Recruiting for a Diplogame

[dot80]

Would anybody be interested in a joint-roleplaying multiplayer game where players roleplay their civilization as though it were a real country? Every few turns players then update the game thread with stories of their civilization.

Specifically I had in mind starting up a Diplogame (see this and this for examples). I already have one person who says they interested. We were hoping to find another 3-5 people.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I was heavily involved with Ozzy's old Civilization IV Diplo Game group......so may well be interested in taking part in one for Civilization VI. Can you provide some more details regarding how often you'd want to play, how long you'd want the play sessions to run.....that kind of thing.

Thanks.

 

[dot80]

Yeah sure. I didn't want to write a book if no one would actually be interested. I personally was never involved in the diplogames on CivFanatics, but I did get a chance to play in one on Apolyton. Looking back at the rules linked above, they were essentially the same set up. (Actually it looks like a lot of the links at the bottom lead over to Apolyton).

I'm pretty open to what would work best for everybody involved. However my thoughts on an ideal game are:

• 1 turn per day (using a turn-timer and a pitboss server)
• Terra/Earth map (specifically a map that allows for colonization mid-game)
• Suggested 1-2 posts per-player per-week
• Traditional rules regarding wars of annihilation and similar issues

Obviously the above is already a little problematic. As I understand it, there is not a pitboss feature in Civ VI and there hasn't been any word of one. A potential solution that comes to mind is to use PBEM. I've found a site that facilitates this. Unfortunately PBEM leaves the possibility for one person to hold up everything by not playing. In addition, 1 turn per day isn't likely either if each person is waiting to receive the save from the last. Another potential solution is to use Civ V rather than Civ VI. Civ V does have a pitboss feature we can use. Again though, I am really open to what works best for the group. I think what's important is to find a group of people to get the game started.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK. Well I'll keep following this thread. I'd prefer Civ 6 to Civ 5......so just let me know when you arrive at a solution. Be aware that I live in Australia, so I suspect a PBEM approach might work best. In the old Civ4 diplo-game. We had a single 2-3 hour play session each week, then wrote up a story based on that play session in the interim. Maybe that could work here too?

 

[pietro1990]

I would like to join. i allways play civ game like a roleplay game not to win.

One question though what do you mean with real country ? Do you mean historicly for example if the nation was peacefull you be peacefull?
I''m verry flexibel because i currently free so i have a lot of spare time.

i don't mind wich version of civ it is 5 or 6

Let me know how you want to do this.

 

[dot80]

@Aussie_Lurker: Play sessions are an interesting idea. The only issue I foresee is the time difference. I'm not sure where pietro1990 or the person from reddit is located, but I'm in the U.S. So that's a pretty big diffrence. I also, personally, appreciated the slow and steady pace of a turn a day. Kept the game moving, but gave everyone enough time to strategize and post stories in the mean time. In that respect I am leaning towards advocating for Civ 5 with pitboss. I do like the feeling of Civ 6 over Civ 5 though. I never got into Civ 5 the same way I did Civ 4. However the mutliplayer options remain a problematic aspect of Civ 6. The PBEM that is available doesn't even support turn timers yet. This is potentially a problem. In my experience the biggest issue with Diplogames is people dropping out unexpectedly.

All that being said, if Civ 6 is a dealbreaker for you I respect that. Sinking hours of your time into a game that isn't engaging to you won't work either.

@pietro1990: I'm not sure what Aussie_Lurker's thoughts on this are, but at least in the games I have played you are free to invent your own history. Generally people seem to draw from history for inspiration, but in the end they make decisions based off the in-game situation and their own stories.

