Let's Vox Populi! (#3)

[DoodlesTheDragon]

What do you all think about playing a larger map size?

On the one hand I think long range warfare will be almost impossible until endgame since enemy troops will probably upgrade before you reach their land.

As well, larger maps might be tougher on those of us with weaker computers. I have completed two Germany games though on a Huge map with 11 AI, so my computer should be good for it.

On the other hand, long range warfare being difficult doesn't seem like too big a sacrifice, and we might have a better chance of making a Terra Map work.

Edit: I'll start off by saying that I'd be in favor of a Huge map until convinced otherwise.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

After this week I will conclusively have one of my main sources of stress lifted off of me, so I can get back to doing what I like to do.
Until then I'm still messed up.

But I think you say the main thing wrong with a Huge map, Doodles. It's imbalancing for geopolitical pressure.
The tests show Terra makes people not have real land. I can't abide such messed up proportions and I just wanted to have a normal seeming game of 8 or 6 where no one adapts to anything gimmicky, except the simulation of an Old World and New World. But that cannot be so, so I just remove the last requirement.

 

[Amask]

I'd like to join.

I'd prefer a standard or large low sea terra map, but fine with anything else.
Strongly prefer an old world (5 billion). There's nothing brilliant about fortifying mountainous chokepoints.

Strongly prefer no AIs. I feel like it's too big of a random factor. One human's AI neighbor might build them shiny wonders for the taking, while another's might rush them. Or maybe an aggressive AI randomly picks between two human neighbors to attack.
Strongly prefer no modmods.
Strongly prefer normal gamespeed.

The only setting that I'm unwilling to compromise on would be tech trading. If you guys want it on, then I'll pass.

I suggest we ban voting for anyone other than yourself for diplo victory.
A long time ago I played a civ IV pitboss that abruptly ended because some people absent-mindedly voted for someone else to win. They didn't even intend to, they just assumed there's no way anyone would get enough votes.
I tried to convince people to continue the game anyway, but they didn't want to rob the winner of their "deserved" win. To this day that's one of my most disappointing civ experiences.

If we go with terra, perhaps we should also ban Polynesia.

As far as civ picks go, I'm fine with whatever system.

I haven't played any recent versions, but I'll start up a game soon, maybe even tonight.
Might have more suggestions about banning OP or gamey things. For example I think in one version the Zulu were extremely strong militarily? I'm not sure if this is still the case, so I'll check it out.

 

[stii]

I did a bit more checking and low sea level terra doesn't exist, it is one of the map types without that option.

 

[DoodlesTheDragon]

low sea level terra doesn't exist, it is one of the map types without that option.

Huh. Well, learned something new today.

The only setting that I'm unwilling to compromise on would be tech trading. If you guys want it on, then I'll pass.

I can agree to that. Research Agreements are good enough.

I suggest we ban voting for anyone other than yourself for diplo victory.
A long time ago I played a civ IV pitboss that abruptly ended because some people absent-mindedly voted for someone else to win. They didn't even intend to, they just assumed there's no way anyone would get enough votes.
I tried to convince people to continue the game anyway, but they didn't want to rob the winner of their "deserved" win. To this day that's one of my most disappointing civ experiences.

That's rough. I've experienced something similar.

I think I'd allow voting for someone else if it's being done as a trade-off. If someone wins diplo because people went "vote Venice for the lolz" then we can just not count that as a legitimate win. If you give votes to someone else for say, gold or something, you gamble they don't win the next world leader vote, and if you're right, you just got free cash. If you're wrong, that player successfully played their cards right to win.

There's also a system in civ v where if you trade for world congress votes, it only forces a % of your total vote count to vote for what the other person requested based on the skill of their Diplomat/Agent in your capital. If you wanna do more than that though, you could just tell the other player "I'll give you 5 votes if ____".

In a full human player game I find it unlikely that any of us are gonna get enough dominance over city-states to win the diplo game without support from other humans. Even if someone does start getting city-state dominant, other conquest-oriented players will start murdering off the city-states just to deny you your votes. You're gonna need to somehow be like the present day USA to have a good chance at city-state dominance I predict.

 

[DoodlesTheDragon]

The tests show Terra makes people not have real land

So, Pangaea it is then I imagine?

Edit: I remember now that someone suggested Oval... well whatever the case is, I'm now in favor of Pangaea.

No need to worry about response speed, whenever you're finished your work stuff is good.

Hadn't noticed there were already a playset of us. Might have to have a shootout for the eighth slot, looks like.

