SGOTM Ideas

[CommandoBob]

While I like the idea of not eliminating an AI, I don't think it will work in an SGOTM. Not unless everyone is in locked alliance except the team. Or at Least Aggresive, which wouldn't be too much fun.

The concept is fine. The issue is how to keep the AI from killing an AI. Because if it happens to one team, it may not happen to another team. So Team A faces 6 AI and Team B faces 7, by AI on AI action, how are those two games the same? Is Team A eliminated due to an overly aggresive AI? And who is going to take the time to examine each save to see if all the AIs are still alive?

I like the idea. I just don't see how to implement it with teams. As a solo game or normal SG, where the rules could be adjusted to fit the game situation, it sounds like a nice variant.

Off the Wall Idea
Conquest Victory, but you gotta use nukes. Or at least have built one ICBM.

 

[Più Freddo]

Don't understand what he means with the flips

The best remedy for flips is to eliminate the tribe in question. Then cities can't flip any more.

So if we aren't allowed to eliminate another tribe, then we must make sure that we either have enough culture ourselves to make flips improbable, that we leave troops around in order to be able to take back the flipped cities, or that we raze all dangerous captured cities. All of these options make it more difficult to obtain a domination victory.

No one has suggested that AI shouldn't kill AI! I would rather see that as a fourth possibility available to the team: to entice and enable an AI tribe to capture the last enemy city in order for it to be safe from flips.

 

[Paul#42]

Of course AI should eb able to kill each other.
To prevent that is a matter of diplomacy skills (and initial placement).
To let them start with a couple of pikes each (or even muskets but beware France!) would ensure a nice span for us to "negotiate".

How about accepting any victory condition and the winner is the team that has the most AI alive.
Victory date only as a tie breaker for those who share keeping most AI alive.

Or every AI alive is worth like 50 (20, 10?) turns? One might calculate if it's worth losing the one or the other for a quick victory...

We might have only fertile lands so there's no arctic community of expelled tribes...

Maybe we cannot sign peace after we declared once? No need to declare immediately though.

 

[I. Larkin]

To prevent that is a matter of diplomacy skills (and initial placement).
How about accepting any victory condition and the winner is the team that has the most AI alive.
Victory date only as a tie breaker for those who share keeping most AI alive.

Or every AI alive is worth like 50 (20, 10?) turns? One might calculate if it's worth losing the one or the other for a quick victory...



Maybe we cannot sign peace after we declared once? No need to declare immediately though.

I think it is to complicated and have big random factor.

To let them start with a couple of pikes each (or even muskets but beware France!) would ensure a nice span for us to "negotiate".

Good idea, I think.

We might have only fertile lands so there's no arctic community of expelled tribes...

Yes, game must be short. High level is also give fast tech pace.
What about turn limit 300 -350 turns?
Also, let's decide about boats at dangerous water and about MGL. Do we want it at all?

 

[I. Larkin]

While I like the idea of not eliminating an AI, I don't think it will work in an SGOTM. Not unless everyone is in locked alliance except the team. Or at Least Aggresive, which wouldn't be too much fun.

The concept is fine. The issue is how to keep the AI from killing an AI. Because if it happens to one team, it may not happen to another team. So Team A faces 6 AI and Team B faces 7, by AI on AI action, how are those two games the same? Is Team A eliminated due to an overly aggresive AI? And who is going to take the time to examine each save to see if all the AIs are still alive?

I like the idea. I just don't see how to implement it with teams. .

We can't avoid some random factor in the game. Anyhow AI's City placement out of our control, they may or may not declare war...
If we play tie break game we probably needs unique victory codition.
What everybody prefer Diplo or Domination? Or, may be to leave all but increase % land for Domination?

 

[CommandoBob]

How about accepting any victory condition and the winner is the team that has the most AI alive.
Victory date only as a tie breaker for those who share keeping most AI alive.

A Domination game and keeping all the AIs alive would be an interesting challenge; in-game victory and winning the contest are in conflict.

