Imperialism II PBEM

[McMonkey]

Russia - McMonkey
Japan - Patine
Germany - JPetroski
Independent - AI
American - Voltar
British - Northerner
French - Prof Garfield

HOUSE RULES:

1 - War must be declared the turn before any combat takes place (For both limited and unlimited war). The defender strikes first. The attacker can move units into position the turn they declare war but cannot fire any shots

2 - If both attacker and defender agree to a limited war there will be a five square exclusion zone around the territory outside of which any units are considered neutral.

3 - The defender can declare unlimited warfare the turn that war is declared on them if they choose, but has to wait until their following turn to begin any fighting, except for in the territory they are defending.

4 - If engaged in a state of limited war the same one turn warning applies to either party to escalate to unlimited warfare (except for in the case of point 3 above)

5 - Trade embargoes must be respected (IE You may not send Trade to any nation that has declared an embargo on you)

6 - Tech trading is allowed

7 - No building of new cities - only replacing destroyed ones

8 - Exchanging cities, money & units is allowed as long as it's not done as an exploit (IE not a cheat to break trade embargoes or carry out sneak attacks etc...)

ORIGINAL POST:

I would love to get a multiplayer PBEM game of Imperialism II going. Historically we have not tried out many ToT games as PBEMs but this one, in particular, looks ideal.

Depending on how many players we can get together we could go with a two nations per player model as with A Soaring Spirit.

My suggestion would be:

1 - France/Russia
2 - Britain/Japan
3 - Germany/America
AI - Independents & Barbarians

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Sure, I'm interested in playing. I've got the scenario working, but I have to get used to the way city information is displayed in ToT.

 

[McMonkey]

Go to the manu > View and pick Map Layout and City Layout to get the classic Civ2 views.

 

[Northerner]

Didn't think I'd ever again have chance at playing this scenario in a PBEM, so count me in.

 

[McMonkey]

Cool. Curtsiblings new ToTPP scenario is the ultimate version. Ideal for multiplayer.

We should be OK to play with three people as suggested above, but if we can find more then all the better. I wonder if Dario would be interested. I forgot about it when we started A Soaring Spirit but he did say he was interested in playing again in a message last year. I'll give him a heads up. I'm up for playing as any of the combinations in the first post. They all have an interesting globe-spanning sweep and, apart from Germany-America, natural alliances. That said the German-American combo could help counter the British Empire's early dominant position.

 

[Patine]

Cool. Curtsiblings new ToTPP scenario is the ultimate version. Ideal for multiplayer.

We should be OK to play with three people as suggested above, but if we can find more then all the better. I wonder if Dario would be interested. I forgot about it when we started A Soaring Spirit but he did say he was interested in playing again in a message last year. I'll give him a heads up. I'm up for playing as any of the combinations in the first post. They all have an interesting globe-spanning sweep and, apart from Germany-America, natural alliances. That said the German-American combo could help counter the British Empire's early dominant position.

If you can get five other players (including yourselves; but not a full six) I'll take Japan.

 

[McMonkey]

It would be good to split up Britain and Japan as that could potentially be the most dominant trading bloc. Are you saying you want to play or only if we're short of a player?

I would encourage you to give it a go if you can spare the time. PBEM games are a really enjoyable as they give a totally different challenge to the normal AI experience. Imperialism has always been one of the PBEM classics so it will be intriguing to play Curt's new ToTPP version.

 

[Patine]

It would be good to split up Britain and Japan as that could potentially be the most dominant trading bloc. Are you saying you want to play or only if we're short of a player?

I would encourage you to give it a go if you can spare the time. PBEM games are a really enjoyable as they give a totally different challenge to the normal AI experience. Imperialism has always been one of the PBEM classics so it will be intriguing to play Curt's new ToTPP version.

Well, I could be willing to try it even if you weren't short a player - I just don't want to commit to two countries, and Japan is the favourite for me.

 

[McMonkey]

That's fine. Two nations would be a lot of work. Japan would be ideal and would mean Britain can be played as a single nation too.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

If we have players playing joint nations, I would prefer they be played as separate nations and not as 2 halves of the same nation. I'm not sure how to encourage this. I was thinking of suggesting that we shift the alliances after a while such that everyone would keep one of their two factions, but the faction they keep would be determined at random when the switch was made.

 

[McMonkey]

That's an interesting idea. Like a succession game. However, I feel the game might lose its momentum when players are kicked off their favorite throne and forced to take over another they may not be so impressed with.

It's going to be tricky for people to play two nations independently without some co-operation between their factions. Going to war would be tricky when you know your other nations dispositions. Kind of like playing chess against yourself.

I think the France-Russia combo goes together. Germany & Japan would seem like another decent combo as Germany has very little far eastern interests. Britain should be a stand-alone nation as should the isolationist USA. Unless we can find one more player or if Patine would be willing to play as Britain or the US instead we're a bit stuck.

What about:

1 - France/Russia
2 - Britain
3 - Germany/Japan
4 - USA
AI - Independents & Barbarians

I guess the German player would feel pretty hemmed in by an inevitable Franco-Russian alliance. With one more player this issue could be resolved and with two it would be perfect.

I will get on with trying to contact some old comrades from Civ Webring to see if I can temp them into taking up arms again.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Well, I wouldn't suggest that a player controlling two factions be expected to have a war between them, but would Britain and France really intervene in a Russo-Japanese war, for example? Could Britain conquer a large part of China without worrying the Japanese? Or, in your new alliance proposal, would Japan be deterred from launching a Russo-Japanese war on the basis that Germany would not want to fight Russia and France?

The idea may not be practical (I can certainly understand why people wouldn't want to participate if they could lose control of their preferred nation), but I thought I'd put it out there.

 

[McMonkey]

It doesn't hurt to suggest these things. I think the two nations system is working well in Soaring Spirit, but I can see how it could cause problems here. I guess one other option would be to play as single nations and leave others to the AI. That said, the AI is pretty much incapable of trading or conducting overseas campaigns. Perhaps if we played as Russia, Japan, Germany and France and left the AI with the isolationist USA and powerful Britain. We could even have house rules relating to foreign policy with these two nations.

 

[McMonkey]

I would love to play as Mother Russia but will take France or Germany if that helps get a game going. If we get more players they can take over the US, then Britain.

 

[Northerner]

I have sent messages to both Jerec and Dario. Since I sent emails through the civforum.de site, I have no idea if either ever actually receives the message. Does anyone here know Dario's real name? I wonder, that way I could contact him through facebook.

 

[McMonkey]

I have messaged Dario through Facebook messenger. Unfortunately, I no longer appear to have e-mails for most of the guys since a move to G-Mail a few years back.

 

[Patine]

I have messaged Dario through Facebook messenger. Unfortunately, I no longer appear to have e-mails for most of the guys since a move to G-Mail a few years back.

I have Alejandro (Academia) on my Skype contacts list, and he appears as online every now and then, and he hasn't been responding of late, even back when I informed him the graphics redux of his Falkland War had been completed. He might just have been busy at the time and never got back to me. I could try another whack at messaging him there.

 

[Northerner]

McM, could you perchance use your great powers as a moderator and change the topic name to "Imperialism", Rather than what it currently is? It wears on.

 

[McMonkey]

Hocus pocus. Done!

 

[McMonkey]

Just noticed why you wanted the name changed. I had not spotted the spelling error. I thought it was the 'II PBEM' part you objected to lol