The Dance of Civilizations [Pitboss Diplomacy Game] [Setup Thread]

[Persia (DoC)]

The account works for me.
When do we start?

[St Jon]

What is my username and password for the voting site?

[Robert]

You'll get it later. WarningU2 is still working on it. (And we don't need it before the 1th of October anyway)

[Robert]

Latest version of the opening posts.
If I forgot stuff or made some errors, please post it. No new stuff please.
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The Dance of Civilizations [Pitboss Diplomacy Game] [Setup Thread]

I want to start a new Pitboss Game for Civ4:Beyond the Sword Patch 3.19
It'll be a game in Diplomacy Style. More about 'Diplomacy Games' later.

The purpose of this setup thread is:

A.
1. Players signing up for this game
2. Making a ruleset for this game
3. Decide on the game settings

B.
4. Assigning civs/leaders to each player
5. Get a map
6. Launch the game

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Dictionary of Terms:

- Diplomacy Game
A Diplomacy Game is a game in which all players lead their civilization as if they're leading a real nation. It's not a game but reality. Leaders can be tirans, democrats, noble kings, fascistic, etc. and the civs are being played according to the role they take. During the game civs can get new leaders, change directions and style. Alliances can be formed and broken.
Some leaders care for their people, others don't. Key is that the players try to stick their civ to a certain role. A role which can change throughout the game b/c of revolutions, marriages, coups, evil sons, plagues, etc.
Players are free to develop this concept to their own ideas.
Diplomacy means not that war is prohibited. War is very welcome, but stick to your role. Have a valid reason why a modern democratic nation would invade another modern democratic nation. (there's always a reason! Just make it up if needed.)

Another purpose of the game is to keep it interesting for everybody. Nations won't be annihilated or broken in such a way that the fun is gone for a player. On the other hand, players must be willing to compromise when losing a war and be willing to accept terms of their enemy.
Small nations can still be important to the game! Make things interesting, develop stories and roles.

- Diplo Victory
Not the in-game score determines the winner of the game, the so called "Diplo Score" does.
The Diplo Score is calculated in a still to be determined manner for this game. Key is that Diplomacy, Story Telling, Military Strategy and Game-score (And perhaps other categories) will be used to determine the winner. Voting will most probably be a part to determine the diplomacy/military strategy/story/etc. score.

- Pitboss
A pitboss game is being hosted by a pitboss server.
The pitboss server is available 24/7, players can login to this server everytime they want to play their turn. The pitboss server will automaticly advance to the next turn when a certain ammount of time has passed.

- In Game (IG) / In Character (IC)
Posts / messages a player posts / spreads in which he's acting as a game character and sticks to his role.

- Out of Character (OOC)
Posts / messages a player posts / spreads in which he's not acting as a game character but discuss organisation or technical game related issues. Player A may be enemies with Player B In-Character and acts like that In-Character, but ie. supports a suggestion of Player B Out of Character.

- Game Host (Host)
The person who hosts the Pitboss Server and organises the game. He calls for the votes, starts the game threads, etc.

- Story Thread
A dedicated thread created by the Game Host for story telling and diplomacy purposes. Only IG posts can be made here.

- Organisation Thread
A dedicated thread created by the Game Host for game organisation purposes. Only OOC posts can be made here

- Pause
Sometimes the game must be temporarely stopped becauseo of OOC reasons. The hosts then saves the game and ends it till the organisational (OOC) issues are being dealt with.

- Double Move
Civilization is a turn-based game, like ie. chess. Players play their turn in a certain order. First Player A, then Player B, etc.
Because of the nature of a multiplayer-pitboss game, all players are abe to login whenever they want. This means that the turn order will likely be broken during the game
When a certain player plays twice in a row without another player playing his turn in between, it's been called a double move.
In example: During Turn 80 Player A plays first, Player B logs in to the game 3 hours later and plays his turn. Then the game proceeds to turn 81, PLayer B logs in first and plays his turn. Now Player B has played 2 turns in a row without Player A playing in between. This is being called a "Double Move"

- Sub
When John is the player of the Americans and Bill takes over from him, then Bill is a sub

- Temporary Sub (tmp sub)
When someone only temporarily subs for a player this is called a tmp sub. A tmp sub may be needed when a player is leaving on vacation, is sick, etc. The idea is that the tmp-sub will only play a certain civ for a limmited ammount of time. A tmp sub will always play the game like the official player would play it. (or at least try to)

- permanent sub (perm sub)
When a player quits the game a perm sub is being looked for to take the game over permanently. Factually a perm sub is being called the new player when he's found and took over.

