RBCiv Conquests SG Discussion Thread

[Charis]

Elvis, yes, you're in the Hittite game. In fact.... you're up!!

Bugs, you're listed above as in the Fall of Rome series, no problem.

T-Hawk... as you know far too well, I've never ever been accused of moderation!

After an 8 day vacation away from computer, and with a very temporary work lull, I'm chomping at the bit for games.
(But thanks for the caution, history shows that you're correct)

Charis

 

[Coffee]

I'd like to play some more Sid scenarios.

 

[T_McC]

I would be interested in Fall of Rome. I don't have a civ preference, so I'd like to be blue. (... damned color blindness. Remembers trying to figure out why the Babylonians (in their alternate jerseys) were trying to frag their own units. Turns out they were at war with the Vikings. [Oh, the other shade of grape.] )

Aside: Are the barbarian tribes differentiated by anything besides color? Can they go to war with each other, or is this a locked-alliance scenario?

Edit: After opening the scenario, blue appears to be the Anglo-Saxons. To answer the other questions, this is not a locked-alliance game, and the Barbarian tribes appear to all build the same units. The Abyssinians (or whoever the Persians are in this game) build different units.

 

[Improviser]

I'd be interested in the fall of Rome scenario. Any civ would be fine with me.

Improviser

 

[mitsho]

I'd also be interested in the fall of Rome scenario. I'd like to play with the sassanids (but I would be ok with other civs too)

mfG mitsho

 

[JaxomCA]

Sorry Charis, the revenge of Korea would be a lot of fun but I don't have Conquest. Check your PMs for details.

 

[Charis]

Well things are humming along pretty nicely I would say, and there's a lot more coming soon. I wanted to mention some of this and see if there were any feedback.

Beta Patch v1.15
The latest beta patch is available to all (see the thread in the Civ III/Conquests forum). It includes several fixes and particularly, fixes the FP bug and applies a new 'solution'. Under v1.15...
- Corruption is a sum of two factors, rank-corruption according to how many cities are closer to the true capital, and distance-corruption accoring to how close a city is to the nearest of Palace/FP/SecretPoliceHeadquarters (SPHQ).
- FP adds a 37.5% increase to the OCN
- Max corruption in a city is now 90%, not 95%, and with a courthouse, 80%, throw in a Police station too, tis 70%.
- The combo of Palace+FP+SPHQ seems to make communism *MUCH* stronger than it ever was (this needs testing)
- Upshot seems to be to build your FP rather early, probably in a second or third ring city. Palace jumping will no longer be effective unless you somehow keep your total number of cities somewhat small.

Anyway, this patch is "how corruption is intended" and will be the way things are, barring bugs or major problems found. The nice thing is that v1.12, v1.13, v1.15 etc files are all save-compatible, so a person can play any save file with any version. Of course it's best if everyone in a SG is using the same version, but no one is excluded due to this.

For that reason I would recommend using v1.15 in SG's unless they're near completion and you don't want to mess with it. v1.15 should be considered usable (preferable?) in RBC5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.

RBCiv Epics
Griselda will have more to say soon and I won't steal her thunder, but before long expect an announcement on the RBCiv forum about the re-starting of the Epics games for Conquests.

Korean Revenge - RBC8
Thanks for your patience, I had to hear back from Meldor and Jaxom before proceeding. Expect an exciting turn 1 and roster posting in that thread in a day or so.

Fall of Rome
Again, thanks for your patience. That multi-team scenario was hoping to see: i) completion of all Rise of Rome games, and ii) the return of Sulla, C3C Roman Scenario expert. It will not languish on account of either one of these, but that's why you've seen nothing on this yet. It'll happen before long and should be a great game!

Fun and games with new Governments
RBC5 Feudalism and RBC7 Fascism are exploring new C3C governments and are going extremely well. The v1.15 changes in Communism are so extreme it's virtually a new government, and forum discussion elsewhere cry out to give Communism a good test in a real game setting. I'm hoping to do one or more of the following...

*** Austrian Fascists (RBC7) - We look forward of course to making it to the Industrial Era, Nationalism and a govt tech. Assuming we do so in a manner where the rest of the world isn't already trampled under the feet of our cavalry, here's what I'm hoping to do:
- Shadow Games A and B - on the very turn before anarchy ends I would like to branch out two games. The main SG will press on with Fascism as planned. 'A' will enter and remain in Communism and see how effective it is for warmongering, and 'B' will be the undisputed champion of PtW - Republic. This should be a great side-by-side test of the three governments for balance and taste. (We're presently at Metallurgy, iirc)

*** Feudalistic Mongols (RBC5) - In this open SG we just got Cavalry and have been running roughshod over the Celts, but have two TOUGH nuts yet to crack. IF we haven't won the game by the time we're at Nationalism+govt techs, I will do a briefer shadow game-set going a limited number of turns in Communism, Fascism and Republic and see how they compare to Feudalism.

*** Byzantine Communists
It's one thing to take a game where the play has had one govt and objective in mind and then revolting to another one, but often the setup just isn't right for the new one to shine (ie back in RBD5 French Artillery we experimented with a revolt to Communism that was abysmal). Communism, especially in its new incaration, should work especially nicely in far flung disconnected empires as you might see in a domination-goal arhipelago. And what better civ to try this out with than the Byzantines and their Dromon?! (I've been itching to try these ) As opposed to a 'comparison game', this one would have in mind a early and permanent shift to Communism in a large empire with a domination goal. This will likely be a Demigod level game (Deity?), only taking players who have beaten Demigod or Deity handily.

