The Next Empire

[Calanthian]

1. Game – GAME IN PROGRESS


The Next Empire

A Beyond the Sword v3.19 PBEM game. Conquest is only one of the possible paths to victory. We're using the Inland Sea mapscript. Game with a lot of flavour, gusto and diplomacy.


Entry to this game is free but one has to be prepared to play for more than a year. Only serious players are accepted, and it is up to you to convince the game host
Those who do not receive invitations can request one by posting in this thread and fulfilling all of the following criteria.

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Conditions of entry:
1. Turns will be taken every two days. If you have a job or anything else which requires that you go on frequent trips or spend a lot of time away from your home or wherever you play civ, then please do not sign up. For the game to be successful we need players who reliably take their turn during their allocated times. I do of course allow for vacations and so forth but it is absolutely imperative that if you are going to be absent from the game for more than a couple of days you let us know or take responsibility for finding a substitute player while you are gone. Players who are absent for 5 days or more and have not made any attempt to contact any of the players in the game will be replaced.

2. In your post you must also indicate two important things: (a) what timezone you are in, and (b) what times of day you are able to take your turn (remembering that you will be taking a turn roughly every two days most of the time). By requesting an invitation to this game you are also committing to potentially spending well over a year participating in this game.

3. Please make your own civilization. Name your units and your cities.
Write a history or be very active diplomatically (email etc.). Act in character.
A game with a lot of flavor adds to the fun to be had.



Settings:
Inland Sea
Large (6 players) map
Climate: temperate
Starting Era: Ancient
Normal speed
Noble Difficulty (only human players)
World Wrap: cylindrical
Resources: standard

>>> Advanced start: 6000 points
Unrestricted leaders
YES Random Events
YES Huts
YES Vassals
YES City Razing
No Tech Trading
Aggressive AI (in case we absolutely have to replace a player with an AI)

Victory Conditions:
ALL, except time

Civilizations
Pick your civ and your leader. Romans and Inca’s are not allowed though.
Give your civ a different name.


10 turns of universal peace

Signed up players:
* Calanthe (host) – GMT +1 - Aziz Meriones, the Empire of the Orchid, Calanthe, Calanthian - , HRE / Louis XIV
* ParadigmShifter - GMT +0 - Paradignian of the Boneheads - Huayna Capac / Byzantine
* Michkov- GMT+1, Michhov, Mikovia, Mikovian, 6 until 12 pm, England/Gilgamesh
* Ricketyclik - GMT +10, WILL BE FILLED IN AT GAME START, play between 7 am and 10 pm, only work 3 days per week, Dutch / Ramesses
* Starfox - GMT +10, Caerroil Wildwood, The land of 'The One Forest', the Forestals, Forestal, able to play from 6pm onwards- French - Louix XIV
* Ruff hi - GMT-5, Ruffing Bull, Western Expanse, WEGD, Ghost Dancer, Play slots are typically morning and evening my time - Spain - Sitting Bull

PS. Be sure to get the most out of the advanced start. Remember you can get techs too, need a military, don’t build too much cities too soon. If not experienced with this feature be sure to experiment!

 

[BuDDaH]

GMT+4. Sending turns when it's dark (at 18:00-04:00 GMT). And any time on weekends.

These settings (namely No Tech Trading and Conquest Only) do not encourage heavy diplomacy. Player interraction will be forced to dogpiling the fattest civ.

No random events and no huts are good for HOF and month games just to minimize influence of good/bad luck on the victory date. But pbems are played for fun, not for titles or scores. I think it's better to add some spice to the game with random events und huts.

Huge world is too big IMHO. Distances will be too wide relative to research pace at Noble difficulty and normal speed (Though ok if No Tech Trading ) Anyway huge size will require many players and the game will last forever. So I'm for a Large world. That will be enough, I guess.

Well, all in all the fewer "No"s the better. I think it's not worth limiting players' choices, stratagies an tactisc and the whole game's storyline by setting additional bounderies. The game mechenics itself is huge limitation to human actions.

