History of the World XI [Diplomacy Game] [Organization II]

[deity]

We've got some serious issue here.

I've tried opening many saves, going back a few sessions, and the only one I can open AND move is this one. This is the one I used for hosting today's session.

What is different about it and why does it work yet others don't, even those that were saved after this don't open and move.

[deity]

BTW, Arvcran thought that this save was slightly different to the one Cyber used in gamespy. I'm not sure how this came about.

[deity]

I just did a bit more testing and loaded the above save and )i hope you don't mind) but played a few pseudo turns (innocuously) and then saved it; loaded this save and all looked OK - could move.

So the mystery deepens as to why our closing session saves don't move.. can anyone come up with a recent save that loads and moves?

[deity]

I'm re-installing 3.03 from Civ Fanatics site - bugger thius, can't usze any saves for any games.

[deity]

Back to 3.03 now. All saves load fine for all games EXCEPT of course the saves made during 3.13 session today...

[Robert]

- 3.13 is not downwards compatible. It can load 3.03 games, but 3.03 can't load 3.13 games.

- Later this week (today wifes birthday, tomorrow my sons) I'll try to load all my autosaves and see if there's a good one among it. I'll also submit it on the test forum to the Firaxis dudes, maybe some good technical non-firaxians can help us there as well.

Regarding waiting, patience, reliability
I think we should make some clear rules, I suggest the following:

- There can be 4 kinds of situations:
a) someone is just not showing up
b) someone isn't playing with leave of absence
c) someone is showing up but having technical issues
d) someone is showing up but isn't technically configured correctly (ie. patched)

And there are 5 types of players
1) people who post regularly in the organizational thread during the week
2) people who post in the story thread during the week
3) people who have diplo contact 'behind the scenes'
4) people who leave an out of character msg to another player during the week
5) people who aren't in touch at all

Ok, now a session starts and people aren't there, then we take all the above in account.
If someone is not ready but left a message, ie. through a cell phone short message (sms) to me ie. that he's coming soon, and that person falls within the 1), 2) and 3) category, then we wait for that person, no matter what. It's a reliable player, he's active, he let us know what's going on. Same if someone like him is having technicall difficulties.

The exact opposite is someone who's just not showing up, wasn't active at all and fall in the 5) category. I say we try to find a sub while waiting at most 10 minutes.

The rest falls somewhere in between.
Example:
- Toni is reliable, always in time, always active, posting during the week in all threads. He leaves a message on my cell phone that he's delayed and tries to come asap.
I suggest that in this case we wait either till Toni arrives or till we found a good sub. (if we know for sure that Toni arrives within 30 minutes, we just wait without a sub)

Other example:
- someone, say mr X, is just not showing up, he made 1 or 2 small posts in the organisational thread. In this case we try to find a sub or wait at most 20 minutes.

I will send my cell phone number once again to everybody by PM (some people never read their PM's! I see that in the log, please check your PM once in a while! Or even better: turn on e-mail notification!! if you can't make it in time, at least send me a text-message!

[Robert]

Regarding slow / fast players:

I think that both Toni (fast player) and Dacole/Zaldar (slow player) are both trying to adopt. Dacole tried to finish his turns quicker, I noticed, and Toni restrains himself.

I think that's really good, thanks to both.
I think that's the right attitude. If we all keep trying to understand each other and accept that fast players won't become slow players, and the other way around, that will keep a diplo game alive.

Having many many sessions with many players is hard these days over the internet. I think that we ALL deserve a compliment that we were all trustfull and dedicated till now, despite the problems we had!

Try to make it not too difficult for each other.
Fast players, keep in mind that the spirit of diplo games is that we take the time.

Slow players, keep in mind that you let people wait, some who waked up very early for the game, some who stayed up very late for the game. (we have 7.00 am players and 3.00 am players!!!!!)

Take your time, but don't take more time then you really need.

