Imperialism II PBEM
- Thread starter McMonkey
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voltar
Drunken Russian
A shame we can't get six players :-(
But yeah if we must play with 5 then Germany + Japan seems like the best course of action.
But yeah if we must play with 5 then Germany + Japan seems like the best course of action.
Japan is tiny in comparison to say Russia or Britain and Germany is only a moderate size nation. Of course both have their own unique advantages, but combined they are a manageable size. I started playing the Russian turn last night but was struggling to stay awake. Will post turn shortly.
RUSSIAN EMPIRE - DECEMBER 1869
Tsar Alexander II announces the following policies:
- Free trade with Russian ports. Any traders wishing to travel into the Russian interior will need a permit issued by the Tsar's government.
- The Tsar proclaims Russia the protector of Rumania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Albania.
- The Tsar declares the Black Sea, Caucasus and Bosphorus as Russian spheres of influence.
That is all.
I have an idea for a scoring system. I welcome suggestions on how to improve it or even assertions that it would make the game worse and the idea should be scrapped entirely. It would need some sort of end game condition.
Each player will have certain cities called "core cities" which have special advantages but also become targets. They can declare new cities to be core cities, but cannot remove that distinction.
There will be three kinds of points, which combine together to give a score.
1. Conquest Points (CP)
2. Economic Development Points (EDP)
3. Suffering Points (SP)
Score = [EDP*CP/100]-SP
You get EDPs by delivering food caravans to human controlled foreign cities.
EDP = caravans delivered from core cities + square root of caravans delivered from other cities
The square root from non core cities should mean that large empires don't help too much in directly increasing scores.
CP = 100 + 10*(foreign core cities held)-15*(Your core cities lost)
Having too many "core cities" gives opportunities to your enemies and makes you vulnerable.
SP = Number of units killed in combat+ "Rebellious city penalty (see below)"
The units killed penalty should hopefully make people think twice about a mass European war.
The original owner of a core city can declare it to be "rebellious." If so, the original owner gets +0.5 SP per turn. Also, the occupier gets +0.5 SP per turn unless he has units stationed in the city equal to its population.
This should hopefully get war winners to offer reasonable peace terms unless there is a world war and/or the game is already nearly over.
Each player will have certain cities called "core cities" which have special advantages but also become targets. They can declare new cities to be core cities, but cannot remove that distinction.
There will be three kinds of points, which combine together to give a score.
1. Conquest Points (CP)
2. Economic Development Points (EDP)
3. Suffering Points (SP)
Score = [EDP*CP/100]-SP
You get EDPs by delivering food caravans to human controlled foreign cities.
EDP = caravans delivered from core cities + square root of caravans delivered from other cities
The square root from non core cities should mean that large empires don't help too much in directly increasing scores.
CP = 100 + 10*(foreign core cities held)-15*(Your core cities lost)
Having too many "core cities" gives opportunities to your enemies and makes you vulnerable.
SP = Number of units killed in combat+ "Rebellious city penalty (see below)"
The units killed penalty should hopefully make people think twice about a mass European war.
The original owner of a core city can declare it to be "rebellious." If so, the original owner gets +0.5 SP per turn. Also, the occupier gets +0.5 SP per turn unless he has units stationed in the city equal to its population.
This should hopefully get war winners to offer reasonable peace terms unless there is a world war and/or the game is already nearly over.
Northerner
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I, for one, very much like the idea.
Patine
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Wait, wait, I still haven't heard McMonkey's plans to propose a system of rules to encourage wars to be mostly in the colonies and to discourage WW1 at every disagreement and unpleasant incident. I'm not sure the First Strike rules intact will work, as they have working with two ideological Third World civ's of independent proxy nations as a major feature, whereas in this case, though there are "Independents," a lot of it also involves the colonies and protectorates of the Great Powers themselves, who are not fully self-governing but distant "outposts of the Realm" (as they were called, as well as cash cows, admittedly).
Interesting idea Garfield. Now I get the Professor part! 
