The Monarchists' Cookbook Bullpen

[Bleys]

Wow S-man! You are pretty darn quick with those!

So what do you all think? I can start the next game right now, if you guys want too. We can "call" the last one, make it "Play til the end from whatever save you wish" and get on with the next round. I was planning to wait until at LEAST Weds. of next week, but starting today would get it going a week early, and I think we are ready for it. I love this series, but once the rounds get to "dragging" its hard to maintain interest.

So I vote start today, how do the rest of you feel? I also vote for shortening the first couple rounds a tad, but not as short as the first game. I will make the schedule in the OP of the new thread.

 

[futurehermit]

I vote for starting today. I actually have time now to play again Sorry for my recent inactivity. I've been very busy, and my grandmother has been in the hospital.

 

[Bleys]

That alone has me even more interested in starting today. Summers are notorious for a general "lull" in gaming. I think Diamond has a window coming up as well, I will check his post, he is on Vacation for a bit, but I am pretty sure the 7th to the 10th was mentioned, which would allow him to play as well.

 

[Winston Hughes]

Summer is also a quiet time for music (except festivals, but I've only got a couple more to do), and I've finally managed to secure a permanent job (no more freakin' application forms - hooray!), so I'm hoping I'll be able to participate fully in this game. And I'm definitely keen to get started right away.

That said, I haven't played a proper game in more than a month now, so I'm not sure how tight my play is going to be...

 

[Bleys]

I am definitely hoping you will be a regular player this next game Winston, in fact, I am thinking you are most definitely our "Guest Roster Member" for the game.

 

[r_rolo1]

By me, it can start today.... but remember the LHC ( where is the rest of your Sury game, bleys? )

 

[Winston Hughes]

I am definitely hoping you will be a regular player this next game Winston, in fact, I am thinking you are most definitely our "Guest Roster Member" for the game.

I'd be honoured, though I'm not sure what that means. Do I get a special badge or something?

Edit:

A taste of things to come: "Silence, fools! I am the Guest Roster Member, and my word is law!"

 

[r_rolo1]

A taste of things to come: "Silence, fools! I am the Guest Roster Member, and my word is law!"

Silence, fool! I am a Roster Member, and my word is law!

 

[Winston Hughes]

Silence, fool! I am a Roster Member, and my word is law!

Forgive me, oh mighty one! Had I known it was you, I should never have spoken so boldly...

That's it Winston, climb the greasy pole. When you become Chancellor, all will kneel before you... Mwahaha!

 

[Bleys]

By me, it can start today.... but remember the LHC ( where is the rest of your Sury game, bleys? )

LOL, still playing it actually, minimized right now, its 1890ish and I am rolling tanks across Charley and landing multiple transports on Asoka to get enough land for a Dom win. Trying for conquest would take HOURS, Shaka has so many units.

Hoping to finish it ASAP, and start the MC round. Thats my tenative plan. If I start the MC now, I will likely never finish the LHC, or the other MC.

 

[Bleys]

New game is up, here is the link.

I did a quicky adjustment of the round lengths, but I think we should discuss this before we make it official (other than the first round):

Round 1: 4000 BC - 1500 BC
Round 2: 1500 BC - 400 AD
Round 3: 400 AD - 1100 AD
Round 4: 1100 AD - 1500 AD
Round 5: 1500 AD - 1700 AD
Round 6: 1700 AD - 1820 AD
Round 7: 1820 AD - 2050 AD

Thats what I posted, but we are flexible in the length. I went 1500BC on the first round, last game (1000 BC) was a tad too long, and the first game (2000 BC) was a tad short, so 1500 seemed a natural compromise. How do those other rounds look? I didnt count the exact number of turns, I just kinda winged it by eye, so please speak up if one of them looks to be too long/short.

 

[futurehermit]

looks good to me!

 

[Diamondeye]

Good to see lots of activity in here! I edited the firstreply to include this third game in the overview and added map providors. Also, we need to find out what turn system we are running by. I need an official turn scheme to write in OP

 

[Bleys]

Is it time we considered moving to Emperor level? Maybe "Emp Light", even, we make a Monarch WB file, and play at Emp, which resets the Barbs and avoids additional extra techs to the AIs.

