The HOTW VII - Setup Thread II (or the entrance of new mods)

[TELawrence]

OK - I have read through the stickied posts and am familiar with the roleplaying & geopolitical elements. And I'm down with that. I like the idea of extending the gameplay beyond the game mechanics and playing out the politics. And this involves the dedication to maintain e-mail correspondence, and so on.

I'm also not the sort to quit once I've lost a city, and actually quite enjoy toughing out setbacks or bad starts.

I'm a little unclear on what 'preparation' is involved, beyond choosing a leader. I'm fairly relaxed about settings, but tend to dislike continent maps when all players on a continent ally for the duration of the game. But I tend not to mind - I like surprises, and making the best of what you're given.

And I'm also unclear, given the emphasis on 'solving problems through diplomacy', whether war actually breaks out in any of these games. Diplomacy is as much about balancing self-interests, and maintaining the threat of war, as 'solving problems'. I'd want the sort of game where alliances can be built, but also broken, if the situation demands it, and also where acts of war can be threats and parts of the diplomacy - (say pillaging a tile as a warning, or breaking off trade to show displeasure) rather than just sending 10 stacks to blitzkrieg cities or whatever. As long as acts have consistency (rather than just playing to win) then nothing should be off-limits...

Also, there is one player per civ, right?

[TELawrence]

Damn. Actually I've just realised that as I'm on BST I would have to start playing at midnight. Ah well. I guess you guys have already had umpteen discussions about timing, otherwise I'd ask about bringing the time forward a couple of hours. But I guess I'm out...

[LzPrst]

TELawrence, do as I say and ask rasputin about timing for his pet project, based on your statements you seem like a perfect diploplayer. and yes, the timing is more or less set in stone by now, cyber and I are in central europe meaning we play from 01:00 - 04:00 am (!!!) Kuno who is in singapore gets up to play at around 7-8 am. it is a rough deal for some of us, but we manage.

anyway, part of the fun (not really) of a diplogame is getting the damn thing off the ground. if you and Rasputin put your heads together you could probably get a diplogame going, especially if you do some headhunting for some of the players that have shown interest in HOTW5\7 but dropped off along the way for timespot or other reasons.

[LzPrst]

and yes, one player per civ. we play simultaneous turns.
and oh yes, there are wars, threats of wars, rumours of wars and wars that make the gods cry (or at least certain players).

the diplo aspect merely strengthens the reasons for war and the ability to skillfully avoid, postpone, extend, advance and turn the situation.

if you want a good insight into how diplogames are played (at the moment) check out the HOTW5 story thread. it is the length of a small novel and full of alliances being made and broken, friends becoming foes and vice versa. not to mention severe amounts of diplomacy going on in the background and plans and plots that never materialized. what you describe is fairly exactly how HOTW5 went. unprovoked out of the blue sneak attacks are considered bad form in diplogames. this is the opera and champagne of civ, in contrast to the beer and tractorpull of FFA Blazing games (to paraquote ozzy).

[Prussia]

Sorry mate, alot of us give up 3 hours of sleep every friday for this game, and we've had too much blood spilled and too many tempers rise to begin discussion on another game time...

...AGAIN...

[MMC]

Hey... I'm on BST, and I'm playing. Since it's going into the weekend, there should be no real problems with having to get up early on Saturday.

[Robert]

Playing during the night is the best!
There are no other duties in the night so you can always play 8)
Even my wife is sleeping so she can't let me do all kinds of things men have to do. (I mean doing stuff in the house here!!!!!)

And you're right, the game would be 00:00 - 03:00 BST (that's london-time, to be clear)

[LzPrst]

omni cant play that date. he can on the 8th I believe. he's considering civs. (I have expressed the urgency)

hmmm. just a little detail that I find very interesting. here is the trait distribution:

Financial: 5
Industrious: 4
Spiritual: 4
Charismatic: 4
Protective: 3
Imperialistic: 3
Aggressive: 2
Organized: 2
Philosophical: 1



((obsoleted))

Note, there are NO expansive or creative leaders chosen...

