Progressive MP game thread

I like how Joe proposed the conservative thread so visually. Here's my attempt to do the same for the Progressive game selections.

Obviously, things ARE up for discussion here. But here's my suggested option arrangement:

Map Options (if you want a couple generated map screenies we can do that... just takes a long time to do is all):





Game Options:











Victory Options:


Bug Options - I don't think there are any other significant ones and even some of these may be locally selectable but for the most part, these are the ones we should agree on and my proposal for them:





I know Koshling brought up a disagreement with teleport hunting awards but since Joe included that off in the conservative game, would it be acceptable to have it on here?

My personal opinion on Revolutions is that if someone wants a game with that, they should probably make a 3rd proposal because I don't really want to see either game get wrapped up in this.

Also, as stated in the Conservative thread, perhaps we should have an equal amount of AI players set to start the game with us as we have human players so as to give some conquering room without it HAVING to be PVP right away (in most cases.) That may be more important here than there so that players less familiar with some of the combat mod stuff can practice a little.

I figure that Domination is always going to override Conquest and that the game probably shouldn't end early just because someone gets 3 times the territory and population count compared to the next closest... this can lead to some unusual victories that end the game earlier than I believe it should. Probably not so much against human players but still.

Some ground rules:

• I'm not going to say someone CAN'T do what Joseph did when exiting, as that was kinda a strategic act of war - self destruction in a guided fashion and after a LOT of thought I don't grudge him (or the game) for it. However, I'd prefer it if we stop worrying about trying to replace players and what can happen when a player wishes to exit the game. If you're not in this at the beginning, forget it. If you're wanting out of the game, just retire please. No tricky stuff to try to weight the game to a given player or players when you depart it. Just retire if you want out.
  
  
• No replaying rounds just to try to get better combat odds by doing things in a different order. A mistake and replaying the round due to a grave error in the way you took the turn is one thing. Bad combat results do not constitute a justified cause. You have to police yourself on this, but it starts being obvious if you do it often. So please... let's establish this as a more solid gentlemanly agreement this time.
  
  
• Players must be willing and able to take a turn daily. This means after 24 hours of your turn being up, you should have good cause and have given us that cause, preferably before that day even takes place. If you do not take a turn within 1 week of it being your turn, you'll be retired. If you repeatedly establish a pattern of taking longer than 24 hrs, the remaining players reserve the right to vote you retired out of the game cycle. We really do want as many participants as we can get! But the game is simply more fun if we're rolling through the turns and everybody playing wants that to take place as much as the next player. Playing multiple games can obviously cause some unusual delays as we get into later stages of the game which may allow for some renegotiating of this rule. Please don't let this rule intimidate you from joining... just communicate well with us and make plans for your pending difficulties to uphold your commitments to the game and all should be good.
  
  
• All players must give their password to me. This is not so that I can invade and check out your game. I'm an honorable player. But for purposes of enforcing the above rule and/or debugging, it is necessary to have a central holder of the passwords. I shall simply not establish a password for this game for the same reasons and ask for the same degree of respect and privacy to be shared.
  
  
• Select an alternative player early in the game that can take your turn for you if you've vanished without notice (should be taken after 48 hrs.) Understandably this selection can be made after we get an idea of who would be least to have an agenda regarding your turn outside of playing it to the generic best of their ability.

I will be available to answer any questions regarding the Combat Mod and other new stuff but I strongly suggest ALL players skim through the v37 Player's Guide (stickied in the main forum) and the combat mod guide links there (and point out anything that's still confusing or seems to have changed... there MAY be some small dynamic tweaks here and there since original documentation efforts.) Honestly, playing a test game on your own with these options is advised.

Ok... discussion and enrollment. Open to all who want in, but I warn you... you should know well how to play. You'll be up against some damn good players here, as our previous MP games have already proven.

 

Even though i will not be playing in this MP game I wish you guys the best. Please from time to time keep us non-players updated on the major events of your game.

 

I disagree with not allowing tech trading/brokering in a PvP game - it's just another aspect, and without an AI to exploit its an even playing field. I could agree to no brokering, no trading seems overly harsh.

Could you remind me how divine prophets works please.

 

Divine Prophets, as I recall, gives you a Great Prophet when you research a religion instead of directly granting the religion. You can then move that GP to whatever city you want and found a/that religion there. I don't generally play with it on, but it does allow you to select where the religion is based.

I'm a little surprised that "Dynamic XP" is off. Seems like it should be on in a "Progressive" game.