At first read it sounds very complicated, but I will re-read and try and get to grips with the concept. Getting away from the usual boring routine of mass trading to get to the juicy units at the end of the tech tree, followed by all out war to decide the ultimate winner would be good. More limited objective, small scale wars in the early game would make things a bit more spice. I agree with Patine that the First Strike Proxy Wars idea would not fit exactly, but I think we could go with some kind of blend of several different ideas.
I would like to keep the scoring system relatively simple. We don't want to get too far away from what makes Civ2 fun and too bogged down in keeping track of points, but on the other hand we have an all human cast of characters and can explore interesting new ideas that the human vs AI game does not offer.
I'm on night shift again and a bit distracted by the events in London to give it detailed thought tonight, but I will take a proper look in the morning.
At first read it sounds very complicated, but I will re-read and try and get to grips with the concept. Getting away from the usual boring routine of mass trading to get to the juicy units at the end of the tech tree, followed by all out war to decide the ultimate winner would be good. More limited objective, small scale wars in the early game would make things a bit more spice. I agree with Patine that the First Strike Proxy Wars idea would not fit exactly, but I think we could go with some kind of blend of several different ideas.
I would like to keep the scoring system relatively simple. We don't want to get too far away from what makes Civ2 fun and too bogged down in keeping track of points, but on the other hand we have an all human cast of characters and can explore interesting new ideas that the human vs AI game does not offer.
I'm on night shift again and a bit distracted by the events in London to give it detailed thought tonight, but I will take a proper look in the morning.
Patine
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What's going on in London? Nothing specific has cracked the news here.Interesting idea Garfield. Now I get the Professor part!
At first read it sounds very complicated, but I will re-read and try and get to grips with the concept. Getting away from the usual boring routine of mass trading to get to the juicy units at the end of the tech tree, followed by all out war to decide the ultimate winner would be good. More limited objective, small scale wars in the early game would make things a bit more spice. I agree with Patine that the First Strike Proxy Wars idea would not fit exactly, but I think we could go with some kind of blend of several different ideas.
I would like to keep the scoring system relatively simple. We don't want to get too far away from what makes Civ2 fun and too bogged down in keeping track of points, but on the other hand we have an all human cast of characters and can explore interesting new ideas that the human vs AI game does not offer.
I'm on night shift again and a bit distracted by the events in London to give it detailed thought tonight, but I will take a proper look in the morning.
Really? That is surprising. Try the BBC website. I won't go into details here as I thin this forum works best when we talk exclusively about Civ2. Religion, politics etc could only disturb our little oasis of peace.
The basic idea of the scoring system is this: Deliver food caravans from core cities for points. Capture/defend core cities to multiply those points at the end of the game. Colonies can give a few points directly but mostly support the core cities, and aren't so bad to lose. Losing troops in war is bad. If your peace terms are too harsh, your victim can damage you, more severely if you do it really early.
I don't think the scoring system is that hard to keep track of.
1. You need a list of "core cities" for each player. This can be done by editing a single post on the first page. Your number of core cities is a multiplier applied at the end of the game. Perhaps we denote these cities with a * in their name, or something.
2. Number of food caravans delivered from core cities. You keep track of your deliveries each turn and post a running total with your save.
3. Number of food caravans delivered from non core cities. Keep track of deliveries and post a running total with each save. (With the square rooting of this number, I don't think there will be a lot of deliveries in this category. This was done to mitigate the advantage of a large empire.)
4. Number of units as casualties. I think the military adviser keeps a list of casualties for you.
5. The Rebellious city penalty. Hopefully this won't be used much. It's there to encourage resolutions to wars other than unconditional surrender, at least in the early game. (See below)
This requires keeping a running total of 2,3 and 5. Not too hard, especially since the player wants to keep track of 2 and 3 anyway.
Here's the idea behind the "rebellious city penalty." Suppose Germany and France fight the Franco-Prussian war, which Germany wins. If Germany occupies France, then the French player is basically eliminated. No fun for the French player and not a historical outcome. Since France has nothing to lose at this point, she can threaten to make all her cities rebellious and force Germany to either lose a lot of points over the next 30 years or to build tons of troops to occupy France. This would encourage Germany to make more reasonable demands of France, as happened.
