My thoughts on CPL multiplayer

CPL civ players league is by far the largest online portal for multiplayer and it's absolutely horrendous for new players.

It's not a FFA, it's who are the top players and how can we make them happy so we're not on the chopping block

First of all any questions or mistakes are met with harsh rebukes(which typically come from the top players) and all the other players tend to pile on as to be in the top players good graces.

During game things get worse. The top players routine ask for money and are given it, told where to find wonders, told the layout of the land, are given alliances, military buffs. It's not uncommon for the top players to make commands about where other players can and cannot settle. As a New of low rated player it's much harder to get any of the aforementioned benefits and it's not uncommon to be completely ignored. The way the other players grovel to the top players is sad. Not only are they good players they has these "legacy" advantages that makes them unstoppable and you simply play the game waiting to get taken out as his units have all sorts of buffs from various alliances that you can't get due to the fact that everyone is scared of upsetting said player.

The have a war only mode where there isn't communication but this is rarely played. They have a novice FFA but you'll never get a game.

 

Interesting. I'm in their discord but I'm only interested in PBC games and haven't had any of those experiences you've mentioned yet.

 

i agree. CPL is not newbie friendly. There was a guy Zac who made the novice ffa channel and created novice games. unfortantly his mac is broke now and he is not much online now

 

That sucks. I really wish there was something like CPL that was geared more toward casual players. If you set something up I'm down to join

As a new player in CPL you don't have a chance.

 

There really isn't any other place that you can reliably get a game, unless you have access to one of the regional language specific discords. Because it's so big it will draw a substantial amount of alpha types and bully gamers. But, you do get games. I have over 5k hours of multiplayer. I doubt I would have half that without CPL. All I can say is get better at the game. Watch streams of the better players. If you prove you know how to play the game well, you will get alliances.

 

well my laptop is crashing a lot these days so i cannot organize anything right now.

 

Zac was back on last night, saw him in FFA staging.

 

Oh did I forget to mention the world congress? The top player tells you how to vote in world congress so the top player gets yet more buffs.

So in summary the top player

-gets all the best land and gets to dictate where "lesser " players can go
-gets all the world congress decisions to go his way due to his "clout"
-get gold/ammenties whenever requested
-gets told the geography of the map
-gets told where the wonders are
-gets alliances/military buffs

@Swissy- yes, get better obviously but assuming that it's two players of the exact same skill and player one gets the aforementioned buffs and player 2 doesn't player one will win 14/15 times. It's ****. I've had a handful of new players voice similar issues to me in private and I haven't seen or heard from them since. Safe to say they are fed up and quit much like I'm more or less done with the community. I've even had players apologize to me in private for how I was abused and colluded against in game.

The barriers to entry are awful.

The solutions I can think of are more "war only games" and separating game lobbies. For example having a settler-prince FFA ranked lobby and a king-deity game lobby FFA lobby and you get graduated and demoted accordingly to your skill level.

 

Pub games have just as much or more abuse and collusion and are filled with fascists, commies and stoners. There's no private chat allowed in CPL FFA if there is collusion you know what's going on.

CPL is a lot like playing a hand of poker at a casino. You can't take loosing personally.

 

hmmmm ive thought of my self as a pretty experience civ player, but nothing your saying sounds sensable?

Plz dont take this as an insult becuse i can give you thoughtfull, respectefull reasons why

 

well give me the reason why

 

What is CPL, what is PBC and FFA?

Ok, PBC is obviously Play By Cloud. But what about other two?

As for the OP I don't know, but maybe it's a part of the game? You can negotiate with others. If someone is strong, isn't it normal to expect that other civs will give him a tribute? Maybe you could give us some specific case so we know what is going on?

 

CPL: Civ Players League community
PBC : Play By Cloud multiplayer game
FFA: Free For All multiplayer game

 

Well I'm sorry I missed this post here, but TBH, why are you posting feedback about CPL on CFR? If you wanted to help us make the place better, post on our Discord...

To address your points, yes we know that games in CPL are not always easy for new players, we are very aware of that. Which is why there is a Novice area on our server, and Ghost and Zaty each run weekly novice games for that segment of the league. But during prime hours there is no reason Novice players can't just jump into Staging Novice and play a game...more experienced players are not allowed in novice games unless voted in by the novices.

As far as player dynamic in games, that is human dynamics, not our rules or policies. We have 3 types of games, Diplo, Diplo+ and Always War, and by far the most popular is D+ were everything has to be in the open. And this is MP, people do develop friendships, and good or bad reputations, that is going to affect who you trust in a game and who you don't. IMHO this is not a new player vs vet issue, it's just players seeing who is around them, and making the best calculated risk on who to ally with, who to attack early etc. Things like Congress votes do tend to be negotiations as well, but in the end you are free to do what you want.

And as far as players "making demands on were you settle etc" sure that happens...not limited to top players...anyone can do that...and if either do what they want in the name of long term diplomacy, or risk war with them, this is real people you are playing with not the scripted AI.

Not to be too critical, but most of your post is really about social dynamics of playing real people, and they are not "top players" they are vets of the league yes, but the average skill is still 1500-1600 in the average FFA. Yes there is a gap between even our average players and new/novice players coming from SP. I'm not sure if you have played random lobby MP games....but the crap that goes on their with no rules is 100 times worse than at Civplayers, we punish players for quitting, cheating, being toxic, and offer a very organized way to play games in our discord with our vote bots, and ranking system for those that like comparing their skill to others.

The solution is to play novice games until you have 30 games or so, or try out our PBC games, or even try the CPL Challenge save games.

Cheers CS

 

Yeah I did the error of PM "just here for pillaging" in Diplo + and got suspended for one day...

 

The psychology of playing against known quantities is probably why I like playing with random people. Having to concentrate with so much banter can be draining.

 

Thank you @CanuckSoldier, I thought what Purplehaze described can't have been the whole story. I think it's important that people communicate on different levels and form opinions of other players, which may add another layer of reality to the game.
Can you tell me if you are as active in civilization v?