New Conquests PBEM

[ironduck]

I live in Denmark GMT +1, mostly around in the late evening and night.. since I do a lot of computer work it's easy for me to take a quick turn.. Rest assured I'll try to be quick to take my turns.

 

[predesad]

Game has started & sent to rubberjello

Game Settings:
Small World, 6 players, 2AI random, Raging Barbarians, Large Continents

Normal World

I chose a normal world to keep pace of game going, hard worlds might slow down game, IMHO

Accelerated Production

to speed up the pace obviously

Monarch difficulty

wanted emporer to benefit AI, but that difficulty has only one content citizen, combine one content citizen w/ accelerated production & we would very quickly be moving our sliders, converting citizens to specialists, etc which might slow down the pace

All victory conditions allowed except domination

in the tiny / small games I have played, if I had domination & conquest as victory conditions, it's not really possible to get the conquest victory because you automatically get the domination victory on your way to taking out the last civ, IMHO the domination victory is cheap, just because that civ is smaller isnt a given I can take him out, plus there's just something about needing to take every last city if that's the victory type I'm shooting for, maybe I'm just obsessed

cultural conversions on, preserve random seed, no culturally linked starts, no respawn

Complete Order of play:
Persia (predesad)
Dutch (rubberjello)
Hittite (AI)
Maya (playboy)
Celts (ironduck)
India (AI)

AI civs were set to random and spaced evenly between the human players

If at least two players complain that settings are not okay i will restart once provided the game is no more than 2 turns in; or if two players dont have 'acceptable' starting locations (not great, but acceptable) i will agree to restart.

 

[ironduck]

Is accellerated production a doubling of the shields?

 

[Rubberjello]

Originally posted by ironduck
Is accellerated production a doubling of the shields?

Well, technically no. But the effect is the same. The cost of all builds in terms of shield cost is halved, as well as food for pop growth. (twice as fast to produce something, twice as fast pop growth).
Many PBEM games use this option. But it kind of throws all my (your) hard-learned growth and Micro-management tricks that you have learned in single-play out the window (sorta).

We're on our way! Game sent on to Playboy. Shouldn't we have some sort of policy of acknowledging the send for each turn so the game isn't dropped by an email snarl?

 

[Playboy]

Played and passed! Good luck to all. My starting position is less than ideal, but I can live with it

I will send acknowledgement of receipt of game to the player before me.

 

[ironduck]

Played and passed!

Ooh the excitement of first multiplayer.. I hope I don't get wiped out within the first 10 turns

I think I'll just whine if I haven't received my turn for a while

 

[Playboy]

Don't worry. It'll probably take 50 turns to wipe you out

 

[ironduck]

Oh I feel all better now then - heck, that should be several weeks of playing!

Btw, I sent round 3 to predesad two hours ago, maybe we'll make three turns the first day?

 

[Rubberjello]

That would be great progress indeed. Maybe the nomadic Dutch will settle down and found a city one of these centuries!

 

[ironduck]

Founding cities ain't all it's cracked up to be! - you just keep wandering around a bit yet, I promise I won't hurt you if I meet your nomadic tribe

 

[predesad]

wow guys, i'm thoroughly impressed. i started the game late last night central time, went to bed, got up, went to dr appointment, come home abd there was turn two waiting on me. If that wasn't enough, I go out to eat with the family, do a little shopping, take oldest son to in laws to stay the weekend, come home to watch the Peach Bowl, and Bamm! there's turn three waiting on me. However, I hate to spoil the fun, but I'm having server difficulties (internet would be great if it wasnt for those servers) I managed to download & play my turn but I cant attach & email the file. I have to continually hit refresh because I get 'Cannot find server' errors, to do anything online. Attaching / emailing is like a 5 step process on yahoo and if I get an error I have to start all over from the beginning. Tried all during the Peach Bowl, (which was the highlight of the evening considering UT's disappointing showing) and it's just not going through. I'll try a little later, but will probably be morning.

