Equality PBEM

[deshelbr]

I'm more interested in playing a truly equal game. I'm not so concerned about the details of how the game as modded as long as we get off to a fast start and are on a generally equal footing.

I think that Emporer play would be good. I don't really want to play on diety.

 

[predesad]

I think that Emporer play would be good. I don't really want to play on diety.

chicken

if we have 5 players, then i am worried about the ai being totally dominated in the game because they will be outnumbered, might go for demigod, but i thought emprorer would be good too.

i also need some civ selections, i know rubberjello, dogboy & i are all in the US, i'll let one of them have America if they want, though rubber said he did not care.

btw, in addition to the equalizing which goes on for human players i will be adjusting the defualt settings for the ai, they will all be programmed to be very aggressive.

 

[DogBoy]

Ok, don't have a lot of time.

But keep the archers in and keep longbowmen in. Those upgrade paths look fine to me.

The reason I said the internet instead of the UN staying in the game as the great wonder is the internet comes later than the UN. True, it's not that much later. But it would still suck if an AI built it and then died before the internet was available. Just wasting all those shields would make it unfair.

The UN can still be another forbidden palace.

As for difficulty level, I really don't care. I also have a feeling we might roll over the AI as it's not going to be as efficient with all these changes. Emperor at the least but leaning towards diety. But like I said, I'm flexible.

I was thinking about golden age. Instead of giving it to a UU, how about making it come as soon as a player builds # of small wonders. I don't know what # equals, but we could decide on something. Maybe 5 or 10 small wonders triggers a golden age. That is something that would need to be playtested.

I will be American.

 

[Krabius]

I think I would not be able to play the game any time soon . So that solves your one problem.

Good luck on creating the game!

 

[predesad]

As for difficulty level, I really don't care. I also have a feeling we might roll over the AI as it's not going to be as efficient with all these changes. Emperor at the least but leaning towards diety. But like I said, I'm flexible.

I was thinking about golden age. Instead of giving it to a UU, how about making it come as soon as a player builds # of small wonders. I don't know what # equals, but we could decide on something. Maybe 5 or 10 small wonders triggers a golden age. That is something that would need to be playtested.

DogBoy, it's not that I don't like your suggestions, it's just that some of these things are not possible in the editor, sorry to keep shooting down some of them. There is only 2 ways to get GA, building Great Wonders which correspond to civ traits or being victorious in combat w/ UU. There is no way of altering that. The only other option would be to keep the Great Wonders as Great Wonders, use the flavor setting new to conquests and create 8 Wonders (7 new) for each existing one. That method leaves a lot of room for errors not too mention a lot of work for me and since i have been off work for 6 weeks now i have gotten a little lazy. The only feasible method is w/ the UU and we need to decide which ones to use, but make it broad so that AI will build them, but that is something else we can look for during testing, i'll throw in additional scouts to make contact easier so we can check about this.

With some of these changes it might actually help the AI, instead of spending 100+ turns building wonders only to get the Great Wall or a colloseum, they will actually get the wonder they wanted. I think they will have no problem getting to the middle ages unless two players are very warmongering oriented (predesad suddenly feels all eyes looking at him, stop that!) and strive to wipe them out early at the expense of expansion. Keep in mind 8 players on a huge world 60% water, plenty of distance / space for the AI to develop.

I don't know how the AI will repsond to the wonders changes really, but the units changes wont be a problem, i did this in vanilla civ and the ai was very good at building the diverse units, stacks of hoplites / legionaries / mounted warriors in ancient age. the only problem with that game was i played on regent level. I would also like to try this on diety, maybe demigod, but with adjusted corruption level, same as emporer.

@deshelbr, what are your objections to the diety level game? would you be okay with demigod? please be specific. my feeling is, and this is not meant as an insult, you are simply not wanting that much of a challenge form the ai, while we are actually trying to make it a challenge to keep them alive a little longer. 4 humans have the potential to thoroughly abuse 4 ai. typically in pbem, the ai is always a first target for elimination because it is easier than eliminating a human and they will often attack before a human. with that in mind, perhaps i should not make the ai most agressive, but put them all in the middle.

 

[DogBoy]

Predesad, I don't mind you shooting down my recommendations. Better to do that now then to find out 2 months into our PBEM that something isn't going to work.

Here are two recommendations to golden age:
1. Give them to a late middle ages UU, maybe siphali or cossack. Giving it to an early ancient age (bowman for example), will screw the AI I think. Since the humans know that the bowman will give a golden age, I'm pretty sure nobody will build it to get a 2-5 city despotism golden age, but the AI might. That equals "unfair" for the AI.
2. Just get rid of golden age. Since this is an "equality" game, by getting rid of the golden age then nobody can gain an advantage in that manner. You won't miss the golden age, because nobody will get it.

