[Immersioneers] 'A New Frontier': sign-up thread for the second Immersioneer game!

[stiiknafuulia]

I'l add you, Manoj. IST time is 3.5 hours ahead of Finnish time it seems. Since the time difference to the US is so much bigger, and we might have more players from there, I guess we'll lean slightly towards a later starting time. 9 PM GMT is 11 PM Finnish time... I'd be willing to play a lot longer than that (on Saturday at least); but otoh if we start at 2 PM GMT, that will give you 7 hours of play-time, and the Americans will start at 6 AM, which is a little early but manageable, I guess. So after juggling all these numbers ( ), 2 PM GMT seems like it might be a good time to start, whether it's on Sunday or Saturday. Ofc this might (and likely will) change as more people sign up, but let's eyeball that time-frame for now.

The world age setting of 'New' will simply add more mountains, which I think would be nice to have as natural defense lines, as otherwise people who spawn in the middle of the map might have a very rough game ahead. I kind of wish there was a way to dictate the spawn points somehow, so that no one spawns directly in the middle, but ehh, for now this is the best option for mitigation that we have. So, I'd rather keep it as 'New', because I see little harm and potentially a lot of good in this.

As there seems to be a lot of support for having barbs and goody huts in the game, I guess we might leave them on after all. Let's hear some more opinions though (and of the new scoring system and game speed as well).

 

[stiiknafuulia]

It is ofc the case that if we do play on Quick speed and agree to stop after 7 hours (or thereabouts), we'll never get to the modern age in this game. Personally I'm fine with that; and I edited the capital conquest rule so that you may take a capital with a Tier III government already, so epic wars can still happen. However, if you do want to see the modern age, adopt Fascism, etc, then we realistically have no other option than to use Online speed. (In this case the new scoring system might be unnecessary, but I see no harm in trying it out even if we do end up using Online speed.)

If anyone hasn't tried Online speed, just fire up a single-player game with that setting on and see how it feels to you. To me, even Standard speed seems too fast in sp towards the later ages; I couldn't imagine what it's like on Online speed.

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

I'm not married to barbs and huts. In fact it would be interesting to try them off, as I've never done that. But we will see if anyone else chimes in on this.

 

[stiiknafuulia]

It has come to my attention (which is fleeting at best as a social semi-recluse) that the 13th is in fact Father's Day! I imagine this will throw a sizeable wrench in any plans to play the game on Sunday. The date is therefore set as 12th November (Saturday). However, as it tends to require travel, in all likelihood some players won't be able to play on Saturday either, due to its close proximity to Father's Day. Please report back asap if you will be hindered by this holiday.

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

Must be different over there, it's June 18 in the US.

Half joking, my only use for kids is to fetch me beverages while I play Civ6

 

[LzPrst]

I probably won't have time, but if we play on Sunday I might do a last minute hop-in

(also, Njamos is a steam friend of mine that I thought would be interested, he was, not sure if he's signed up for CFC yet)

 

[Uppercut83]

I can play saturday if its during europe daytime. Can we get a link up to this timer asap please?

And also about the score system, cant we just use the default score ingame?
I believe it works in a similar way that the ones you get up, you get points techs, civics, cities etc.
Seems like some extra work to keep our own scores, and im gonna guess alot of the people are
in this groups because they didnt care to much about "winning" anyway.

 

[stiiknafuulia]

I can play saturday if its during europe daytime. Can we get a link up to this timer asap please?

Cool, I'll add you. Btw, which Civ would you like to play as?

I will make the countdown clock tomorrow, most likely. I guess we'll go with the 2 PM GMT starting time, if there won't be any objections. It can always be altered ofc, but I'd rather not do it after starting the clock, as that might still lead to some confusion.

And also about the score system, cant we just use the default score ingame?
I believe it works in a similar way that the ones you get up, you get points techs, civics, cities etc.
Seems like some extra work to keep our own scores, and im gonna guess alot of the people are
in this groups because they didnt care to much about "winning" anyway.

