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I have no problem using the voucher system. It basicly just adds flexablity to the hard tech trade cap.
Looking at the whole issue from a wider perspective however, what is it we are trying to influance here? At the very core the answer is that we are trying to keep everyone somewhat up to speed tech wise so we can all live in the warm, fuzzy, everyone has fun spirit of diplogames.
This can only be addressed one of two ways IMO...
1. Screen players. By this I mean ensure that participents at least know the basics of the game so that nobody gets so grossly behind that they need artifical help. By keeping the player skill level even hopefully performance will also be more or less even. (SIDE NOTE: I personally see no reason for this. IMO it is incredible artificial and also difficult to keep everyone on the same playing field.)
2. Charity. This is the classic way in which lower scoring players are kept in the game. The hard tech cap prevents this due to it's very nature. The voucher system won't address this because nobody is going to handicap themselfs out of some sort of moral obligation. The voucher system with the vote addition also won't address this because although the lower scoreing civs will have extra trades, what are they going to trade for? You will have last place and second to last place trading horseback riding for alphabet while the leaders are trading engineering for paper. The issue isn't the number of trades lower scoreing civs have, it is what can they actually get in a tech trade. This was quite evident in HOTW12 when Russia had like 8 of 10 trades left, but nobody to trade with.
I am not pretending to know the best answer here, but I can form opinions based on the past. Charity works, the voucher system hasn't. Our current problem is that the 10 trade limit while eradicating tech blocs has also eradicated charity.
EDIT: After more though, I think giving the lower(est) civs a free trade every so many turns would help their plight a bit (since they could trade a tech and a voucher for a much higher level tech). This would also keep tech trades flowing into the game so we don't completely stagnate come the modern era. I think it would work better however if it happened automaticly (say... every 50 turns the lowest scoreing civ gets a free voucher). Voting sounds more democratic, but the reality of it is that people have enough of a hard time remembering to vote on the Ozzy Point System let alone expecting them to show for yet another periodic vote.
Unless we tied the two together! In the same vote email where we vote on storys/military/diplomacy we also vote on who gets the free voucher.
To answer your questions Rasputin, I don't think we discussed these settings yet, but now is as good a time as any...
1. Difficulty level. Personally, I like a higher difficulty level in multiplayer games. It increases the importance of health and happy resorces, and thus increases the importance of trade (and thus diplomacy). I think traditionally we go with the default noble setting, although I wouldn't mind setting it a bit higher, say, monarch.
2. I vote for standard barbs. Makes for some interesting early game conflict, while not causing early civ extinctions (usually).
3. Events on! Makes for good story fodder.
4. Victory conditions... I would say all except "time".
If the top 3 form alliances and tech trade to end then so be it. Will mean less people will actualy get involved in next game but will make for a less complicated system.
For a diplo to work well, you need the better players to ally with weaker palyers. Some learning is done along the way.
With the Option turned on allowing people to only trasde techs they researched this allows the weaker palyers to get techs as gifts from stronger players without passing on the techs to potential enemies.
If the top 9 players are so focused on winning that they ignore the bottom 9 then next gamewill only have 9 players. So play the way you want the Diplo style to develop not to just win.
I
GM of MAFIA #40 ,#41, #43, #45,#47,#49-#51,#53-#58,#61,#68,#70, #71
Originally posted by Pinchak
To answer your questions Rasputin, I don't think we discussed these settings yet, but now is as good a time as any...
1. Difficulty level. Personally, I like a higher difficulty level in multiplayer games. It increases the importance of health and happy resorces, and thus increases the importance of trade (and thus diplomacy). I think traditionally we go with the default noble setting, although I wouldn't mind setting it a bit higher, say, monarch.
2. I vote for standard barbs. Makes for some interesting early game conflict, while not causing early civ extinctions (usually).
3. Events on! Makes for good story fodder.
4. Victory conditions... I would say all except "time".
Thanks for that info
As the odd one out here i dont care what level we play on, it wont affect where my standing in the list of best 18 is.
Barbs are good provided none are near me !!! I guess i lose that vote.
And victory conditions are ok , only Space Launch sucks , but i know the better players will whinge if that was turned off.
GM of MAFIA #40 ,#41, #43, #45,#47,#49-#51,#53-#58,#61,#68,#70, #71
1. Level: noble
2. barbs: normal
3. events: on
4. victory: all except diplomatic
Regarding tech trading:
Just only no tech brokering is fine with me as well.
in that case I insist that every player puts some self-control on the table.
