Multi-Game Diplogame Sign-Up Sheet

[Sabrdrak]

I have to say that I disagree on the No Spaceships change. Players who strive for the space race are going to be more vulnerable targets during wartime and have a more difficult time balancing out their resources in order to advance with any significant momentum towards that goal.

Not only that, but diplomacy will certainly have its own effect on it. As soon as other players become aware of this goal, they're going to adjust themselves accordingly. I see space race players having their territory whittled away by other civilizations like a pack of lions. Also, the concern that a player is soon to win by completing a spaceship could actually stir up some very intense and interesting drama in the endgame. I find that the late game gets a bit more sluggish, and the middle is where most of the tactics and fun tend to linger. Spicing up the final turns with a twist like that could prove healthy.

[OmnipotentTrout]

HOTW7 is up

Discussion and set-up in a seperate thread.

Please join and give your preferences!

-Omni

[LzPrst]

I would agree mostly with capo here. though I havent read the hotw2 thread I assume that even though there may be several differences between civ2 and civ4, the difference between the actual players isnt all that big. even so, there are differences that may need some extra attention.

However, as you've said capo, theres a lot of new blood that at the moment doesnt have the experience you and others do. as a result it is only natural that old discussions about what you considered important is revived by new players who also think those issues to be important, thus warranting their debate.

personally I agree with you. mods and rules should be avoided as much as possible. nor is it a necessary that all players must have a shot at winning. my quitting before wasnt due to my position, it was because I believed the basis of the game, diplomacy, to be flawed and futile. this issue has been resolved, and I guarantee that similar reactions wont repeat themselves, (at least not from me).

However, I do feel that encouraging certain behaviour, like stronger adherence to IC circumstances (such as time and distance consideration), would benefit diplomacy games in general. both by giving them a slightly more realistic touch, (face it, we desire to re-enact reality and history in some way or other) and by creating possibilities for more varied and interesting stories, based and limited by the IC developments of civs, not the game mechanics.

[The Capo]

Well, I agree with you on most of your points Lz, but some of them seem correct in theory but in practice, as I have experienced at least, they don't pan out exactly how you'd want them to.

In HOTW2 we had a horrible problem with non-shifting alliances, and believe me HOTW5 is no comparison; I literally had the same enemies and same cooperative civs the entire game. Nobody said a word about it, whereas in HOTW5 I begun by being friendly with England, then with Russia and India, then back to England and the Inca, and lately I have begun positive relations with Germany and America (to a small extent perhaps, but still).

I think we've considered this to be the case because we just ended our first real political situation, the reason the alliances didn't change after the Great World War was simply because the situations didn't change. The result of the war was not seen as good in America, and in the Northern Alliance as well which was played out in diplomacy, and the other nations (the big 4 as they were called) reacted to this situation by remaining close friends, but certainly not allies. Following the great war, I can assure you, tech sharing was not nearly as strong.

As far as tech trading goes; its hard to say. On one hand we try to emulate real-life, but on the other we are playing a videogame. In real life the citizens change over time, in our game we represent their will, and we are the same actual players for the game's duration. So trying to actually change this fact is a slippery slope and is one that I think will never be fully successful. I am totally against any rules about tech trading, or changing victory conditions, but if the majority thinks its appropriate who am I to tell them they are wrong?

The only reasons I suggested the rule of 3 (or 4) was the simple fact that under "Deity's rule" the same tribes would ABSOLUTELY maintain a tech edge, I mean it was quite evident in the session we used the rule in. If anything this unnaturally effects, and in many ways cements, alliance systems in an undiplomatic fashion.

I still think the best thing to do is just let the players play the game, and if we experience something awful (again what happened in HOTW5 was not awful) then maybe we should discuss rules, I just don't like the trend of altering a game for Diplogame purposes when we haven't even finished one yet!

[Frank Johnson]

I don't really think the problem here is with the game itself.

In previous diplo games we've had problems with players being irrational in the building of their civ in general. The motivation for avoiding war shouldn't be "because its a diplomacy game" it should be because the war would be a quagmire because both sides that taken reasonable steps to defend their empire.

In HOTW5, the great war started, and I'd say that was the truest scenario playing out. Granted, it was an axis vs allies situation, where one side had much more production capacity, but the other side had the benefit of military build up and preparation.

Honestly from my point of view the 2nd war looks like America being baited into attacking India, while India feinted being unprepared, while being more than prepared to counter attack with their Russian allies, in effect, to finish the job of what the great war started in the south. In the end only the collapse of the French managed to advert the conflict.

I'd say a new dynamic is forming and to not to worry too much about static alliances. The Russian/Indian alliance is the military pair to be concerned with in the old world at this point, not the Southern Powers. Also, the new world has been locked up fairly well by the Northern Alliance. I'd say how the chips might fall at this point is anybody's guess.

But I'd say with conviction, that the saying "If you want peace, prepare for war." has no better application than that of the this game.

I'd also like to point out to people argueing about the rules, that most of the greatest diplomacy games took place on premade maps that assured a certain level of balance, but removed alot of the excitment of the game. Civ4 has alot of very nice random, yet balanced map scripts, unfortunently terra is not one of them.