Agreed that not allowing Tech Trading might be a little overly restrictive. Doing that only guarantees that we are all enemies from the word go, as nobody can really help anyone else.

The rest of the settings and rules look reasonable, except one. Giving you (Thunderbrd) all the passwords. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that. [No offense intended, I just don't know you well enough to know how honorable you are.] How about instead we all give them to someone who is not playing, but still frequents the forums? Say, perhaps Hydromancerx. If he is willing anyway. He could be the designated 48hour turn doer for this game.

Other than that, I am in.

 

Agree with both koshling and magnus about tech trading/brokering. Can see why you might want them not used if you are planning on using spies to acquire Tech you don't have.

Something to consider in the BUG settings.
Under City management something to consider, Don't check the Hide Obsolete and Hide Replaced Buildings. This can cause problems if a resource is lost and then later regained in the game.
Under Empire management, Don't check Hide obsolete worker actions. Same reason as for the others under City Mngmnt.

Also in BUG very curious why the RevConfig: RevInit Popup is checked if the game will not be using Rev?

And finally (for the moment anyway)2 main questions about the map settings.
1. why the Map setting of Small for Lonely Islands Size? Much prefer medium or large as for finding them then makes for a valuable prize when they are found.
2. Minimum Water spacing for continents at 4. Question, How long do you really want isolation? Now I do understand that allowing Tiny islands will help with early exploration to a degree. But with 3-7 Continents and the size dependent upon number of players, do you want another North/South scenario? Just askin' is all.

EDIT: Almost forgot, you will want Reckless Animals checked "On". Otherwise even predators may not be a danger at all. At least that is what I've been experiencing.

JosEPh

 

Since "Dynamic XP" is slated to be on for the other game, I'm not worried about it being off for this one.

 

I may not be able to get what I want here if everyone is against me on this but let me at least plead my case.

I find that tech trading makes the game imbalanced for a number of reasons.
I feel that it forces your hand to make alliances you must later betray at some point. I want this game to be an honest one. What you earn, technologically, is yours. Sure you can get some by stealing with spies and/or capturing some progression by capturing cities of players ahead of you, but if you think about the stealing of a tech, it's an alternative slider strategy to put more effort into espionage is all that is.

Tech trading pacts lead to nothing but imbalanced games and a speeding through of the eras once you reach the point where you can tech trade. I feel tech trading is incredibly unfair and supports ganging up on players and warps the game progression tremendously.

So far we have played nothing but games with tech trading and the conservative game is seeking to include it as well so I was REALLY hoping we could eliminate it here. I guess I'm against the grain here but I consider it a must NOT have for a game to be a level playing field and I have since Civ I. Every version I use it for some games and end up feeling the same way, that it destroys the progression of the game. That it ruins your personal tech achievement because you either enter into a tech pact or you get left behind. I just really loath the option and was hoping we could play what I feel is a fair game for once... one without tech trading.

As for diplomacy, it does make people more wary and less willing to try to work together and again I feel that keeps things more honest. Pacts are more military support and defense based than progress based.

With tech diffusion on, nobody should be able to get TOO great a lead, particularly since the move to prepare for war civics-wise should slow your tech progress down.

I'd just beg y'all to try working without it. It's one less way to manipulate the game from a diplomatic angle and keeps the focus on your personal development.

Also keep in mind, Joe and I are challenging each other, and in the process anyone else who wishes to join, to play in ways uncomfortable to their normal style for the sake of deeper exposure to the breadth of game experience that C2C has to offer. If I'm asking you to play outside your comfort zones, this is kinda the point. You might find this game changes your opinion on this facet of play.

I'm really looking forward to both... and for the conservative, I'm looking forward to it because it will invite all new game thinking. Should be fascinating!

Magnus is correct but there's a few more aspects to it.
DP makes it so that it requires a prophet to initiate a religion. A prophet can spread any religion (since we don't have choose religions on, you must still have tech access to that religion as a prerequisite) whether you have been exposed to that religion or not. If the religion exists nowhere in the world, the first place it is spread to will become the holy city of that religion.

When you are first to a religion tech, you get a free prophet rather than an automatic founding of that religion. You CAN use that prophet for whatever else you feel you wish to use it for rather than being forced to initiate the religion you just became the first person to tech qualify for. Useful if you feel that religion isn't one you care to have.

You can use this to focus your holy city selections on the cities best specialized for that particular religion making your holy city placement more a strategic than random affair. USUALLY this would be the capital but you may find more clever applications.

