How many teams?

[DaveShack]

I would really like us to have 6 teams. Either a 3v3 or 2v2v2 would be a nice dynamic situation.

An interesting approach might be the opposite of "no razing" -- every captured city must be razed. At least that would mean the winner of a war does not absorb the loser's land and cities, that land must then be resettled. It would be especially interesting in the 2v2v2 if the 3rd alliance is in settlement range of the frontier between the warring alliances. This approach would also generate a "pillage or don't pillage" strategic decision -- if you pillage and then settle the land you removed your own improvements. And if you don't pillage and another team settles there...

 

[Lord Parkin]

Six teams could be interesting if we have the numbers. I'm not opposed to the idea, but it looks like 4 is more popular at the moment.

The "no keeping cities" option you proposed sounds interesting, but aside from having to rely on the honesty of the players to follow through, there's at least one major problem: To me at least, a large part of the purpose of a war is usually to claim a key wonder. What's the purpose of starting a war with your neighbour who has the Pyramids or the Great Lighthouse if you won't be able to gain the benefits of the extra happy faces and science or extra trade routes from it (for example)? Effectively, this would make it too easy to wonderspam without becoming too much of a target. One of the key strategies of the regular game is in figuring out how to build key wonders while maintaining enough of a military to defend them from hungry eyes. The option you've proposed would majorly detract from learning that strategy.

 

[Tinkerbell]

We could also see how many teams are created, and only set the maximum number.

 

[Sommerswerd]

We are going around in circles a little here...

1. We can't make a map without knowing how many Civs to include...
2. We don't know how many civs to include until we decide whether there will be 2-Civs-per team
3. We also don't know how many civs to include until we know how many teams will be playing
4. We don't know how many teams will be playing until most of the interested people join (or form) teams
5. Some people want to know what the map is going to be like before joining teams - GOTO Line 1

IMO the way to break this gridlock is by either just putting up a sign-up Thread with 6 teams, or 4 teams. If we don't get enough sign up for 6 teams or four teams, we can just go with 3 or 5 or whatever we have the personel for. Three of the teams can be named teams... Sirius, Quatronia, AMAZON... and the other 3 (or 1) can just be an open, un-named team, for folks who want to join a team without any pre-conditions.

We could also specify a date where people can switch to a different team if they change their mind. That way no one is stuck on a team they don't like. (Unless of course we allow team switching throughout the game)

 

[DMOC]

I set up a 4th team, just to even out our number a bit.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Cool, thanks DMOC.