The Nobles' Club Bullpen: Third Cycle

[Terrible_Demise]

Spoiler :

yeah, Arabia could fit as well.
hell, maybe even 2nd Greece (could call it Elada) with Pericles as our first neighbour? xD

 

[Robert FIN]

Spoiler :

OK, but I haven't heard of "Elada". How about Crete? They were really old enemies of continent-greeks. Minos of Cretan Empire would be AWESOME!! He has Pericles' face and Greek UU/UB and he'd start in small island next to 'pangaea'! I'd give him sailing so he has a chance to get in the continent too. Wait a second! Am I cooking again? Nah, it ill be awesome ! What do you think?

 

[Terrible_Demise]

Spoiler :

LOL, Elada is my butchered way of saying Greece;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greece
Since Alex conquered whole Greece first, then he went east and south.
an advanced AI with limited land (island) doesn't sound too bad , though - I don't think Pericles' personality would fit... maybe stalin/ragnar/hamurrabi; considering king Minos was cruel and ended up as a judge in Hades lol
then again, AIs give sailing a reasonable value, that might give Minos an unfair advantage via trades

 

[Robert FIN]

The advantage wouldn't be too bad if we gave him noobish one tile island !

 

[Terrible_Demise]

Spoiler :

haha, thats cruel xD

 

[Terrible_Demise]

is it friday yet !?

(why is it so boring to play a map i generate myself... i don't even post my progress on boards, and yet I can't wait to play new NC maps)

 

[Robert FIN]

@Dalamb: Quote from TMIT:

- Use find and replace. Find "handicap=" and replace it with a blank (literally, delete "handicap=", not what follows it, or delete the whole line). This should let the AI handicap vary by level, and if a human screws around with this and manages to switch civs, he won't have monarch + bonuses .

This part isn't listed in the 4th post. Should I do this step too??

 

[dalamb]

Hmm. I've never done it, but it looks like maybe I should have. I've added it to the first message. Lack of this edit might have made some games too easy at higher difficulties, I suppose.

 

[Robert FIN]

OK the game is edited, unless the "new" part. About the map and AI in it: (Note: DO NOT READ IF YOU WAN'T KEEP THE AIs AND OTHER DETAILS AS SURPRISE!)

Spoiler :

Pangaea map. AIs: Salad, JC, Hatty, Hannibal, Cyrus and Minos. I made Minos of Crete, he is using xxx AIs leaderhead, but his cities have english names.. He doesn't start in island or w/ sailing, but he has island chain near him. Didn't want to cook so map is unedited. Just added UU resource.

 

[Ric]

Hmm. I've never done it, but it looks like maybe I should have. I've added it to the first message. Lack of this edit might have made some games too easy at higher difficulties, I suppose.

That edit of the worldbuilder save doesn't matter at all if its used as it is intended. The AI will always have noble handicap in the worldbuilder saves posted.
The only way it matters is if someone would go and change the player to one of the AI.

 

[Robert FIN]

^^ HOLY MOLEY!! Its Ric!! Its Ric, thank god he is still posting!! May I introduce my MP buddy and teacher, Ric the Glorious! Ric, keep on posting ! Umm, sorry if you feel that I'm pressing you too hard Just happy to see your face here too !

 

[Robert FIN]

Hmm.. Thought about Ric's post and he is right; The edit matters only if someone would change the civilization what he is gonna play. Just to be clear, here is an example: Dalamb posted NC nnn Darius and I'm gonna play as Darius, like everybody should do. Then the edit doesn't matter at all. But if I wanna play NC nnn Darius as Hammurabi who is originally in hands of AI in the save, then we need the edit. However, I don't think that anyone wants to play NC nnn Darius as Hammurabi so the edit is kinda useless. Let's not do it. If you added it to some of the first posts, I suggest you to remove it. Sorry for the stupid idea, I was the one who originally adviced you to take it to NC ... By the way, I'd like to post the Alex game today, because people have been waiting for it and tomorrow is little busy day IRL, so get ready !!

 

[Noble Zarkon]

However, I don't think that anyone wants to play NC nnn Darius as Hammurabi so the edit is kinda useless. Let's not do it. If you added it to some of the first posts, I suggest you to remove it. Sorry for the stupid idea, I was the one who originally adviced you to take it to NC ... By the way, I'd like to post the Alex game today, because people have been waiting for it and tomorrow is little busy day IRL, so get ready !!

