Sirius Intra-Team Pitboss Game!

[Lord Parkin]

Also, some experienced players are better than other experienced players.

True, but newer players can still learn a few tips and tricks about key aspects of the game from observing what their more experienced teammate does, regardless of whether there's another player out there who's even more experienced than that guy. The key thing is giving the newer players a chance to learn something new, and anyone with experience is going to have a few things that they can teach by example.

 

[caveman1917]

Sure I'm in

 

[Lord Parkin]

Sure I'm in

Great, glad to have you.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Now that we have 9 signups, I would like to propose we consider getting this game underway fairly soon (i.e. within the next few days). Since there will likely be a continual trickle of new people who are interested in playing, I propose that we go with the option mentioned earlier, where each of the 9 people playing get to pick (and play) 2 civs. This works in two different ways: it allows us to try out what double civs would play like in an all-human environment (whether it goes ahead or not with the main game), and it allows free slots for new players to enter if they so desire. In the latter case, if someone signs up to the game after it's started, one of the players could volunteer to team up with them, and hand over the control of one of their civs to the new player.

All in all it sounds like a pretty good plan to me. Are there any strong objections to the idea of the initial 9 people picking and playing 2 civs each, though? If you'd personally rather play 1 civ than 2 each turn, then you can always volunteer to put your name at the top of the list for having a new player team up and take over one of the civs. At the present rate it's likely that there will be a few new signups before the game starts, or very early into the game.

If people are okay with this, then I suggest we start deciding on our preferences for our 2 civs/leaders. Post them in the thread here once you've got yours decided.

I'll have a think about my potential 2 leaders in the meantime.

 

[caveman1917]

Now that we have 9 signups, I would like to propose we consider getting this game underway fairly soon (i.e. within the next few days). Since there will likely be a continual trickle of new people who are interested in playing, I propose that we go with the option mentioned earlier, where each of the 9 people playing get to pick (and play) 2 civs. This works in two different ways: it allows us to try out what double civs would play like in an all-human environment (whether it goes ahead or not with the main game), and it allows free slots for new players to enter if they so desire. In the latter case, if someone signs up to the game after it's started, one of the players could volunteer to team up with them, and hand over the control of one of their civs to the new player.

All in all it sounds like a pretty good plan to me. Are there any strong objections to the idea of the initial 9 people picking and playing 2 civs each, though? If you'd personally rather play 1 civ than 2 each turn, then you can always volunteer to put your name at the top of the list for having a new player team up and take over one of the civs. At the present rate it's likely that there will be a few new signups before the game starts, or very early into the game.

If people are okay with this, then I suggest we start deciding on our preferences for our 2 civs/leaders. Post them in the thread here once you've got yours decided.

I'll have a think about my potential 2 leaders in the meantime.

I liked the idea of having teams, perhaps 3x3 with the experienced players divided amongst them. It would be nice to have feedback from more experienced players as the game progresses. But i'd go along any way

For me i'd like to try out the thought of lincoln & augustus if that's available.

 

[Lord Parkin]

I liked the idea of having teams, perhaps 3x3 with the experienced players divided amongst them. It would be nice to have feedback from more experienced players as the game progresses. But i'd go along any way

Well perhaps we could mix and match the options. Either way I think it's a good idea to have available open slots for when new players sign up. So how about a variant, where we combine both the "3x3" and "2 civs each" thing? It might look something like this:

Team 1 - 6 civs total
1. Lord Parkin - 2 civs
4. champinoman - 2 civs
7. Irgy - 2 civs

Team 2 - 6 civs total
2. azzaman333 - 2 civs
5. fed1943 - 2 civs
8. Allan79 - 2 civs

Team 3 - 6 civs total
3. hell_hound - 2 civs
6. DaveShack - 2 civs
9. caveman1917 - 2 civs

There's nothing set about the particular groupings I've made here, I just took every third person signed up so far and put them on a team. We can rearrange people if needed to make it more balanced. Either way, there would be 3 potential free slots on each team, so there'd be plenty of space for new players to join in the fun.

Thoughts?

For me i'd like to try out the thought of lincoln & augustus if that's available.

Sure, anything you want is available.

 

[Irgy]

Goodness me that's a lot of civs!

I have a slight preference against 3x3 just so that we can practise the other important aspect of multiplayer - diplomacy. 3 teams is quite an awkward arrangement diplomaticly. About 6 would be ideal in terms of practising for the team game. Maybe we could have a mix of people playing double civs and people pairing up with a mentor from the start? Giving 6 or 7 teams of two civs, some controlled by one player some by two.