I say this because we seem to have a pretty strong lack of interest as the game progresses, because a vast majority of the players are just too good. Lets face it, ALL the club charter members are well into "Emp ability" at this point, and many of the followers are doing extremely well.

I dunno, maybe its just that the summer tends to be slower, since people tend to do other things besides playing games all day, heh. Maybe we do just need tougher maps and weaker leaders, or rather, better "non-fit" leaders. This was a good one, I though, Hammu isnt a great fit for this map, a couple pretty nasty AIs, a techer with a PILE of land in isolation, a bunch of "anti-Archer" AIs that negated out UU to a degree, etc. But we got less and less saves each round, and the most recent round of the Hammu game didnt even have much discussion or voting. I am not sure how to fix that, maybe it will be better once Diamond, OTAK and the others are player regularly again.

 

[r_rolo1]

We asked for a nasty save, haven't we?

we already discussed this in PMs , but I think it is advisable to put this discussion in a more public arena....

There actually 2 problems:
- The first is that , like you said, most of the players here are far stronger than monarch.

-The second is one that also happens in SGs, that is the fact that a team of players of a certain level can easily tackle a 2 levels up game, due to the fact that normally they combine their strenghts. In here the thing is even more noticeable, due to the fact that most players are stronger in certain areas ( I , for a example , am a pretty bad game starter, but normally make a strong eco buildup that covers that. Some other players have strong starts... if you combine both ..... )

Not seeing a easy way to fix it.

 

[ChromiumL]

I just found the MC games, and am still really struggling with monarch. I would be happy to attempt *easy* emperor games, and am always up to the challenge. At the very least, it is a great learning experience to just read through the posts and see what everyone is doing and why. But, I have to admit that from reading through the latest MC game I see several people at my level who are even intimidated to post their saves because they feel like they are sub-par.

It seems to me that maybe there needs to be some way to let more n00bs like me know that there is something like this that can help them make the step to monarch. That way you might get a little more interest in the game from players who really need the help with monarch.

Of course, its true that most of the 'main' players can play emperor, so I am not sure how you could deal with that. You could always try splitting into two groups, one emperor level and one monarch level. Then have one dedicated experienced player could help out/guide/suggest strategy for those players like myself who need it (but who wouldn't submit saves, so as to keep the game challenging for the less experienced players), while some of the others do the same at Emperor level?

Ok, this is getting really wordy--and I am totally new here, so I don't want to presume that I know more than the rest of you who have been dedicated to this since the beginning. I understand that for some of you it is just too easy to stick around at monarch level--and that can make people loose interest. But, I just would be kinda sad to see the monarch level games go away .

 

[futurehermit]

I agree it is a combination of it being summer and our squad being strong. However, I think it is the best ball format more than anything else that is hurting us. You take 10 average monarch players. Then you take the best ball each time. Show me a losing game out of that situation!!! If we did something more like the fix-the-trash series (best-worst-best-worst) that could help. Or if we simply did it as a succession game with each person playing a round, that could help. I would rather see us tweak the format than move up a skill level. Imo the higher we go in skill level the less relevant we become to the majority of players and people who play emperor+ don't need to learn from threads like this (usually).

 

[r_rolo1]

how about worst-worst-worst?

 

[ChromiumL]

I think that best-worst-best-worst type thing (perhaps always removing the absolute best/worst so as to prevent someone who is really good/bad from ruining the game) would be fun. That would make things more challenging for the more experienced players, and the less experienced players (like me) would still get a chance to contribute .

 

[Strato]

I was looking at joining this series of games with the next one, have a look at moving from Monarch up. I can win Monarch fairly well, though will succumb on occasions, currently I'm in the process of trying to win on monarch with every leader, on marathon -takes forever, especially with late game domination wins

I like what futurehermit said, having a best-worst scenario could be fun. Or even a vote on whether the next round should be the best, or the worst scenario to play from, not necessarily an arbitary best-worst-best-worst format.