- Reload
When there's a reason (ie. rule being broken, technical problem, etc.) the game will be reloaded.
Every turn the pitboss server will automaticly save the game.

- Judge
A judge is someone who makes a (ooc) decision one the involved parties in a (ooc) conflict can't agree upon a solution.

- Fight
Games that last as long as diplomacy games often cause 'fights' among players.
A fight errupts when an ooc conflict arises about rules or unballanced/unfair gaming by others.
Fights are no good for the game but are unfortunately reality in games like this.
Usually a fight can be avoided if both parties are willing to be cooperative or want to compromise, if players admit their mistakes. Clear rules and sometimes the involvement of judges must help to avoid/end fights.

- Voucher
In some games only limited tech trading is allowed.
In such games vouchers are used. All players receive in such a case an x number of vouchers.
Every voucher gives the right to trade away one (1) technology. This means that when a civ gives/trades one tech to another civilization, this civ loses 1 voucher. Vouchers can be freely traded.

- Voltan
Voltans are sometimes used in limited tech trading games. These voltans are in the mid-game given to the civs that are far behind to top civs. Voltans are like vouchers, except that they can't be traded for anything but technologies.
Voltans are named after Pacal Voltan, the Mayan Pacal played by Pinchak in Beyond the Pit.

- Beyond the Pit
The first (Experimental) Pitboss Diplomacy Game that was played from may 2008 till July 2009.
The game was won by Rome, played by Heraclitus and The Priest.
The game was experimental to find out what rules would work best. Despite many arguments and troubles the game lasted till the end.

- Cold Turkey Time
Everytime a civ loses much terrain, is being invaded, is being backstabbed, faces ig troubles, the player of that civ needs some time to accept these new facts. For some this time is short, for others 1 or 2 days.
During this time the player will develop conspiracy theories that are both entertaining to others but very disturbing for the player itself. The player will believe rules have been broken, it's all unfair and unballanced, and may accusate other players from foul play or cheating.
The Cold Turkey Time is needed to give a player some time to grab himself together and accept the new facts.
This happens to everybody, we just have to learn to live with that.
If such a cold turkey time pops up the game will be paused and the involved player will read this Cold Turkey Time explanation once again to understand that he's not the first who feels this way. Hopely that'll help him to understand that there are most probably no ooc conspiracies. He'll then move on and play the ig conflict in an ig matter.

- Measured war
A Civ Diplo Game has to balance two factors in war.
1. This is Civ - Warmongering, conquest and domination is a perfectly acceptable and honourable way to play. There is no intention that Diplo games need to be 'builder orientated' (though that is just as acceptable a strategy too).

2. This is Diplo - No civilisation should be crippled with the result that the game stops being fun for the player involved. This means that there is a balance to be struck. War is costly for the aggressor, building up forces while other nations race ahead, so the victor should be able to make real gains from the war. But if they gain too much, the loser may be crippled. Its impossible to make a hard and fast rule out of this, because that can just be exploited (e.g. a loser refusing to make a reasonable peace because 'the rule' will then kick in and save them). But as a guide, a 25% loss is an appropriate threshhold (loss being an overall measure, not just a city count - losing 3 tiny fringe cities may be much less of a loss than 1 major city). More than this may well be crippling the loser. But a loss/gain up to this probably is appropriate benefit for the victor. Again this can't be a rule - taking a small bite out of a neighbour every ten turns will cripple them, but having won a war against a neighour a millenium ago doesn't mean you can't fight with them again.

This concept of measured war is enforced in rule 7.

