Realms Beyond Emperor: The DSG's

[Zed-F]

Ok, we have lots of good suggestions to choose from, now we just need to know:
-> who wants to start now/soon and who would rather wait till next year
----- So far I have myself, Charis, JMB, Sulla, Arathorn, and Yndy expressing some level of interest in another (small map) SG before the holidays
----- Arizona_Steve says after the holidays
----- I'm not sure about the timing for Urug, CC, and Jaxom
-> who would want to select an idea and organize an SG for the pre-Xmas crowd
----- So far Sulla has nominated himself

 

[Arathorn]

More stream-of-consciousness from me....(everybody except my group had a Christmas lunch today, so it's dead around here. And I don't want to start my next project. Ugh! Tate pairings.)

I'd vote against the no-resources game, because I don't really have any desire to drag around 100 artillery and fight riflemen forever. It's a killer tactic, IMO, and one that would destroy the game for me, even if we made some artificial limit on our artillery stack size.

Killer said that the AI can't handle the 6 settler but can't produce 'em start, so let's rule that one out.

Other ideas I've had (FAR from fully fleshed, maybe not even fully-boned)...
- no tech at all. Just stay with your starting two techs. (Probably Aztecs and definitely pangea.)
- only fast units -- the opposite of the infantry challenge. (Probably as Zulus or Aztecs so we could build SOME unit before chariots, but would feel most appropriate as Mongols, in a way)

What ideas do people like? We've listed a zillion, bu nobody's really given feedback on what they like/dislike.

Arathorn

 

[JaxomCA]

I am available any time until MOO III comes out, after that, well it's up in the air.

My favourite theme would be Defiant or Anarchist, but I pretty much like any of the ideas tossed around.

 

[Charis]

Ok, we did get some very good input, and some *MORE* very good ideas for games. I've thought about an ALL fast unit game as well, that sounds good. The research-all-your-own is one that will be a nice antidote to our overuse of buying techs.

Here's what's currently brewing, and a plan...

- Falsfire is starting an Emperor Powderkeg game (24 civs!), and I
think it still has an open slot or two for those interested
- Charis, holiday season - I'm going to host an *open* succession game (no set roster or turn order, grab-the-game format), which will be Emperor, Arabs, 100K cultural based with a relig/culture theme - large map expected. More details soon. (RBP2)
- Sulla - the Menagerie is one that got several specific thumbs-up from people, so would you want to host that as RBP3? (see more below)
- Charis, in new year - At some point I will create (but not play in) an Emperor no-strategic-resource map (India??) as there was some interest in that

I have the following games on the new year agenda for the deity level RBE series (subject to interest of course)
- RBEn+1 Perpetual Oscillating War (POW) Deity : Mongols on a rugged map
- RBEn+2 Defiant Nationalists Deity (this will be good, rules almost done)
- RBEn+m Always War Deity! Carthage or Rome or Zulu or Greek or Ottomans or Germans. The fact that both Arathorn and Urug have severe misgivings that it might be impossible make this a "MUST" do, but AFTER the POW and Defiant games for warmup

The following are my choices for other top choices in new year:
- A real European map with the European civs, probably an 'extra' civ or two
- Hedonists (50% lux, as suggested by T-Hawk) (America)
- Antimonetary - something combining ideas by Arathorn, Architect, and basically placing a key role on science and research
- This is not meant as a complete list or a "dis" on anyone's suggestions, just what most interests me

Also, right away, during holidays, I plan a deity level Korean warmongering game with an emphasis on early Math research and catapult stockpiles. Perhaps an Asian rumble. It's going to be quite hard, and may add some rules to force the war issue. I don't really expect any interest in this, but I'm itching to try it anyway, so I mention it here just on the off chance someone wants to take up that kind of game, and soon.

Specific comments on the Menagerie game:
Recommended Civ - one with the worst UU, America or England
The upgrade chain is in fact already set in the editor as far as whether
Keshiks or Samurai are higher up in the chain. So civs with no resources
would get Elephants, with Iron only would get Samurai, Horses only Keshiks,
and everyone else would get the 'top of chain' one. I would need to look in
editor to see if that is Riders, Ansars or something else. Actually, it would
probably be good to set as 'top of chain' the one we want where multiple
units occur, possibly with the shifting of some. My own suggestion-
Knights->Riders, Cav->Siphali, Spears->Numidians, Swords->Immortals,
(the AI will handle slow spears and swords better than fast), Horse->MW,
MedInf->Samurai (but with Chivalry), make Pikes->Legions (Feudalism)
The other ones are distinct- Jags, Bowmen, Vikings, Musketeer, Panzer, MoW,
Hwatch'a, F15, Conq, War Chariot. I like his UU-only variant rule, although
that will mean Musketeers will be our best defense! (or use Guerillas?)
:: When? ASAP - IF there is insufficient response for 'now', or an outcry to hold, early Jan would be ok

That's one wacky game, one open SG for the holidays, another that may be my solo or a small SG, and several strong and challenging RBE games for the new year (Order not important and if there is higher interest in another game I'll throw any of those back in the queue)

Charis

 

[JaxomCA]

Charis, count me in for the Korean warmongers, it was my very first game on PTW, but it was on monarch level so it got boring pretty quickly.