And advanced start... I tried it once in a pbem. It was terrible. So many calculations and strategy decisions within the first turn with insufficient information on resourse location, position, neighbours. A normal warrior/settler turn is hard and is usually heavily discussed and involves a lot of deep analysis and advanced start needs tenfold of that. Besides mistakes made on the advanced start may ruin the whole game. I like pbems for the opportunity to have a lot of time comsuming analysis and high quality choices in early game as well, when you see the opponents's score a demographic screen dynamics. Turn - pause and thinking a bit, another turn and another portion of thinking. Playing in a steady pace without hasty decisions. And finally exploration feeling in the early game. It so emonionally rewarding to find resourses and neigbours in the fog of war.

 

[Calanthian]

* The huts and random events we can change..
* The victory options: u have a point: so we change that to all except time victory.
* Tech trading will be abused too often, so thats not an option for me.


The huge world will be only good with advanced start AND 11 players.. I tested it.
11 players will have an average of anywhere between 4 and 7 cities each (with the advanced start of 6000 points).

But just test the map setttings with 11 AI players and u see it will be interesting immediately, but not too crowded on the other hand.

PS Try advanced start like this:
make 1 city first, then take techs mining, bronze, iron and animal handling: then u can make optimal decisions regarding your starting location.

 

[Calanthian]

PS Buddah: your playing style mimics mine
PS What's your empire and civ name?

An other option would be to play the Charlemagne mod.. 5 players, very interesting

 

[ricketyclik]

GMT +10, and I play between 7 am and 10 pm, only work 3 days per week.

I am reliable and punctual. I am always the last to abandon a game when they are abandoned.

I'm not so big on being in character, however.

 

[BuDDaH]

GMT +10, and I play between 7 am and 10 pm, only work 3 days per week.

Lucky you are Have always suspected Thomas More ment Australia when he wrote Utopia.

Calanthian, all right, let it be advanced start. I'll accept that if other choose this option. Still I don't like it.

No tech trading? Ok let it be so, then what shall we negotiate if not research. And there will be little need in alliances. One doesn't need much to have friends or enemies when all the stratagic resources are available (balanced resources), there's a big empire with lots of resources under control. Few ties - few reasons to look for allies a trade opportunities. It always seems unfair when your neighbours have allied for common research, trade a war. They abuse it! And why don't you abuse it, why didn't you bother to find a partner? Tech trading is legal a game feature, the same as many others: poprushig, financial trait and Quechuas. I think that slavery (financial, Quechua) is ovepowered. Those who use it, and use effectively. gain advantage over those who don't. Let's disable slavery (financial, Quechua) so that nobody could abuse it.

Still, no thech trading is ok, I don't mind it in general. But in this case the game shouldn't be claimed a diplomatic challenge. It'll be a regular civ game with focus on strategy, planning, micromanagement and battles. The same as most MP games.

Actually I've never tried Charlemagne mod. Maybe have a look at it the other day. But yet would prefer a regular game.

My civ? Hard to invent something as original as you did, Calanthian. Not so crazy on flowers, I'm afraid.

Let it be Guess Who. emperor of WTF, the empire of Random.

 

[Deztro]

Deztro here. If I can join this game I like to be called Druss, Champion of the Drenai, Saviour of Dross Delnoch.

Also not good in story telling but a very addicted and reliable player (you can ask anyone I played with !)

GMT+1, can play daily 9 AM-10PM (on work days during coffee breaks several times a day).

Leader: Huayna Capac
Civ: Byzantine

 

[Calanthian]

Welcome Rickety,

nice u come and join us..

You may also have your say in game settings, of course.. (as Buddah and me are having quite some discussion in this area

Buddah,

in reaction to your points
(and keep it up; as the game will be running a long time, let's make it as good as possible..)

*

Let's disable slavery (financial, Quechua) so that nobody could abuse it.

Fine with me, but how do I make that setting?

* your have a point considering balanced resources > let's unbalance them

* on tech: my opinion stays the same.. but hey if others agree with you we might meet half way: no tech brokering..

* on diplomacy: in the upcoming game you will notice that I'm big on stuff like "future border negotiations" "room to expand versus gold or goods", "maximum unit build up" and stuff like that..

 

[Calanthian]

Deztro, welcome to you too...

it seems that u don't have any trouble to get into character..

***** in game it might be something like this

Hail to you, Druss, grand champion of the Drenai, welcome to this grand occasion..
My great leader Aziz Meriones is very pleased to meet the rugged people of the Drenai.