 

[pindicator]

Given my non-existant multiplayer experience I think this would be a good way to get experience. I'm just concerned about the time commitment of this game when the actual game starts up. So I would be happy to join in, but I'd probably be more reliable in a team environment.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Given my non-existant multiplayer experience I think this would be a good way to get experience. I'm just concerned about the time commitment of this game when the actual game starts up. So I would be happy to join in, but I'd probably be more reliable in a team environment.

Basically as long as you can spare 5 minutes per day, you'll be fine. The only trouble will be if you regularly go on holiday (or are otherwise regularly unable to log in for a whole day), since a civ that lies dormant for many turns unbalances the game quite a bit. Not to mention the other players get a bit annoyed because all the turns stretch to their full length. If you're occasionally away or miss a turn here and there, it isn't a big issue though - just if it's relatively common occurrence, then it becomes a pain. The odd missed turn isn't a problem... just queue ahead 1 building and 1 tech (and scout moves if you want), and you'll be fine.

Goodness me that's a lot of civs!

It is, but there'll be more people joining up, and eventually I expect we'll get to the point where most people have 1 civ. (We already have a potential 10th player after a mere few hours.)

I have a slight preference against 3x3 just so that we can practise the other important aspect of multiplayer - diplomacy. 3 teams is quite an awkward arrangement diplomaticly. About 6 would be ideal in terms of practising for the team game. Maybe we could have a mix of people playing double civs and people pairing up with a mentor from the start? Giving 6 or 7 teams of two civs, some controlled by one player some by two.

Actually, I just realised I forgot something. We're planning on having an "open" style of play here anyway - where everyone posts pics of their starts, and asks for advice about what to build/research (amongst other things). So it isn't actually necessary to have experienced players on teams with less experienced players, because the experienced players will be able to help out all of the less experienced players via the forum anyway.

As a result, I think the earlier proposal of 2 civs per player would be ideal. Part of the reason for the 2 civs per player is that I'm interested in seeing how it will turn out, but the main reason in its favour is that it allows free slots for new players to join if they so desire. If you only want to play 1 civ, that's perfectly fine - just say so, and you can be at the top of the list for any new player to team up and take your other civ.

 

[caveman1917]

Maybe we could have a mix of people playing double civs and people pairing up with a mentor from the start? Giving 6 or 7 teams of two civs, some controlled by one player some by two.

But that would require at least as many 'mentors' as 'pupils'.
Maybe it's best, if we decide to go ahead with this mentor-learning game, to see how many of us would like to mentor and feel they're experienced enough, and how many of us would rather like to be on the 'learning' end.

If it's about equal, we could use your idea of pairing up. But if there are a lot more pupils than mentors we'd have to go with bigger (hence fewer) teams.

That's if we decide we want that 'kind' of game in the first place of course

 

[caveman1917]

Actually, I just realised I forgot something. We're planning on having an "open" style of play here anyway - where everyone posts pics of their starts, and asks for advice about what to build/research (amongst other things). So it isn't actually necessary to have experienced players on teams with less experienced players, because the experienced players will be able to help out all of the less experienced players via the forum anyway.

Oh in that case this discussion is pointless
I'd go with the simple 2 civs per player too then

 

[Lord Parkin]

Okay, in that case, for those who haven't already done so, start thinking about which 2 civs/leaders you'd like to play with. Post here when you've decided. As soon as we have all 18 civ/leader choices, I think we can get the game started. That shouldn't take more than a day or two, hopefully, so we should be playing soon.

The only other main thing to decide is the map type. Personally I think Fractal and Big and Small are great multiplayer maps ("natural" feeling layout and generally fairly balanced), so I suggest we play on one of those. I also strongly suggest a Huge size with Low sea level because we have 18 civs. Oh, and I also suggest we have vassal states off, because it can do weird things with double civs. Apart from that, I'm happy to leave the other settings as either defaults or up to DaveShack. Saves a lot of time if we don't poll every little thing for this game, and it doesn't really matter too much anyway. If anyone has a strong preference on one particular setting, speak now or forever hold your peace.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Updated the list in the first post. I'll keep updating it as leader choices and new players come in.

Signups and Leaders:

1. Lord Parkin - ??? and ???
2. azzaman333 - ??? and ???
3. hell_hound - ??? and ???
4. champinoman - ??? and ???
5. fed1943 - ??? and ???
6. DaveShack - ??? and ???
7. Irgy - ??? and ???
8. Allan79 - ??? and ???
9. caveman1917 - Lincoln and Augustus
10? pindicator - can join any team above

 

[caveman1917]

I have a slight preference against 3x3 just so that we can practise the other important aspect of multiplayer - diplomacy.