 

[meldor]

I will play in the Always War but only if it is a non-RBE game.

 

[Sullla]

I'd be open to running the Menagerie game as RBP3, unless Arathorn wanted to have the honor (since I believe it was his idea.) I think it will definitely require some tinkering and testing in the editor, so I would plan on starting it in about a week's time. I'll be playing what will hopefully be my last turn in RBE4 tonight and then I'll have some time to work on the upgrade paths. How does that sound to everyone?

 

[Carbon_Copy]

I'd like to join a new one as soon as RBP1 closes. I'll probably be playing my last turn in that game as soon as Marshall can produce his.

I am limiting myself to two games at a time. LK36 is still ongoing and still has a long ways to go (unless we get involved in a war, then it will be over really quick ), so I'll only have time for one more SG once RBP1 finishes.

I looked at Falsfire's game, and while it's along very similar lines as what I had, throwing everyone into a standard map seems to me less of a WW1-style charged diplomacy atmosphere and more of an all-out Battle Royale. Not to say that can't be fun (in fact, I think it's an excellent idea), but it wasn't what I was looking for.

RBP2 with a 100k culture victory as the Arabs combines two things I've been wanting to do for a while (playing a 100k game and playing as the Arabs), but as a grab-the-game format it can be more of a snack between feasts than a full-time commitment so I can pick up one more full game.

The Menagerie looks like it will be a blast if it goes right. Here's what I was thinking we could do: instead of relying on only the top rungs on the chain, we could just break the upgrade chain completely and allow all civs to build all UUS of the same base type simultaneously. So you could build any one of Legionaries, Gallic Swords, or Immortals at the same time, and all of Impis, Hoplites, and Numidians, any one of the knight UUs at any time. You would either have to disable upgrading for UUs or have them upgrade to the next generic unit on the upgrade chain. If you had the variant restriction of only building UUs, probably no upgrades would be best (else you'll be way short on defensive troops being unable to build M'eers or Samurai once Military Tradition and Nationalism come around), but if you took away the restriction of only building UUs, having all of your units upgrade to the next generic type (e.g. Jaggies into normal swords, War Chariots to Horsemen, Mounteds into Knights, War Elephants into Cavalry, Bowmen into Longbows) wouldn't be bad, though I'd suggest disabling pikes and medieval infantry for everyone since you'd already be able to build Immortals and Hoplites with the same stats as those two units for a lower shield cost. Or perhaps do both and take the "only build UUs" in the most literal sense and allow upgrading existing UUs to generic types and allow drafting defensive troops from rifles on, but only being allowed to produce (build/whip/rushbuy) unique units in your cities.

If nothing else it would be interesting to see what the AI would choose to build if it were given the option of building everything. Another point to consider is which unit out of those 24 triggers a golden age. All of them? None of them? Only one particular one that comes at an opportune time? There are pros and cons to each option, since you'd either come out with everyone wasting their golden age in despotism, being completely unable to trigger a military golden age, or everyone getting their golden age at a good point in the game.

 

[Charis]

@Jaxom - cool

@Sulla (and Arathorn) - oops on whose idea, sorry. Arathorn will be away from Fri night til Sunday so I hope he sees this before then. In any case, doing some editing and tinkering would be a useful test in either case.

@Carbon - I understand the distinction, two fun games but totally different in theme and atmosphere. I'm more in the mood for historical myself. I'll try to post the more specific thoughts for the Arab game tomorrow or Sat.

@Menagerie folks and Carbon

Excellent points CC!! The ability to make truly any UU you want is probably better, although it does mean that many/most must be built from scratch. I looked in the editor and saw:

- Each unit has a flag "kicks off Golden Age" so we can assign that as we choose to zero, one, or many units.
- There is a separate checkbox as to whether the unit can be upgraded or not, so that's also a separate decision.
- Interesting, the horse chain by default goes:
(WC,MW)->Knight->Keshik->Ansar->Rider->Samurai->Elephant ->Cav->Siphali->Cossask
So Jumbo is at the top of the Knight chain, if no mods.
Also Gallic->Legionary. This also shows that you can have more than one thing upgrading to another.

