I am trying to bring back Diplogames...

[OzzyKP]

USA Friday night = Aussie Saturday mid-morning
USA Saturda night = Aussie Sunday mid-morning

[The Capo]

Just to further clarify Ozzy's point...

To further clarify the Ozman, when we play at 8pm here it is 12pm the next day in Australia.

So, RK, if your problem is that it is night time when we play that shouldn't be a problem because we are the ones playing at night.

Thus a Friday Night game to us would be a Saturday around noon (from 11 am to 12/1 pm), and likewise for Saturday nights, it would be Sunday at around noon.

Hopefully that clarifies the situation a bit more.

____________________

I would also like to make a few comments about what we've got going on in the diplo-community so far. We have two games, with what I consider solid players, so far. Personally I would like to get more interest in diplogames (and I think I speak for at least a couple other players as well), and a major part of that is successfully executing these games. So we need people to simply be on time and make sure they make it to the games so everything goes well and we don't lose interest (not only from the Apolyton community, but also the players involved in the games).

Now, if there are personal matters that arise obviously I am not going to complain about them. So I think I speak for everyone when I say that I hope 77's issue that night is quickly resolved and hopefully it doesn't happen to him again.

The other issue I think needs to be covered a little bit more is the aspects of a "diplogame." So far the games are still in their respective infancies, so to complain about anything that happened in the game so far (and nothing has) wouldn't be prudent or reasonable. But I think some things need to be addressed; such as posting.

I don't want to be a "post Nazi", and I know I have posted a ridiculous amount so far, but I think we need a little more cooperation from a few players in both games when it comes to this. Now, in HOTW2 we had people post right after the session was over, and this was a good thing because we had posts with fresh information coming out quickly to keep the game interesting during the off-time between sessions. All we really need is a post that simply describes what happened in your civilization during the session, whether it is boring or not. Some people may object to this because they don't want to give away information, and that's understandable, but the fact of the matter is that its a diplogame and that's part of it.

It doesn't have to be anything dramatic; you can just type up a report with some opinions in it as well, or a "newspaper article" or something. We've had trouble so far (At least in the Friday night game) with getting everyone connected and getting the game started the past two weeks, and while one of the weeks (last week) we had an unforseeable incident occur, the fact remains that players are getting a little frustrated.

So I think if we just posted more, and made a little more effort as far as showing up goes we'll keep the interest in our games going, and that will translate into a better game.

Thanks.

[Russian_King]

thanks! so anything this saturdya?

[OzzyKP]

I'm going to take this thread of conversation here, so we don't further muck up the story thread for the Saturday game.

Originally posted by deity


Thanks for the map ozzy.

Yeah, once we played this game out we'll know what to do to refine the settings for a more balanced diplo game. Mind you, this is still quite a legitimate game.

Also, Civ4 games will finish much more quickly than Civ2 games so with all of us still learning it (especially me!!) we may as well play it out.

I'm thinking we need to do something with tech too. This game is only in 1350 and we are rapidly nearing the end of the industrial age. So we are advancing way too fast. I think that's definitely because of the rampant tech trading. Once one of us gets a tech, we shop it out immediately to see what we can get for it.

So I'm inclined to suggest we outlaw tech trading. However, shrewd tech trading was the only way I was able to recover as Rome, since my forebearers had run it into the ground. I caught up a 6 - 7 tech deficit that way. And was able to stay competitive with tech throughout the rest of the session.

Perhaps we could delay the tech when tech trading is allowed? It happens now with writing or paper, but we could put it back to like scientific method if we wanted to. (someone would have to figure out how of course).

Or we could significantly increase the cost of techs. I've seen some mods out there that try to slow down the tech rate so an epic game actually lasts till the end. However with the tech trading as it is, even doubling the cost of techs won't be enough I think.

Though perhaps we can just push back the start of tech trading a bit, increase the cost of techs a lot, and that'll work.

Also, since when in a diplogame is everyone buddy-buddy with everyone else? Its like we have a 6 civ alliance. Of course that goes back to having too much room to expand.

Maybe after both these diplos are done, we can try to pool our resources and have just one game with like 8 or 9 players. West europe, Russia, Mongols, China/Japan, India, Arab/Egypt, Mali, & Zulu. That would make things more interesting.

Another thing we could do is play shorter sessions. Not only would this stretch the game out more, but it would make it easier for more people to match up their schedules. Like if we started at 10 PM (or 11 PM) EST on Friday and played for 2 hours, then Frank and Capo could both get in on the same game.

So yea, once these two games are done, lets go for this. Or (don't kill me) we could restart the Friday night game again, and just do the big game now (I said, don't kill me).

[Frank Johnson]

I think you've got most of the major issues so far.

On a standard SP map with 7 civs, 6 cities is about all you can expect on a balanced map, and even less on a terra map. Basicly the map we are playing is much too big. If we want to turn the classical and medieval eras into something other than a simple build fest we need to move the map down, and I'd prefer we start moving to random maps since the map builder is so much better in civ4 than the previous versions.

Banning tech trading was a common solution in civ2 diplo games, I don't see any reason not to bring it back. Even in a more competitive game we're going to see the "tech block alliance" come back.

I'd say "open borders" is the new tech sharing. Don't like a civ? Close your borders. Less and worse trade routes for them. A tech lead is also less advantageous than in previous versions of civ. Quantity really does have a quality all its own in this game.

I can't say I'm thrilled about the idea of short sessions. Although posting is a big part of diplo games, playing less to post more is counter intuitive for me, since playing is where the game is for me.