 

[pietro1990]

@Aussie_Lurker: Play sessions are an interesting idea. The only issue I foresee is the time difference. I'm not sure where pietro1990 or the person from reddit is located, but I'm in the U.S. So that's a pretty big diffrence. I also, personally, appreciated the slow and steady pace of a turn a day. Kept the game moving, but gave everyone enough time to strategize and post stories in the mean time. In that respect I am leaning towards advocating for Civ 5 with pitboss. I do like the feeling of Civ 6 over Civ 5 though. I never got into Civ 5 the same way I did Civ 4. However the mutliplayer options remain a problematic aspect of Civ 6. The PBEM that is available doesn't even support turn timers yet. This is potentially a problem. In my experience the biggest issue with Diplogames is people dropping out unexpectedly.

All that being said, if Civ 6 is a dealbreaker for you I respect that. Sinking hours of your time into a game that isn't engaging to you won't work either.

@pietro1990: I'm not sure what Aussie_Lurker's thoughts on this are, but at least in the games I have played you are free to invent your own history. Generally people seem to draw from history for inspiration, but in the end they make decisions based off the in-game situation and their own stories.

i'm from europe. Best solution is playing by e-mail.

Or alternative play one civilization (single player) and each take turns and tell a story ande we olso have a counsil wich we discussu the problems and solution in the game we are the governors of that country ...

 

[Sommerswerd]

Would anybody be interested in a joint-roleplaying multiplayer game where players roleplay their civilization as though it were a real country? Every few turns players then update the game thread with stories of their civilization.

Specifically I had in mind starting up a Diplogame (see this and this for examples). I already have one person who says they interested. We were hoping to find another 3-5 people.

Thanks for starting this thread. If you look at the first link that you included, you will see that I was actually the Creator/Host/Admin of that Diplogame. AFAIK that may have been the last diplogame to actually make it off the ground. We started with 18 players, which was probably down to about a third of that by the end of the game. We did manage to play the game all the way to conclusion though (a cultural victory IIRC) by kicking dropped/leaderless Civs to AI (which Civ 4 Pitboss allows).

I also played in the previous Diplogame, "Destiny of Empires" which was excellent. I joined mid/beginning taking the place of a player who dropped. I also played in a "Diplo-Lite" Diplogame, all on Apolyton, but I did not enjoy the "Diplo-Lite" format anywhere near as much as the full Diplogame... it ended up just being like a regular Pitboss game.

I was heavily involved with Ozzy's old Civilization IV Diplo Game group......so may well be interested in taking part in one for Civilization VI.

Me too! I played DoE and hosted DoB. Did you play either of those or did you play DoC and/or DoD? I was trying to get a DoA organized but my compy pooped the bed around that time and I also got really busy so it kinda got abandoned. Civ 5 also came out around that time IIRC and I could never figure out how to get the Pitboss to work on Civ 5, plus not enough people had Civ 5... the whole effort became too much of a boondoggle and I gave up on it.

Yeah sure. I didn't want to write a book if no one would actually be interested. I personally was never involved in the diplogames on CivFanatics, but I did get a chance to play in one on Apolyton. Looking back at the rules linked above, they were essentially the same set up. (Actually it looks like a lot of the links at the bottom lead over to Apolyton).

I'm pretty open to what would work best for everybody involved. However my thoughts on an ideal game are:

• 1 turn per day (using a turn-timer and a pitboss server)
• Terra/Earth map (specifically a map that allows for colonization mid-game)
• Suggested 1-2 posts per-player per-week
• Traditional rules regarding wars of annihilation and similar issues

Obviously the above is already a little problematic. As I understand it, there is not a pitboss feature in Civ VI and there hasn't been any word of one. A potential solution that comes to mind is to use PBEM. I've found a site that facilitates this. Unfortunately PBEM leaves the possibility for one person to hold up everything by not playing. In addition, 1 turn per day isn't likely either if each person is waiting to receive the save from the last. Another potential solution is to use Civ V rather than Civ VI. Civ V does have a pitboss feature we can use. Again though, I am really open to what works best for the group. I think what's important is to find a group of people to get the game started.

If you will indulge me, I can offer my advice... there are some things I learned from designing, hosting and participating in Diplogames.