EDIT: Conquest points are meant to be a percentage. +10% to your economic development points for each core city you conquer, -15% for each of your own that you lose.
I don't think the scoring system is that hard to keep track of.
1. You need a list of "core cities" for each player. This can be done by editing a single post on the first page. Your number of core cities is a multiplier applied at the end of the game. Perhaps we denote these cities with a * in their name, or something.
2. Number of food caravans delivered from core cities. You keep track of your deliveries each turn and post a running total with your save.
3. Number of food caravans delivered from non core cities. Keep track of deliveries and post a running total with each save. (With the square rooting of this number, I don't think there will be a lot of deliveries in this category. This was done to mitigate the advantage of a large empire.)
4. Number of units as casualties. I think the military adviser keeps a list of casualties for you.
5. The Rebellious city penalty. Hopefully this won't be used much. It's there to encourage resolutions to wars other than unconditional surrender, at least in the early game. (See below)
This requires keeping a running total of 2,3 and 5. Not too hard, especially since the player wants to keep track of 2 and 3 anyway.
Here's the idea behind the "rebellious city penalty." Suppose Germany and France fight the Franco-Prussian war, which Germany wins. If Germany occupies France, then the French player is basically eliminated. No fun for the French player and not a historical outcome. Since France has nothing to lose at this point, she can threaten to make all her cities rebellious and force Germany to either lose a lot of points over the next 30 years or to build tons of troops to occupy France. This would encourage Germany to make more reasonable demands of France, as happened.
EDIT: Conquest points are meant to be a percentage. +10% to your economic development points for each core city you conquer, -15% for each of your own that you lose.
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Incidentally, were there a lot of wars in the late 19th century between European colonies? Obviously, there were wars against the locals, but were there conflicts between European colonies that didn't come back to Europe?
The land grabs caused tensions and resentments, especially in the countries that ended up with the territories nobody else wanted. I do recall reading about the Agadir crisis with Germany attacking a post in Morocco but I would need to read up on it. There was the Great Game between Russia and Britain. The boxer rebellion actually saw a proto-UN campaign launched by the major powers in this scenario against the rebellious Chinese. But in general the fighting was against the native populations. I guess the rivalries of this era all contributed to the outbreak of the First World War which had almost become inevitable.
I'm not sure I fully grasp all of the mechanics yet, but I like the thinking behind these rules. As long as its simple to work out your scores each turn then tally everything up at the end then I think we should give this a try. What do we need to do next regarding the core cities?
Patine. As the first few turns will probably be mostly about trading, organising production and picking off ripe Oriental cities I think we can play on as we get to grips with this scoring system. Feel free to play your turns.
Patine. As the first few turns will probably be mostly about trading, organising production and picking off ripe Oriental cities I think we can play on as we get to grips with this scoring system. Feel free to play your turns.
Do we pick our own core cities and have as many of them as we like?
Surely large empires with easily defendable core cities (I'm thinking the Russian hinterland) will give certain nations a big advantage over smaller nations. At least to begin with.
Surely large empires with easily defendable core cities (I'm thinking the Russian hinterland) will give certain nations a big advantage over smaller nations. At least to begin with.
The scoring system probably needs some changes. I've only spent a couple hours thinking about this, and mechanism design (as economists call it) can be quite difficult.
I was thinking that players would choose their own core cities and be able to add to them later. Having too many core cities would make you a target and encourage others to partition your empire.
Choosing backwater cities as your core cities means you lose the "rebellious city" mechanic. Sure, Russia's "core cities" might be safe, but Russia without Eastern Europe is probably knocked out anyway. Making already vital cities core cities gives you some leverage to get terms lighter than unconditional surrender if you suffer a reversal in war.