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Rules and game settings


Game settings:
- Map made by preferably a not-involved player. Type: 3 big continents with each 1/3rd of the civs. All continents are located close to each other, preferably multiple points where galleys and later ships can cross the sea to the other continent to make sure that civs on these 3 continents will be able to interact from early on. Apart from these 3 big continents some smaller empty continents / islands will be spread across the globe for later discovery.
- Players: 12-18 (as many as possible, not more then 18, unless we can use a mod to accomplish this)
- Normal Barbarians
- Huts
- Random Events
- 21h turn timer (effectively 24h)
- The first 100 turns of the game will be played with an 8h timer
- The first turn will last for 72 hours
- Choose religions

Game rules:
01. Anonymous play (all players will receive an anonymous apolyton account, like "Greece (DoC)" which they will use for diplomacy (post and PM) and story telling (posts). The players behind the civs won't (immediately) be revealed. When players login to the game they must write down an anonymous name to keep their true identity hidden.

02. Civilizations that are at war or want to declare war have observe the turn order which is set the turn before the war starts.
Thus: no double moves during wartime or when declaring war. Players are free to agree on a new turn order if all involved parties agree and this new turn order is published in the organization thread and all involved parties publish their agreement there as well Every player gets at most 24h to make his war moves. The host will pause the game if the turn is about to advance in 1 hour, without the last player involved in the war having had a chance to play his turn. When 24h have past the player just missed his turn. If the 2nd player in the turn order misses his turn he's first in the turn order from that moment on.

03. The host will give his cellphone number to all players so that everybody can send him a text message when problems arise and no internet connection is available.

04. Subs will always put '(sub)' behind their name when they login to the game. (ie. 'Emperor Augustus (sub)') tmp subbing for allies is allowed. Tmp subbing for civs that lost their player completely till a perm sub has been found is only allowed for civs that are not closely involved with the civ they wil sub for. (no neighbours, no enemies, no allies).

05. If a civ won't be played for 10 turns in a row or 20 out of 25 turns, a a perm sub will be looked for. Civs like this won't be annihilated.

06. It is not allowed to make public accusations against another player. If problems are suspected the gamehost will be contacted in private and the problem will be explained. (If the gamehost is the suspected trouble maker player heighest on the diplo-vote scorechart that's not involved will be contacted).
The host will then pause the game and explain in public there's a problem. He'll tell the other player in pivate about which he's been accused. Both involved parties will then send a list of players to the host (in private) that are acceptable to them to judge in this case. The host will then pick the best 3 players (according to the diplo-vote chart) and ask them to judge. (The host will never judge himself). If any of the involved parties thinks one of the judges is not a suitable judge for the conflict he'll pm the host who'll assign the next best player as a judge.
Both involved players will then send a brief explanation about their own position. The host will then send this to the 3 judges. The judges will all make a personal judgement and inform the host. The host will then disclose the result of the judgement. All players will accept the final verdict and the game moves on.

Example:
Diplo Score Chart:
1. France
2. China
3. India
4. Netherlands
5. America
6. Japan
7. Korea
8. Germany
9. Canada

* China has a problem with America
* China pm's the host and explains the problem
* the host contacts America, pauses the game and explains the situation briefly
* the hosts informs both parties about the 3 judges in pm. (France, India, Netherlands)
* china pm's the host that France is not suitale b/c it's an allie of America
* The 3 judges are: India, Netherlands, Japan
* The host posts who the judges are
* America and China write a brief explanation of their case to the host by pm
* the host will send these explanations to the judges by pm (the argument will never be made public)
* the judges will make their verdict and inform the host by pm
* the host will publish the verdicts. Majority wins. In this case: America
* China accepts this verdict, perhaps after needing some Cold Turkey Time.
* The game moves on, even when everyone knows that every verdict is imperfect. After all it's only a game.

Public Accusations will always be deleted by the host from the forums.
If not 3 acceptable judges can be found outside (not in the game involved) judges will be asked by the host.

07. When rules are being broken the game will be reloaded. The host can reload immediately when a breaking of a rule is obvious. If it's not obvious to everyone the game will be paused (again) and rule 6 will be effectuated.