- You can disallow any unit for any civ, so if we want to enforce the UU-only nature, our civ would be disallowed normal units, which would allow the AI to upgrade Musketeers to Rifles while we could not, and could still produce Musketeers for a long time. (Ouch, until Panzers!)
- I wouldn't be opposed to drafting conscript rifles and infantry, breaking the musketeer upgrade, and not allowing us to 'build' any of the generic defensive units.
- I would be prone to assign "GA" ability to middle age UU's which require some resources, such as the horse+iron knights, and Musketeer and Panzer. Most AI (and us) would then get a similarly timed GA, except a delay for those that lacked a strategic resource.

Charis

 

[Gothmog]

Hey all, I'm thinking of adding another SG to my plate for the Holidays. I'm not going anywhere and have some time off work. I would like to play in a Diety level one that starts ASAP. I like all the new RBEn+ game ideas (esp defiant nationalists), but I guess those will be starting next year. It strikes me that I have not seen one SG loss at Diety, is that right? So hopefully one of these will produce a loss (and thus a real challenge).

I would play in the Asian Rumble (as in get ready to). I haven't played the Koreans yet but they were next on my list. Lethal bombardment, heh heh heh ... cool.

 

[Arathorn]

I don't think it was my original idea, either. If so, it was a long time ago, and I've forgotten about it. "Give credit where credit is due" and all that, but I'm not sure where credit is due.

I have specific proposals for upgrade chains. There will be a LOT of chains, but I think I've avoided any situations where an upgraded unit is inferior in any way to what upgrades to it (except, perhaps in cost-effectiveness). My only two goals were that *nothing* worsens in an upgrade and having offensive units upgrade to offensive, defensive to defensive.

Horse units:
1. war chariot -> mounted warrior -> war elephant -> rider -> sipahi
2. ansar warriors -> sipahi
3. keshiks -> sipahi

This hits the main offensive units. The first chain is the biggie, what I see as the primary default chain. Elephants are only really interesting if a civ has no horses, so they fit in nicely without really limiting anything (if I understand upgrade chains correctly).

Semi-offensive/defensive foot units:
1. numidian infantry -> legionary -> samurai -> cossack
2. immortal -> samurai ...
3. jaguar warrior -> gallic swordsman -> samurai ...
4. impi -> samurai ...

I, personally, value 5 jags as worth more than one gallic sword, but it's a natural upgrade, IMO. I would mark the AI with both offense and defense for some of these units -- at least for the top chain. Immortals, jags, and gallics should probably be offense only (which, as I understand it, means the sam they upgrade to will be offensive, too, in the AI's mind, which is fine, as far as I can tell). Impis should stay purely defensive, I would say.

Main defensive track:
1. hoplites -> musketeers -> riflemen ...

And, well, that's it.

Other upgrade:
1. bowmen -> berzerk ...

Makes sense to me.

Of course, replace cannon with h'wacha in the artillery upgrade chain, tank with panzer, explorer with conquistador, and jet fighter with F-15.

That leaves man'o'war. Man'o'war is fine in its traditional role, on paper only. Err...I mean, as part of no upgrade chain.

I've not looked at the editor in any depth (and my cursory examination was a few patches ago, so it's even more dubious), but all of the above seems very possible and mostly sensible.

Oh, I should probably explain what I mean by *nothing* worsens. I mean that the new A value is at least as high as the old A value, the new D value is >= old D, and the new M>=old M, too. This moved impi, for example, into the mixed set instead of the defensive units set.

Only a few changes are really possible without violating my proposed rules. One is that legionaries upgrade to musketmen, but that would require marking legionaries as defensive only, which I'm a bit loathe to do. Another would be to have impis only upgrade to mech infantry, which seems a bit drastic. There's also a fair bit of play in the final cossack/sipahi decision, but I went with what felt natural to me.

As for GA in menagerie, I would vote to remove the "triggers Golden Age" flag from all military units and make a GA only attainable by wonders. With PTW (which I hope menagerie runs under -- that's a whole 'nuther issue not discussed), the InterNet provides a last gasp for any civ needing one. Would make wonders and civ traits play a bit larger role, which I think would be nice, as the units will no longer be distinguishers.

The other option is just to break all upgrade chains completely and build anything anywhere. I honestly think, though, that the AI would struggle to handle that in an intelligent manner.

