Game Settings Discussion Thread

I thought it might be helpful to put some of the participants posts up on desired settings:
Here are the proposed game settings of Apolyton.

We have a strong crew (we think ;) ) of 10 players standing by to get into this game.
DNK, Robert Plomp, OzzyKP, Mzprox, Ben Kenobi, Toni, Jobe, Hercules, Dick76 and Calanthian


General settings : a 9-10 team pitboss game, huge map, modded rules, ancient start, normal speed, simultanous turns.

Map: hand made, balanced, not mirrored, wrapped from both axis(torodial), prefered map has place for sea battles tough it could be pangea aswell

Leader/civ choice unrestricted leaders,
no more than one instance of leader/civ,
no banned leader/civ,
choosing according to a random order (1st player in order chooses leader or civ then the second and so on, if all choosed once then they choose again but in reversed order)

No tech trade
No huts
No events

Barbs: yes, but can be discussed
Nukes: yes, but can be discussed
Corporations are NOT removed
Always war: a definite NO! We like diplomacy between teams. Furthermore it ruins trade within the game..

Espionage on - see below


modded stuff settings which probably require mods are put here:

* Espionage: civic and religion switch actions are removed
* Spanish double move mod-majority thinks it's unecessary
* No-score mod
* increased known tech bonus

Game rule: No city gifting unless as part of a peace settlement

Here's WPC's votes for the straw poll.

SETTINGS
- Game Speed: Normal
- nukes: On
- Espionage: On completely
- huts/events: Initial discussion in our team is divided. If this seems to need an official vote we'll probably need to do an official vote of our own.
- corporations: On
- known tech bonus (vanilla 30% or higher, like 100%): We're wary of it being raised too far. However, we'd probably support a modest bump to 50% or so, especially if tech trading is off.
- BUG mod: Again, our team is pretty evenly split.
- double-move mod: Yes
- always war: No
- tech trading: Off

MAP
- engineered starts: We don't want either the in-game Advanced Start option, or teams able to decide their own terrain like Sommerswerd was suggesting at RB. We'd like to see a mapmaker tweaking things, but that's it.
- wrap (none, 1-axis, 2-axis): 2-axis
- mirrored starts: No
- type of script (donut/pangaea/continents/archipelago/etc): If a script needs to be chosen, we don't have a clear vote right now, though I think I can say our team would like something in between archipelago and pangaea.
- map makers: I'm afraid we don't have suggestions, though we agree a human-made map (or human-tweaked, at any rate) would be preferable.

CIV SELECTION
- Unrestricted leaders: No
- can have many instances of a leader (leaders exclusive to one team, or not): Leaders should be exclusive
- method of assignment (....): Teams get to choose, order of teams randomized

Other things not in DNK's original list we'd like to see:
-Raging Barbs On
-No allied victory: the in-game allied victory option should be off, and it should be explicitly understood from the start of the game there will be only one winner.
-Vassalization Off
-City gifting rules: We suggest banning all city gifting via the diplo table in order to eliminate possible disputes
-Free tech exploit: We want to make sure other teams are aware there is an issue where both the Oracle and Liberalism can be exploited to receive more than one free tech. We suggest the admin review the game after each is built/discovered to ensure this was not abused.

Team Realms Beyond's full settings vote:
- nukes (on/off) - Off
- spies or the civ-wide esp missions - Civic/Religion Swap missions disabled
- huts/events (on/off) - Off
- corporations (on/off) - Off
- known tech bonus (vanilla 30% or higher, like 100%) - Default
- BUG mod (included/not or included without # cities) - No
- double-move mod (on/off) - Off
- always war (on/off) - On
- tech trading (on/off) - Off

- engineered starts (yes/no) - No
- wrap (none, 1-axis, 2-axis) - Mapmaker's choice
- mirrored starts (yes/no) - Map either balanced or mirrored
- type of script (donut/pangaea/continents/archipelago/etc) - Mapmaker's choice, land-based map
- map makers if possible - Strong non-player with history of balanced maps
- restricted leaders (on/off) - Off (unrestricted leaders)
- can have many instances of a leader (leaders exclusive to one team, or not) - No (exclusive leaders)
- method of assignment - Snake Pick

We're happy to explain any of our choices if people want to discuss them, but there already seem to be several teams agreeing on the settings we care most strongly about (double-move mod, nukes, and civic/religion swap spy missions). We have preferences for other choices like restricted/unrestricted leaders, but we're happy to respect the consensus - and in any case are just excited to get started. :)

Thanks again for helping to get this game going, 2metraninja!