Use all game resources to speed things up:
- F4 first to see if someone needs a tech or has a tech, don't open the diplo screen only to peek
- ask someone in private first if he/she wants to trade stuff (shift-click on someone's name)
- if you're going to have some diploing, let the people know in general chat
- don't micromanage everything: it's a MP game, not an SP game.
- Plan stuff during the week (load the game (don't advance turn!) and check the F6 screen, ie)
- queue stuff, like worker actions, tech-research, build queues. You can always change a queue if needed! But it speeds things up if no change is required
- create the queues while waiting for others! Not while letting others wait for you
- Write stories in the story thread while waiting

[Robert]

I've tried to contact everybody through PM, e-mail and this thread.
I hope everybody will participate in this debate.

People should know that Diplogaming has had these problems all the time. IT's a part of getting 11 players in a game for multiple sessions!

Some good stuff from the past:
- The Capo was too drunk to understand how to get his cd right into the drive, we waited for certainly 2 hours
- LzPrst was with his friends in a pub when I called him, he sped to his home. we waited certainly for 1-2 hours
- Toni's pc kept crashing every minute. His laptop had no mouse attached. The session had maybe 8 turns in 4 hours.
- KunojiLym's graphics card or comp could just not run the pc. we waited for about 2-3 sessions (YES!)
- CyberShy had all kinds of problems starting the game, people waited for an hour at least
- OzzyKP's wireless connection kept bumping on people, he couldn't configure his neighbours connection (hehe) we waited for 1 or 2 hours at least.

Problems like this made our community strong. It's a part of diplogaming. I think it's even a good part. That there are people in the 21th century who want to wait for each other. When I'll be a preacher in the future I'll certainly refer to this

We also had our bad behavior sessions, with the worst (for which I'm ashamed most):
Nolan had a heart attack and was in hospital (AND STILL LET US KNOW!!!!) and we didn't even skip the session or did our best to find a sub.
Seriously, I'm really ashamed for that! It may be the worst thing we ever did in diplotime.

[Robert]

Game time issues

Last msg (no promises)
Dacole may be late often, keep in mind that he's trying his best to be in as quick as possible. He's leaving his job every week early. From his position keep in mind that someone is doing everything to be in time.

Maybe we should just start playing half an hour later from now on. (and continue half an hour longer).
That'll save us from getting frustrated, and it'll give Daniel more time. (and it'll give the sessions more time!)

It'll be good for those who get up early as well. (Deity, Aussie_Lurker).
I'll just sleep before the sessions these days anyway, thus I sleep half an hour more before and half an hour less after it.

[deity]

Well, I'll go along with Cyber's rules as long as he manages it and suggests to the group his judgement calls

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by CyberShy
Some good stuff from the past:
- The Capo was too drunk to understand how to get his cd right into the drive, we waited for certainly 2 hours

Good times.

Originally posted by CyberShy
Problems like this made our community strong. It's a part of diplogaming. I think it's even a good part. That there are people in the 21th century who want to wait for each other. When I'll be a preacher in the future I'll certainly refer to this

I can just see all your sermons relating back to playing civ.

"Jesus rose Lazerus from the dead, much like I took a stunted India with bad land and made them a respected power in HOTW..."

"Jericho was an imposing sight, with 60% cultural defense AND city walls, but Joshua had picked up a few extra barrage promotions for his priest unit that allowed them to bring down Jericho's defense in one turn!"

"I remember this one game where I started with just terrible land, nothing but desert everywhere. My settler unit wandered for like 40 turns till I found a good spot to settle. Much like Moses..."

Originally posted by CyberShy
We also had our bad behavior sessions, with the worst (for which I'm ashamed most):
Nolan had a heart attack and was in hospital (AND STILL LET US KNOW!!!!) and we didn't even skip the session or did our best to find a sub.
Seriously, I'm really ashamed for that! It may be the worst thing we ever did in diplotime.

I also think we jumped the gun with Moker when he was on a cigarette break. We really should have given him a few more minutes.

[Frank Johnson]

My problem with these subjective player type catigories is that there is no objective person to make a ruling on what type of player someone is.