[[[RANT. NOT IMPORTANT FOR GAME AT ALL]]]
are those two traits uninteresting or just weak? I for one feel that there are a few trait combinations missing from the game, Expansive, Creative (old cyrus), Philosophical, Creative (old freddy) AND Financial, Creative (old cathy) were cut out in warlords, these traits have not been given new leaders something to mention to firaxis perhaps? In addition Financial, Organized (washington) have also disappeared, and there are probably many other combinations (though some are of course excluded for overpowered purposes (ind\phi is one such combo).

[[[anyway, just babbling]]]

((obsoleted))

[Toni]

ok so Capo and omni are out for the qst session are they ok with that. So any others missing on the 1st?


We are still good to go right?

[LzPrst]

we still havent heard from nolan... I'm gonna send her an e-mail. I do feel though that if she cant play either we might push it out just one more week. after all missing 3 players on the first session... and I cant seem to remember seeing Kuno around for some time. let's make sure we have all first and foremost. another 7 days wont kill off a game with as dedicated players as this if it turns out it is necessary to postpone. I must admit I dont want to, I am very excited to get going, but we should have everyone (possible) for the first session. and if waiting one week will ensure that, then I will be willing to wait (while impatiently twiddling my thumbs).

also, isnt there a patch on the way?

[Toni]

I agree with u LzPrst, my problem is how would we know for sure if even giving them an extra week they will be here on the 8th. Then it may be the 15th, 22th etc.....

But i will go with what u guys want.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by LzPrst
omni cant play that date. he can on the 8th I believe. he's considering civs. (I have expressed the urgency)

hmmm. just a little detail that I find very interesting. here is the trait distribution:

Financial: 5
Industrious: 4
Protective: 3
Spiritual: 3
Charismatic: 3
Imperialistic: 3
Aggressive: 2
Organized: 2
Philosophical: 1

Note, there are NO expansive or creative leaders chosen...

[[[RANT. NOT IMPORTANT FOR GAME AT ALL]]]
are those two traits uninteresting or just weak? I for one feel that there are a few trait combinations missing from the game, Expansive, Creative (old cyrus), Philosophical, Creative (old freddy) AND Financial, Creative (old cathy) were cut out in warlords, these traits have not been given new leaders something to mention to firaxis perhaps? In addition Financial, Organized (washington) have also disappeared, and there are probably many other combinations (though some are of course excluded for overpowered purposes (ind\phi is one such combo).

[[[anyway, just babbling]]]

I totally pointed that out already in the story thread.

But yea, clear favoratism for financial and industrious. I wonder why....

Personally I think financial is just too easy a trait. So I've thusfar been avoiding it (plus I want civs I can RP better). I really liked the indus & spiritual combination of old Gandhi.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by Toni
I agree with u LzPrst, my problem is how would we know for sure if even giving them an extra week they will be here on the 8th. Then it may be the 15th, 22th etc.....

But i will go with what u guys want.

Yea, we should just get going or we will be delaying forever. We need to make sure we have several subs on hand for Friday. Lets start lining people up now.

[Robert]

If I'm honest about Nolan, I wonder if this is the right gametype for her. Like it wasn't the right gametype for Dragon and NicodaMax either. All three were playing every week and didn't let us down. (Dragon more then the others though ) but were not active in the forums / pm front.

How much I like Nolan and her involvement I hope that she can do a better job diplo-wise for this game. I'd say the same for Nico, but he's not involved.

Nolan, can you confirm that you will try to be more active in these threads? I hope I've said this without being an ass or something, I don't mean it in a bad way, I'm just worried about it.

[KunojiLym]

*checks in*

I'm getting rather busy, so expect just one post per week from me... usually, anyway I've got lots of ideas for if I round my religions, though ^___^