PW-02 Zombie Nation

[pawelo]

Holy Word game hitting the end, it's time to launch a discussion about a new idea I had, inspired by a brillant Vanilla RB Epic - "Stagnation".

I don't have clear rules, and don't really know how all this stuff work in the game (I never use all these options), so I open the discussion - everyone is welcome to join it, whether you sign or not.

The idea:
Recover from AI empire management.
Basically, I would like to auto-play until some deadline (1 AD, 500 AD or even further) and then the team will have to manage all the stuff the AI has done throughout the critical early turns
Auto-play means:
- Governors - no (or minimal) human decisions on cities
- Settle on blue circles - if several around, settle on the closest.
- Auto workers, auto explore with some units, garrison others
- Auto-research - I don't really know to what extent is this possible, but aim to make it as AI-like as possible - when in doubt, the research will be chosen accordingly to what the AI-leader would do
- Auto-diplomacy - the hardest part, play like the AI would play the chosen leader

I look forward to your inputs on these points. I really don't know the system and would like to clarify all those rules before playing the "Zombie" turnset
We can also split the Zombie turnset between the roster players, as long as we act like the AI.

As for the settings, everything is open.
I would like to go for a Pangea or Continents map, to make it more risky - hoping we won't get smashed before we can act by ourselves.
Monarch would be a nice challange, I think Prince is more manageable, especially if the Zombie time span is long.
Leader-wise, I'm open. It's an opportunity to play a leader less present nowadays, like Peter, Asoka, Churchill, Alex. Anyone can do, as long as we respect the personality.

Hoping I'm not in the middle of heavy SG overload, with all those new ones starting around.

Roster:
1. pawelo
2. r_rolo1
3. azaris
4. Darth Meanie (if prince difficulty)
5. Betruger (prefer monarch but will go for prince too)
6. TheLastOne36

Edit: completely forgot this:

Spoiler for Deviant Mind Succession Game Etiquette Guide:

Spoiler :

Alpha: The quality of your report outweighs the quality of your play; a log dump is right out. We’re here to have fun, and, of course, winning is fun, but losing in style is preferable to a boring win. Remember, your report should be a new reply to alert other players.

Bravo: Reports should be detailed, with plenty of screen shots and player commentary, explanations, musings, etc; an auto-log dump will not suffice. Shots of the F9 screens and overview shots of the empire are nice too, once in a while.

Charlie: Punctuality rocks! “24/48” means post a "got it" within 24 hours of when the last save was posted, and play within 48 hours of that ‘got it.’ Waiting 47 hours to ask for a skip is lame. Punk out two times in a row, and you’ll be dropped from the roster. Skips and swaps are fine, but try to let us know sooner, rather than later.

Delta: Major game decisions (war/peace declarations, religion swaps, city placement, etc) should be arrived at via group consensus.
1. If the team disagrees with you, either argue your case better, or do it their way. Do NOT just blow them off and do it your way because it's your turn.
2. However, if there’s no consensus and you’re up, do it your way and explain why. Conversely, if someone else is up, don't whine when they do it their way.
3. Similarly, overruling techs or city builds is rude and should be done via consensus, barring an emergency.
4. In extraordinary situations, sometimes an opportunity presents itself that the group didn't foresee. If the consequences of it are great (war declarations, birth of Great People, even some quests), players should stop, and refer the question to the group.

Echo: Being a better player does not give you the right to belittle anyone else or their play. Other people are going to disagree with you on major decisions; get used to the idea, and play nice. If not, take your ball and go home.

Foxtrot: Thread spam is good. Trash talking, poking fun, gentle ribbing, virtual noogies, and generally horsing around are all encouraged, but don’t be rude. See any SG I or other DMers have been in to see what I mean.

Golf: Automate sparingly.
1. Workers should almost never be automated, except perhaps late-game or building a trade network. However, if you have to, set your game options to “disallow automated worker forest chopping” and “keep previous improvements.”
2. Use of the “Emphasis” buttons is fine, but let the group know and explain your reasoning (specialization is a major game decision). If you prevent growth in a city, let the group know and remind them to take it off. Do NOT let the governor select build orders.
3. Sending units on go-to routes that last beyond your set is acceptable only if they’re heading for a rally point or if you otherwise inform your teammates.

Hotel: NEVER fortify Great People. Just press enter for 15 turns. Is that so hard?

India: Sign spamming is rude. Signs can be helpful reminders, but too many signs makes them easily ignored. Once a sign is no longer valid, delete it.

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

Paweloi not sure if you have come across this SG but it is an interesting insight into the Empire the AI will build for you!!

The Computer Knows Best

cheers

Ralph

 

[pawelo]

Thanks a lot for the link Ralph - in fact it shows pretty well what the AI can propose. I'll have a close look on this .

Hopefully, we can get enough people for this ride

 

[r_rolo1]

If you want to do something similar to the sand-01 SG ( the link that Ralph provided ) , you can count me in... Since BtS come out I wanted to see if BtS AI is better or worse than vanill a one in that regard ( but I never have time to start my own SG..... )

 

[pawelo]

I think going for something similar - though I would love to extend it, respectful to the leader personality - for diplomatic issues (i.e. if we choose Toku, no open borders before pleased ; Monty = war etc).

