally play.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Huts: On - they're never really too imbalanced, and it's unfair to civs who start with Scouts if we don't have huts.

Events: On - although I'm happy with off too. They make the game a bit more interesting, but you occasionally get really unfair events (like a barbarian army that can destroy an early-game civ).

Vassal states: Off - they'll hardly ever be used, and they cause so many issues because they don't work properly.

Barbarians: Normal - although we could turn barbarians off in order to avoid the "barb army" event mentioned above.

Tech trading: On - I definitely feel that this makes for far more interesting diplomacy in the game.

Difficulty: Monarch or Emperor are fine - I don't mind as it'll be balanced for everyone.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Tallies so far from 6 people voting:

Huts: TIE (3 Off, 3 On)
Events: TIE (3 Off, 3 On)
Vassal States: OFF (5 Off, 1 On)
Barbarians: NORMAL (6 Normal, 0 Off, 0 Raging)
Tech Trading: NORMAL (4 Normal, 1 Brokering, 0 Off, 1 Undecided)
Difficulty: MONARCH/EMPEROR (5 Monarch/Emperor, 1 Emperor)

 

[cIV_khanh93]

- Huts: On, good reward for exploration
- Events: On, I guess that takes away some balance and fairness, but I like them.
- Vassal States: On, whole teams are participating as each civ, so this shouldnt be abused at all.
- Barbarians: Normal. Destroys some some (unfair?) strategies and encourages an early military, a good foundation for a long game.
- Tech Trading: Normal/On. Democracy without diplomacy?
- Difficulty Level: Noble. Just seems like the standard option.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Just a note about the difficulty level: since there are no AI teams, the difficulty level just affects things like the cost of technologies and bonuses against barbarians. Since teams in democracy games tend to play far better than single players on their own, tech progress tends to go quite fast, so it's often worth raising the difficulty level to slow research down a bit for everyone.

Updated tallies:

Huts: ON (4 On, 3 Off)
Events: ON (4 On, 3 Off)
Vassal States: OFF (5 Off, 2 On)
Barbarians: NORMAL (7 Normal, 0 Off, 0 Raging)
Tech Trading: NORMAL (5 Normal, 1 Brokering, 0 Off, 1 Undecided)
Difficulty: MONARCH/EMPEROR (5 Monarch/Emperor, 1 Emperor, 1 Noble)

 

[Sullla]

Here are the votes thus far (essentially Lord Parkin's post above, but with individual names added in):

Huts
On: Toch, Joshua368, Lord Parkin, cIV khanh93 (4)
Off: johnle43, ForeverNow, plako (3)

Events
On: johnle43, plako, Lord Parkin, cIV khanh93 (4)
Off: Toch, Joshua368, ForeverNow (3)

Vassal States
On: Toch, cIV khanh93 (2)
Off: Joshua368, johnle43, ForeverNow, plako, Lord Parkin (5)

Barbs
Normal: Toch, Joshua368, johnle43, ForeverNow, plako, Lord Parkin, cIV khanh93 (7)
None
Raging

Tech Trading
Normal: Joshua368, johnle43, plako, Lord Parkin, cIV khanh93 (5)
No Trading:
No Brokering: ForeverNow (1)

Difficulty
Low: cIV khanh93 (Noble) (1)
Medium: Toch (Emperor), Joshua368, johnle43, ForeverNow, plako, Lord Parkin (6)
High

I'm seeing a clear consensus in favor of Vassal States Off, Normal Barbs, Normal Tech Trading, and a vote for Medium/Monarch difficulty. In contrast, there is definitely not agreement on the first two options, what to do with Huts and Events. In the two remaining days before the deadline, I'd like to encourage your team to determine a clearer stance on these two settings and come to some kind of agreement. I can certainly take the current votes, with their narrow margins, but wanted to give you a chance to discuss them first.

 

[plako]

i'm also ok with huts on (not a big deal) so probably this makes the decision on that clear.

 

[ForeverNow]

In the interest of concensus, I can live with huts and events on. Not a big deal to me, I was just expressing my mild preference for off. We can handle some randomness, I think.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Okay, cool. I agree, a bit of randomness won't hurt us too much (and it might even help us on occasion!).

So Sullla, assuming that any new members arriving in the next day or so don't drastically alter the trends, it looks like Team 2 will be voting for:

Huts - On
Events - On
Vassals - Off
Barbs - Normal
Tech Trading - Normal
Difficulty - Monarch

 

[Sullla]

Gotcha. Thanks.

 

[Dux_]

Huts: On

Events: On - Obviously, quests are fun, even if we have more pressing priorities to be able to pursue them

Vassal states: Off

Barbarians: Normal

Tech trading: On - We should just make sure to have an active diplomacy unit

Difficulty: Emperor