There might be a problem that someone makes lots of core cities and can then threaten to spite a player that conquers a lot of "core" cities that are really just outposts. This could be corrected by varying the suffering points for having a rebellious city with the number of core cities declared, but that would make keeping score more difficult. It may just be easier to fix the core cities at the beginning of the game.
voltar
Drunken Russian
I to vote for keeping scoring simple.
Picking core cities seems arbitrary, tracking trade caravans tedious.
TBH I don't really care about scoring, I just wanna play
Picking core cities seems arbitrary, tracking trade caravans tedious.
TBH I don't really care about scoring, I just wanna play
I'm torn between a scoring system or just a few house rules to try and guide player behavior. If I'm being honest, the scoring system does sound a bit clunky and I'm not sure people play these scenarios for a score. Some play for world domination, others play for their own personal goals. For me playing Civ has never been about getting the highest score.
On the other hand, this scenario normally breaks down into a familiar pattern and WWI seems to be the inevitable outcome. This scoring system offers an alternative to that and hopefully a more interesting game as a result.
How about an adapted proxy war system like the one used for First Strike where the number of units allowed to fight in a war was dependent on the size of the city/cities being fought over? We could break the map down into territories and if two nations went to war over that territory then the mutual agreement would be to limit the conflict to just that area and not to escalate it to a global conflict. Of course you could impose a trade embargo and call on your allies to do the same to put pressure on your enemy to negotiate a cease-fire. For example. Germany and France go to war over an East African territory. The total size of the cities in that territory is 12. Both sides can only use twelve units in the territory itself at any one time. Naval units would not be included in this calculation. There would be some kind of naval exclusion zone (based on a number of squares from the nearest conflict city) and enemy shipping within that radius would be a legitimate target, but a merchant ship in a different ocean would not be a viable target. This means that a war over an overseas territory does not automatically have to become the Franco-Prussian war.
The problem may come when the players involved do actually intend a full-scale invasion of their European neighbors, but I guess in this case it is down to each nation to ensure it's home defenses are ready.
This is a simpler solution than the scoring system and would depend on players being honorable and observing the rules of engagement, but I think we could work that out between us. In the event of a dispute we could ask an independent arbitrator (perhaps Curtsibling or Techumseh) to take a look at the situation and make a judgment. We would have to agree to abide by this decision no matter what the outcome.
That's my proto-idea. What do you guys think?
On the other hand, this scenario normally breaks down into a familiar pattern and WWI seems to be the inevitable outcome. This scoring system offers an alternative to that and hopefully a more interesting game as a result.
How about an adapted proxy war system like the one used for First Strike where the number of units allowed to fight in a war was dependent on the size of the city/cities being fought over? We could break the map down into territories and if two nations went to war over that territory then the mutual agreement would be to limit the conflict to just that area and not to escalate it to a global conflict. Of course you could impose a trade embargo and call on your allies to do the same to put pressure on your enemy to negotiate a cease-fire. For example. Germany and France go to war over an East African territory. The total size of the cities in that territory is 12. Both sides can only use twelve units in the territory itself at any one time. Naval units would not be included in this calculation. There would be some kind of naval exclusion zone (based on a number of squares from the nearest conflict city) and enemy shipping within that radius would be a legitimate target, but a merchant ship in a different ocean would not be a viable target. This means that a war over an overseas territory does not automatically have to become the Franco-Prussian war.
The problem may come when the players involved do actually intend a full-scale invasion of their European neighbors, but I guess in this case it is down to each nation to ensure it's home defenses are ready.
This is a simpler solution than the scoring system and would depend on players being honorable and observing the rules of engagement, but I think we could work that out between us. In the event of a dispute we could ask an independent arbitrator (perhaps Curtsibling or Techumseh) to take a look at the situation and make a judgment. We would have to agree to abide by this decision no matter what the outcome.
That's my proto-idea. What do you guys think?
Patine
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This does sound intriguing as an alternative. However, what about air units, once they get off the ground (pun intended)? They're not big armies, but about 50-100 men at most in canvass and wire aircraft with burbling gas engines. The thing is, their effect on such a battle would be highly disproportionate to that.