1.Anonymous play - This is essential to a Diplogame working properly. For there to be true immersion into the role of a world leader facing off against other world leaders, it is important to have a degree of anonymity. Anonymity makes it possible for people to actually develop their relationships and trust or animosity and enmity over time, rather than coming into the game already knowing who your buddies are, who you can trust, who is good at the game, etc. Anonymous play makes the game much more dynamic and exciting, because you never truly know who you can trust. However, you need someone who knows who everyone really is, in order to mediate disputes, facilitate the replacement of players, determine if a Civ is still active, etc... all without giving away their in-game identity. That's where a non-player Admin comes in handy.

Another thing about Anonymous play... the Apolyton/Civ 4/Civstats format was very conducive to Anonymous play because you could log into the game with your Anonymous name "England DoE" for example... and it would show up that way both in-game and on Civstats... and because Apolyton allowed us to create accounts named "England DoB", "Persia DoB", 'Russia DoB" etc, we were truly anonymous when posting our Diplogame stories. I don't know if that is possible on Civ 5 or 6, because I don't know if you can log into the game in a way that would conceal your true identity from your Steam-friends etc. I also don't know if we could do a PBEM format and maintain anonymity. Finally, I don't know if Civfanatics Forum (CFC) would allow us to create a subforum with special anonymous logins for the game. I have actually already put the request into the Mods/Admins a few months back, and apparently they are considering whether to allow it or not. I will let you know if I hear anything, but for the moment, I think that the only way to have anonymous story-posting is to create the game accounts on Apolyton.

Frankly, given all the issues with Civ 5 Pitboss I had in the past and the issues with anonymity on Steam, coupled witht the fact that Civ 6 has no Pitboss format... I actually think that the best platform for a Diplogame remains Civ 4. I don't know how receptive folks would be to playing the game on Civ 4 (BTS of course) since its not the newest version of Civ, but I thought I would just mention that for consideration. I actually don't own a copy of Civ 6, nor do I have a computer capable of running it, but I would seriously consider buying both if it meant being able to play a new Diplogame.

2. Rules - Less is more... None is best. The fewer rules there are the less complicated it is. I made the mistake of creating a very complex ruleset designed to really protect Civs from being crippled or elimminated, and it backfired because the rules were too complicated to understand, which led to disputes over the rules and quitting. Robert Plomp's ruleset from DoE was better because it was more vague and less complicated, but it still led to fights over the rules... and quitting... which led me to make something that spelled everything out. Again, you're almost better off going with few rules/restrictions on gameplay and letting an impartial Admin decide/arbitrate any disputes... which brings me to...

3. Non-player Admin - I highly recommend this. People trying to serve as the Admin of the game while playing the game created issues in both Diplogames I played. People just can not trust a person who is playing the game to be a fair and impartial Admin. Player-Admining leads to hard feelings, and quitting... which dovetails into...

4. Quitting - This ruins the game... especially a Diplogame, because of the importance of the alliances and relationships that develop. Also, in a Diplogame, everyone takes everything so much more personally, because well, that's the whole point of a Diplogame... so when your in-game "friends" quit it is completely demoralizing and leads to a domino/cascade effect of quitting. My suggestion is to have each Civ be controlled by a "team" sort of like a combination of Diplogaming and "Demogaming" (Democracy Gaming) rather than allowing one-player Civs. If a Civ has more than one player running it, there is a better chance that there will be a player available when someone loses interest, becomes busy, demoralized, has compy issues, is out of town, etc. I say 3-5 players per Civ is a minimum. Also I would have everyone promise in writing to play to the end. Just a post saying "I promise not to quit" is enough. Not everyone keeps their word, but people are more likely to stick by their word if they have actually given their word.