I think we should leave it in for completeness, looking forward to Alex!

 

[Robert FIN]

^^ Too late, I'll do it next time then ! However: NC CXXV Alexander is up!!

EDIT: Call me if I did something wrong this time !

 

[dalamb]

In most games I wind up asking a few people to put their discussion of their game in spoilers, so people who don't want to see it, don't. Is it time to abandon this convention, or should we keep it? If we keep it, I probably need to update the boilerplate to say so.

If I recall correctly, the original culture was to post several steps in one's game -- at roughly the stages listed in the boilerplate. xOTM games have a 2-step version of this: around 1AD or 500AD, followed by end-of-game. That ways someone who reached a given stage could review what other people had done up to that point without being exposed to later elements of the game yet.

These days many participants only post once, at the end of the game, so the "learn in stages" approach we adopted for noble-level players doesn't seem to work as well anymore. (with some notable and welcome exceptions, such as Tall German Joe's excellent series of posts in the recent Ramesses game).

So should we continue to encourage people to spoiler their posts, or is it not particularly relevant anymore?

 

[Doshin]

In most games I wind up asking a few people to put their discussion of their game in spoilers, so people who don't want to see it, don't. Is it time to abandon this convention, or should we keep it? If we keep it, I probably need to update the boilerplate to say so.

If I recall correctly, the original culture was to post several steps in one's game -- at roughly the stages listed in the boilerplate. xOTM games have a 2-step version of this: around 1AD or 500AD, followed by end-of-game. That ways someone who reached a given stage could review what other people had done up to that point without being exposed to later elements of the game yet.

These days many participants only post once, at the end of the game, so the "learn in stages" approach we adopted for noble-level players doesn't seem to work as well anymore. (with some notable and welcome exceptions, such as Tall German Joe's excellent series of posts in the recent Ramesses game).

So should we continue to encourage people to spoiler their posts, or is it not particularly relevant anymore?

Personally, I think that game discussion should be strictly spoilered for a set period of time and a set number of pages within a thread (e.g. 7 days, and to the bottom of whichever page ends on the 7th day). Players like to be surprised by the AI that they meet and the challenges that they face, but if you read the final page of a game that has been opened for two months, you should not be surprised to encounter casual references to elements common to every spoiler ("I hate Monty!!111!" etc.).

The Nobles' Club games are the best source of new players on the S&T forum, so many overlook this rule out of (understandable) ignorance or enthusiasm. Could a single moderator be asked or even specially appointed to edit spoilers into any posts that contain revealing information? I'm sure that this would be quicker and more effective than you (dalamb) having to ask politely every time.

I also think it's fine to encourage people to post their game in stages, but to accept that the majority of players will not do so. It is nice for newcomers to see that they are welcome to post multiple times and receive feedback across the course of their games.

 

[pomthom]

@dalamb
I also agree that we should try to keep the spoilers running for NC games. Most people spoiler their posts anyway (+ indicate the date in the game), it's just that some guys aren't used to it I guess.

I wouldn't strictly spoiler everything though, 'cause I like to read discussions on starting positions without fearing to learn something I didn't want to read in a spoiler. But as Doshin said, after 'x' days, it doesn't really matter I suppose.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I agree we need to keep Spoliers especially at first, people discussing whether to SIP or not etc don't want any information leakage I guess!

 

[dalamb]

The old convention was that any discussion base solely on the starting image is OK out of spoilers.

It seems like the consensus is to keep spoilers, which may mean a slight update to the boilerplate (only effective for newbies, since I doubt most old-timers read it anymore), and also means it's OK for me to keep reminding people.

 

[Robert FIN]

I like spoilers too ! I just... don't always remember to use them myself !! I've tried to remember 'em but always I post something like this: "Why do you hate Gandhi" or "True story, Shaka is annoying IMO too". Well I think that I've been busted from doing non-spoilered posts (always by Dalamb) so many times that even I haven't done non-spoiler trick in last two games ! I'd like to add here that I'd be glad see that if someone notices non-spoilered posts here you could help Dalambs job and tell the poster gently that he/she is supposed to use spoilers. Don't do it like this: "Hey!! You stupid n00bie, can't you use teh @#'%& spoileeerz!! Getouttaheren00b!!!" !