HOTW V - Set Up Thread II, or The Return of the Mods

[KunojiLym]

I think 3 is okay.

[Robert]

I disagree.
Firstly this meanst that everyone should be aware if a tech is known to how many people.
And why should the large nations stay ahead? Only if they team up, and indeed, in the current game that's the unfortunate situation.

In a normal situation the large nations should team up with smaller nations. Why would they team up with their rivals? And if small allies make good agreements about their research paths, it's possible that they can keep up.

If 33% or 50% or 3 or 4 nations should know it, you generate another administration bureaucracy.

[LzPrst]

hmmmm. I'm thinking. thinking very very hard....

the number of results from this is HUGE. really huge. there are so many possibilites that could follow such a rule that I'm against it. trust me, I've considered the possibilities, and the requirements for its effectiveness and I must just conclude that its a bad idea.

I liked it at first, but the sheer size of it advises against it.

the rule that a civ should only trade away techs it has researched itself may or may not be a step in the right direction. but it was sort of a step in the dark and so would this rule be.

and the results and conditions will change with the circumstances of the game. should we really make a rule affecting the game based on the trial and error approach? it may have the desired effect, but it may also not.

I agree that tech trading has spiralled out of hand and something should be done. I'm just unsure of what that should be, and I dont want it to be something that would require too much work or possibly have the opposite effect of what is intended.

of course the administration and bureaucracy would simply be a push of the F4 button prior to tech trading, its the results that I'm unsure about.

as for tech trading in rl capo. yes USA give tech to for example israel. but they are VERY close allies. the U.S. does not give tech to France, or Russia, or China or even some of its other allies. just to give a concrete recent example, the JSF (Joint Strike Fighter) was supposed to be a cooperation between several allies resulting in a technological exchange and production of the aircraft spread over several countries, the USA being the largest contributor. the final results however look more like the US will keep all the work and tech to themselves and its allies will merely contribute with money. in other words, they're not sharing the tech, they're simple selling some planes. and that is with longterm close, trustworthy allies such as Britain and Norway.

as I feel the results of such a rule is totally unpredictable I am against it. also, I agree with capo (omg!) that rules dont really belong in diplogames, but I also feel that something should be done about the rampant techspread we're experiencing. perhaps we should just ask all players to exercise some restraint and more thorough ingame justification for their trades?

[LzPrst]

as for the whole france thing. I agree with ozzy (omg!) that since France was an AI it has no rights to the history books.

also, history is written by the victors, (which is germany\america\india) and in our eyes, we all agree that france started it. now this may be a truth with LARGE modifications, but it is our truth nonetheless.

it also brings me to an observation I've made. as we are the same players running the same civ over an enormous span of time, we seem to have some difficulty detaching ourselves a little. one imo result of this is the alliance blocs that we have seen, these might be breaking up now, but they have been lasting for millennia, which is actually quite unnatural.

it also leads me to make some concerned remarks about the still ongoing debate over who started the Great War, whether it is ooc or ic. it was more than a thousand years ago. ooc we remember it as recently, but IC our people should have forgotten it ages ago.

the fact that a world war occurred in the classical era is something I'm also somewhat against as I consider it an anachronism, also that america continued to feel resentment about it for almost a millennia is also somewhat anachronistic. A world war would have a large impact on history and thinking, but we the players seem to have trouble letting it go and thus it returns ic and ooc again and again.

the last war was seen as America breaking a peace treaty. but its not breaking a peace treaty hundreds of years later. it is a new war altogether. maybe fought over old conflicts, but a new war imo. it is our ooc remembrance of the peace treaty as recent that causes such feelings of betrayal. if you look at world history nations have been fighting wars on\off continously and then been friends only decades later.

there might still be ic residual resentment from the loss of american land in the old war, but imo that resentment should be "traditional", reduced more to old habit than an actual popular resentment over something that happened many many generations ago.

my point is merely this. we should with each new leader, and even for each new session possibly (especially early sessions that cover long times) reset most of our previous experiences and attempt to reestablish from "scratch" diplomatic relations and work anew from the current situation.

as it is now it seems more as we are playing a campaign that's lasting for a hundred years, resulting in limited changes in diplomacy, rather than a ups and downs, swinging swirling dynamic game where things change, as is the case in real history.

(take napoleon and russia as an example. they went from allies to being at war in less than a decade)
I gotta stop writing. got an exam tomorrow. I'll start fleshing out my thoughts in\after the weekend. see you on friday.

[OmnipotentTrout]

Just jumping in to your thread here for a'bit!

As I see it, we have three current solutions to the rampant tech trade problem:

-------------
1. No Tech Trade option

2. Trade only techs you have discovered

3. Trade only techs you have discovered, or techs that X number of nations already have
-------------

Now, what I don't understand is this issue about "what if I wasn't the first who invented Astronomy?"...