[Rasputin]

So waht size map did you choose.

I have only played all my SP games on a HUGE map and find that it is perfect as it allows plenty of room to grow, without having to fight the AI every step of the way. I only turn aggresive towards the end of the game and try to conquer as much as possible then.

I havent played a game at noble level yet so that may impact some play mode...

[OzzyKP]

It is a standard sized map (maybe a bit larger than standard). There is no way we could play on a huge map. The map we are on now is already a tad big.

And yea, i definitely recommend you playing and being comfortable with noble.

[Frank Johnson]

Some how I doubt what we are playing is standard. For one thing, the world maps oceans are not to scale. The map definately is not 70% water. ^_^

Just load up a single player standard balanced map, go into the editor and give yourself satilites. Look at the world. The entire game is played by all 7 civs on a land mass I'd say is about the size of asia on our map.

[Rasputin]

what isthe problem with huge map? surely that allows plenty of room to expand and build lots of cities.

send a scout out and you can meet other nations.

seems t owork fine on SP.

[The Capo]

As far as these map issues go I think more time is needed to really determine what's going on. The contention here is that the map we are playing on is too large to support a quality diplogame with six or seven tribes. Or at least the landmass is too large.

I mean, obviously Ozzy's map isn't going to be exactly to scale. Nobody's map is going to be perfect, we're trying to put a spherical world into a non-spherical map (which in essence is what the situation is), and we have nothing but other 2-D maps to utilize as a model. I've made plenty of maps before with both Civ2 and 3 to know that it is going to be difficult to make a perfect or near-perfect map.

Now, the schools of thought are as follows; one school of thought sees importance in the diplomatic aspects of the game as far as territory and contact go. It is argued then, that with less amount of space for isolationist/paralell (whatever you want to call it) expansion the nations would be more inclined to engage in diplomacy, and thus the diplogame will be better for it because tribes can't sit around with no interaction simply building.

The other side (this is all speculative by the way, as there has been no emergence of two diplo-game styles yet) would argue that enough space needs to be available for the countries to experience quality expansion so no nation is quickly stymied and thus diplomacy will be better because each nation will have at least a similar "base-size" and thus be able to weild similar influence.

The reasons these issue came up can be assigned to the speed of the game (which is kind of ironic because normally diplogames are accused of being too slow), and the quickness with which the countries can develop technologically compared to how history developed.

We've even seen numerous suggestions on how to alter this. Basically the issue is that, as Frank said, ancient and medieval eras become nothing but peaceful build-fests for the nations involved and conflict (which fuels diplomacy) is lessened because of the amount of space countries have and the time needed to fill this space.

Now, the problem seems to stem from the AMOUNT of tribes in comparison with the size of the map. There are ways around this, the obvious one is to have more tribes. If we had 8 to 9 instead of 6 to 7 I think that would be helpful if we wanted to use a larger map. I think the use of a larger map is a good thing in a diplogame because it exemplafies the scope of the game. Another solution is not to play on premade maps and set the world size to fit the amount of tribes we have in the game. We can still have the colonial aspect of the game by playing on the "terra" map setting, which sets all of the tribes in an "old world" with a "new world" inhabited by only barbarians for colonization. Finally, complaints were made about the squandering of medieval and ancient eras, because we fly through techs so fast. Well, the only solution to this I can think of would be to increase the cost of scientific discoveries and slow down the amount of years that elapse per turn in the earlier part of the game. This will make it longer, but also give more time to use your ancient, classic, and medieval units as well.

All of these things will become fine-tuned in time, remember these are the first two diplogames in CivIV, and in a way the fact that they are progressing quickly (well one of them at least) may wind up being a good thing for us. We can use these experiences to learn what worked, or what needs to be changed, and use them in a next, possibly bigger, diplogame.

In a sense, the more tribes the better, is something we should strive for. I understand how difficult it has been to organize six people, but I think if we continue to develop this genre and get more people invovled (which we have, despite our perceived failings) organizing a game with 10 or so tribes will not be that difficult.

Just some thoughts.

[deity]

Let's be careful not to prejudge the situation.

The reason these first diplo-games game have been sedate is that we all needed a friendly game to learn the ropes.

But in the end we have to think about the Victory Conditions, which, ultimately, will force action by several civs.

Sooner or later the highest points scoring will be challenged by the other civs. In future games I'm sure we'll see action much earlier.

Now, look at this from the USA Sat nighter diplo-game. I'll have more to say about the cultural victory in the story thread, but as you can see someone has to make a move. There are lots of possibilities available...

[OzzyKP]

Rome for teh win.

[Frank Johnson]

Bring back the 2 settler start?

Remember when deity (the game setting, not the player) gave 2 settlers to start instead of one? In theory that could effectively double the speed of the "expansion" phaze of the game. Since its equal at the start, it also goes toward providing a better "base" for everyone as well.....

[Ljube]

It is very difficult to expand before you build your economy because it takes forever to build settlers and new cities don't contribute enough due to high maintenance. It may even be counterproductive to build new cities sometimes, which is ridiculous. I mean, ICS is gone, but at what cost.

I'm against banning tech trading. It removes several very important aspects of the game play. I suggest we double the cost of all techs.

To make this a more competitive game either the size of the world should be reduced or the number of players increased or both.

I support starting packs consisting of 2-3 settlers, a worker and 2 units.

[Ljube]

I also think we should reduce maintenance factor for cities to make building new ones worthwhile. In case this can be done, we'll have to increase the tech cost even more.