Those who benefit from a better organized player controled civ X will rally to support player X's position, waiting on them, calling off sessions until its convient for them, stalling while they address tech issues. While the players on the otherside of the world stare at the ceiling wondering why we bother killing the game to save the bottom 3 civs on the score chart. It would be more natural and fun to kill the bottom 3 civs on the score chart and save the game.

I know when we have a major event like a new game start up or a patch we will probably have problems, but I think its rediculous to just say "I will probably be late always." If you're going to be late always spend the week looking for a sub who thinks its a good idea to play the first hour of the game for you. Don't dump your problems on the other 10 players and steal their enjoyment. Whenever real world stuff took away my timeslot I always let people know and withdrew without expecting 10 other people to bend to my needs.

One easy solution is to run the game without a password when we play in the lobby. I'd rather wait 5 minutes for someone to jump in an empty slot and another 5 to explain to them who they are allied to and what the situation is, than to stall all session for someone who might show up.

[Robert]

OzzyKP: I can just see all your sermons relating back to playing civ.

"Jesus rose Lazerus from the dead, much like I took a stunted India with bad land and made them a respected power in HOTW..."

"Jericho was an imposing sight, with 60% cultural defense AND city walls, but Joshua had picked up a few extra barrage promotions for his priest unit that allowed them to bring down Jericho's defense in one turn!"

"I remember this one game where I started with just terrible land, nothing but desert everywhere. My settler unit wandered for like 40 turns till I found a good spot to settle. Much like Moses..."

".......... and at the end of this sermon I defenitely want to say thanks to Alex Kroznapolsky Whatever Longname, because without him this preach wouldn't have been what it is. He inspired me in all words, examples and ideas. Seriously Alex, where ever you are, thanks for sure! Amen."

[Robert]

One easy solution is to run the game without a password when we play in the lobby. I'd rather wait 5 minutes for someone to jump in an empty slot and another 5 to explain to them who they are allied to and what the situation is, than to stall all session for someone who might show up.

That is an idea.
We did that in HOTW 8
The only downside is that sometimes people come and go all the time, and you're busy waiting for people to join all the time, who only come to leave the game immediately.

My problem with these subjective player type catigories is that there is no objective person to make a ruling on what type of player someone is.

Well, I think it's pretty clear if someone posted in the story thread or not, posted in the organization thread or not, left a note of absence or not, did behind the scenes diplomacy or not.

know when we have a major event like a new game start up or a patch we will probably have problems, but I think its rediculous to just say "I will probably be late always." If you're going to be late always spend the week looking for a sub who thinks its a good idea to play the first hour of the game for you. Don't dump your problems on the other 10 players and steal their enjoyment. Whenever real world stuff took away my timeslot I always let people know and withdrew without expecting 10 other people to bend to my needs.

Agreed.

[deity]

Originally posted by Frank Johnson
Those who benefit from a better organized player controled civ X will rally to support player X's position, waiting on them, calling off sessions until its convient for them, stalling while they address tech issues. While the players on the otherside of the world stare at the ceiling wondering why we bother killing the game to save the bottom 3 civs on the score chart. It would be more natural and fun to kill the bottom 3 civs on the score chart and save the game.

It's worth noting that this was not the case with yesterdays session. We started as soon as the tech issues were resolved and all players had downloaded the patch.

With only one sub (M r L) and two vacant civs (England and Rome) my suggestion was that the one sub cover England because of the state of the game. I think all players agreed with this.

None of what Frank says applies to yesterday.

Eventually dacole turned up and took over England and Mr L moved to Rome.

dacole dropped near the end of the session and I was insistent on waiting at least 15 mins as is normal courtesy for him to get in.

Frank carried on about conspiracy theories over delays and casting aspersions on other players BUT the reality is that he is guilty of his own accusations, ie let's throw out all the normal courtesys and protocols because it doesn't suit me (Frank).

LOL

You are so transparent Frank.