A few solutions:

1. Increased player number. This might work ok on Pangaea.

2. Backup players/Shared slots. If someone unexpectedly quits/is busy/unavailable for a while, a backup player can substitute for them for as long as necessary. The two players can sort out how they want it to work. Don't think an eliminated player should ever be a back-up player for another country though-they'll have too much information on what's going on in the game.

3. A shootout, like you said. I'm willing to give up my spot if someone else really wants to play. If you support solution 2, I could be a backup player in this case.

Edit: 4. One of us on this forum could start a second game for those who couldn't fit in this one and for those who feel like playing 2 at the same time. Will wait and see how things turn out though...

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

No need to worry about response speed, whenever you're finished your work stuff is good.

It's not work. I haven't been able to work.
What I have now is a diagnosis of a problem that's been giving me horrible pain for most of this year and kept me "seat-ridden" to the extent I can't even stand long enough to tend to food I'm cooking. I need treatment. And, I'm reading, I need luck that the only known treatment will actually work.

If voting another player for world leader becomes banned, that has to include selling those votes in diplomacy. You aren't free to vote like that anyway, so how are you promising to do it? Plus, I don't think players can see whether the votes were bought.

So I'm getting that we want no AIs, and no modmods. I think we should just pick Pangaea. Since climate conditions and map type are interrelated, I'll just hold a vote where we pick both together. (I want to just vote on climate but the options depend on the map type!) I don't think anyone is interested in something other than Oval and Pangaea. Continents has as much risk of being unfair. So, if there's 8 people and an equal map size, do you want:

(Normal rainfall, temperature for both; low sea level for both)

1) Old planet Pangaea
2) Middle-aged planet Pangaea
3) Old planet Oval
4) Middle-aged planet Oval

?

Vote for two and rank one preferred to the other, we'll do instant run-off voting (batch-style).

I don't want to play with more than 8 people - if there were a 10 player game starting, I'd skip it.

 

[Recursive]

I suggest we ban voting for anyone other than yourself for diplo victory.

That reminds me, I should add an advanced option to turn that off.

 

[Amask]

1. Old pangaea
2. "Middle-aged" pangaea

I originally found this thread at 4am when I couldn't sleep. I actually thought it was a photojournal or a youtube "Let's Play" from the title.
I ended up misreading the first post. Seemed like you guys had 7 players and I was very excited to luck out on the 8th spot.
Then I realized my mistake.

So what's the plan now?
I think just in the order of expressed interest is fairest. I'll just hope that some people have lost their interest since posting
Though you should give everyone several days to officially confirm.

I'm also looking into hosting a pitboss game. Downloading civ V on a second machine as I type this.
From what I read you don't need two copies of the game for this.

The obvious advantage is that turns don't have to be sequential. This would likely speed the game up significantly.
Another perk is that if someone is extremely busy for a day and misses their turn, everyone else doesn't have to wait.
During war a turn order between the warring parties can be agreed upon.
I've played a dozen civ IV pitboss games where that wasn't an issue.
For civ IV there was website where you could check who already took their turn.
I don't think anything like that exists for civ V. I'll have to check whether it's possible. Things could get mildly annoying otherwise. The first-to-go warring player would have to notify the second when they finished their turn. Not the end of the world.
I saw some reports of game-ending bugs in hybrid turn mode, so I'd rather not even touch it.

More important than turn order is whether the game is stable.
Does anyone have any experience with playing modded pitboss?
Maybe issues would crop up only if multiple people are in the game at the same time?

The most important question is whether a pitboss game can be converted to hotseat. If pitboss is not stable then this could become necessary.
Out of the box the answer is no. I tried it already. The button to load the game is just disabled.
Does anyone know if GMR can convert a pitboss game to hotseat?
That's something I can also look into on my own once I finish setting everything up.

Final question.
Let's say that all the potential issues with pitboss are solved.
Is anyone interested in playing two games at once?
If I don't make it into this one then I may start my own.

 

[stii]

1 Middle-aged planet Oval
2 Old planet Oval


I think the player list is just anyone who expressed any interested, I'd be pretty surprised if we have eight even.

Sequential turns do seem like they might take forever

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

oh yeah I guess I have to pick a player list for there to be an electorate.
uhh....

Too tired right now. I'll count them later. And I will go in order of expressed interest. But, everyone who posted only once, you have until next week Saturday to confirm you're still interested.

 

[DoodlesTheDragon]

It's not work. I haven't been able to work.
What I have now is a diagnosis of a problem that's been giving me horrible pain for most of this year and kept me "seat-ridden" to the extent I can't even stand long enough to tend to food I'm cooking. I need treatment. And, I'm reading, I need luck that the only known treatment will actually work.