Standard map (?), continents and all 31 civs? With all 31 civs, some are bound to die. With only 8, none may die (which I think would be boring).

Not sure about the difficulty or which civ to be. COM and IND maybe?

 

[I. Larkin]

How about accepting any victory condition and the winner is the team that has the most AI alive.
Technically to keep all AI's alive not that difficult: just gift them one our City in save place (tundra).
What is the random factor of the game is how AI kill each other at the time before we know them. For even game we may play the game when all AI's out of our view are at safe position.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

On a variant where you cannot take an AI capitol, you can't eliminate flip risks and, on a high level, cities you take will flip back to the AI - a lot.

 

[I. Larkin]

On a variant where you cannot take an AI capitol, you can't eliminate flip risks and, on a high level, cities you take will flip back to the AI - a lot.

So, this is an "idea" of varian, where Diplo, culture and Domination VC "approximatly" equal.

 

[CommandoBob]

How about accepting any victory condition and the winner is the team that has the most AI alive.

Aiming for a Cultural, Diplomatic or Space Ship victory would seem to lead to a game where the team could 'set' their borders, stop expanding and just hit 'Enter' for their turns. To me, that sounds boring for an SGOTM where we want to keep alive as many AIs as possible.

I favor a Domination victory since it does provide some 'action' on each turn. And it provides a harder problem to solve. The team would have to Dominate and yet not eliminate. And that could lead to headaches, since more work would have to be done to reach the Domination limit of tiles.

I'm fine with whatever is decided.

 

[I. Larkin]

Aiming for a Cultural, Diplomatic or Space Ship victory would seem to lead to a game where the team could 'set' their borders, stop expanding and just hit 'Enter' for their turns. To me, that sounds boring for an SGOTM where we want to keep alive as many AIs as possible.

I favor a Domination victory since it does provide some 'action' on each turn. And it provides a harder problem to solve. The team would have to Dominate and yet not eliminate. And that could lead to headaches, since more work would have to be done to reach the Domination limit of tiles.

I'm fine with whatever is decided.

I agree. Also I think to decrease turns number to 300, say, to forse all teams to be proactive. I will write "rules" for this "hummanity" variant.

 

[I. Larkin]

SGTOM 14. Humanity variant​

Looks that more than two persons like this idea of this variant. Here is a draft, and we may have final polish of the rules.

1) Story and aim: We play to Domination and team win the SGTOM14 is that left most AIs alive.
If two or more teams have the same amount AIs at the end the fastest team has a victory.
If turns are also equal then Jason score is a criteria.
To be discussed: turns limit. My offer is 300; not to make SGTOM 1 year long.

2) Obstacles: we are not allowed to capture/destroy last AI’s City. (Other AI may destroy each other).
Variant: it is not allowed to capture AI’s Capital and therefore last City.

3) Additional obstacle: All AI’s start with bonus Pickman.

4) To reduce random factors (to be discussed):
a) All boats sink if stop at dangerous water
b) No Sci Leaders (out of question)
c) No MGL Leaders (Variant: Mil Academy may build first Army)
d) Remote AIs start at isolated Islands.

5) Map: (Instruction to AlanH): Archipelago, 60% water, standard size.
Climate normal, the rest is random. Big Island of 400-600 tiles approximately is at the center of the map;
we and 2 -4 others AIs start at this Island.
Starting position has to be good: River, Cow, at least one Luxury nearby.
AIs number : the more the better, something like 20-30, but “random number”.

6) Difficulty level is the Demigod, but if extra obstacles are enforced it may be the Emperor.

7) Our Civ: For me any will be good, but probably Commercial/ Industrial is the best for this game.

 

[CommandoBob]

Map:... Archipelago, 60% water, standard size.

Not sure if Archipelago or standard is the best option; may not be enough Domination Tiles.

Here's what I mean.

30 AIs that are one city civs. Each city will claim 9 tiles for their first ten turns as a capital, and then it expands to 21 tiles (the Big Fat X). That means 630 tiles to the AIs. Not sure how many domination tiles are available at these setting. That makes me worried, especially on an Archipelago style, where several AIs could wind up on different 1 tile islands, and we don't have a way to stop their culture expansion. It could end up where our game parameters could prevent a team from winning, since they could not take the last AI city.