The moment you invent something, you can trade it, (ie. option no. 2) right?

Option no. 3 is really a huge amount of work, when you would rather use time on bashing barbarians

I can agree on no. 2 or even no. 1 (which is very pragmatic).

Have I understood things correctly, or did I oversimplify again?

[The Capo]

Can someone explain to me exactly why they are saying it would be difficult to track who has what tech? You do realize there is a window for this right?

[LzPrst]

I said that. the F4 button, the foreign relations advisor, technologies tab. it isnt the practial part, it is the outcome that I'm worried about. the thing is it can go either way, depending fully on the actions of the individual civs.

example. persia invents feudalism. now persia has to consider, what is the odds that someone else will invent it shortly. cause if the odds of that is high, then they are better off just techwhoring it. otoh if the odds of someone getting feudalism soon is low, they can choose to sit on it or give it to one other civ (if 3 is the limit) without risking a spread.

the only thing is, it gets really complicated. what if persia invents nationalism. then egypt invents nationalism. the first of these to trade it away will allow for all their recipients to trade it between themselves. the result may be that they chose NOT to trade it. which is more or less our desire, to limit techtrading. but it may just as well be the opposite, egypt figures either persia will trade it or someone else might research it and thus they should techwhore it before anyone else can, leading to MORE techtrading, not less.

if we were to have such a policy I think that in order for a tech to become "free game" it should be known by at least half the civs of the world, that is 4.

imo that will make the tech leaders want to keep techs for themselves longer, forcing them to consider the consequences of giving away a tech and thus making it "cheaper" and easily accessible on the market, versus the gains. the longer it takes for a tech to become "free game" the better. that a tech that is known by half the worlds civs becomes "free game" is better than just 3 civs knowing it. 3 civs having a tech is imo a tech advantage and should be kept that way. 4 civs is equal to half the world knowing it and as a result it should become easier to spread.

if we were to go for that rule, I say that 4 players knowing it should be the treshold. hopefully that will hold the spread back a little among the tech leaders, until the tech becomes commonplace which will then help out the less advanced civs.

I'm not saying that everything should be equal, but we should try to make for a game that is interesting for everyone, even those who are not among the top. now a lot of the pressure for this lies on the weaker civ's player's themselves as they can do so by diplomacy, but it wouldnt hurt if we "legislated" this in order to better their chances of at least keeping up a little in the tech race, so that they dont fall several eras behind, making them irrelevant.

[LzPrst]

or maybe 3 is the better number... aaaaarrgghh!!! too many factors!

[Robert]

I think we shouldn't compare the game too much with reality. Game-wise alliances can last for over millenia. I have no problems with that. I just think that if the reasons for an alliance change, an alliance should end.

[LzPrst]

actually I think the game might be more interesting if alliances were more fluctuating and unstable. I'm not suggesting we enforce, or even apply this principle to our current game, but it might be an interesting experiment for later games. the (potentially) rapid changes and dynamics of diplomacy is what makes a diplogame different from a 3 vs 3 vs 3 team game. imho.

our current game seems to be leaving a deadlock situation at the moment, but imo we shouldnt have fallen into that deadlock in the first place. thats why I am suggesting certain guiding principles for ic actions that may prevent similar cases in future games. once again, I'm not complaining about anything, I'm just stating my opinion that hotw5 has been a little more static than I expected it would be, and that I personally believe that greater fluctuations may have been more interesting. of course our game has been very interesting, but it has to some extent been so under a somewhat static set of circumstances.

I had an interesting idea. it might be fun, or at least interesting, to have a diplogame with 2 players per civ, taking alternate turns playing without having any communication with the other. you inherit your empire from your predecessor and do what you can with it, then leave it to your successor. you make your posts for the sessions you play and your co-ruler does the same, being somewhat bound by what you write, but still being independent from eachother.
the only communication between co-rulers would be a single IC post summarizing the rule of the former ruler and his advice\suggestions to his successor. like a king telling his son to "beware of the aztecs, and stay true to the faith" or whatever

think it would be fun to try once kinda like a combined diplo\demo-game.

[Robert]

The alliances should fluctuate more then in HOTWV but I think they shouldn't fluctuate as much as in reality

And I really don't wanna be a part of your crazy duble-team diplo game

[LzPrst]

what? but the crazy double-diplo-team game is... crazy! and crazy = fun

[OzzyKP]

I think its a cool idea. I had proposed it before and I don't think I got a good reaction. I dunno if it would actually work, but I think it'd be neat to try eventually.

[NicodaMax]

I hate to interrupt a good conversation, but I just found out that friday I'll have to leave a little bit early (00:30 UTC - 20:30 EST), so maybe I'd need a sub for that last hour or just leave my production qeued and hope the AI won't go bananas

[Robert]

The AI won't go bananas on you.
We might though