The core XP system works very similarly to Dynamic XP, offering a lot more XP from challenging odds battles and such, but offers XP in more situations and has a minimum of a base of one from a battle (modified then by unit modifiers.) AKA, Dynamic XP should now be renamed to 'Less XP'. Thus why I play with it off usually.

I'd be even more happy with Hydro being a pinch hitting player and password manager if he'd be up to that.

These SHOULD be something you can change locally for each player as it's just a user interface difference is all. I personally find it way too distracting to show them all.

If rev isn't on, the option is irrelevant whether its on or off.

So they don't accidentally take up enough room to violate the 4 spaces rule.

I'd prefer isolation lasts until late Renaissance. But this map usually finds ways to violate that anyhow. 3 spaces used to work for that but now we have 'seas' so 4 is necessary. And yes, I love the North/South scenario we have going! It's just unfortunate that our US MP game has tech trading which only the south managed to take advantage of and the north is getting left in the dust as a result.

Predators aren't always hungry. However, they are not ignorant of your presence and MAY attack at any time. It makes their behaviors less predictable and thus more realistic. As they get more experienced, they show signs of being more agitated and likely to attack.



@All: An update from the Conservative thread: I'd like to have No Barbarian Nations OFF here and also include an equal number of AI nations as we start with for human nations. This MAY mean I'll need to grow the map but that depends on how many human players we have. Huge should still be pretty sufficient.

This will give us further cause for cooperative diplomacy and practice with potentially less familiar combat mechanics before it gets down to being deeply PVP (in most cases.)

 

You do realize how long this will take right?! Even on the fast GS of Epic, this could take 600+ turns or more. Just sayin'. We 4 would probably not have a problem with it, but if any others want in, like Spirictum, will it be one for him.

And I guess we need to contact Vokarya to see if he has any interest as well.

JosEPh

 

So long as one person isn't isolated in his own theater the whole time it should be kinda fun. Plus, like I said, this map usually doesn't get broken up as perfectly as intended. The amount of water % is fairly low and sometimes causes some settings to be violated.

I'd love for Spirictum and Vokarya (and TOFFER!!!!) to join us if they would. SO? DH? Harrier? c'mon guys! This is the most ultimately fun expression of this game imo. By that I mean MP play in general. It may be slow and at times tedious but it's really an amazing experience, even if it pisses ya off in the end Might need to make a post in the general forum to really invite our dedicated players.

 

Too much of a commitment for me, I'm often away from my gaming rig (don't own a laptop) for several days.
I would have enjoyed it, but sorry, it's just not fair to you all for me to participate in this and delay the game progression to no end.

 

I think I have an idea that may make that workable. (And we all have to take time out sometimes even if this proposal is not agreed to. The bigger concern is regularly checking for your turn to come up when you are there and engaged and I have no worry you'd do very well with that because you check the forum daily as it is.)

My wife and I went out to dinner tonight. Was our 10th anniversary. Woohoo!

We were talking about this game. And I think we came up with something. Since we're playing full v37 ruleset, she'd like to play, with this proposal as her one condition.

I had proposed this long ago but wasn't going to push for it and I think the idea should get revisited.

How about a team game?

This would make for a good alternative to tech trading and would help us to ensure that games get played even when one of us needs to bow out for a bit.

The way it would work, for those of you who haven't played a team game before, is we go in with a partner. Each player has their own nation but they are assigned to a team with their partner. Techs can be independently researched but it costs twice as many research points to achieve a tech so if you work together you'll reach a single tech faster (sometimes it can be a good idea to spread efforts too though.) SOME wonders apply to and benefit both players (it's a little intermittent and non-defined so it takes some guesswork as to whether the effect of a wonder applies to both players on the team or just the player that built the wonder.)

So it's a little like having two nations joined at the hip. Both players can see what the other player can see and can look inside each other's cities. They cannot fight each other and are absolutely permanent and irrevocable allies. Both go to war together and both share espionage against other teams. Usually teams start fairly close to one another.

What this would mean is that for each partnership, if you communicate well, you have another player that CAN take your turn with your intentions and best interests absolutely at heart. Someone who knows, intimately, what your strategies and goals are. Someone you can counsel and take counsel from... two heads are better than one.

It sounds like one of the main reasons for reluctance to play here, and reluctance to have some others join, is their inability to absolutely commit to being here that frequently, even for people who check the forums very regularly they often take long break periods away. So if we choose our partners wisely, it should be easy to tell your partner what you need them to do for you while you're checked out.