Our opinion on the settings:
- nukes (on/off) OFF
- spies or the civ-wide esp missions (no spies, nix the two missions, or all is still ok) ALL OK, may be no changing civics
- huts/events (on/off) OFF
- corporations (on/off) ON
- known tech bonus (vanilla 30% or higher, like 100%) DEFAULT
- BUG mod (included/not or included without # cities) NO
- double-move mod (on/off) OFF, gentlemen agreement, rules and judging
- always war (on/off) ON
- tech trading (on/off) OFF

- engineered starts (yes/no) is it advanced start? then NO
- wrap (none, 1-axis, 2-axis) 2-axis
- mirrored starts (yes/no) NO
- type of script (donut/pangaea/continents/archipelago/etc) something special
- map makers if possible
- restricted leaders (on/off) ON
- can have many instances of a leader (leaders exclusive to one team, or not) YES
- method of assignment (....)... PICK

Personally, I am not sharing the paranoia around spy missions. The situation when you have small civ without chance to win but trying to ruin your gameplay is wrong itself. It is failture of diplomacy, strategy and position. If it is so small and weak it cant really do much harm. Producing spies is way expensive, spending huge amount of EP without big empire is impossible, and nobody cancelled counter-intelligence. If this small country is so problematic, just destroy it.

But in our games we usually dissallow using chirsto-rendender to switch someones civics. I have no problem in not using this possibility or disabling this mission for entire game by gentlemen agreement.

About mapscript, I hope it will be not mirrored completely. Personally, I prefer to have random map at all, but I know it can be too unfair. So a bit tweaked start is the best solution imho. The key word is "a bit".
I have once tried donut splitted into the continents by few small channels.

OT4E
CivPlayers Team

Hi!

In mame of the spanish community , ours prefs

- nukes OFF
- spies or the civ-wide esp missions (no spies, nix the two missions, or all is still ok) nix two missions if needed of all is still ok
- huts/events (on/off) ON
- corporations (on/off) OFF
- known tech bonus (vanilla 30% or higher, like 100%) DONT CARE
- BUG mod (included/not or included without # cities) ON we prefered our webmode, but play with any.
- double-move mod (on/off) ON, but play with any if dont want it.
- always war (on/off) OFF
- tech trading (on/off) OFF

- engineered starts (yes/no) NO
- wrap (none, 1-axis, 2-axis) none
- mirrored starts (yes/no) NO
- type of script (donut/pangaea/continents/archipelago/etc) dont care, prefert not archi
- map makers ?

- restricted leaders (on/off) OFF, really do not care
- can have many instances of a leader (leaders exclusive to one team, or not) EXCLUISVE
- method of assignment (....) RANDOM

Team Apolyton is still having our internal vote on settings, so this vote is just a preliminary straw poll, these answers very well may change in the next few days, but so far this is where we stand:

- nukes OFF
- spies or the civ-wide esp missions (no spies, nix the two missions, or all is still ok) Overall in favor of keeping espionage, but would be ok with banning the controversial missions.
- huts/events (on/off) OFF
- corporations (on/off) ON
- known tech bonus (vanilla 30% or higher, like 100%) Haven't discussed yet.
- BUG mod (included/not or included without # cities) We haven't discussed this separately, just in conjunction with the double move mod
- double-move mod (on/off) OFF
- always war (on/off) OFF
- tech trading (on/off) OFF (we haven't discussed this yet, but I'm fairly certain everyone wants it off)

- engineered starts (yes/no) haven't discussed
- wrap (none, 1-axis, 2-axis) haven't discussed
- mirrored starts (yes/no) haven't discussed (probably no)
- type of script (donut/pangaea/continents/archipelago/etc) haven't discussed
- map makers ?

- restricted leaders (on/off) haven't discussed
- can have many instances of a leader (leaders exclusive to one team, or not) haven't discussed
- method of assignment (....) haven't discussed

Nice to see some progress in organizing this ISDG.