There are many other things I learned playing Diplogames but I will stop there as I've rambled enough. Let me know if you have any question, I am happy to help with any additional advice/insights if I can. Again, thanks for starting this thread, I really hope we can get a Diplogame up and running again.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Thanks for starting this thread. If you look at the first link that you included, you will see that I was actually the Creator/Host/Admin of that Diplogame. AFAIK that may have been the last diplogame to actually make it off the ground. We started with 18 players, which was probably down to about a third of that by the end of the game. We did manage to play the game all the way to conclusion though (a cultural victory IIRC) by kicking dropped/leaderless Civs to AI (which Civ 4 Pitboss allows).

I also played in the previous Diplogame, "Destiny of Empires" which was excellent. I joined mid/beginning taking the place of a player who dropped. I also played in a "Diplo-Lite" Diplogame, all on Apolyton, but I did not enjoy the "Diplo-Lite" format anywhere near as much as the full Diplogame... it ended up just being like a regular Pitboss game. Me too! I played DoE and hosted DoB. Did you play either of those or did you play DoC and/or DoD? I was trying to get a DoA organized but my compy pooped the bed around that time and I also got really busy so it kinda got abandoned. Civ 5 also came out around that time IIRC and I could never figure out how to get the Pitboss to work on Civ 5, plus not enough people had Civ 5... the whole effort became too much of a boondoggle and I gave up on it. If you will indulge me, I can offer my advice... there are some things I learned from designing, hosting and participating in Diplogames.

1.Anonymous play - This is essential to a Diplogame working properly. For there to be true immersion into the role of a world leader facing off against other world leaders, it is important to have a degree of anonymity. Anonymity makes it possible for people to actually develop their relationships and trust or animosity and enmity over time, rather than coming into the game already knowing who your buddies are, who you can trust, who is good at the game, etc. Anonymous play makes the game much more dynamic and exciting, because you never truly know who you can trust. However, you need someone who knows who everyone really is, in order to mediate disputes, facilitate the replacement of players, determine if a Civ is still active, etc... all without giving away their in-game identity. That's where a non-player Admin comes in handy.

Another thing about Anonymous play... the Apolyton/Civ 4/Civstats format was very conducive to Anonymous play because you could log into the game with your Anonymous name "England DoE" for example... and it would show up that way both in-game and on Civstats... and because Apolyton allowed us to create accounts named "England DoB", "Persia DoB", 'Russia DoB" etc, we were truly anonymous when posting our Diplogame stories. I don't know if that is possible on Civ 5 or 6, because I don't know if you can log into the game in a way that would conceal your true identity from your Steam-friends etc. I also don't know if we could do a PBEM format and maintain anonymity. Finally, I don't know if Civfanatics Forum (CFC) would allow us to create a subforum with special anonymous logins for the game. I have actually already put the request into the Mods/Admins a few months back, and apparently they are considering whether to allow it or not. I will let you know if I hear anything, but for the moment, I think that the only way to have anonymous story-posting is to create the game accounts on Apolyton.

Frankly, given all the issues with Civ 5 Pitboss I had in the past and the issues with anonymity on Steam, coupled witht the fact that Civ 6 has no Pitboss format... I actually think that the best platform for a Diplogame remains Civ 4. I don't know how receptive folks would be to playing the game on Civ 4 (BTS of course) since its not the newest version of Civ, but I thought I would just mention that for consideration. I actually don't own a copy of Civ 6, nor do I have a computer capable of running it, but I would seriously consider buying both if it meant being able to play a new Diplogame.

2. Rules - Less is more... None is best. The fewer rules there are the less complicated it is. I made the mistake of creating a very complex ruleset designed to really protect Civs from being crippled or elimminated, and it backfired because the rules were too complicated to understand, which led to disputes over the rules and quitting. Robert Plomp's ruleset from DoE was better because it was more vague and less complicated, but it still led to fights over the rules... and quitting... which led me to make something that spelled everything out. Again, you're almost better off going with few rules/restrictions on gameplay and letting an impartial Admin decide/arbitrate any disputes... which brings me to...

3. Non-player Admin - I highly recommend this. People trying to serve as the Admin of the game while playing the game created issues in both Diplogames I played. People just can not trust a person who is playing the game to be a fair and impartial Admin. Player-Admining leads to hard feelings, and quitting... which dovetails into...

