HOTWXII Testing and Organisational thread

[Heraclitus]

What if we make a simple new rule:

tech does not count towards limit, if six country's have it already?

[deity]

The thing isd by doing this you just make sure everyone is virtually at the same tech level within a few terchs = boring.

Abnd you need to read the threads regardless of business. We are all busy

[deity]

With 10 tech trades I WOULD ingratiate myself with a backward civ just to get them on side and so they CAN research something for me.

10 trades, that's it, sorry game has started and I'm in no mood for any crap!!

Well, maybe some....

[LzPrst]

relax asmodeus. dont tell me to stfu. I don't like that. I didn't realize you were working that much during that time, and furthermore, I accept that things did progress very quickly.

on the other, hand, the game has now started and we played one of the best first sessions I have ever witnessed. that was my main goal as chairman. to get the game going. and we succeeded. and in addition, a lot of other people discussed and accepted the tech trading limitation. perhaps a democratic deficit exists on this issue, but the rest of us have agreed on this.

I agree that backward civs will have some problems catching up since they can't be gifted A LOT OF techs, but it is much easier to catch up than it is to push far into the tree. this is to some extent selfbalanced in the game. not completely of course, but that's where the human diplomacy factor kicks in.

allow me to make some examples of other ways of aiding backward civs.
1. gifting military units.
2. supplying them with money
3. supplying them with resources
4. giving them a GP
5. gifting cities or colonies
6. giving them workers or settlers

that's just off the top of my head. gifting techs is just one of many options. and it is in my opinion the undoubtedly most superior way of aiding a civ. and as such, it should be limited. note, that this does NOT eliminate tech trading. it just reduces it to a manageable quantity. if you really want to help a backwards civ, give them one of your 10 allotted tech trades. provide them with a tech they need. but it must be of some importance to you. instead of what we see in other games where tech is given away with reckless abandon.



let's see where it leads. if things don't work we can discuss an amendment to the rule. but as it is now, it seems that people are ok with it.
changing it now is like assuming that you'll drive off the road when you come to the next turn and so you turn before you get there (hitting the mountainside). this is not set in stone, if it needs changing we can change it. currently I don't see a need, so I say we stick with it as it is. if it doesn't work, we can look into it again. is that agreable?

[Robert]

Originally posted by Diplo Ottoman
Going to diplo_ottoman.plomp does not work for me, does not give any logon message just something unreadable in German

dutch
Not German

http://ottoman.plomp.eu works for me.
You can also try http://www.ottoman.plomp.eu

[The Capo]

In essence and philosophy I agree with Asmo. I don't think there should be a limitation on tech trading as it prevents an avenue of diplomatic interaction, and to me that is the main thrust of a diplogame, and being so, should not be limited. But, that said, I also know that those who support limiting tech-trading have a good basis for doing so.

Asmo, you've suggested that limiting the amount of techs a country can trade will stymie the "backwards" nations and keep the game boring. Now, this is what one thinks would happen, but in practice that is not how it works. When you allow rampant tech trading what truly happens is that a group of elites will rise up and dominate the tech market, a few smaller backwards states arise (usually only two or three of them) while the rest of the country split into armed camps. Eventually one of these countries sneaks in a space ship (this person is almost regularly deity.... but it has been Ozzy) much to the chagrin of their so-called allies, and the game ends boringly because nobody wants to attack eachother because of their slim technological edge offers only the ability to protect themselves; their armies aren't normally as solid because they have acquired tech so quickly they haven't caught up, and their biggest fear changes from fear of invasion to fear of losing the war and thus their slim lead. That is the reality of unlimited tech trading, I hate that it happens, but it does.

Now, in this game the technology debate was a bit longer than three days, but I will agree that the game was rushed and unorganized. This is, of course, nobody's fault because there was popular opinion that wanted the game to start as soon as possible. Its unfortunate that you didn't get an opportunity to speak your mind, because I would have supported you. But its in the past, and I think we should just suck it up and play with the settings we have (like I had to do with the anonymous thing).

The Diplogaming community obviously has a few wrinkles that must be ironed out. The technology issue is the biggest of these wrinkles.

Maybe one suggestion is that if a tech is from a past era you can give it away as charity? Perhaps only after the UN is built or something? I don't know, just some thoughts.

[Diplo France]

A tech leak mod?

[LzPrst]

I was actually considering suggesting a way of allowing older techs to be traded more freely, by era. my idea was that any tech 2 eras older than the current one would be freely tradeable. but it seems the techs are NOT divided in by era. there are just some gateway techs. like Alphabet or Iron Working will bring you to the classical age, but other techs in the same area are not specifically tagged. I then thought about sorting them by brackets (for example writing, metal casting and iron working are in the same "bracket", but the variations are far too great. Writing costs 280 techs points while Metal Casting goes for 560!