Civforum.de has voted the setting ideas and here are the results:

- nukes (on/off) - Off
- spies or the civ-wide esp missions - Civic/Religion Swap missions disabled
- huts (on/off) - Off
- events - On
- corporations (on/off) - On
- known tech bonus (vanilla 30% or higher, like 100%) - 30%
- BUG mod (included/not or included without # cities) - BUG ON , but w/o # of cities
- double-move mod (on/off) - On
- always war (on/off) - Off
- tech trading (on/off) - Off
- vasal states- Off

- engineered starts (yes/no) - No
- wrap (none, 1-axis, 2-axis) - Mapmaker's choice, 1-axis
- mirrored starts (yes/no) - Mapmaker's choice (not mirrored)
- type of script - Mapmaker's choice
- restricted leaders (on/off) - On
- multiple instances of a leader - No (exclusive leaders)


Our roster in the specific thread will follow soon.


And one more thing. civforum.de won't need a teamforum on civfanatics. We made one on our own forum and think that it will be sufficient.
 
Personally I'm ok with pretty much anything. Only thing I think is really important in game settings is avoiding settings that can result in teams abandoning the game. E.g. Tech Trading has relatively high probability of turning the game very boring to at least for a few teams.
 
Thinking about the Mapmaker dilemna (ie we aint got one and it doesn't look like we are going to get one), I was thinking about this solution and wanted to hear any thoughts you guys had before I bring it up publicly...

What if we just go with a Random Map (with agreed upon settings, Pangea, Continents, rocky, whatever) and give every team ONE (1) do-over if they want. So if your start is just so terrible, that you can't bear it, you can ask for a re-roll and a new Map with the same settings is generated.You get 24 hours to look and decide.

I am betting that with this approach, eveyone will just grudgingly take what they get and we can move on to the game. We might have to re-roll once or twice, but at worst, we re-roll once for each team.
 
I think 5 turns is a good number: it allows the teams to actually explore their start rather than get stuck with a great capital on a tiny island.

Is there a map script that ensures that everyone has nearby iron?
 
Just bear in mind that 5 days to decide with just 5 teams is potentially 25 days of starting over assuming that everyone uses their restart. With 10 teams its 50 days :yuck:

Another thing is, once you get your start, people want to make test maps and start running all kinds of tests and number crunching for maximum micro. It is a lot to ask them to do that for each restart while we spend 5 turns deciding whether we like our start or not.
 
I think a straight random map is asking for trouble. There needs to be some human directed balancing or people will complain about unfair starts etc. Allowing re-rolls would just exacerbate and complicate the problem. I could see the whole thing turning into a big mess.

If we are going to have a multi-site game we really do need a map maker. We should also try to get severals Admins that are trusted and respected on multiple sites to check the map maker's work.
 
people will complain about unfair starts etc.
Now you should know by now, that this will happen REGARDLESS.

The ONLY way that we can completly stop people complaining about unfair starts, is to do mirrored starts or let people design their own starts... and both these ideas have been rejected wholesale by all the teams.

There wasn't as much complaining as ususal about starts in the last MTDG, because we went with resource rich starts. I wonder if the teams can be convinced to do this again? Somehow I doubt it:rolleyes:
 
We should also try to get severals Admins that are trusted and respected on multiple sites to check the map maker's work.
As I said before, I have asked every single Admin and moderator I could think of to serve as an Admin or Mapmaker for this game. Nobody accepted except r_rolo1 to be an Admin. There's no one else.
If we are going to have a multi-site game we really do need a map maker.
So all I am saying that if you want to try to find a mapmaker, then its all you... I am all tapped out of ideas. Maybe some of these guys will respond better to you cav.:)
 
Well the burden of finding admins/map makers doesn't have to rest solely with you or I. The rosters for the other teams seem pretty healthy and those teams will want a viable game.

I think since CFC is nominally hosting that there is an expectation that the admin functions will be taken care of by folks here at our forum. But since no one here is forthcoming we might have to ask the other forums if they have someone who could step up.

EDIT: Plako has volunteered to do the map. I think he would do a good job since he has MTDG experience and is an accomplished mp player. I would be ok with him having having lurker access to our forum also. Thoughts guys?
 
I am perfectly fine with Plako making the map. Much better than risking a year long game where some teams have no realistic change at all. I am also ok with giving lurker access to map maker.
 
In terms of game settings, consider me in agreement with whatever the majority of the team decides on. :)

Same goes for the map-making bit. I'm just glad we get a map-maker at all, as by the looks of it that has been quite a challenge.
 
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