As for difficulty level, I think demi-god might be a little too high. True, the AI is usually the first target in these games, but the humans can also be a target. What would happen if one human wound up between two AI. Both AI expand towards the human. One AI goes to war with those extra units, enlists the other AI with its extra units, and that human is going to be so far behind. Yes, diety also has extra units, but not as much as demi-god.

 

[Rubberjello]

I vote for Demigod or Emporer (but would rather have demigod). I would like to keep the Golden Age in. Maybe only UUs from the Middle Ages onwards can trigger it? (Swiss, Conquistadors, and the whole raft of Cavalry variants for Middle Ages.)

 

[DogBoy]

haha, me so dumb. I had my terminology backwards. What I meant to say was I vote for demi-god because diety has more units for the AI. So I vote for demi-god.

 

[predesad]

Yeah, i was about to call you on that DogBoy, so that we can actually get somewhere on these decisions, I am going to post a series of polls of all the issues as i see them, since CFC does not have the poll option, i will provide a link to these polls in this thread when i am finished. As soon as all the players have voted in the polls or by Saturday night (preferably tomorrow night) i will consider the discussions closed unless someone raises another issue / question. I will break any ties as the host.

 

[predesad]

okay, the whole poll thing is not going to work because it would take a lot of polls, instead i am sending out an email to avoid another very long post since one of my fellow players already accused me of being:

The long-winded, verbose, comments-on-everything, Mr. Observation himself

the email is in the form of a questionaire and can simply be replied to and add yes / no or whatever is appropriate beside the questions.

deshelbr, i need your email and i could also use your time zone please. i know you said you were not concerned about the actual settings but i could use your input anyway if you have the time.

 

[predesad]

i have not had much time to work on testing yet, although with what little i have played i am 75% thru w/ the ancient age and have 3 units, temples, barracks in all cities, a multiple wonder campaign is underway in both civs and coloseums are also under construction. i disbanded all of my scouts once the goody huts were gone & i had made contact with myself because i felt they were useless.

nobody has had any questions so i am not making it a priority to write up a full detailed explanation of all the changes. when we actually get to the real pbem, i will have this completed and will send it to each player via an email and in an attached wordpad format to make it easy to reference even during playing time.

in my test i amjust building stuff, meanwhile the ai keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. i havent even thought about going out to claim resources yet. i hope the ai doesnt kill me off before i at least get through the tech tree, but it is obvious they are having a rapid expansion. this does worry me because at some point during the test phase if the game lasts long enough with all the extra shields / food it might slow the game down real bad to the point we dont really get to test the whole thing, i hate it when you gotta wait like 15 minutes + between turns.

also, shortly i am going to make an epic game with all the exact changes in the pbem so you guys can play it if you want to maybe help plan strategy for the pbem, see exactly how the changes affect the game, it will be set up exactly like the pbem plans to be.

 

[DogBoy]

I have done some testing also. I am done with the entire tech tree and am on future tech 2 right now. What I did was give each civ a different research tree and trade techs each turn. I have a gazillion units and am about to start testing the upgrade path, golden age, and leaders. Be forewarned, there is no oil and rubber on our land mass. There is some on the AIs landmass so you might want to settle that part. Also, there is only one saltpeter on our land mass so good luck on that part. I actually had to set up a bunch of colonies to grab resources. Raging barbs sucks. I put the workers on auto for this test, stupid things build airports?

 

[predesad]

I dont have any idea why i left the barbs as raging for the test, but am glad to hear you got through the tech tree without any problems at least. the upgrade path probably does not really need to be tested to closely, IIRC the civilopedia automatically updates any editor changes with respect to upgrades, so we should just be able to cross reference the civilopedia w/ the changes, but i cannot guarantee that.

NO OIl! NO RUBBER! ONE SALTPETER!

Man, this was a sloppy job by me on the test scenario, I thought surely w/ a huge map 4 civs resources would not be a problem, i can deal w/ the one saltpeter no problem, but no oil / rubber really sucks. I should have edited the map for resources and like i said should have put barbs at sednetary or whatever makes them in huts only, then we would have none because expansionist never pops barbs. but hey, that's my mistake for the month.

 

[deshelbr]

Originally posted by predesad
deshelbr, i need your email and i could also use your time zone please. i know you said you were not concerned about the actual settings but i could use your input anyway if you have the time.