PS. Buddah you might want to put a little more effort in your civ name
You may want to build on the "Bhudda" theme, that really fits your player name..
Something like Bhudda, most exalted and wise leader of the ...

When we crank up the ingame diplomacy I'd like to be able to make a little show..

******************
One easy way to come up with nice sounding city names is the following:
a city near HORses and FISh I would name "Horfis Calanthis", units made in this city would then be 1st Horfian Guard, 3rd Horfian Elite Bowmen etc..

And before you know it I can boast about the extraordinairy defensive action of the 1st Horfian Guard against the evil forces of the Drenai ..
The silly thing is: once you named your units you will notice that by the time they get killed you have learned to love them..

 

[Calanthian]

IDEA

We might do a little test run on the advanced start and then comment on each others set up (thus exchange screen shots).

The stronger the opposition, the better the game

 

[ricketyclik]

Welcome Rickety,

nice u come and join us..

You may also have your say in game settings, of course.. (as Buddah and me are having quite some discussion in this area

I'm pretty easy with respect to settings. Call my character Rickety Tricks, Whore of <insert Civ name here>.

 

[Deztro]

IDEA

We might do a little test run on the advanced start and then comment on each others set up (thus exchange screen shots).

The stronger the opposition, the better the game

Well I can't say I'm too happy with that; I don't want to show my rivals which tricks I have in my sleeve..

 

[Calanthian]

Well Deztro, I can understand that..

But I give some hints on advanced setup anyway

* make one city first, then take the techs mining, bronze, iron and animal handling
then decide on position of other cities

* dont make to much cities

* you can make swordsmen (for example) already during the setup (get techs, develop improvement and road and then you can build them in the connected cities).

* take your civs strong points into account. An industrious player can set up forges for half the set up cost of others..

* know that others can see which strategy you choose in the demographics screen

* experiment!

 

[Star_Fox]

Yes - I'll sign up.

As I am currently going through the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, I am going to be...

Caerroil Wildwood of the Forestals in the land of 'The One Forest' (French - Louix XIV)

GMT +10 - able to play from 6pm onwards.

 

[Calanthian]

We are getting near to the point that we can start our game..

I prefer to wait for a 6th person, and then start.


Turn tracking will be via: http://pbemtracker.com/join.php.
You can already post your player id's there.

Please send me your email adresses via a private message.
* IMPORTANT: no private emails are allowed between players until you've met in-game.

* From game start onwards I will make a new thread in which we can communicatie (IN CHARACTER) to all players..
* we keep this thread up for out-of-character communication.

 

[ruff_hi]

Do you have room for one more? If so, I'll need to look at selecting a leader / civ tonight (edit: see below). Fair warning - I don't really like the pbemtracker (too many clicks and folder searches) - I prefer my pbem-emailer (2 click total!).

Edit:
GMT-5 (happy to play last!). Play slots are typically morning and evening my time. Re balanced resources - this removes marble from the map. I like marble (fast Heroic Epic for one) so I am happy to NOT have balanced resources.

Edit2:
Leader: Sitting Bull
Civ: Spain
Backstory: VERY(!) early European explorers had heavy influence on the native American culture to the extent that this tribe is a strange mixture of stone age survivorship coupled with European sensitivities.

 

[Calanthian]

Welcome Ruff!

* Tell me more about your pbem-emailer.. where to find it?

PS. the map will be "standard".. (we discussed it and unbalanced it..)

 

[Calanthian]

The Next Empire is coming soon to a theatre near you..

Message to all players:
Please send me the following via a Private Message:

1) your private email (use "#" instead of "@" and "dot" in stead of ".")

2) your civ + leader (if you haven't done that yet)

3) leadername + civ description + short description + civ adjective
(e.g. Aziz Meriones + The Empire of the Orchid + Calanthe + Calanthian)

 

[ruff_hi]

* Tell me more about your pbem-emailer.. where to find it?

Its a d/l here at CFC. I really should ref it in my sig.

 

[Michkov]

I know I´m a bit late but can I still join? I´d still have to choose a civ though.

EDIT My civ would be England with Gilgamesh as leader. As far as the name goes I still got to make something up

Usually I check my mails round 1800 and do my turns round there until 0000 (all GMT+1)