4. Quitting - This ruins the game... especially a Diplogame, because of the importance of the alliances and relationships that develop. Also, in a Diplogame, everyone takes everything so much more personally, because well, that's the whole point of a Diplogame... so when your in-game "friends" quit it is completely demoralizing and leads to a domino/cascade effect of quitting. My suggestion is to have each Civ be controlled by a "team" sort of like a combination of Diplogaming and "Demogaming" (Democracy Gaming) rather than allowing one-player Civs. If a Civ has more than one player running it, there is a better chance that there will be a player available when someone loses interest, becomes busy, demoralized, has compy issues, is out of town, etc. I say 3-5 players per Civ is a minimum. Also I would have everyone promise in writing to play to the end. Just a post saying "I promise not to quit" is enough. Not everyone keeps their word, but people are more likely to stick by their word if they have actually given their word.

There are many other things I learned playing Diplogames but I will stop there as I've rambled enough. Let me know if you have any question, I am happy to help with any additional advice/insights if I can. Again, thanks for starting this thread, I really hope we can get a Diplogame up and running again.

I cannot remember all the details of the Diplo-game I took part in......only that I was playing Ethiopia, & got into a barney with England over a mutual border. It was back around 2007-08 IIRC.

 

[dot80]

1.Anonymous play - This is essential to a Diplogame working properly. For there to be true immersion into the role of a world leader facing off against other world leaders, it is important to have a degree of anonymity. Anonymity makes it possible for people to actually develop their relationships and trust or animosity and enmity over time, rather than coming into the game already knowing who your buddies are, who you can trust, who is good at the game, etc. Anonymous play makes the game much more dynamic and exciting, because you never truly know who you can trust. However, you need someone who knows who everyone really is, in order to mediate disputes, facilitate the replacement of players, determine if a Civ is still active, etc... all without giving away their in-game identity. That's where a non-player Admin comes in handy.

For some reason I can't seem to remember, I have asked to do something similar for some forum game on CivFanatics and was denied. So glad to hear you got a little better of a response. I'm not sure about the implications for running the game itself anonymously (with pitboss and PBEM). I suppose we could make accounts specifically for the game?

I would like to make one point about moving forums: Apolyton is relatively much less-trafficked than CivFanatics or Reddit. In the interest of attracting new players there may be something to be said about staying on a forum with more people passing through. (Though the "Stories and Lets Plays" sections are nothing what they used to be).

Another thing about Anonymous play... the Apolyton/Civ 4/Civstats format was very conducive to Anonymous play because you could log into the game with your Anonymous name "England DoE" for example... and it would show up that way both in-game and on Civstats... and because Apolyton allowed us to create accounts named "England DoB", "Persia DoB", 'Russia DoB" etc, we were truly anonymous when posting our Diplogame stories. I don't know if that is possible on Civ 5 or 6, because I don't know if you can log into the game in a way that would conceal your true identity from your Steam-friends etc. I also don't know if we could do a PBEM format and maintain anonymity. Finally, I don't know if Civfanatics Forum (CFC) would allow us to create a subforum with special anonymous logins for the game. I have actually already put the request into the Mods/Admins a few months back, and apparently they are considering whether to allow it or not. I will let you know if I hear anything, but for the moment, I think that the only way to have anonymous story-posting is to create the game accounts on Apolyton.

Frankly, given all the issues with Civ 5 Pitboss I had in the past and the issues with anonymity on Steam, coupled witht the fact that Civ 6 has no Pitboss format... I actually think that the best platform for a Diplogame remains Civ 4. I don't know how receptive folks would be to playing the game on Civ 4 (BTS of course) since its not the newest version of Civ, but I thought I would just mention that for consideration. I actually don't own a copy of Civ 6, nor do I have a computer capable of running it, but I would seriously consider buying both if it meant being able to play a new Diplogame.