As for Whisperr and I, one of the frustrations for some players in the last 2 games was that when she was a part of it, she and I had a hard time not knowing some things we shouldn't know because of each other. As a team, we wouldn't need to NOT cooperate with one another and we could have a fair game with others.

This is actually a really fun way to play and since we're doing all this to try some new things, how about it? What if we team up?

 

In emergencies maybe. Since I still need to be semi around for the other game.

I know you are not thinking of it the way i just was thinking of it but if you had "team teams" it might be a good thing. I will explain.

First you have a team game like how you explained above. But also have teams of alternates. If a person is busy then they can take the turn for the other on the team. Likewise they can also be the advisors for the team.

To be honest in the other game I have my own "advisor" who i talk to frequently about my game. And talk to him about what happened and what I should do next. Ultimately i am the one choosing if i should listen to his advice or not but its a good way to get out of my own head and see things from a fresh perspective.

Perhaps this game should be promoted a little more and get other people from the forum in on the action. Maybe even youtube peoples. There have been may in the past. In short if you think about teams perhaps you should think about getting real advisors and understudy stand ins for when the main leader cannot be there.

I would be open to being an advisor to a team. (Maybe )

 

I would highly support and advocate any team having fill-ins/advisors, so long as those sub-players were dedicated to the team they are on. My wife and I probably have plenty of practice here with these options so this would help to be an equalizing factor. Perhaps SO and/or DH would prefer to 'play' from this sort of role if not directly.

I mean, a group of 5 players who all know the game to varying degrees and wants to team discuss their options and tactics and who cares who actually TAKES the turns for the 2 ingame players on the team would be awesome because whichever one is available to do so when the turn comes up can take the turn faster than one player alone could achieve as well. There's nothing but good from this kind of union of players so long as they can get along at least.

It would be nice if we could agree to have these players share who they are. If they aren't on the forum then at least just some open disclosure through the forum participant would be cool. This could help to avert and avoid some potential issues I think.

But I think you are really onto something and yes, I want to promote this wider but I think we should get the structure defined by core players before we open things up wider.

@Hydro: would you be able to directly contact some of the LPers we've had through the years?

 

You do make some interesting points about Tech Trading, and your underlying motives with it. I'm willing to try a game without it.

Teams. Yeah, that could work. I have played on a Team-based multiplayer in the past, so I know what to expect. Unfortunately, none of the people I currently know (outside of this forum) currently play Civ4, much less C2C.

Dynamic XP off is better now. OK. That works.

 

Spirictum is a damned good player and I hope he catches on to this thread. Analysis of playstyles, strengths and weaknesses, suggests the two of you would do well to be a team. Just my suggestion.

Thanks for being willing to work with the no tech trading and Dynamic XP I appreciate that. Not because I'm looking to rig this for myself but because I just think it evens the playing field and Dynamic XP OFF fits the theme of the game better.

 

About 50% of those days I check the forum with a phone or ipad because I'm away from my desktop.
Between playing other games, studies, work, friends, family, modding, and often being away, I just don't have the capacity to be a reliable main participant of a MP game. Maybe I could fill in for someone else once in a while.

 

I'd be ok with a team game with the following provisos:

1) Teams should be together on the map (hopefully the game ensures this??)
2) Players of teams should be next to each other inn play order, because when one is away and the other is playing both they can then do it in one time block
3) We have enough people interested to get to at least 4 teams (so minimum of 8 people, preferably 10)

 

I was reading the v37 manual in my free time so I couldn`t catch up to this thread. Thanks for the compliments Tbrd!

Although I`m a huge fan of Revolutions I`ll try to live without it. My relief is that most stuff I like simply make the game harder, and as this is a competitive MP, I can live having my game being easier. Back in the Massive MP game having more then 10 cities in a time when you get +3 in every city for each city you get above the 6th was a lot of fun to manage. If I didn`t have that cap (and this game won`t have this cap as stated in the first post with no city limits from civics) I`m sure I`d have double the amount of cities I had.

But I was thinking that with Revolutions on it could be an excuse to start learning how it works inside the code to make it better for the mod, as it seems y`all complain about it being completely out of sync with the mod nowadays.

Anyway, an opportunity will come if you guys want this way.


