How to keep a PBEM at a decent rate!

[Matrix]

I've played in six PBEM's. Three died, two are going extremely slow and the last one as barely adequate. I figured that won't change in the next PBEM I'd start. So I made a sort of "manual" on how to keep a PBEM at a decent rate. That is: playing it at least one turn a day, with exceptions of course.

http://www.straland.com/pbemcommit.html

Chieftess could stick this thread, or not. Up to her to decide. But I thought this might be a good thing to keep in the back of one's mind when starting another PBEM...

 

[WildFire]

Wow, you are very serious about these arent you?

I'll be in your next one.

 

[Unregister]

Either that or he has a lot of free time.

But it's pretty sweet that you did that, it will most likely prove helpfull.

 

[SunTzu]

i've got a main idea, try and play your game quickly do not let the game go past 2 days old. IE play your game in 2 days. If u can't do this regularly, then i suggest u don't play in any PBEMs.

 

[col]

Good advice ST.
Care to pass it onto the rest of the staff?

 

[ERIKK]

Very well done Matrix!

The order of play is one of the most important things I think. Next to that the loyalty of the players. I think that some people arent dedicated enough for a intensive PBEM game.

But the most important thing is the amount of players. I think you should keep the number of players at max 4. My 4 player and 2 player games are running much faster than all my other games. (But I must say that these are with power session player also ) Still, even a dedicated game as the DDPP (6 players) has much delays...

 

[Matrix]

Erik, I don't think playing with more than 4 should be a problem. The only problem you encounter is that the more people you play with, the more chance there is for one player to delay the game.

One should realize that when playing a PBEM with a decent amount of players, you should be prepared to take some trouble to play your turn. This time, player X is out, then player Y... Of course sometimes you must, but try to play the turn whenever possible.

Originally posted by SunTzu
i've got a main idea, try and play your game quickly do not let the game go past 2 days old. IE play your game in 2 days. If u can't do this regularly, then i suggest u don't play in any PBEMs.

Which means one turn will take 12 days.

 

[Kemal]

A very helpful guide for anyone who wants to start a new PBEM game, but I think the true rate of a delay in a PBEM is caused by the priority each player in the PBEM gives to playing a turn.

If there are two players who do not play civ very often and check for their savegame only just before the time they had agreed to play turns on, and they do not have it then, chances are the other 6 "civfanatics" have to wait at least 2 full days before they get the turn back. While the 2 "slow"players think the game is going on a steady pace, the other 6 will probably get annoyed and want the game to speed up, especially in the early years.

Agreeing on power sessions seems to be the best work-around but can be very difficult to arrange (as seen in the DDPP game )

 

[anarres]

Originally posted by Kemal
Agreeing on power sessions seems to be the best work-around but can be very difficult to arrange (as seen in the DDPP game )

Yes, and as the person who came up with the power sessions idea, I have to say that:

1) Only expect to play 'power sessions' where you know the people are commited

2) 4 seems to be about the maximum feasable number of players, as with 4 you wait maybe 20 minutes between goes. With 8 players you would likely be waiting 40 minutes between turns, so even in a 2 hour session you would only get 3 turns played.

 

[Shabbaman]

Power sessions suck. PTW crashes every time I attempt to run outlook and PTW simultaneously (installing another emailprogram would be the solution, but that's not an option) so I have to reload both programs time after time. And that's no fun.

You're a genius btw, matrix. It's the same mistake I made with PBEM6: you really really really have to plan player numbers...

 

[anarres]

@Shabba, there is nothing wrong with the idea of power sessions. I do them sucessfully all the time while running PTW, Civ3 vanilla, Outlook, Outlook Express, MSM or Trillian, ZoneAlarm (firewall), Text editor, and anything else I want (like 15 IE windows).

So the issue is with your PC, not with power sessions...

 

[Matrix]

Originally posted by anarres
@Shabba, there is nothing wrong with the idea of power sessions. I do them sucessfully all the time while running PTW, Civ3 vanilla, Outlook, Outlook Express, MSM or Trillian, ZoneAlarm (firewall), Text editor, and anything else I want (like 15 IE windows).

That's sick.

 

[anarres]

Yes. Sick, but true.

I use Outlook for incoming mail, but due to a really silly ISP rule I have to send via hotmail (Outlook Express). I run Civ3 v1.29f when playing the tourney or gotm at the same time as PBEM games (while waiting for turns). I also forgot to mention either Dreamweaver or Frontpage as well

FWIW, I get near my 512MB RAM limit sometimes, but very rarely...

 

[SunTzu]

Matrix, what i mean is don't take more than 2 days to play your turn, cause after 2 days of a PBEM being stalled thats the time for the "Bump"
Of course it would be great if people could play their turns very quickly, but people having things going on in real life that most people put ahead of Civ PBEMs.

 

[Matrix]

Of course, SunTzu. So if ones life is so busy, or more importantly: irregular, one shouldn't play a PBEM, because that one will definitely be the bottleneck when it comes to the progress of the game!

 

[ERIKK]

Originally posted by Matrix
Of course, SunTzu. So if ones life is so busy, or more importantly: irregular, one shouldn't play a PBEM, because that one will definitely be the bottleneck when it comes to the progress of the game!

I totally agree here. You should realize that a PBEM takes 2 years or more to finish when you dont play (almost) 1 turn a day....

 

[ProPain]

I do agree with Matrix that it's hard to keep pace in pbem. I do not think rigid play schemes will be the solution though. IMHO commitment and flexibility are key factors. DDPP1 isn't always played at the same time every day (sometimes I get my turn at 19:00, sometimes but rarely at 23:00 ) but manages to flow at almost a turn a day anyway. The fact that everybody tries their best to keep it going is the key factor here I think.

(@matrix :not sure you'll agree cuz I suspect you qualify ddpp1 pace as 'barely adequate)

 

[Matrix]

Originally posted by ProPain
(@matrix :not sure you'll agree cuz I suspect you qualify ddpp1 pace as 'barely adequate)

Indeed. We're far from one turn a day. We made a time scheme once and when that time scheme was followed, you got the savegame the next day. When it didn't, it suffered a delay to get back to that scheme again.

 

[Plux]

Maybe it is a good idea to make it a 'rule' that if you haven't heard from the game in two or three days, everyone just resends his or her last save game to the next person? Then the one that is (undeliberately) holding up the progress immediately sees that he has to play or send the save again. Let's call it a 'maximum slowdown rate' (MSR)

 

[DaveMcW]

If you can't get close to one turn a day the game is pretty much doomed.