History of the World 8 - Set Up Thread

[Pinchak]

Wow.... just took a look at the save for the first time...



The Zulus have been used and abused like an irish whore on St. Pattys day. <--- Yes, I just came up with that.

They do have an impressive army however....

[Robert]

Kbarrett posted the following ports in another thread, can all players who had troubles last session open these ports / connect them to the right PC?

6667 (IRC)
2033 (Civ4)
2056 (Civ4)
47624 (Directplay)
3783 (Voice Chat Port)
27900 (Master Server UDP Heartbeat)
28900 (Master Server List Request)
29900 (GP Connection Manager)
29901 (GP Search Manager)
13139 (Custom UDP Pings)
6500 (Query Port)
6515 (Dplay UDP)
2300-2400 (DirectPlay - UDP)

[Robert]

Well, it is late. I will assume the role of mighty Zulu king regardless of what the save looks like.

That's the spirit!!
That's the beauty of diplogames, there's no such a thing as a less playable civ

I got the chance to actually talk with Levi, and he brought me up to speed with the Zulu's situation.

Anyone who wants to make political offers is free to PM me. However, based on Levi's briefing, I fear I may be limited in my options.

Keep in mind that Levi may have a non-game related issue with Ozzy (England). During the game he said some things about revenge. It looked like everything he did in the game was more aimed at damaging Ozzy then building up his own empire. (That may be the reason that he has that many armies but laid waste on the rest of his empire).

You don't have to continue that line!
It may be even better for the Zulu's if they search for peace and allies then find a whole host of nations against them, but that's just my advise.

Beta, what sort of connectivity issues are you having exactly??? Not being able to connect, getting dropped, or just lag in general?

It was a thing between Ozzy, Kuno, Beta and myself. When Ozzy or Kuno was in, Beta and me couldn't get in, and when Beta or me were in, Ozzy and Kuno couldn't connect. Ozzy and Kuno could connect to each other without problems, and Beta and me as well. If any of us hosted the game, the problems for that person were over. (ie. if Ozzy hosted, Beta and me could get in, but Kuno could still not enter because of Beta and me, same if Kuno hosted, then Ozzy couldn't get in because of Beta and me)

We were able to fix it in the end after Ozzy changed to another ISP connection and Kuno hosted. Really strange.

Oh, another thing...

Levi mentioned some "rules"...

You cannot take a capital city??? Are you guys kidding?

You cannot trade a tech you did not research... this one is more reasonable.

Any other rules i should know about?

Well, the so called TOSRT rule is the only strict rule. (Trade Only Self Researched Techs). We did that to prevent that all techs would be traded to everyone the turn after it was discovered, and give some bonus for inventing a tech yourself. (and being able to control the spreading of the tech you invented yourself).

The FAQ Ozzy linked to gives a better discription, but in short it's that there aren't much strict rules, but more guidelines.

- The goal of the game is not to take others down. Therefor taking someone's capital or big-wonder city is frowned upon (). But if there are good in-game reasons, it's always possible. (never saw it happening though). Ie. if a civ keeps attacking you you may take his cap, just to force him to end the war.

The idea is that all players finish the game and keep enjoying playing. It's not enjoyable if your important cities are gone. The last session of the game things may change of course. In the last game Toni (Bulgaria) counterinvaded India (me) and razed 3 out of my 4 most important cities, but hey, I asked for that

- Give an in-game explanation for your actions.
Blood thirst is a good reason obviously. Let an evil leader lead your civ for that period in time. Give it a build up so people can anticipate a little bit. That sounds weird for game where backstabbing is normally the way to go. But true backstabbing is hardly done in diplogames without giving some 'warnings' on before. Those warnings can be subtle hidden warnings in stories posted in the story thread.

But if you have a peaceloving king who's allied with civ x, then it's really frowned upon if you suddenly close all borders and invade civ x. You can of course murder the peace king, settle an evil king, so all nations start to anticipate. That evil king can obviously lie that he's going to respect all alliances, but hey, that's what all dictators do, lying, so people should still anticipate.

But you can be a lunatic civ, declaring war on everybody, vassalizing them all, if you can. Don't be suprised if many nations will march against you together though. In our last game Ozzy tried to spread Islam with the sword. He did a pretty good job.

I expecially liked the part about how handouts and gifts are often given to human players who take over an AI, or botched civ.

We try to keep the game fun for everybody.
But on the other hand, if I'm a big civ (I can dream) then it's always good to have 1 or 2 "vassal" (not true civ vassals) (well sometimes that as well) that I can trust and rely upon, who defend my borders (ie. because they are between me and my biggest enemy, in example.) (In History of the World V I was such a vassal of Ozzy in the late game, I was a buffer between him and Germany. He shared his techs with me and I gave him all my surplus money. That way there was still fun for me in the game, eventhough I was the smallest civ. I was part of a bigger alliance and my big brother protected me.

In the end Germany putted some Hitler-clone on the throne and gave me an excuse to attack him for peacekeeping with my suddenly strong army. (there was a build up of course) In the end Germany ended up as one of the states of America

In all reality though, my understanding (from talking to Levi) is that the Zulus are in bad shape. Behind in tech, with crap land. In addition to that, Levi noted that he has "slaved the daylights" out of his citys in order to... ehem... expand

I don't think that the Zulu lands are that bad. He's lacking Iron, Bronze and Horses. But that's only bad if you want to play the rampage civ game.

At any rate... I'll give it a shot. Sounds like a fun concept, the whole roleplay thing.