Monarch level Game
I've gotten some PM's from folks who love following this series but don't feel ready for Demigod or even 'variant Emperor' games, wondering if we ever ran a Monarch difficulty game. Along with a clever Monarch/Emperor player I'm cooking something up along those lines that would be fun, no previous skill requirement at all except it will likely exclude those who have beaten Deity I'm guessing from the number of lower diff games that there would be interest in this -- we'll see.


For the shadow games the players of the respective games will have opportunity to do the shadows (since that's the most "level" comparison) and Republic guru T-Hawk ( ) is also interested in taking a few shadow turns. If and when that happens I'll post in here and see if we can use other slots. (Of course you guys are free to do the same offline! Take the pre-end-of-Anarchy game and run for 30-50 turns or so in a different government, then report back how it went)

Like I said, lots of activity abuzz...
Charis

 

[Sir Bugsy]

Charis,
Great ideas, great concepts. It is creativity like this that makes Civ and the Civ community so much fun. I would like to thank you and all the RB Epics folks for staging your games here and opening up new worlds for all of us lesser skilled players.

Bugs

 

[Dwip]

Ruh-roh. That Communism game looks way, way too fun. And with RBC9 and the Fall of Rome game, I shouldn't. But I find that I must.

Assuming Demigod level, I'd like to play.

 

[Justus II]

I would like to try the communism game also, I like the Byzantines, and rarely use communism in my normal games, I would really like to see how it works with the changes.

 

[JMB]

Charis, I'd also be interested in the communism game... (especially if I did not get onto the Korean game roster)

JMB

 

[Ridgelake]

Sign me up! Communism is preferred, but I would be happy to join the Republic team as well.

 

[ducki]

If it's not already full up, this lurker would like to get in on a Monarch(or low Emperor) game. It would be my first SG and watching the RBC games has really made me want to try one.
(I also can't wait for the next Epic. )

 

[T-hawk]

I had a crazy idea for a game, inspired by the opposite of LK's "Slow Moving Civ" game...

RBC10 - Speedy Spanish Strikers

The goal of this game will be to win by domination without ever having a single unit spend a turn in enemy territory. The primary way to accomplish this will be Bombers combined with Conquistadors. Earlier war with Conquistadors and/or Cavalry is also possible; we'll restrict such actions to attacking no more than one enemy civ.

I'm thinking Demigod difficulty, standard map, pangaea.

Anyone interested?

 

[Ridgelake]

T-Hawk,

I suspect that the game that you describe will show how overpowering bombers are. It is basically a pure builder's game until flight. No wars. Conquistadors can't effectively wage war independently. They come way too late for their a/d values to be of use without assistance. Cavs, maybe, could do some war. But even that would be tough. Then, assuming you have oil, you would roll over the AI with lethal bombardment.

Not too sure what there is to gain from this setup. But I could be wrong.

Anyway, Charis, when will the alternate games from the fascist one start?

 

[Grimjack]

I am interested T-Hawk.
Having Conquistadors go crazy pillaging oculd be some fun. Building a Conquistador army would be something I could look forward to

Grimjack

 

[Aggie]

T-Hawk, I'm interested.

 

[T-hawk]

Charis, what's up with Fall of Rome? If you're too busy/occupied to handle organizing the teams and starts, I'll volunteer to take over.

If anyone else is interested in the Speedy Spanish game, post up. I'll start a thread for it probably sometime after the Super Bowl this weekend.

Incidentally, I had another idea for a Communism game: target a 100k culture victory. This would let us see the building power of a far-flung communist empire on a reasonable and practical scale. For a military building path, it takes too long for the Communist power curve to really overtake that of a palace-centric government; by the time you get factories and power plants really cranking, the game will be over. But culture can be built earlier and with less expense, and cities can contribute immediately with their first few improvements (especially captured cities, via whipping.)

Feudalism would also work well as an interim step in this game. 100k is best achieved with many small towns, and using whipping for rushing works very well for that and meshes with the later communistic theme. Note that a large number of towns is no longer an obstacle for Communism; with the new FP/SPHQ rules, the optimal cities number leaps to *160* on a standard map!

Would anyone be interested in that, in addition to or instead of the Spanish game?

 

[Bede]

T-Hawk,

The Kulturny Communists sounds challenging

I'm interested

 

[Charis]

T-Hawk and others,

Thanks for the reminder on Fall of Rome. The real reason for the hold has been that the Rise of Rome is *STILL* not finished. Speaker is on the last turn in the last of the four games, so we're just about good to go. (Had I known all four would take THIS long and that Sulla would STILL not be back, well.. anyway... )

I'll go thru the sign-ups in this thread and assign some tentative teams and start the Fall of Rome shortly then!

The cultural commies sounds like a great way to get a handle on the effectiveness of communism. A game like the Austrian one would be over long before you knew how well it was doing, or even before you got many Police Stations built. The 100K win is *TOUGH* due to the 'twice next civ' restriction, as you well know. What diff and civ were you thinking? I think I'm in on this one - the goal is probably better than a military one.

What else is up?
- First C3C Epic is now running, and 1-2 more are in advanced stages of planning
- Korean Revenge is well underway. Austrians and Mongols are done, and Hitties are hurting in a big way. Sumerians and Incans are ongoing but under control.
- Mini-shadow of Austrian Fascists about to start
- Monarch diff game ( at Ducki and others) - I might go with the Byzantines there (unless you were thinking about using them for Commie game, but you'll want a relig and/or sci civ for that?) I'll start this after the Fall of Rome, to avoid delaying that further.

Charis