If we're going to do the game that open this is of course an aspect that gets lost.
We may by default go with the original 2 civ/player very open game, but since we have to wait two days anyway, we might give the alternative a thought. There's a point in having teams of mentor-pupils as it also replicates the diplomatic environment of your team like it would in a real multiplayer game, which the open game cannot do.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Actually I think for those who haven't played multiplayer before, the best way to replicate the experience of diplomacy is to play by themselves (or with one other). In a game like this one, diplomacy is fairly intuitive: if you want your neighbour to be more likely to be friendly to you, be friendly to him. If you don't care if your neighbour invades you (or if you want to invade him), then you can afford to be much less friendly. Generally it's pretty straightforward to figure out what messages you want to send, what things you want to ask for in trade, etc.

But if it's really learning about the intricacies of conducting diplomacy that you're after, you'd be much better off following the main demogame in this private forum. Over the coming months, you'll learn heaps (possibly even too much!) about how to attempt to manipulate other teams when crafting diplomacy, and how to read between the lines of diplomacy sent to you. Of course, none of this is an exact art, there's always a bit of guesswork. But these demogames are always far more involved in their diplomacy than friendly matches like the one we're organizing in this thread. So all in all, I don't see any real need for having "mentors" for diplomacy in this game.

Besides, as has been brought up before, there aren't very many people who can act as "mentors", and a lot more who want to be "mentored", so it doesn't work out so well with the numbers.

 

[Irgy]

I'm going to try being the bastard child of Elizabeth and Genghis Khan.

 

[Lord Parkin]

I'm going to try being the bastard child of Elizabeth and Genghis Khan.

Fair enough.

Signups and Leaders:

1. Lord Parkin - ??? and ???
2. azzaman333 - ??? and ???
3. hell_hound - ??? and ???
4. champinoman - ??? and ???
5. fed1943 - ??? and ???
6. DaveShack - ??? and ???
7. Irgy - Elizabeth and Genghis Khan
8. Allan79 - ??? and ???
9. caveman1917 - Lincoln and Augustus
10? pindicator - can join any team above

 

[Irgy]

One other thing, what's the etiquette with double moves here? Without a specific ruling, I would assume it's free reign to do what you want, at which point you're really doing yourself a disservice by if you don't launch surprise attacks as a double move. You've played a lot of multiplayer though by the sounds of it LP, what's normally done?

PS I agree with the map setting suggestions for what it's worth.

 

[caveman1917]

But these demogames are always far more involved in their diplomacy than friendly matches like the one we're organizing in this thread. So all in all, I don't see any real need for having "mentors" for diplomacy in this game.

That's a bit of circular reasoning. If the question is wether it should be a friendly/non-diplo game or a team/diplo game, one can't start from the assumption that it will be a friendly/non-diplo game to arrive that, given such a game, there is no need for diplo-"mentors". Well one can of course, but it's a circular argument

All in all i really don't mind either way, but i thought it was a fair point in trying to replicate the experience as good as possible, but with experienced 'guidance'. Nothing better for a demogame than an atmosphere of open debate i guess

 

[Lord Parkin]

One other thing, what's the etiquette with double moves here? Without a specific ruling, I would assume it's free reign to do what you want, at which point you're really doing yourself a disservice by if you don't launch surprise attacks as a double move. You've played a lot of multiplayer though by the sounds of it LP, what's normally done?

In every large scale pitboss game game I've ever played in, double moves are viewed as an exploit and not permitted. Generally it's just a "gentlemen's rule" only implemented when necessary. If someone accidentally double moves someone else but they don't mind and/or it doesn't give them much (or any) advantage, it will probably be overlooked. If it starts happening frequently, or it gives someone a major advantage, we reload and remind them not to double move again.

Sounds a bit vague, I know, but I've never had any real problems with this in the past. Generally people in this sort of environment are fairly nice and will not deliberately try to exploit double moves. (Now if you go and play on Gamespy, it's a different story... there it's "fastest click wins". Not exactly my thing. )

That's a bit of circular reasoning. If the question is wether it should be a friendly/non-diplo game or a team/diplo game, one can't start from the assumption that it will be a friendly/non-diplo game to arrive that, given such a game, there is no need for diplo-"mentors". Well one can of course, but it's a circular argument

All in all i really don't mind either way, but i thought it was a fair point in trying to replicate the experience as good as possible, but with experienced 'guidance'. Nothing better for a demogame than an atmosphere of open debate i guess

Okay, fair point. I guess my perspective is that it'd be better to save the diplomacy tutorials for later, and play this game with 1-2 players per team. Personally I think you'll learn more that way (by choosing how to interact with other teams on your own, and seeing the results). I fear that even if we teamed up people so there was a "diplomatic mentor" for everyone, it would end up that the "mentor" just did all of the diplomacy while everyone else watched from the sidelines. Better to get "hands on" experience, IMHO.

Besides, you will be able to interact with many of the would-be mentors as you meet them in-game, and this will teach you quite a lot about how they conduct diplomacy.