Newbie looking to participate in MP games

[tachyondecay]

Hi! I'm a relative newbie at Civ IV. Prior to Civ IV I was obsessed with Alpha Centauri, so I'm not new to turn based strategy games; I just haven't played Civ IV enough to get a good handle on its nuances.

I've been playing it more often lately, and now I'm interested in trying out a multiplayer game. I'm just not sure where to start. I am not a competitive player--I prefer more to build rather than conquer--so this "diplogame" concept sounds intriguing. How might I get in on one of those? I'm in Ontario, Canada (Eastern time), but I'm working over the summer, so sometime at night would work best for me.

Also, what exactly does Play-by-email entail? From what I gather it's a long-term sort of game, but how does one play Civ IV over email ... how exactly does that work?

[Hercules]

Hehe like you. My main attention has been on SMAC so coming late to CivIV.

I am learning all the time: squeezing in SP Civ4 games while playing some MP Civ4 games.

Anyhow I am available.

[Hercules]

Regarding play by email (Pbem). It is turn based. When you play and end your turn, the game informs you, the turn has been saved (in the Pbem saves folder, I think) and then is ready to be sent via email to the next player.

You need to know the email address of the next player to be able to send the turn on and this is sorted at the start.

At this forum there is a game turn tracking thread (each game is usually given a distinctive name eg Tacky's First, so players can keep track of the game through time).

So the turn is sent to you. You save it to a folder in the CivIV Folder, usually the Civ4 pbem saves folder.

To play MP games you will need a password. To play Pbem you need just one.

In SMAC MP the password is set either by the game designer, CMN or left for you to set your own password.

In CivIV I am not sure exactly what happens. The game prompts you for you personal password and then depending on the game, prompts you for the game password. (Or is that PitBoss?)

[Beta]

to what Herc said. I will try and add and fill in.

For pbem games you save the save file to the appropriate folder, (ducuments-games-warlords-pbem-nameofgame) and then in civ4 hit multi-player and then play-by-email. Hit pbem and the list of pbem games should come up. Click on the game you just saved. If you put a password in when you first started the game at 4000bc, then you will need to re-enter it every time you access a new save. That is usual practice.

If you are the one who set the game up in the first place, you will probably also have an admin password, but you won't need to access that unless you are doing game admin stuff like changing a player.

Pitboss is much different, and better IMO. A pbem game, expecially one with several players, is going to take awhile to play.

With pitboss, a turn timer is set. usually 24 or 36 hours. All players need to log in (either through the gamespy lobby or via direct IP - depending on the manner in which the game was set up) to play their turn using both the game password, and then clicking on your civ from the ones in the game, and it will ask for you civs password.

If all players play their turn before the turn time deadline, the turn advances (with the completion of the last turn player to play), and a new 24 hours start. If you don't log in to play your turn, the game plays your turn for you - using build queues, planned moves, etc. But generally not a good diea, or looked upon fondly by the other players, to miss a move.

In this manner, a large (12 person) pitboss game can move along much quicker (one turn per day) than say a 3 person pbem game, where each player takes a day to play their turn and move it along.

Hope this helps. The PBEM forum is the best place to go looking for new games.

http://apolyton.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=258

This is where folks generally organize both pbem and pitboss games, and then they set up a tracker thread in the pbem trackers.

Hope this helps.

[Cuaich]

I am also in Ontario, and also new to Civ 4, although I have played turn based games alot, esp. Civ 3. So count me in, if you are looking for a game!

brucemacdonald1 (at) aol (dot) com

[LzPrst]

pbem? zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz


diplogames! that's where you need to go for a rush. it's like a drug. allow me to elaborate.

We usually play Marathon length games (epic has been discussed as a possibility for slightly more lightweight games) with 6-10 players.
we play once a week, usually friday afternoon (though some would like a change) for about 3 hours per session.
we play the game like a regular civ game. you start in year 4000bc and work your way towards a space race or diplomatic victory or cultural or whatever. the main diffference is this:
we are attempting to emulate a certain historical feel to our games so that it's not just a slow RTS game. each week after our sessions we write posts (RP style) from our nations, containing everything from internal dynastical intrigues or summaries of the last session to threats and declarations of war.
so every session and every week between sessions, there are diplomatic discussions, negotiations and planning going on behind and on the scene (we have our own thread for it).

it is great fun and if you're not a master player you can work around that by diploing, in other words, making friends with other nations, trading technologies, buying soldiers, joining alliances etc etc. a great player will usually be crushed if he does not have the ability to build strong friendships with other nations. of course, this is a gentlemans game. we "never" do sneak attacks or such. it is considered bad form. instead, we do like real nations do, bluster and boast and make unreasonable demands that will lead to war. refer to "there are WMD's in Iraq" or "for the safety of the Germans living in Poland we have to invade". (bush and hitler respectively).

so to make this a bit short. diplogames are for players who want a richer experience than the savage jungle that is normal MP games. but I must warn you. they take time. depending on the amount of technical difficulties and other issues, most games take many sessions to finish. the longest have run for 6 months, the shortest for about 3 I believe. keep in mind, this is with weekly play sessions.

so, great fun, but a lot of patience and commitment is required. I seriously recommend looking into it. there are FAQ's and explanation threads to be found. look around, and if you have any other questions, you can probably post in the current organization thread for HOTWXI and Cybershy, Ozzy, Deity or any of the other veterans will surely give you all the information you might need. the next game will hopefully start sometime after christmas (cause I cant play until then).