Great!
And yes, it is

1. What map type and size are we playing on? Sea level, barbs, all that good stuff.

Map: Large, Terra
Low sea level (11 civs)
normal barbs, all victory condition, nothing special.
NO TURN TIMER! (sometimes things take time, patience is a key-word, though players are encourage to not ask too much patience of the other players, and keep things reasonable)

2a. Where do you actually roleplay? Between sessions in this thread? Between turns in "ALL" chat? Both?

First there is the Story Thread: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=163017
That thread is mostly In-Game / In-Game Context story telling / writing letters to other civs, etc.

2. Use Private Messaging for private in-game communications. It's nice to keep the messages to reveal the best of it after the game is finished.

3. During the turns there can be in-game chat. There's much just for fun chat there though!
but I like to put some in-role messages there now and then!

2b. I'm not sure i get how to roleplay "actions". For instance... lets say that I want some land (start war). Do i need to invent some story as to why? Is bloodlust a good reason? How bout greed? Or do i need to invent a story about how the king of persia was doing my sister in the back of his caravan?

I think I've explained this already a bit.
I'll give a bit more. In HOTW7 I started a war because the father of the ruling Prince was lost in Bulgarian territory. I made my Prince go mad about it.

Keep in mind that you can only roleplay 'withing your borders'. You can send an assasin to the king of Bulgaria, but you cannot kill the king! You can of course hand the story to Bulgaria, and he can decide to let the king die, or let the assasin be caught.
You can of course always murder your own king and blame Bulgaria for that! Bulgaria can denie.

If the player of Bulgaria decides to let his king travel to your territory, you're obviously free to pick up the story and kill him right away.

The key to this is: everybody can have it's own story and you can't alter the stories of other people. You can influence the stories of others of course by your actions and your stories.
Bulgaria, in HOTW7, in example, kept promising to keep on searching for my last King, he tried everything to avoid a war by giving all help etc. But it was my story, I wanted to keep my king lost in his territory, to start the war. Hmmm, I think that I forgot to tell what eventually happened to that king though
He most probably was eaten by lions or something, poor Bulgaria was not to blame after all

The Zulus have been used and abused like an irish whore on St. Pattys day. <--- Yes, I just came up with that.

They do have an impressive army however....

That's what I said, I don't think Levi did the best for his civ
We'll be good for you to give you a change to recover!
But if you decide to wage a war against my Hindu Allie England..........

Good luck

[Robert]

REALLY IMPORTANT QUESTION: WHAT TIME DO WE PLAY FRIDAY?

The Americans are already in daylight saving time (europe will switch next week, if I'm correct. I don't think that the southern hemisphere people are going to switch)

I'd really prefer it if we will play normal UTC time this week, I'm fine switching next week obviously.

[Toni]

Yes we are playing normal UTC this friday, just for the US guys this means starting 1hr later then usual.

By the way will be seeing 300 tonight (man it was about time, mrs and her requests for a calmer day bla bla) 1st time a Monday will be an exciting day!

[Robert]

On 2nd thought, I don't really mind to start 1 hour earlier (of course).
One hour earlier = normal american playtime. (for Americans nothing changes, all other players start 1 hour earlier)

[OzzyKP]

I'm fine either way, as long as it gets figured out (and as long as things get explained to me in American terms and not crazy UTC stuff).

[Toni]

This is getting confusioning, we should stick with what we are used to. Stay with the regular time, just US needs to show up 1 hr later now. 2nd option no go because this means Kuno and deity should get up even 1hr earlier then usual.

[Robert]

Well, when we started playing HOTW7 and we agreed on this time, it was summer as well, and they did in fact stay up one hour earlier.

And since most players are from the North America (only Kuno, Deity and me aren't) it's easier to start normal time for America and let Deity, Kuno and me adapt.

@Ozzy: after all those years of diplogaming you STILL don't understand UTC, tssssss.

[Toni]

Ok as you wish, i will be here whatever the outcome. Still all players should be contacted before friday so they know. I hope you successfully manage to organize the whole group with this new time adjustments. Good luck

[Pinchak]

Sooo... What time are we starting EST?

I'll also need the ip addy, password, what chat program you guys are useing, etc...

I have decided to let the future of the Zulu nation up to everyone.

You can vote for the new leader here.


I have made a peace agreement with Ozzy. My nation, as stated before, is in shambles however due to total and complete neglect to infastructure, combined with a relentless slave policy. I am particularly behind in tech.

If anyone wants to donate a tech to the Zulus your generocity will not go forgotten. Math and iron working would be a HUGE help. Even if i had all known techs, I will still fall behind until i can turn this civ around. Currently running 60% science with a -6 gold. Getting up to speed techwise will help though. Given the rule about tech trading, I beg of you guys to give me a hand so I don't fall too far behind.

Thanks in advance.

[Pinchak]

Just as a side note (to expand my understanding of how demogaming works), from reading the story thread it seems as if Ozzy declared war on the Zulus.

If this is true, then why such an outcry to stop the zulu counterattack? I would think in the spirit of demogaming the zulu would have backers, not the other way around.

Just trying to get a handle on how things work...

[Toni]

Get aim or yim we use them both. The schedule up till now was every Friday 6:30pm est start, but now with daylight savings this means 7:30pm est.

Once the game is up the ip is given through the chat softs to all players. Game is usually loaded 10-15 mins before game so ppl can start logging.

[Robert]

This thread has > 500 posts and has been closed.

The 2nd version of this thread can be found here

The last few posts of this thread have been transfered to the 2nd thread.