 

[predesad]

hey, i dont wanna slow down the game, so all of you guys just send me your passwords & turn instructions & i'll take your turns for you. i'll follow your instructions exactly and ... you're not going for this are you?

well fine, i dont need your passwords because i got the file to go through so

 

[predesad]

Shouldn't we have some sort of policy of acknowledging the send for each turn so the game isn't dropped by an email snarl

that's a good idea, either an email reply or a post in the forum, as a courtesy would be nice

Is accellerated production a doubling of the shields?

in addition to what rubberjello said, cost of advances is also halved so EVERYTHING proceeds twice as fast.

But it kind of throws all my (your) hard-learned growth and Micro-management tricks that you have learned in single-play out the window (sorta).

i dont particularly like AP because u do have to rethink your micromanagement strategies, tinker w/ them a little, plus, IMHO, it can give you a false sense of growth security

It'll probably take 50 turns to wipe you out

nah, bet i can nab him in 40
(predesad is now hoping he's still around himself after 40 turns)

Maybe the nomadic Dutch will settle down and found a city

no, no, that's not necessary at all. u CAN win w/ just a settler & a worker, here's how:

1)fortify settler
2)start building roads w/ worker until you get to Persia
3)the king of Persia will take care of the rest

 

[ironduck]

I appreciate the courtesy of sending a 'got it' note, I just figured that after a while I would forget whether I received one for my own send anyway, so I was just going to ring a bell in email/forum if the game seemed to be stalled.. but if you (I guess that's you playboy ) want me to send a note I'll try to remember it.

Accellerated production sounds like tech will progress at a breakneck speed. I understand speeding up email games, but it's a bit of a shame with the fast tech IMHO.. I always felt it went too fast in standard rules, but maybe that's just because I much favour the first two ages and they pass by so quickly when playing the AI. By the time railroad is built out all the strategy and decision making feels futile. As a fun example of the age pre railroads, I'm playing Rome in the Rise of Rome Conquest right now (I only just got C3C) and it's a constant struggle switching troops back and forth between northern and southern Italy as I'm attacked on both fronts (Carthago MUST be destroyed!). I'm having a blast with it - if there were railroads it would just feel mindless and mechanical to me.. The dead-end tech trees on these early conquests scenarios are perfect for me.

Have the nomad Dutch found themselves an oasis yet?

 

[Rubberjello]

Oh yes. The Dutch are quite happy now. Thanks for asking!
Coast+River+Cow+Wheat+Silks Nothing but the best for the Dutch! *hehehe*
(I only wish those lazy sods were Industrious!)

Rise of Rome is fun (and challenging). It is pretty difficult to get the required population before time runs out (unless you are Persia). Look at the RBC3a, RBC3b, RBC3c, and RBC3d threads in the Succession Games forum to see what's in store for you.

 

[ironduck]

Ah, I'm happy the dutch found a little paradise - I hope without too many barbies.. I fear these raging hordes I have heard mutterings of amongst my people.

Rise of Rome is indeed challenging, and very fun because the AI so recklessly make peace and war on the slightest whim, they cannot easily be manipulated. I prefer to not read about the conquests as I like to explore them myself - they're a lot more fun than I expected!

 

[predesad]

I fear these raging hordes I have heard mutterings of amongst my people

the mighty Persian populace is growing restless, I can barely contain them from rushing into the unknown to strike down those savage villages, alas I must consent & send out a band of ruthless warriors, almost as uncivilized as the barbarians themselves

(if you've never played w/ raging barbarians, my advice is to go find them before they find you, or one morning you wake up and look out the palace window to find a stack of 20 barbarians licking their chops while your lonely two spearman tremble with fear so bad they drop their shields)

 

[ironduck]

What are these spearmen of which you speak? They sound useless!

 

[ironduck]

Btw, what are the numbers next to the names? I thought they were point scores, but if the Dutch have settled, why is their score still below 40? It looked like settling gave 40 points.. is that related to the time so the later the less it's worth?

 

[predesad]

those numbers are the score for each player. i just played my turn & if i remember correctly both the Persians & the Dutch have a lower score than everyone else, and everyone else's score is the same. the reason being that like the dutch, i did not build a city on my first turn. i dont know exactly how score works, but i think its something like you get a score for every turn and then all those scores are averaged for your final score as opposed to having a running total, therefore if everything proceeded equally, we would never catch up in score to the rest of the world.