HOTWXII Testing and Organisational thread

[Asmodeous]

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.

I didn't tell you to STFU, read what I typed, LZ. I said that I feel like you just told me to STFU and deal with it for the third time now because I never got a say in any of it. Remember the debate that went about when you, capo, deity, and I tried to run a quick test a week or so prior to the game, and suddenly all the rules I had been prepared for were different. I made it clear then that I had only missed a day of posts and that I'd be busy with work and likely miss more. At least I had thought I made it clear. Also, during that debate I was told twice by Deity to shut up about it because it was already decided on.

Did it not seem strange that I was voting through Toni? The only reason I had any say whatsoever in anything was because Toni went out of his way to IM me and ask my opinion on a few votes that had come up.

Thats it.

Because Toni was kind enough to take time out of his day to make sure I got to vote on some of the things, I got to have a bit of a say, for everything he didn't have time for or didn't come to a bona fide vote, or things I would have expounded on, I never even knew they went on, and that only happened and I got things to be voted on again because I had, along with a bunch of other people, been completely left out on it.

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.

Nonsense. He's not going to be able to research anything you don't already have, or don't even want and could research in a few brief turns anyway. You're going to save that technology for trading with someone who's along the path further that has something you're going to want. If you do so out of the "kindness of your heart" otherwise, I'll honestly suggest you're doing it to give me an "I told you so" moment.

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

And there's a third time.

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?

People are ok with it because MAYBE one person has alphabet at this point so it doesn't make any sort of difference at all.

In essence you're here saying that we shouldn't change the rule because the game just started and we haven't gotten very far so it hasn't come up yet, so instead we should wait until way later in the game when it becomes a problem and change it then.

WHAT?!?!?

That's nonsensical! That's saying that once it's already a problem we should see about doing something at that point which will ultimately cause further problems I can just see it now. "Ok, everyone's complaining, this was a bad idea, maybe we should try something else. . . let's ammend it to this."

Immediately: "But then I would have made X deal..." "And I would have made Y deal." "And I would have made Z, A. and B deals..."

I can see the cry-fest that comes about.

If you're even thinking of ammending a rule in a game you need to do it early, not later. Doing it later is just asking for public outcry.

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.

That's just it, Capo, I don't disagree that limiting tech-trading is a good idea. I disagree on the method. I think that forcing 10 tech trades is nonsense. Absolute nonsense. I'll never trade a tech until modern times, or at least the industrial age, and may not have anyone to trade techs with at that point. And I'll never offer a tech to a nation that's poorer because they'll never be able to give me anything I'll give a rat's ass about. It is, in essence, telling me that we should have just turned tech trading off like someone else suggested instead, because it's going to come down to the same thing, really. I can't even share a single tech amongst my alliance if I had one because then I'm already out of trades from one technology!

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.

I am aware of this, although you haven't had it practiced yet, this is the first time it's been tried, you may find that it stymies it in the exact opposite direction. Remember, one of the comments I've gotten from people a lot is the fact that they think it's cool that I didn't bow out of HOTWXI or just stop playing, having been in last place the entire game.

A hard-limit of 10 trades is going to widen the gap between top and bottom of the list faster than it widened in XI, and make the gap even more insurmountable. From what I hear that commonly causes people to get bored of the game and stop playing. Is that what we want to see?

I'm not implying people are going to stop playing, I know I would play anyway, but you said it yourself that people are going to play it like it's a regular civ game, and when you know you've lost, a lot of people will quit.

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.

I feel you overcompensated. I'm a bowler. And nothing is worse then when you go up to the line, roll the ball, miss the pocket and see that you missed it because of the oil path and you overshot your hook, then you go back up, adjust, throw the ball, and realize you overcompensated and threw too low instead of too high.

I see this as the same thing.

I don't think you were powertripping, I'm just offering my suggestions now that I have the time and ability to do so. I realize the game already started, I figured that it started early enough for me to make my comments now and possibly see some change. If it doesn't, I will play with the 10 trade limit that we have, I just will continue to think it's a poor idea, and I will reserve the right to say "I told you so." when everyone else realizes that it's either too low of a limit or an improper method of limitation.