About teams I`m ok with it, although I`m not a fan of this option, especially because of Wonders and Religions. Teams must agree on this kind of stuff, and even if the game rule something different then what was set between the team, each member has to follow it. E.g. The tech that allows the Druid religion to be found is discovered by a team. Both members agreed that Player A will have the holy city, but it happens that Player B gets the Prophet. If the team is a real team (Tbrd and Whisperr as an example) there is no problem here. But if the ties between the members of a team aren`t as strong, the first fight among members means one player down in the game, because team members can`t fight each other, so the solution will be to leave the game.

I think this is important enough at least so we all are prepared for it and for consequences of it.

But Team Play also let solitary players to be competitive, which to me is the best part of this option. People that are ok to band together may do so, but those that prefer playing alone can do this as well. But it`s up to you guys to see if you think it`s indeed balanced because I`m unfamiliar with team play (I only played a few times in several years).

The most enjoyable match I had was a MP between me and one friend. It took more then a year to finish. It was played on LoR so it isn't as big as C2C. Marathon Speed, Huge size, Deity difficulty. It lasted until 2030s. Both me and my friend had 100+ cities. If that isn't enough, I can be clear: I love slow games (although I hate not finishing them which is a constant pain with my preferences ). So I'm ok with this Joseph, you can count me in

@Thunderbrd @MagnusIlluminus
Another thing I think is nice about teams is sharing of knowledge and information between team members, which can create some material to be published in the forums or even in other media like blogs or youtube. I remember Magnus talking about creating something from screenshots and other stuff from that game, to maybe even make a story. I like this aspect of civ, so I believe we can do well as a team. I'm willing to make a team with you Magnus, I also don't have anybody to play with me, especially because 2 friends I have that could come to play are maybe even more unreliable then me to play the turns, so I wouldn't like to slow down the game because a friend of mine is doing so.

Also Magnus is always active, so in the times I must sadly leave this place because of college exams, he can play my turn as we are a team, without the fear that he can use this knowledge against me (which was the case in the Massive MP).



Last but not least, I won't use this information to disagree with anything Tbrd said, but it sounds funny to me talks about fake alliance when the only option to win this game is by Conquest

 

It naturally does place their starting positions within a fairly close distance of each other and without other players between them. This is slightly imperfect but rarely any issue. One weird game we had we ended up close but on different continents. This sort of thing is quite uncommon.

I had assumed this would be the best case, yes.

I'm hoping so as well. Hoping that with teams we'd be able to attract slightly less reliable players to form more reliable player pacts with others.

Keep in mind I'm looking to include an AI player for every human player we have too. (not sure whether to team the AI players or just have them be scattered independants... probably better that they be singles.)

I suppose we COULD allow the individual player to play without a team arrangement. Shouldn't be too balance problematic I think.

Whisperr and I solve this by having the player that is supposed to get the first to tech bonus or free prophet or whatever be the one that completes the researching of the tech. This means the other person pulls out of researching the tech at the last minute and goes for something else. The bonus goes to the player that finishes the tech. I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah, players on a team need to come to agreements on direction and strategy and that's a lot of what makes team play fun... as Hydro said, it gets you out of your own head a little and between the team members you tend to find better strategies down the middle of your ideal playstyles. It requires communication which could add a lot of fun to the 'metagame' side of play here.


So we know we'd have Whisperr and I as a team. So do we have any other official team partners?

 

Ooooh, that reminds me of another thing I was thinking about for this game. Instead of having just Conquest be the only Victory condition, turn that off and use Mastery instead? As that is a purely C2C thing, it would fit the Progressive theme well, and of course does include Conquest ratings.

As Thunderbrd mentioned, a good way to avoid those problems is to have the designated player finish the related tech. Alternatively, just don't decide beforehand who gets it and let the game decide. On the other hand, even if player A gets the GP, they could just move it over to player B's area and gift it to them. Lots of ways to solve that problem.

While I could possibly team with Spirictum, I have not seen his play-style to be able to tell if we are compatible or not. I also have to admit that I am ... sensitive to improper use of language. By that, I mean that I can tell that English is not his primary language, and the spelling and grammar errors bother me. [For example, he is using an odd character instead of the proper ' in words.] It is a failing on my end, but it is who I am. I would rather not be partnered with someone who I would dread receiving messages from. Dread is really too strong of a word. No offense Spirictum, I'm sure you are a good player. Perhaps I'll just play solo, or possibly be teamed with an AI or two.

That is a good question. Would teaming a Human with an AI be fair? Would it need two AI to be equal to a Human?