I'm not sure how the default score is calculated, but, judging by its implementation in the previous Civs, I wouldn't trust it for this purpose (or much of anything, really). Obviously my proposed system would also be imperfect, but it could be refined over time. It's simply a way to end the game prematurely and still declare a 'winner', so we won't end up like last time where the game was left undecided. Even if winning is not the focus of the game, it just feels unsatisfying not to 'tie up the loose ends'.

If the whole points system seems too elaborate, I just thought of a simpler one: we could all vote for a winner, based on the same principle but not counting anything (other than the votes, ofc ). The one with the most votes would 'win', based on their 'general mastery' of the game at that time-point. A secret ballot is possible by everyone whispering their vote to the host. A tie would lead to 2 winners (or however many there would be with the same amount of votes). I prefer the points solution, as it's more objective (you might want to vote against your dominant foe simply in order to spite them), but it's better than nothing, and definitely better than relying on the wonky default score system.

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

That appears to be 8AM US CST, no objections. I assume you are talking about Saturday, or is that undecided?

As for the points system, I'll go with whatever. Probably it will require 3-4 games to tweak it anyway. Things to consider are number of cities, number of civics, number of techs, gold in treasury, world wonders, total population, number of Great People recruited, and military strength. Bonus points for the in-game score champion. I have my own Arabia agenda anyway, number of infidel cities converted to Islam, lol. If Jihad is required, so be it! (although I probably won't declare unless I see a carpet of apostles near my borders.)

 

[Uppercut83]

Cool, I'll add you. Btw, which Civ would you like to play as?

Greece - Gorgo

I will make the countdown clock tomorrow, most likely. I guess we'll go with the 2 PM GMT starting time, if there won't be any objections. It can always be altered ofc, but I'd rather not do it after starting the clock, as that might still lead to some confusion.

Any start time is fine by me, agree to not changing it after you start the clock.

 

[stiiknafuulia]

That appears to be 8AM US CST, no objections. I assume you are talking about Saturday, or is that undecided?

As for the points system, I'll go with whatever. Probably it will require 3-4 games to tweak it anyway. Things to consider are number of cities, number of civics, number of techs, gold in treasury, world wonders, total population, number of Great People recruited, and military strength. Bonus points for the in-game score champion. I have my own Arabia agenda anyway, number of infidel cities converted to Islam, lol. If Jihad is required, so be it! (although I probably won't declare unless I see a carpet of apostles near my borders.)

The date is set as Saturday, due to Father's Day taking up Sunday. I've updated the op to reflect this.

I think counting gold is a bit gamey and unnecessary, since it can easily be hoarded for points towards the end of the game, and you can spend it to raise your points in other ways, which should be encouraged. I did notice today that you can see who's recruited GPs and how many, so they might as well be counted if we'll use the points system. Counting total population might be tricky, as you'd have to divide it by some factor, so as not to make the number totally dominate the score. Maybe we could simply divide the total by 10, though, instead of counting it in 10s to begin with. As for military strength, I have no idea how to count that... Number of units and their tech level would both have to be accounted for, maybe promotions as well. And it's veering on having too many things to count, imo. Since military can be used to conquer more cities, it serves the same purpose to count the points from conquered cities.

@Uppercut83: Cool, I'll add Greece as your Civ.

 

[TeraHammer]

Do yourself a favor and don't go into micromanaging score points

 

[stiiknafuulia]

It's not really the chore that it sounds like, since we'd only do it once at the end of the game. Still, it may be too much trouble for not enough gain (the voting system works almost to the same effect, provided people vote for the most powerful player and not their personal favorite).

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

All the things I mentioned are available in the game score. If you look at the various tabs. It would be simple to weight them differently than the game does if you feel that is necessary

 

[Chrizzly Bear]

Hi, can I join the next game on Saturday? I just sent you a friend request. Steam name is "Chrizzly Bear".