As for "we must only build UUs" vs. "all UUs available, we build whatever we like" vs. "only 'build' UUs but draft what we like", I am completely neutral. Once the decision is made, I'll happily follow whichever rule the rest of the group likes.

As for starter/captain/modder, I don't care much either. If it's not up-and-running next week and I have time, I may start it. If someone else does, I would like a spot, but that's my only concern.

Arathorn

 

[Sullla]

Arathorn, I've been running some preliminary tests with the Editor so far, and found some basic conclusions from a (admitted small-scale) sample game. Giving every civ the ability to build all UUs is easy to do, and I must admit it was quite a bit of fun to send out my Jaguar Warriors when playing as the Romans. But the AI civs weren't building any of the UUs, they were sticking to building warriors and spears despite having the option to build Jags and Hoplites. My next test is going to take away the ability of the AI civs to build units that are worse than their UU equivalents so that the AI will HAVE to build them; e.g. replacing warriors with Jags and swords with legion/immortal/gallics. I also removed the golden age tag from all UUs; having a GA triggered only by wonders seems by far to be the most rational way to do this.

The upgrade paths are really the sticking point. I was experimenting with simply not allowing the UUs to upgrade at all and then allowing the AI civs the option to build non-UUs that would upgrade. This was a disaster, as the AI civs would build only non-UUs so they could upgrade them later. Oops. My thought for the upgrade paths is that we should let UUs upgrade to the next NON-UU in their upgrade chain. For example, Jags would upgrade to swords, so they wouldn't be stuck as Jags, but would not upgrade to legion/immortal/gallics. At the same time, the AI civs would not have the ability to build swords - so any swords we saw would be the result of upgraded Jags. I recognize that this is kind of wacky, but it's the best way I've seen to (1) ensure that all the UUs built still follow the same upgrade paths (2) ensure that the AI does in fact upgrade its units and (3) ensure that the AI civs build UUs rather than their non-UU equivalents.

One thing I's rather not see is units upgrading to things that they normally do not upgrade to - like your proposal of legions becoming samurai. The philosophy I was approaching this idea with was "let's give everyone all of the UUs without changing anything else about the game". You probably looked at this with a different idea in mind, like "let's use all of the UUs to create more logical and useful upgrade paths." I'm just afraid that this would not be something that the AI civs could understand, and something that we as humans could use to gain a huge advantage. My first test showed to me that simply eliminating all upgrade paths altogether has bad results - the AI civs are clearly programmed to take them into account and have trouble if they are not there.

Well, in any case I'm going to play out a game into the Middle Ages using the ideas I described above; namely that UUs upgrade to the next non-UU in their chain (though obviously hoplites would go to muskets and not pikes, and other such examples), and at the same time AI civs are not allowed to build non-UUs that are worse than their UU equivalent. I'll post what the results are of that within a day or two. Let's hope I'm not overlooking something important...

 

[Carbon_Copy]

What Sulla described was the same thing I was trying to explain, but couldn't quite find the words to wrap around it. Basically, we tear out the current upgrade "chain" and then rebuild it as an upgrade "tree" (albeit an inverted one), having UUs of the same type available simultaneously and then upgrading to the next non-UU in the chain instead of to another UU. What I'm not sure of is if you can upgrade into a unit that you cannot build (e.g having Jags upgrade into swords while simultaneously disallowing the building of swords), in fact I'm pretty sure you can't because that's the mechanism Firaxis uses to allow one civ to build their UU while everyone else builds the normal unit. However, we can get most of the benefit from that philosophy by disabling spearmen, warriors, pikemen, cannons, frigates, tanks, jet fighters, and medieval infantry for all civs (or if we allow MDI, only allow normal swords to upgrade to it and have the sword UUs upgrade to guerrilas directly).

And I agree to disable the triggers golden age ability for all UUs and rely only on wonder building, especially since the Internet and the 1.29 capture-the-wonder GA method (I assume that is still in PTW, anyone know for sure?) allow civs more opportunity to get Wonder-triggered Golden Ages.

 

[Yndy]

Completed deity games in my HOF.

I'm not available to play any PTW games.Vanilla only for me.

 

[T-hawk]

Menagerie was my suggestion on RBCiv, although I was probably inspired by something I'd read somewhere previously. I'd definitely be interested in playing it, of course, although waiting until after the holidays would work out much better for me. (I haven't even gotten PTW yet, though all indications seem to be that it's worthwhile, plus I'll probably find myself with it after the holidays anyway )

Sulla's exploration and testing of the concept sounds great; maybe he should be the one to captain it. I'm eagerly awaiting his reporting back.