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.

Pfft. This was a better rule. What do you mean there's nothing to gain? Pure global domination.

The top three not being able to ally was, in my opinion, a far better idea than the 10 trade limit. I don't honestly understand why this would have been dropped.

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!

You can easily break it by the year marker. If you bring up the log you can see what year you researched what tech. You could easily force X number of years before a trade.... and that becomes a double-advantage, because as the periods progress the amount of turns to reach the change in years grows dramatically, slowing the tech trading advantage down on a major curve.

100 years when you hit 1500 is a lot more turns than 100 years at 0ad. Not to mention 100 years once it's the 18th and 19th century.

It's a rule that improves itself as time goes on!

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.

Ooo! Not so good! Because then whoever makes the trade loses a tech trade! Sorry!

Ahh. Hard-coded limitations, how sad you make us.

Me.

[Toni]

Love and peace -

[Diplo France]

Ehh, its a non coded rule Asmodeus, we can just agree that UN/Apo techs don't count.

[Diplo France]

Crazy idea: Ozzy's score system + this issue = profit er I mean tech limit

I'll go into the details later

[LzPrst]

sigh. I believed that the lack of clearcut objection at the time was a general assent. there are 9 people in this game and there are 9 different opinions on just about everything. I try to do right by everyone. it's not easy. the choices we made seemed the least controversial and the most practical.

you may well be right asmodeus. the 10 tech trade limit may be a horrible idea. my argumentation wasn't superb either. my point was that we stick with it now that we have made a rule out of it that has gotten general approval. If it does not work we may have to accept that and act accordingly. But I do not want to do that rashly without reason. we're dealing with some uncertainties here. maybe it won't work, and maybe it will. there is only one way to tell for sure. I am more than willing to say you were right, if you turn out to be. but we don't know that yet. if it aint broken don't fix it. we don't know if it is broken yet. if it turns out it is broken, shouldn't we try to fix it? drive the car. if it works fine, keep driving. if it breaks down, get out and fix it. is that really that stupid?

over the years we have tried new rules in various games. the No Tech Brokering option was invented by the diplo community. we try new things from time to time. sometimes they work. sometimes they don't. this is the latest rule that people could agree on. it may be modified, dismissed or established permanently after this game. we don't know for sure what will happen. people obviously had faith in the idea or else it wouldn't have gotten any support.


I personally agreed originally that a restriction from the top players allying would be good, but I was outnumbered it seemed. however I changed my mind partly because I hoped that anon.play would alleviate some of it, and that the need for big tech blocs would be reduced by the tech trade limitation. When you don't have to trade techs immediately when they're invented, cause everyone else is going to be given them, then you can rely on your own teching more, reducing the need for long-term allies.

if the leading civ has a specific tech, and you as a small civ expend a lot of resources to get it, or research it yourself, you could have an advantage over other civs that don't have that tech, even if they are more advanced and have other techs you dont.

example. your backwards civ presses everything towards getting to guilds and build knights. you plan to take a few cities from your neighbour. he might be bigger, but hasn't gotten engineering. or guilds cause he has been focusing on culture, relgigion etc. now he won't get it for free from his allies the second you declare war on him. nor will he get it cheaply from other civs. He'll have to either pay through his nose for it (especially if few others have it) or research it himself. if you're really clever you get other civs to agree NOT to give those techs. that's brilliant diplomacy. even if he's big it'll take time to get the tech and then upgrade or build new units. you'll have a lot of turns to act.

big civs are not necessarily favored in teching either. I played a SP game as germany on monarch, standard size map having 4 cities against the 3 AI's on my continent who had 12 each. and I was the tech leader. they only started catching up in the renaissance and then I hit Alexanders army which was the same size and tech as mine, except I had cannons, and destroyed him, taking his cities and becoming a superpower. (i played frederick, lots of wonders and GP's since I wasnt building settlers and workers constantly)

my point is that there is room for a lot of flexibility and variation when tech proliferation is reduced. as you say, maybe max 10 is too strict. but trade once in ancient, twice in renaissance, 3 times in industrial and 4 times in modern. just enough to get you some key techs you may be missing, or provide a weaker ally with Steel in industrial warfare. we won't know for certain until later. when we do know for certain we'll consider our options. and one option may well be to celebrate Pinchak for his amazingly insightful rule suggestion.