Wish the best of luck on your treatment then; I can empathize. Although your situation is much more serious than mine was.

If voting another player for world leader becomes banned, that has to include selling those votes in diplomacy. You aren't free to vote like that anyway, so how are you promising to do it? Plus, I don't think players can see whether the votes were bought.

The way it would work is, someone would 'whisper' to one other player, offer the votes, and the other person if they say yes would be promised those votes. You can always choose where to place each of your votes, and everyone can see who voted what when a vote is over. So if I tell Arabia to give me 5 votes on a proposal in exchange for.... invading Denmark, and then I see Arabia gave me no votes at all in the proposal, I'll know they broke their promise. At which point I can retaliate by showing a screenshot to all the other players of our secret deal and stating how Arabia's not a reliable country.

We'll always be able to see the voting outcomes, so if anyone tries to cheat on voting for another world leader (if we ban it), we'll know immediately.

As for the in-game vote buying mechanic that forces you to vote a certain way if you do sell your votes, usually it'll do something like... give you 2 votes from another player if your Diplomat is an Agent.

So if you see this on a proposal (say for World Congress Host):

2 votes for England from Portugal
2 votes for England from Spain
2 votes for England from The Huns
2 votes for England from America
5 votes for Portugal from Portugal

Then those first 4 votes were likely bought by England (although I don't remember if you can buy votes for World Congress Host). Vote purchases are also the only way that a country can simultaneously vote in favor of something while also voting against it, so in that case we'll also know if people were selling votes.

I've played a dozen civ IV pitboss games

I'm curious, how was the stability for those? Did civ IV multiplayer desync a lot?

Does anyone have any experience with playing modded pitboss?

Maybe issues would crop up only if multiple people are in the game at the same time?

Does anyone know if GMR can convert a pitboss game to hotseat?

Is anyone interested in playing two games at once?

1) Nope
2) Maybe
3) I don't know, but it seems possible to at least convert single player games to hotseat: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/multiplayerrobot/discussions/0/1485482132155465269/
Multiplayer would probably work too, but don't take my word for it.
4) I'd be up for that.

 

[STEPHEN HOFFMANN]

But, everyone who posted only once, you have until next week Saturday to confirm you're still interested.

Haven't been as active as others but still interested in playing. Someone asked about multiple games and I would not be up for that.

What difficulty does everyone plan on in their solo games?

 

[DoodlesTheDragon]

What difficulty does everyone plan on in their solo games?

I won an Emperor game once that wasn't very close... that's the best I've done. Aside from that it's almost always been King. Haven't tried Immortal.

Edit: How about you?

 

[STEPHEN HOFFMANN]

I won an Emperor game once that wasn't very close... that's the best I've done. Aside from that it's almost always been King. Haven't tried Immortal.

Edit: How about you?

I play on prince most of the time.

 

[Amask]

I'm curious, how was the stability for those? Did civ IV multiplayer desync a lot?

The pitboss games crashed occasionally. I don't recall for sure, but I think it was possible to play a full game without a crash.
I also never hosted pitboss games myself, so I can't even say if the crashes were game-related, or maybe just the host's computer had issues.

Regular multiplayer was pretty stable. I played probably over a hundred games, and I think only got an out-of-sync error twice.
Many games were played with pretty heavy mods like Fall from Heaven.

 

[DoodlesTheDragon]

Regular multiplayer was pretty stable. I played probably over a hundred games, and I think only got an out-of-sync error twice.
Many games were played with pretty heavy mods like Fall from Heaven.

Hearing this I am both glad and frustrated. It's silly that the series goes from what you just said, to "can't go past a hundred turns without constant desyncs" (although I understand civ5 had a different development team). Not sure where civ6 multi stands.

Welp, at least we've got GMR. And can attempt pitboss if you end up trying that.

 

[Amask]

Pitboss tests are a work in progress. I'll report more soon.

And I share your frustration. I hate what Firaxis has become after 2K bought them, with a passion. A single additional developer could fix so many broken things. Take-Two Interactive (2K's parent company) reports annual profits in the hundreds of millions. Surely they can afford it.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

So it's going to be InkAxis and Grassland Farm for last 2 unless either of them can't make it, in which case it's a couple of users who'd have to say something before Sunday, and then Amask.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

Okay, it's InkAxis and Grassland Farm. Everyone , vote on the thing anyway, but the game will only take the players named into account.

Planet Age and Map type,

Alsl I will update the op to show we must decide on the difficulty setting.