8a. Trading away a tech costs 1 voucher. All players get 8 vouchers. Vouchers cannot be traded away. (this means that civs can give away 8 techs or trade 8 techs for 8 techs)
8b. When 4 civs have advanced to the next age (ancient, classical, medieval, renecance, industrial, modern) all techs of the age before the past age can be traded freely in a 1 tech for 1 tech trade without the need to spend vouchers. (If 4 players are in the medieval age, all techs of the ancient age can be traded freely, etc.)
8c. All tech trades must be reported in the Tech/Units trade thread. For '8a trades', only the 'giver(s)' must be reported. For '8b trades' the explicit deal must be reported. For '8b trades' the 4 civs that are supposed to have advanced into the next age must be listed along with the trade report.

9. City trades are allowed. Receiving a city back that you traded away in the past 50 turns is NOT allowed, unless requested in the org thread and nobody objects for ooc reasons within 48h.

10. When 51% of the players for ooc-reasons think that a war should end then it must end. This to avoid that civs will be cripled too much by a war. The terms of the end of war are in such a case: immediate peace for 50 turns. It is advised for both parties to agree on the best possible terms for peace before this happens.
Such an end of war must be organized in the org thread. (ie. players must announce their opinion regarding the end of a war in the org thread).

Reasons for such an end-of-war vote are only OOC! Not IG (like: my allie is losing this important city)
(check dictionary of terms for the meaning of 'measured war')

11. It is not allowed to reveal anybodies anonymous identity or to speak about these identities in private or public. During the game people may get more and more clues, but still keep their mouth shut.
Punishment for breaking this rule: losing 25% of the Fair Play Rating (for the entire game) per violation. (reason for punishment: no way to undo such a violation, unless someone finds a way to purge the info from our brains)

12. The player who achieves the In game victory player gains #1 position game-score position, no matter how much game-score he really has. (ie. Belgium 2290, Austria 2108, Canada 2085, Mexico 1984 VICTORY, New Zealand 1849; score: Mexico 5, Belgium 4, Austria 3, Canada 2, New Zealand 1)

13. No permanent vassalage (capitulation). The vassal must obey the terms made in a vassalage deal unless it's been freed (by a 3rd nation or by the master, or if the master doesn't live up to the terms). This rule is in place to find a way to get long lasting vassals then 10 turns only without being forced to remain a vassal by game mechanics.[/b]

14. When the game has started rules can only be changed if 66% of the players agree.

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List of players: (alphabetical)
- bamf226
- Black Knight
- BranksDilly
- Hendriks de Infiedielen Dooder
- Heraclitus
- Jeroen
- mzprox
- Pinchak
- Rasputin
- Rempedaalops
- Robert
- St Jon
- The Priest
- Toni
- WarningU2

List of Civilizations / Leaders (alphabetical)

- Arabs			Saladin 
- Byzantine		Justinian I 
- Dutch 		Willem van Oranje 
- Egypt 		Ramesses II 
- England 		Elizabeth 
- Greece 		Pericles 
- Inca 			Huayna Capac 
- India 		Mahatma Ghandi 
- Korea 		Wang Kon 
- Mali 			Mansa Musa 
- Native America	Sitting Bull 
- Ottoman 		Mehmed II 
- Persia 		Darius I 
- Rome 			Augustus 
- Russia 		Catherine

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[Robert]

2nd post of the start-post.
Notice: I've changed "fair play" into "game attitude". If this is not a good idea, please comment and/or give better alternatives

Diplo Score Mechanism

After every month all players are invited to rate the diplomatic, story telling/role playing and game attitude of all other players.
Using a special web application a ratin of 1-7 will be given to every player regarding every category.
1 = very bad
2 = bad
3 = poor
4 = neutral (= default if no educated rating can be made)
5 = ok
6 = good
7 = excellent

These ratings will be added to each other per month and per player. Till will result when the game is over in a final

rating. Based on this final rating a score list will be created per category.
The #1 on that score list will receive X points. (X = the number of civs in the game). The #2 will receive X-1, etc.
The scores of these 3 categories will be added together.