Formerly known as "CyberShy"
Carpe Diem tamen Memento Mori
voucher is quite elegant actually. every civ can trade techs (ie trade away 1 tech) 10 times. that is a right to trade away 10 techs.
all clear?
so, instead of trading away all 10 techs, you fall behind and most other civs have what you have. so what you do is, sell the right to trade 1 tech to another civ. this means the same as giving away 1 tech, but the receiving civ can now trade one extra.
you want charity? here's one.
Aztecs has 3 tech trades left in game.
India has none.
Aztecs beg India for Biology (or else), India can then say, sure, sell me the right to trade 1 tech, and I'll use that right to trade you biology.
The impracticality of this system is that it requires some book-keeping and is in general a bit difficult to keep track of. a good way of doing it would be to put up a website where all tech trades are registered (secretly of course).
OR
we could just check No Tech Brokering, and ask people to restrain themselves.
Especially in a diplogame, those are great ! And they make incredible storry fodder.
Turning time off doesn't seem a good idea neither, because it would possibly make a far longer game as expected (assuming no-one among the top players is heading quickly for one victory condition).
Space Race only sucks in Vanilla Civ 4... it was fixed in BtS to be like Civ 2.
And since real life has no such rules regarding tech trading, I would just prefer to stick with realism here...
I don't expect to be at the top of the scoreboard, but I don't want to have to do extensive (read: NOT FUN) book-keeping to determine if I've traded too much or too little. My common sense says that I shouldn't trade Gunpowder (for example) unless everyone has it and the one person who doesn't is getting raped because of that...
I wouldn't mind subscribing to a system where you can only trade by sending an envoy (instead of instant trading) to your opponent's nearest city. If you declare what techs are available (not what tech you have - just those that you're willing to put on the table) when your unit leaves your borders, then you're not allowed to trade anything more than that, since there's no real way for the envoy to know of any new techs (until Radio at least).
I think it's possible for the Pitboss server (or maybe CivStats does it, I forget which) to keep a log of all chat messages, even private ones, so trades can be scrutinised later if necessary. Otherwise, it can't be too hard to setup a private CivBay web page .
Anywho, my feeling is that if a restriction must be put in place, it be realistic. Yet, I don't think any restriction is necessary at all.
Ceeforee v0.1 - The Unofficial Civ 4 Editor -= Something no Civ Modder should ever be without =- Last Updated: 27/03/2009
"Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean there's no conspiracy"
You forget that some of us here are new to this board and the system by which you play. I've never encountered this type of play on CivFanatics, so what you are speaking is completely foreign to me. If you can give me a link to an explanation of this, I'll gladly read over it in an attempt to learn.
No need I've already explained it in this thread, I was refering to veteran players, I've already explaine this and apologised.
Modern man calls walking more quickly in the same direction down the same road “change.”
The world, in the last three hundred years, has not changed except in that sense.
The simple suggestion of a true change scandalizes and terrifies modern man. -Nicolás Gómez Dávila
I am not pretending to know the best answer here, but I can form opinions based on the past. Charity works, the voucher system hasn't. Our current problem is that the 10 trade limit while eradicating tech blocs has also eradicated charity.
How can the voucher system be said not to work if it has never been tried?
Charity is precisley what this system allows, among other things. A civ can give a tech and not loose a tech trade since the more backward civ can give them a tech trade. The system only puts a limit on the maximum amount of techs a civ can trade or recive in charity. And even this limit is not hard, as the extra tech trade I talked about can be gained by the vote.
I disagree there have been many donations of large amounts of gold that have esentially been a much less efficient form of helping civs catch up.
Originally posted by Pinchak
The issue isn't the number of trades lower scoreing civs have, it is what can they actually get in a tech trade. This was quite evident in HOTW12 when Russia had like 8 of 10 trades left, but nobody to trade with.
With the voucher system Russi could have gottine 4-5 tech by trading just their rights to trade tech. Or they could have gotten 10 techs in charity, or they could have arranged a myriad of deals, ect.
Originally posted by Pinchak
Our current problem is that the 10 trade limit while eradicating tech blocs has also eradicated charity.
.
Again I maintain not completley. You see charity needs to be limited or it can be exploited to make tech blocks. There is only one solution to this allow a a certain amount of tech trade, but make limits. 10 tech has prooved to be too limiting, Voucher might have just the right amount of flexiblity and even if it was still lacking it would be much much better than 10 tech. If we found it too constrictive we could alwys mid game decide to give out more free trade rights on every vote.