I take your point, and in all honesty I'd prefer Civ 4: I'd actually be more competitive in the game itself, and I've never been able to quite replicate the same feeling I got playing Civ4; however I assumed the game to old to get people interested in playing. If Aussie_Lurker and pietro1990 could weigh in here that'd be great. I think the best compromise we can likely come to is Civ 5. I can run the pitboss, and everyone that has expressed interest has also said they own Civ 5. (I wouldn't want you to have to purchase and learn a new game, especially if it doesn't even support asynchronous multiplayer out of the box). For the record, I'd actually prefer Civ 4 myself. I will contact the reddit person and get them into the discussion on this thread as well.

Aussie_Lurker mentioned above using play sessions. This is also another option that can be considered.

2. Rules - Less is more... None is best. The fewer rules there are the less complicated it is. I made the mistake of creating a very complex ruleset designed to really protect Civs from being crippled or elimminated, and it backfired because the rules were too complicated to understand, which led to disputes over the rules and quitting. Robert Plomp's ruleset from DoE was better because it was more vague and less complicated, but it still led to fights over the rules... and quitting... which led me to make something that spelled everything out. Again, you're almost better off going with few rules/restrictions on gameplay and letting an impartial Admin decide/arbitrate any disputes... which brings me to....

While in principle I liked the rules surrounding wars of annihilation, I will defer to your judgement on this as I know you played a big part in running a few of these games, and so have the most experience.

3. Non-player Admin - I highly recommend this. People trying to serve as the Admin of the game while playing the game created issues in both Diplogames I played. People just can not trust a person who is playing the game to be a fair and impartial Admin. Player-Admining leads to hard feelings, and quitting... which dovetails into...

4. Quitting - This ruins the game... especially a Diplogame, because of the importance of the alliances and relationships that develop. Also, in a Diplogame, everyone takes everything so much more personally, because well, that's the whole point of a Diplogame... so when your in-game "friends" quit it is completely demoralizing and leads to a domino/cascade effect of quitting. My suggestion is to have each Civ be controlled by a "team" sort of like a combination of Diplogaming and "Demogaming" (Democracy Gaming) rather than allowing one-player Civs. If a Civ has more than one player running it, there is a better chance that there will be a player available when someone loses interest, becomes busy, demoralized, has compy issues, is out of town, etc. I say 3-5 players per Civ is a minimum. Also I would have everyone promise in writing to play to the end. Just a post saying "I promise not to quit" is enough. Not everyone keeps their word, but people are more likely to stick by their word if they have actually given their word.

I am worried we won't have enough people to support a non-player admin and multiple players for each Civ. If we can find enough people of course I'd be in favor of doing this. Perhaps we could start the game with a minimum number of people (I was thinking 6 or 7), and then as it gets moving and (hopefully) interest grows, and rather than having alternates on standby, people can join an existing civilization. We could distribute players in tiers. Each Civ will need to have at least one player. Then all the civs open up to a second. Once all the civs have a second, they all open up to a third, and so on.

As for the admin, I'm sorry to say I don't think we could find someone to take on the role if they don't even get to play. I suppose the admin could still participate in the capacity of writing additional world-building stories. Or we could work out some way for them to still control units that act as barbarians/natives/etc (use a dummy civ?). That may defeat the purpose of having an objective admin however...

 

[Johnson J. John]

Hey, I’m the guy from reddit dot80 was referring to. Personally, I’m partial to a pit boss server, and I live in America. Also, I haven’t ever done this before, but I have done some roleplay in NationStates. Any advice?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I won't lie, but I have very little interest in a Civilization V diplo-game. Just saying.

 

[Ozbenno]

For some reason I can't seem to remember, I have asked to do something similar for some forum game on CivFanatics and was denied.

Let me know what you would need done for this and we can see what can be done.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Let me know what you would need done for this and we can see what can be done.

I will include you on the conversation I was having with the mods/admins. Thanks for asking.