Doing it as an RBP on Emperor difficulty sounds good too. We could also do Emperor-plus difficulty as per TH3, giving the AIs an Emperor start but the Deity cost factor. One other thing - would we like to increase the global tech cost factor a bit, to give all the civs more time to play with all the UUs?

As for a couple of the specific issues:

I like Charis' idea of giving Golden Age ability to the medieval units that require resources. Make them worth something, and let every civ get a usefully timed Golden Age. Limiting it to wonder building only would mean that half or more of the civs in the game won't ever get a GA.

No upgrade chains at all (disabling basic spearmen, swordsmen, etc) would be okay, although I don't know if the AI could cope with it. It seems to like building units until they officially become obsolete; in 1.29, it does like to keep building swordsmen all through the industrial era. I leave further discussion on this until Sulla reports back.

Sulla, with your next report, would you like to start the thread, and we can continue the discussion there instead of here (since it isn't a DSG ) ?

 

[Arizona_Steve]

If you want to go further on the Menagerie theme (i'd like to get in on this one BTW), it might be worth adding the weird and wonderful units that firaxis added to PTW, like the dinosaurs and/or the WW1 unit set...

 

[Zed-F]

1850AD: Thebes builds Raptor, starts T-Rex....

I don't know, how much cheese do we want to add here?

 

[Charis]

Poor steve is pulling a classic "Charisism", not knowing when to stop adding more flavors to the soup! (Did I just say that?!??!?! )

The different cheese must maintain their distinctive flavor!

A Dino game is one unto itself, and will provide a definite "wacky" one when next there is a cry for that genre. Maybe someday Firaxis or someone will do justice to the WWII and FJ units - that would be pretty neat.

Charis

 

[meldor]

If I understand correctly, the dinos are available to the barbs only. Unless, of course you use the graphics to replace an in-game unit.

 

[Sullla]

Uhh, dinos? I wasn't looking for a game concept quite THAT wacky!

The test game I've been running has been going pretty smoothly so far. Not allowing the AI civs to build standard units has resulted in them building their "better" UU equivalents. It's been pretty interesting so far, with hoplites everywhere in all cities and all civs using Jags to scout. Once in a while the Vikings keep sending a Numidian Infantry into my territory too - what a hoot! (Do the Vikings have any idea where Numidia is? ) Now that I've reached the beginning of the Middle Ages and resources are getting connected, I'm starting to see a few Mounted Warriors and Immortals running around too.

I'm not finished yet, since I want to play out a war and see how the AI civs react to it. The fact that my test game stuck me in the middle of a huge patch of jungle while the other civs have wonderfully lush lands has delayed things quite a bit... Hopefully tonight I can finish up with that and see how it goes.

As someone pointed out earlier, it is not possible to upgrade to a unit that your civ cannot build - so much for my original idea! I've been thinking about how to keep the same upgrade paths intact in a rational and orderly fashion, and here's what I've come up with:

1) Jags do not upgrade (They are seen as UU scouts with attack/defense, not as warriors. Turning them into legions/immortals/gallics doesn't seem to make sense to me.)

2) Legion/Immortal/Gallics --> Guerrilas (nothing else to upgrade to)

3) War Chariot --> Mounted Warrior --> War Elephant (Essentially, they upgrade to knights. War Elephant is as close to knight as this game would allow.)

4) War Elephant/Samurai/Rider/Ansar/Keshik --> Cossack (Again, Cossack is as close to Cavalry as possible, doesn't make much sense for these to upgrade to Sipahi.)

5) Cossacks/Sipahi do not upgrade, of course

6) Bowmen --> Berserkers (really strange, but might as well keep intact the upgrade path)

7) Hoplite/Impi/Numidian --> Musketeer --> Rifle (common sense)

And there's no real reason to mention the other UUs, which follow their non-UU standard upgrade paths. This is the best that I could come up with in terms of keeping the paths as close as possible to the way that they are with non-UUs. By all means feel free to suggest other options that you think would work better. I haven't tested these, but I can't see any reason why they wouldn't work.

I'm still in favor of keeping golden ages restricted to wonder building, but if the group consensus were to turn on the golden age flag for all of the early Middle Age units, I wouldn't have a problem with that. As for discussion taking place in this thread... it might not be optimal, but I think it's better than creating a game thread where the actual game doesn't start until the third page. I think the end of this week would be a good target date for starting this game; Emperor with a 70 or 60% AI cost factor sounds good to me since my limited test so far would indicate that the AI civs don't handle all the UUs as well as a human can (no surprise there). I'm glad to see the feedback, and apologize to T-Hawk if I was mistaken as to who came up with the Menagerie concept in the first place!