CBob04: Pregame Discussion and Brainstorming

[TheOverseer714]

Tech tree completion for whom? Us, all the AI's or what? Do we gift everyone to full tech parity? That would mean possession of the UN and most likely shutting off the Space Victory option. In fact, it might mean only leaving Domination and Conquest as possible VC's. Assuming a brisk tech pace, it might still leave only 100-200 turns to achieve victory. Sounds tough. It's alot easier to beat up on AI's when you have tanks and they have muskets. When its Modern Armor vs Mech Infantry, it gets much more dicey. The difference might be artillery, human players can use it effectively, AI's don't. It would definitely be difficult. AW with tech parity in the modern age miight be a turkey shoot for the AI, not the human, especially at higher levels. Imagine facing 300 Modern Armors! The turn times could run into days.

 

[sercer88]

Exactly: for this game...something that I would want, at least, would be the challenge of facing 300 Modern Armors...well, maybe not that many: but a strong AI with Modern Armors and Stealth Bombers, and Battleships and AEGIS Cruisers out of the WAZZOO would, to me, be a daunting, yet glorious task ahead of me Oh, and an AI who uses Espionage would be "fun" to play against!!

For the added difficulty of the game-type, CBob could leave all victory conditions on (except wonder......who uses this one, anyway?) Or, I guess you could take out Space victory...because that would be pretty hard to either beat a D-G AI and finish the tech tree before they could build a space ship, or it would be too hard to keep track of all the civs with aluminum and constructing a space ship...

 

[AutomatedTeller]

lurker's comment:
A few random comments:

Well, you are saying Modern Era, but are talking about industrial era units (Infantry & Tanks).
I think continents or arch would be best - a 70% arch map going into the industrial age would allow for use of marines/carriers/bombers/fighters.
To keep early warfare/expansion down, you could set a limit to # of cities, or you could say: No entering enemy culture in war or declaring war before your trigger event. The UN is a good one.
To make it more challenging, you could also put in a variant where you gift the AI up to the era when you change eras.
I'd recommend a scientific civ - I think you guys will be driving research. Getting to the modern age will take awhile.

 

[vmxa]

Lurker:

If you went AWDG on a max water island map with only Conquest allowed, you would get a real good shot at Modern Age warefare and would not have to do anything else with the rules.

You may have to go with a large map do that, it would be a longer game.

 

[SimpleMonkey]

lurker's comment: If you wanted to tweak it a bit by modding, you could try something like Takeo did in The Sumerian Empire In that one he kept the difficulty level at Emperor (I think) but gave the AI big discounts on building military units. Set the agression level high, and you should have a fairly entertaining slugfest. Of course, the fighting would probably start early on, making it a challenge to last all the way into the Modern Age. In any epic game I've played I've only once managed to make it to the end of the tech tree before my turns ran out. Anyway, there's some more ideas to toss out.

 

[anaxagoras]

Intriguing idea. I'd be interested in participating, whenever this happens, if the lineup isn't already set. Of course, I also have suggestions:

If it were me, I'd prefer playing out the full game. I learn stuff every time I play a set in a succession game, even during "boring" turns. Also, I think living the history adds flavor.

Triggering events: I think the original post makes the best case. If the idea is to have modern combat, why not start fighting when you get to the Modern Age? You could put a cap on the number of industrial age units you could build in order to prevent a hoard of industrial-era tanks from storming out of the gates and conquering the world before modern armor becomes available. Some of the other suggested trigger points happen too late, in my opinion. I think you need to allow fighting before the Manhattan Project is completed (just to keep everything from being focused on nukes).