I'd like to play as Brazil. I have a pretty flexible schedule that day, so any time should work for me. Great people are counted in the "score" section of the game so it would be great if that could be included in the final score for our game.

 

[Zabuza]

hey, can I also join the game on Saturday. my steam name is Zabuza and I sent a request to Vesir85. I also have a flexible schedule. still deciding on what civ you pick though if that's ok.

 

[stiiknafuulia]

Hi, can I join the next game on Saturday? I just sent you a friend request. Steam name is "Chrizzly Bear".

I'd like to play as Brazil. I have a pretty flexible schedule that day, so any time should work for me. Great people are counted in the "score" section of the game so it would be great if that could be included in the final score for our game.

Welcome, Chrizzly! I'll add you to the list, and as soon as your friend joins here at CFC, him (or her) as well. (I don't really think it's *necessary* for everyone who joins these games to be members here on CFC, but it's just clearer that way, for the games that *I* organize, anyway.)

@MaximusPlatypus: In the past Civs, the in-game score was a very rough measure of a Civ's real success, to say the least. Then again it was the human vs. AI, so the seeming discrepancies could've been mostly down to empire management (tile improvements, diplo agendas, etc). I guess we could compare scores at the end of the game, then do my custom calculation (just for this game), and see how they stack up against each other. If there is no difference, or only a small one, we might as well use the in-game score in future games.

@Zabuza: Welcometo you as well! I'm in a hurry to get to school, but I'll add you on Steam as soon as I come back this afternoon.

 

[Chrizzly Bear]

Thanks! I was wondering if you guys would want to change the sea level to "low". This leaves more room for expansion and gets rid of more water tiles that we don't like anyway, haha.

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

I propose a set of Gentleman's rules:

no chopping in opponents territory, unless at war (for strategic reasons; say you want to clear a path for range units around a city)
no disbanding of units, barring extreme situations (your warrior is stranded on a 1 tile "island" after a border expansion. Basically, no selling exploits)
no underhanded trades such as basically giving away luxes after you are hopelessly out of the game to spite another player

 

[stiiknafuulia]

I propose a set of Gentleman's rules:

no chopping in opponents territory, unless at war (for strategic reasons; say you want to clear a path for range units around a city)
no disbanding of units, barring extreme situations (your warrior is stranded on a 1 tile "island" after a border expansion. Basically, no selling exploits)
no underhanded trades such as basically giving away luxes after you are hopelessly out of the game to spite another player

The first two rules are already present in the Rule sheet (be sure to read it before the game, everyone). They're absolutes, so you may not do them, period (ofc you *could* cheat, but it's utterly pointless). As for not gifting away your luxuries, I'm not sure how effective that would be. Typically if you want to spite someone at your own expense in such a way, your cities are falling fast, so the nuisance would at best be minor and temporary. Gifting your gold reserves would have more of an effect, but presumably you'd have used those already in your failed defense. I think the defender has enough of an edge in wars (due to the movement rules and diplo consequences) that additional rules like this are not needed. For betraying an alliance (which will be possible in this game), the betrayed player will get a right to take all your cities without it counting against their conquest limit, which I think will be enough of a deterrent under most circumstances.

Overall, I hope to see more warfare in this game (read: *any*). For this reason I chose Pangaea and Standard sea level as the settings. We'll be able to settle something like 4-7 cities without too much trouble, but after that expansion will have to come at a cost to your neighbors... If you feel the need to do it. A failed war could end up setting you back severely, and it is in the interest of nearby third parties to preserve a balance of power, so there is substantial risk involved.

Regardless, if people are worried that the game will devolve into the constant, dogpiling warfare that is present in public mp, we could add a rule against additional parties joining existing wars, other than in the purpose of defending a player's cities. So if you ally with someone during a war, they may only help you repel enemy troops, as well as re-conquer any lost cities; after that you must both stop at the original border. This way, dog-piles where others swoop in to prey on the losing party will be prevented, or at least heavily delayed, allowing for the target to make a counter-alliance before the next war.