I'm in PST (GMT -8) and my e-mail is deshelbr AT yahoo DOT com. I tried to reply to your questionaire, but after I had written an answer to every question and I tried to send it, Yahoo Mail ate it. So I lost my work responding and was so mad I haven't brought my self to do it again.

I also tested a little of the scenario, I'm getting destroyed though because I'm not realizing how everything works with all the modifications.

 

[predesad]

okay, this may be repeating some of what i already said, but dont feel like taking the time to look back at previous post. IIRC, dogboy said he expected to be through with testing this weekend, i also think i will be through this weekend and we might be able to roll, deshelbr, i need your civ preference, America is taken everything else is open because rubberjello just requested "not pink"

if anyone has any issues it is important to state them now, of course it is hard to really guess how the game is really going to react based on the test scenario, but i was not really wanting to do extensive testing for balance issues. when i make the PBEM & i know there are no problems / errors, i will post here an extensive explanation of all changes and also email a copy to each player, i was going to send a wordpad file also, but realized that was pointless, everyone can just copy and paste from email or thread to make their own wordpad file, easier than downloading one. also i will send the scenario to each player in a format in which they can either play it as an epic game or use it for future PBEM, this service is free of charge and is a bonus for participating in the PBEM

i will also start an epic game & send to everyone, if you get time to play it, then it will help to see exactly how the changes will affect the game and help in planning strategies for the game. i hope to one day actually make a mod based on this concept which will add a few units and buildings and a few other changes, if i ever clear my table enough to work on it and get the help i need, but civ4 might come out beofre that happens.

i hope the delay has not caused anyone to lose interest

 

[Rubberjello]

Apologies to all. I haven't had time to do any testing. Just to let you know I feel guilty about it, but am not going to actually act out on that guilt!

 

[deshelbr]

I would like to be the Persians.

 

[Kaboth]

Predesad do you mind sending this test scenario to me at josthecybs at hotmail dot com. Though you already have enough players I might like to join a future game and besides I need to sharpen my skills a bit first :;

 

[predesad]

i will be happy to send you the test scenario, but basically since we were not looking for balance issues just errors it is not really a playable game, IMHO, all terrain gives like 5 food, 10 shields, 5 commerce, max / min research time set to 1 turn so you get a tech every turn even under 10% science, & a few other things so we could just get through the tree, i will also send you the final scenario which won't have these rapid build / growth / research changes.

 

[DogBoy]

Ok, I'm done with my testing. Very intensive and exhaustive but it will be worth it I think. Anyway, here are some points/questions. If I make a point that has already been stated, please don't give me the ole' "it's here stupid" because I'm not going to re-read everything that has been posted. Anyway:

-The upgrade tree looks pretty good. The units were upgradeable as they should be.
-Is the cossack and siphai supposed to upgrade to panzer? I never noticed that but they do this time.
-The wonders work as they should. This includes "must have 5 barracks or must have 5 temples".
-The UN works as it should...which is it's worthless.
-If we got rid of all units that are not a UU, then why did we leave some? That question doesn't make sense, but let me explain. We still have guerillas, infantry, mech infantry, TOW infantry, modern paratroopers, marines, modern armor, artillery, etc... We got rid of swordmen, spearmen, etc... and decided to only use UU. I think the answer is because there is no replacement for infantry, mech infantry, battleships, etc... but I just wanted to be sure.
-The earliest UU that would give me the golden age was the Ansar Warrior. This is a bit early in my opinion for a golden age. I thought we had decided that the earliest time to get a golden age would be middle to late middle ages. If everybody wants to go with the knight based UUs, that's fine with me. But everybody needs to know that so nobody gets surprised.
-Can I get a resource? No, I'm serious, I need a resource. On our HUGE land mass, and I do mean HUGE, there was 1 saltpeter, 1 horse, 2 iron, 2 aluminum, 2 coal, 0 oil, 0 rubber, 0 uranium. The chance of winning the powerball lottery is better than this happening again. I don't know if you can adjust the settings on resources, but if you did, I recommend doing away with that. I'm not saying to make sure everybody has several of each resource, but it's not going to be an "equality" PBEM if only one person wins the lottery and gets iron and horses.
-You can't upgrade all the way at one time. For instance, a hoplite had to upgrade to a musketeer on this turn. The next turn he could upgrade to a mech infantry. I wasn't able to just upgrade from a hoplite to a mech infantry in one try. I don't know if the normal games are like this (frankly I don't think I ever made that big jump of an upgrade). I would recommend changing this if you can to just be able to mass upgrade at one time.

Other than that, it looks like it's going to be fun.