I'm sure there are game tricks around this, but if there are only 1000 domination tiles in the game, and we need 667 of them to win, well, that could be very difficult to achieve.

Fewer AIs, less water or different land mass, or maybe even a Large map, could have a big impact on how difficult it would be to have a winner.

 

[DWetzel]

I like the basic framework. Have some possible alternatives though. I can see that one becoming almost monotonous--spam out settlers, drive someone to the brink of extinction, spam more settlers...

Alternatively, perhaps a Diplomatic win condition (okay, I'm still favoring that), with the victory going to the team with the most votes in its favor? That would provide an active incentive to keep AI not just alive, but actively not actually killing each other off. (Naturally, turn AI aggression level to the maximum!)

That might necessitate having a longer turn limit, of course.


Would it be a mistake to have Respawn AI on (to prevent any early game AI vs. AI accidents)? I'm not sure at which point respawning turns off.


As for a civ, Com/Ind means France, which isn't a terrible choice. Carthage is Ind/Sea, which might be an okay substitute on an archipelago map.

 

[DWetzel]

And I agree that a Large map (I know some people have problems with Huge maps, so Large would have to be settled for) is probably best.

There don't need to be all 31 civs in the game by any means. Something like maybe 21 or so would be more than plenty.

 

[nerovats]

archipello has higher domination limit then continents or pangea. Also we can build cities close to ai so their borders will be pushed back. But it should be checked what domination limit is for start. When limit is 800 the ai will have 400, which is at least doable on pangea but archipello might make it difficult. I think it's a good idea to give even a musket to prevent accidental lose of an AI before we locate it. Although the AI just might us it as a scout.
Might add no barbs as we'll to prevent early free settler.
Civ someone who hasen't been used in previous sgotm. Maybe an unpopular one like India.
Important: resources should not disappear.

 

[I. Larkin]

Not sure if Archipelago or standard is the best option; may not be enough Domination Tiles.

Here's what I mean.

30 AIs that are one city civs. Each city will claim 9 tiles for their first ten turns as a capital, and then it expands to 21 tiles (the Big Fat X). That means 630 tiles to the AIs. Not sure how many domination tiles are available at these setting. That makes me worried, especially on an Archipelago style, where several AIs could wind up on different 1 tile islands, and we don't have a way to stop their culture expansion. It could end up where our game parameters could prevent a team from winning, since they could not take the last AI city.

I'm sure there are game tricks around this, but if there are only 1000 domination tiles in the game, and we need 667 of them to win, well, that could be very difficult to achieve.

Fewer AIs, less water or different land mass, or maybe even a Large map, could have a big impact on how difficult it would be to have a winner.

Sure standard! This is a "trade," you can't reach domination (3300 tiles or so) without killing some AIs.

Archipelago will prevent early AI -AI fight.

We may leave Diplomacy win as an option but 300 turns limit might be a "trade".
(You may not build UN that early if does not expand well...)

I personally don't like India and religious civs...

 

[ignas]

I'd request not too big world and not that many AI's so players with slower PC's (like me) could succesfully play this game.

 

[nerovats]

I personally don't like India and religious civs...

So that's a good reason to play them.

 

[AlanH]

I'm not sure what you guys are cooking up here. If only a few people are interested in your particular ideas it may be better to just run a simple SG.

If it's a game you want me to build for a multi-team SGOTM, then you'll need to make it very simple and straightforward for me. I am a "bear of very little brain".

If it requires that I spend my life policing all the team saves manually in order to enforce your constraints, such as detecting that someone has killed a civ when they shouldn't, then I am not enthusiastic.

If it needs a lot of fiddling with game rules, then it will be outside my abilities to create it alone. However, if the rules you want can be built into a scenario, then I guess someone could create a scenario file that I could use to create a map to meet your requirements.