Originally posted by Pinchak
Unless we tied the two together! In the same vote email where we vote on storys/military/diplomacy we also vote on who gets the free voucher.
This is a very good idea. Remeber the votes will not be weekly like in HOTW12, since they will be a bit more rare (since the game will be going at a slower pace) we can expect to see more voters.
Modern man calls walking more quickly in the same direction down the same road “change.”
The world, in the last three hundred years, has not changed except in that sense.
The simple suggestion of a true change scandalizes and terrifies modern man. -Nicolás Gómez Dávila
Can't we get a setting where the turns are only ending precisely after that 8 hours / 24 hours ?
It would be easier for people going on vacations too. They could give orders for the expected number of turns missed, and get not bad suprise when coming home.
I, for instance, am on vacation 3rd and 4rth week of august, and am moving 3rd and 4rth week of September. I'd like to give orders for 15 turns at least and find a game with 14 turns passed when logging in again.
Originally posted by Rasputin
how bout we jsut allow any tech trading.
I'm sorry but I think this would be game braking, I would even just prefer the 10 tech rule to this.
Originally posted by Rasputin
If the top 3 form alliances and tech trade to end then so be it. Will mean less people will actualy get involved in next game but will make for a less complicated system.
Wait you want less people to be involved? Listen top three civs allying is not good, it sucks all the fun out of the game and eventually causes people to leave, isn't that what happened to HOTW11?
Originally posted by Rasputin
For a diplo to work well, you need the better players to ally with weaker palyers. Some learning is done along the way.
The 10 tech rule is a very rigid and inflexible rule, but we still had such alliances in fact we have many many cases of strong civs working with weaker ones, precisley because of the fact they couldn't just stick with the big powers only. Many players have learned a lot in the game. I know I've learned loads in HOTW12.
Originally posted by Rasputin
If the top 9 players are so focused on winning that they ignore the bottom 9 then next gamewill only have 9 players. So play the way you want the Diplo style to develop not to just win.
Heh, this is what has repetadly happened in almost every diplo game. Except HOTW12, so far. Sure Holland or Inca may get to that point, but in recent session backward players have made giant strides. I do not know which of the many innnovations this game brought is responsible, but I have a feeling the 10 tech rule for all its flaws can partialy be credited for this as well.
Rasputin check out the HOTW12 thread. Toni at one point called it the best civ4 diplo game and Ozzy has stated that it might become that. I challenge anyone to say that game is broken! And we are not really fixing something broken here, we are improving something that can be improved.
Modern man calls walking more quickly in the same direction down the same road “change.”
The world, in the last three hundred years, has not changed except in that sense.
The simple suggestion of a true change scandalizes and terrifies modern man. -Nicolás Gómez Dávila
Just only no tech brokering is fine with me as well.
in that case I insist that every player puts some self-control on the table.
I'm sorry to be cynical. But has this ever happened before? If it by a long shot has, did the game in question have as many new players to diplo as this one?
Think about this a bit Cyber a bit of disscusion now can give us a good system. Remeber when we tried to change the rules midgame in HOTW12? We couldn't there is always at least one nay sayer when it comes to tech trades, at least one civ always has a strong self interest to keep things as they are.
The only way to get decisons like this made is before game
Modern man calls walking more quickly in the same direction down the same road “change.”
The world, in the last three hundred years, has not changed except in that sense.
The simple suggestion of a true change scandalizes and terrifies modern man. -Nicolás Gómez Dávila
The impracticality of this system is that it requires some book-keeping and is in general a bit difficult to keep track of. a good way of doing it would be to put up a website where all tech trades are registered (secretly of course).
No more than the 10 tech rule and that has worked in HOTW12.
Originally posted by LzPrst
we could just check No Tech Brokering, and ask people to restrain themselves.
Again the same question I posed to Cyber: Is this likley to happen?
Modern man calls walking more quickly in the same direction down the same road “change.”
The world, in the last three hundred years, has not changed except in that sense.
The simple suggestion of a true change scandalizes and terrifies modern man. -Nicolás Gómez Dávila
In the same vote email where we vote on storys/military/diplomacy we also vote on who gets the free voucher.
.
Listen top three civs allying is not good, it sucks all the fun out of the game and eventually causes people to leave, isn't that what happened to HOTW11? 
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