Governors maybe an overkill if we leave it for the whole game

My idea was slightly different - I don't know if you have seen the Stagnation epic on RB - they were starting in 1000 A.D. with NO land improvements - not even a single road. And no workers... The idea was to focus on recovering from all the bad AI management.

Still, the sand concept gives us some sort of judgement - two choices of builds, techs - the limitating part is that we have to go like this for the whole game.

Up to the group to discuss the way we like it better - I'm open to both.

Anyway, you're in r_rolo

 

[Betruger]

Wasn't there a mod that lets you put your civ on autoplay, so that you just hit one button, wait some time for cpu to process turns and get a computer-built empire?

 

[pawelo]

If anyone knows what this mod is, I'm keen on discovering it.

I'm not aware if such mod exists.

Do you want to take part of this game Betruger ?

 

[r_rolo1]

The mod was the "Revolution" one for Warlords ( fun Mod: cities with high maintenance and in empires with shunned civics ( slavery , theo ,serfdom ....) started to do demands of release and if not heard they could spawn barb units ( rebels ) or even to fully rebel as new civs.... Barb cities could transform into new civs as well ( as you can imagine games got very cluttered, but it was fun ..... ) ...... Dunno is there is a BtS conterpart of that feature

 

[azaris]

I don't think you even need a mod to do that - there's an option in the CivilizationIV.ini file that lets you define AutoPlay for N turns at the start. It's for testing purposes. I guess pawelo could run the game for 100 turns or so on AutoPlay and then we pick up from there (modulo starts that are too good/too bad).

I guess this is a sign-up provided we do it like detailed above. I'm not sure I'd like to play if it means following the brain dead city governors and advisors who want to gift away all our cities because they have 51% of our worst enemy's culture.

 

[pawelo]

Welcome azaris, and thanks for the suggestion.

For testing purposes, I'll try the option you outlined later today.

All variant rules are open to discussion - the rules mentionned in the first post are just what I was thinking of when I had the idea.
As a variant, we can do AI-assisted game too, like it was a case in the game Ralph mentionned.

I am also against giving away a city as soon as the message prompts for it - how many times you see the AI doing this ?

 

[pholkhero]

phew ~ i really wish i had more time, but with being so far behind in MLG4, that more than anything convinced me that i definitely AM overloaded!

will be lurking, though, that's for sure!

 

[pawelo]

Too bad you can't do it pholk, you're welcome anytime.

I started an AI managed autoplay as azaris suggested, but it refuses to stop after 100 turns - it's like lurking a movie, though you don't have a clear view on it. Do you have any clue on how to make this stuff work ?

Edit, afterthoughts - I think I messed it up It will run till the end. Will have to restart. On the up side, 'our' greek AI crashes everyone around

 

[azaris]

Sadly it seems like the AutorunTurnLimit was never implemented so you can't stop the game. That puts us back into mod hunting.

 

[Darth Meanie]

I'll join, but only @ prince. I'm not ready for monarch.

 

[pawelo]

@azaris - sad but true. I even tried to ctrl/alt/del the game and start with an auto save, but it doesn't work for me

Anyway, the AI seems to do pretty well from the tries I generated.

@Darth Meanie
I think we will go for Prince so you're in! Welcome!

I generated some Pangeas, they seem challanging. As for the zombie-time, I hesitate somewhere between 100 and 150 turns...

Open discussion about it, as well as about the variant rules to apply during the auto time.

 

[r_rolo1]

Maybe it would be better to follow sand-01 rules... installing a mod just to let the AI play 100 turns ....

P.s Will hunt a mod for AI zombie time anyway...

 

[Conroe]

@azaris - sad but true. I even tried to ctrl/alt/del the game and start with an auto save, but it doesn't work for me

lurker's comment: You could partially do what you want using debug mode to generate a scenario. You'd lose any accumulated production and research. And any diplomatic modifiers would also be reset, as they are not saved in the worldbuilder file. But you would have an AI managed empire, if that is what you are looking for ...

 

[r_rolo1]

I found what we were looking for:

[MODCOMP] AIAutoPlay

It is a standalone part of the Revolutions mod ( I loved this mod in Warlords... must retry it in BtS.. I wonder if it is BUG compatible ) and does exacly what we want. but I'm not sure if lets the saves unaltered, BUG style .... ( must dig a little more )

 

[azaris]

The good news is that AIAutoPlay works. The bad news is that it does alter the save, requiring the mod to be loaded. I think this is because for some reason it includes the 34 civ expanded roster .

I have no idea how easy it would be to hack this to not require a mod.

EDIT: I tried entering WB, saving the game as a scenario and then loading without the mod. It loads but all civs have 10000 points and BtS crashes when pressing ENTER.

 

[Betruger]

@pawelo

Sure, I'm up for it, this variant sounds fun.
I'd prefer monarch, but prince is fine too. I'm afraid it'll be too easy though.