as you say, the 2 biggest could team up to dominate the world. but 2 vs 7 is a fair fight. even 3 vs 6 isnt hopeless. and even if the 2 or 3 big civs DO win, they will only win the game victory, the votes may well award victory to a smaller civ that has done better storywise than "Find a powerful civ and stick with it the whole game".

which brings me to the final order of the day. which is far more urgent in my opinion. we have to vote. and we have to decide the value of the votes and when to vote. every session? does that mean now during the week when people are posting continously? or just before next session? or just after next session? now everyone should go to the score system thread and focus on one thing that will hopefully balance out the big alliance issues once and for all.

[Asmodeous]

We should wait until later in the week for the voting, because as it stands I think not everyone has posted. Say vote on Friday? That should give everyone ample time.

Me.

[Mr.Lincoln]

Can't you guys make a function so that each turn goes faster in years?example, 1 turn may take you from 100 AD to 101 AD-cant you make it so its like 1 turn= 100AD to 102AD?

[Mr.Lincoln]

doing that would allow tech trading to stay normal but keep era on pace

[Mr.Lincoln]

Originally posted by Toni


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

Wow thanks Toni!!! Makes me so happy seeing I am gona miss almost every single game! The reason i say this is the time doesnt work for me, not the fact that i am not a start(thats my own fault) I can only pray though that when HOTW10/13 comes you guys will respect me and understand I have changed and am 100000% more focused on HOTW

[Mr.Lincoln]

Also(i should put all this on 1 post instead of making 4 seperate posts please forgive me) if trying to modify the Year Clock doesnt work you could just reload to where you were before modifying...it would take just a little test to see if it works or not. Just try testing Mod next HOTW12 session. If it doesnt work, simply play on with normal year clock and try and fix it with another method on the same session or the following week. Understand what I'm saying, because I'm not sure if i am wording this right?

[Robert]

I really don't get why you guys didn't stick to the earlier made up rule to only trade techs among allies, and to have not more then 2 allies at the same time.

It's easy, it prevents techs to be traded all around the globe, it keeps the tech race interesting, and it keeps alliances interesting.

Seriously guys, how often do you need to learn that in the end my rules are always the best rules, so you'd better stick with them from the beginning on

[LzPrst]

we're trying out the max 10 trades rule now.

unless it proves to be extremely broken we're sticking with it.

any other rules, mods, additions can be discussed for hotwX and or hotwXIII.

(note that we are also using the vote system to count score)

I understand your frustration mr.lincoln, but rest assured that the timeslot we use now is the first time since we started playing civ4 diplogames that the timeslot has changed. this is to a certain extent an experiment. and if you wish, you are more than welcome to initiate hotw in another time slot. when hotwXI ends you might even get some players from there.

[deity]

Originally posted by LzPrst
we're trying out the max 10 trades rule now.

unless it proves to be extremely broken we're sticking with it.

Thank God for the Chairman!

Can we please all just put our energies into the story and diplo thread and get into the game now. No more endless debate about the damn rules. If we allow more debate now, then something will come up in a few sessions and we'll be debating something else!

Some players have just accepted what the rules are and got on with it - particularly the late joiner Trev.

I agree with Toni, this looks like being THE diplo game of all time!

1) We have fantastic story writers - Capo the man himself, Asmo, lz, Marcus along with some great looking new comers - and including the god creator - I loved that

2) Excellent connectivity between the players

3) First class anonymity communication tools as provided by Cyber

4) First class map with hands on support and back ground involvement by ozzy

5) Good parents watching over us...

7) Sensible rules

8) fill this space...

[deity]

The other thing is that all 10 tech trades must be woven into the story thread for accountability. Yes?

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

I think that is a given, Ian. Be that as it may, I hope we can get to a point in our Diplogames where we can trust eachother not to abuse the whole Tech Trading mechanism. I agree that in future Diplo games some techs should always be a "No-go" when it comes to trading though, regardless of whether we decide to have a cap!