I took a long hard look at ways to liberalize tech trading a bit, but in the end I discovered there wasn't that much that could be done easily.

the current system is based on the notion that tech trading SHOULD be a rare event occurring only in extreme circumstances. which is why we ended up with 10 max per game. taking a look at HOTW XI last session when I subbed for Russia, I saw clearly the result of rampant tech trading. The period of Gunpowder was obviously non-existent. Russia's army consisted of Infantry, (many AI upgraded from older units) a few Riflemen, and 2 dozen LONGBOWMEN!!!!

let me try to make myself clear on this. I do believe, in the absolutely strongest sense that such an occurrence is just ridiculously BAD for the game. It means that the speed of technological development has FAR surpassed that of production and military development. there is no point in building musketmen, because they'll be obsolete in 20 turns. there's no point in trying to get an advantage, cause another civ will spread that tech to everyone freely.

forward teching becomes so important, and the competition for keeping the lead is so fierce, that techs are thrown around carelessly. HOTWXI is nearing the end, and it is year 1500! the game could be said to have lost whole eras because tech trading advances everyone so fast.

I will apologize for not taking you guys' opinions into consideration. but I do believe that strong limitation of tech trading is vital to balance the game from a crazy teching contest, to a game of gradual development. that is what will really benefit the backwards players. so again, I'm sorry that you guys feel left out of the decisionmaking and that I overran/overruled some of you. I wasn't powertripping, I was trying to tie up all the knots.

however, I don't want to punish the other players who did agree and have adjusted plans and playstyle according to the current ruleset. I also do believe that the rules that we have put down are simple, effective, balanced and relatively uncontroversial.


I I had not forced gamestart, it may have been postponed for weeks. we know that one player, maybe 2, can't play next session. starting without a full roster would have been unthinkable, so then it would have to wait another week. and then maybe another, provided we had finished all the discussions and people hadn't gotten fed up and lost interest. now we are on the road. we have but one simple rule, and that is to keep count of your tech trades, and limit it to ten.

a demand that top nations can't be allied was suggested and discussed at length, but hopefully the tech trade limitation will automatically prevent such an alliance because there would be little to gain. also, with anonymous play we wont have situations where people stay allied cause they are friends in RL or are unwilling to act against another players wishes. now we're dealing only with their civs. noone will get angry OOC because of a war declaration or a disruption of alliance, because there's noone to be angry with. people will act according to game developments, not ooc reasons.

in conclusion. sorry that we left you guys out. but the game is on and I hope you can agree to play with the rules we made.

-lz

[The Capo]

I don't know who "you guys" are, but if you actually read my post you'd know I am on your side. At least for this game.

[The Capo]

And yes, exactly as I said in my post the reality of the situation is that rampant tech trading leads to the group missing whole eras of history/technology. The problem is we are trying to balance reality with diplomacy with fairness and with fun (because we have to keep interest in such a long game). Those things are hard to balance, especially when you are doing it with ten guys who dont' always agree on every issue.

That's why we do the voting, and that's why there are multiple games, its a process of playing games and seeing how things work in practice rather than in theory. Therefore, Asmo, while I totally agree with what you are saying in theory, the fact is in practice it doesn't work out. I personally blame a specific attitude that players have, that I think is shared with the lot who supported the space victory as the end of the game, that despite the fact that this is a Diplogame it is still Civilization and people are still going to play it as if they're playing a normal Civilization game.

I am not saying its wrong, or bad, but I disagree with this attitude. Take it from me; people often disagree with me, its better just to speak your mind when you have your opportunities, but make sure you allow the will of the majority (or the majority of the people making noise at least) prevail because we are in testing mode, and if their style doesn't work the next time around they'll be more likely to listen to you.

Besides, there are going to be plenty of diplogames in the future that will have different players who may want different rules. So we'll have our opportunities, but for now I'd say stick with this and do your best to use diplomacy to your advantage. To go back to something I said before; people who forget this is a diplogame are going to be the ones who don't forge the proper alliances and ignore diplomacy as a key factor. If you see your back against the wall you'd better start sending letters out, changing alliance systems, trading with whoever you can, and establishing your country in a diplomatic sense. Once your a player on the world's stage the rest will come.

[LzPrst]

@ diplo france

yes. we have considered adapting mods many times before, but as we saw with the complexity and problems of just getting everyone to put the map in the right location, I'm not sure if its viable. the mods listed before seemed brilliant, but I don't know if there are compatability issues between them, if they may be buggy in MP, if they are unbalanced or how to install them properly. I could figure all that out given time, but I must admit that I am too lazy.

if you feel strongly about it and believe you could ensure the full functionality and balance of mods, I am certain that the community would gladly welcome it in the next game.

HOTW X is still not going anywhere, starting it up and running it on epic speed as a "guinea pig game" would be a great way to try that out. keep in mind, noone wants to risk having to play a game for 6 months if a mod corrupts a save file halfway through. I don't even know if that is a possibility, but that is the concern I have towards mods.

[Diplo France]

I prefer the 10 tech rule as opposed to the problems Lz pointed out.


What about a late game catch up? When the UN is founded, people can vote If a civ should recive a tech, the tech can't be military or space tech because its "development" aid.

And the apostolic palace could vote to give its full member a "religius+artistic" tech (just 7 of religius ones so no biggie). Any member voting yes must also have the tech otherwise his vote is mute.

[Toni]

Sorry for my threadjack, heh. HOTWV was awesome

I see a clear contender in HOTW 12 for the best diplo ever

[OzzyKP]

Eh, a bit early to be making such a claim.

[Toni]

Well looking at the roster of players and 1st session - wasn't hard to make such a prediction (we got a great custom map, interesting rules, great stories already = a clear formula for success - of course it is the players responsibility to work hard into making this an epic diplo game)