[OzzyKP]

Yea, that's the risk we take using a random map. I made up a rather nice and meticulously resource balanced World Map for Epic of Man, but people were bored with the world map and wanted the adventure and novelty of a new map. I really was apprehensive about it, but after playing on it, I really, really like the Terra map - despite all the issues - just because its a refreshing change from all the balanced world maps I've played on before.

But yea, each has its pros and cons. Perhaps the next game could go for a world map. I think I'm gonna stick with Terra for now though. Maybe after Warlords comes out we'll have a balanced Terra map option that'll work for us.

[The Capo]

I think we need a meeting of the Diplogames CivGroup, i understand this will be harder to organize than a game (perhaps we should only use a thread) but I think the trend in adding rules to Diplogames is disgusting quite frankly. I understand that many have already said "well now there's no blood so what you guys decided upon before has no bearing anymore." Yes, that does make sense, but some of these people are running away with Diplogames and they're changing too much, honestly I think we need to have an onrganized meeting or at least a single thread to get everyone involved in, we could even call it something like DiploCon or some crap (this would also create some extra interest in the ApolyCon, maybe).

I mean we're getting to a point where we're talking about tech trading issues, unit swapping issues, OOC v IC issues, game balance issues, alliance system issues, and finally resource/map balance issues. Its getting to such a ridiculous point that the actual story threads are getting ignored.

So what do you guys think? Let's give some of these threads back to their original objectives and create one simply for discussing all of these rules. And somebody post in HOTW V for f*ck's sake!

[Frank Johnson]

Capo, all of these things were dicussed in every diplo game! Our discussions are nothing new really.

At the start of every diplo game was a fight over the map, its size, new world civs or not, number of civs, tech trading or none, limited war rules, role playing obligations, game mods, barbarians, difficulty, relationships with ais, wonders or no wonders, victory conditions....the list goes on. There are no right or best settings, just a temporary concensus.

More diplo games failed then reached a reasonable end game, some due to conflict, some due to scheduling, some due to lack of interest.

I really like the HOTW5 scenario right now though. I don't see any reason for any of the players to be too upset about their position right now.

[LzPrst]

as I said before, I'm basically against rules, but encouraging certain behaviour may have a positive impact on a diplogame. I dont know this for sure, but I believe it would be worth a try in a later game. no hard rules, just general guidelines corresponding with the game developments. its really just a call for stronger rp by restricting what might be considered unnatural and anachronistic.

[OzzyKP]

Yea, this is all in line with diplohistory. I don't see anything apocalyptic on the horizon for diplogames. I think all these conversations about what a diplogame is and what rules if any they should have is awesome. Its awesome because new people who hadn't heard of diplogames 6 months ago are taking ownership over them.

There is always a conflict between veterans and newcomers in a situation like this. The vets are the keepers of the flame, the ones who perfected the game and nursed it along over the years. However if the vets retain exclusive control over diplogaming rules, guidelines and definitions than the game will stagnate and fail to bring in new talent.

New people taking ownership of the game may create some differences of opinion (though in my opinion what we've seen so far is very, very minor) but it will build a larger more loyal fan base for this genre of ours. I think its a very good thing.

[deity]

Originally posted by The Capo
I mean we're getting to a point where we're talking about tech trading issues, unit swapping issues, OOC v IC issues, game balance issues, alliance system issues, and finally resource/map balance issues. Its getting to such a ridiculous point that the actual story threads are getting ignored.

I know what you mean Capo but...

It's good to have rules discussions.

We have lots of discussions about settings and rules and as ozzy points out all the new comers to diplo are learning stuff. So are we. Out of these discussions we occassionally pick up a new rule or setting for a game. In HOTW5 it's the "only trade techs you learn rule" - a sensible bit of game tweaking. All the other issues you mention are just discussion and may give rise to further tweaking in new games.

I do agree that all this discussioin does belong in one thread though. I nearly completely missed this thread.

[OmnipotentTrout]

I've been putting my "Ten Australian Dollars worth" in everywhere, but you're right, we should have these general discussions here.

But also things have to be dealt with in the seperate set-up threads concerning the individual games

[OzzyKP]

Ok, we are heading into the summer and lots of people are going on vacation. So that means we need lots of subs. I will keep a list in the first post of what dates HOTW V needs subs. I'll also post it here:

On the following dates we need subs for the following people:

June 16 - LzPrst
June 23 - LzPrst
June 30 - LzPrst
July 7 - LzPrst
July 14
July 21 - Ozzy, Cyber
July 28 - Cyber
August 4 - Ozzy, Cyber
August 11 - Cyber
August 18 - Ozzy
August 25

[OmnipotentTrout]

I'll sub for LzPrst, if it's OK..

(see my reply in the HOTWV set-up thread)

[The Capo]

I think we need to try and compile a list of ACTIVE members of the Diplogame CivGroup (I think I am in there twice, and I think we have guys like Chris, Drake, Berz etc. who are not active).

And since these games tend to get pretty international we should combine this with everyone GMT/UTC times.

So I would be "The Capo, - 5"

You know what I mean?