I'm thinking a private forum where anyone can view/read/like, but only the anonymous game accounts can actually post would be ideal.

I won't lie, but I have very little interest in a Civilization V diplo-game. Just saying.

What about Civ 4? I'm not a huge fan of Civ 5 anyway TBH. I mean its fun/OK, but I think prior iterations were more enjoyable overall.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I will include you on the conversation I was having with the mods/admins. Thanks for asking.

I'm thinking a private forum where anyone can view/read/like, but only the anonymous game accounts can actually post would be ideal. What about Civ 4? I'm not a huge fan of Civ 5 anyway TBH. I mean its fun/OK, but I think prior iterations were more enjoyable overall.

Nah, not even sure I have it loaded on my computer anymore to be honest. It's Civ 6 all the way for me these days .

 

[dot80]

I suppose that decides it then. I am fine with Civ 6 (though I will have to get some practice in). A benefit of using Civ 6 is that it is the most current iteration, and thus we will likely have the most success recruiting more people.

As for how to run the PBEM, I’ve found two methods. One is to use a service that sends the save to the next person automatically (https://www.playyourdamnturn.com/). Benefit is that it will probably be more convenient once up and running. Disadvantage is that you sign in through your steam name so no anonymity. I’m also not sure what you would do in the event you want the save sent to a new person.

Another option is to put the game in hot seat mode, play your turn, save and send the file yourself. Pro is that we could use dedicated email accounts for the game, named to preserve anonymity. Con is the inconvenience. In addition, I’m not sure how exactly it works to save the game and send it on. I wonder at what point you are able to save the game to send it on to prevent the next person from seeing your current situation. Will require a little bit of testing.

Also there is an impending expansion that (if the game is any success) will make our game obsolete eventually. Not that big of a deal but I’m sure we’ll be looking on wistfully when it comes out.

 

[pietro1990]

I suppose that decides it then. I am fine with Civ 6 (though I will have to get some practice in). A benefit of using Civ 6 is that it is the most current iteration, and thus we will likely have the most success recruiting more people.

As for how to run the PBEM, I’ve found two methods. One is to use a service that sends the save to the next person automatically (https://www.playyourdamnturn.com/). Benefit is that it will probably be more convenient once up and running. Disadvantage is that you sign in through your steam name so no anonymity. I’m also not sure what you would do in the event you want the save sent to a new person.

Another option is to put the game in hot seat mode, play your turn, save and send the file yourself. Pro is that we could use dedicated email accounts for the game, named to preserve anonymity. Con is the inconvenience. In addition, I’m not sure how exactly it works to save the game and send it on. I wonder at what point you are able to save the game to send it on to prevent the next person from seeing your current situation. Will require a little bit of testing.

Also there is an impending expansion that (if the game is any success) will make our game obsolete eventually. Not that big of a deal but I’m sure we’ll be looking on wistfully when it comes out.

You do know you can prottect you're turn by a password so nobody can see you're turn.

edit : never mind i found out civ 6 doesn't have that future

 

[cpm4001]

I'd be interested (thanks for bringing this to my attention, dot80!), but because I'm a crabby luddite only if it's Civ V - I don't own Civ VI and don't intend to get it.

 

[dot80]

Hmm, in light of the fact the neither cpm or Sommerswerd own Civ 6, and due to the issues surrounding the logistics of running the game, maybe it would be best for the most people if we went with Civ 5. I see this as the best compromise. Everyone who has expressed interest at least owns it. In addition we could use pitboss+turn timer (which I believe will work better than PBEM).

Aussie_Lurker is there any chance you could budge on this? When it was just a matter of preference it didn’t really make a difference to me. However, in the interest of being as inclusive as possible, it probably makes the most sense to use Civ 5. Just by the very nature of a diplogame some of the issues with Civ 5 will be less noticeable (my biggest problem was the ai).

 

[Sommerswerd]

Don't switch to V on my account... Again... I will just buy it. Its chump change for me.