At the beginning of each first turn of the month the in-game score will be noted.
Every month the player with the best game-score will receive X points, etc.
These points will be added together at the end of the game and a new list will be made based on this list.
The #1 on that list will receive X points, etc.

EXAMPLE:
America, Russia, Korea and China are in this game

China votes: (story telling)
		May	June	July	August
America: 	4	5	7	3	avg: 4,75
Korea:		2	3	7	4	avg: 4
Russia:		4	4	2	2	avg: 3

America votes: (story telling)
China		5	5	6	7	avg: 5,75
Korea:		2	3	4	4	avg: 3,25
Russia:		3	3	4	2	avg: 4

Russia votes: (story telling)
America:	4	4	3	3	avg: 3,5
Korea:		2	3	4	4	avg: 3,25
China:	 	4	5	7	3	avg: 4,75

Korea votes: (story telling)
China		5	5	6	7	avg: 5,75
America:	2	3	4	4	avg: 3,25
Russia:		3	3	4	2	avg: 4

Final score:
America: 4,75 + 3,5 + 3,25 = 11,50 points
Korea: 4 + 3,25 + 3,25 = 10,50 points
Russia: 3 + 4 + 4 = 11 points
China: 5,75 + 4,75 + 5,75 = 16,25 points

Scorelist Story Telling:
1. China (16,25 points)		4 story telling score
2. America (11,50 points)	3 story telling score
3. Russia (11 points)		2 story telling score
4. Korea (10,50 points)		1 story telling score


Likewise the Diplomacy and Game attitude categories.
This results ie. in:


Scorelist Diplomacy:
1. Russia (15,50 points)	4 story telling score
2. America (13,50 points)	3 story telling score
2. Korea (13,50 points)		3 story telling score
4. China (11,00 points)		1 story telling score


Scorelist Game attitude:
1. America (14,00 points)	4 story telling score
2. China (12,25 points)		3 story telling score
3. Korea (10,50 points)		2 story telling score
4. Russia (8 points)		1 story telling score


The in-game score:
		May	June	July	August		Total	In Game Score
America		395 (4)	512 (2)	719 (3)	849 (2)		11	3
Russia 		280 (1)	530 (3)	700 (2)	958 (3)		9	2
Korea		360 (3)	760 (4)	915 (4)	1295 (4)	15	4
China		350 (2)	318 (1)	420 (1)	590 (1)		5	1


Then all scores are added together:
civ		Story telling	diplomacy	Game attitude	in game		Total
China		4		1		3		1		9
America		3		3		4		3		13	<-- Diplo Score Winner
Rusia		2		4		1		2		9
Korea		1		3		2		4		10

Every civ casts his ratings in the first week of the month.
If a civ fails to cast his votes 4 points per category will be substracted.

Players will rate OOC! Not based on IG situations!
Thus the player of China may be at war with the player of Russia but still gives him a 7 rating b/c of the way his enemy plays this war! Players rate based on reasons, not on score positions. (no political rating).

The ratings will remain anonymous till the game is over.
It's up to the players to showcase their achievements to gain good ratings.

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[Toni]

Game starts sometime tomorrow. (The 18th)

[Black Knight 427]

Dose anyone know where I can get pics resized so not to take up too much room when I post?

[OzzyKP]

A. Use a program like Photoshop or Gimp (free) to resize the pictures on your computer before uploading them.

B. If you are linking to pictures that are already online, don't use the [ URL] code, use HTML, because you can set the size of the picture right in the tag.

For example:
< img src="http://www.yourpicture.com/picture.jpg" width="600">

(though take out the space between the first bracket and "img")

[Robert]

Ozzy: please pm me when you're ready tomorrow! (or mail me)

[OzzyKP]

Ok, my meeting tomorrow got canceled, so I'll be more available than expected. I'll PM you when I wake up.

[Rasputin]

A reminder:

START Date is August 18th!!

unable to paly 18th ..

will post when i available.

i trust someoneto play my turns till then

[Black Knight 427]

[Rasputin]

some things jsut rush through.

if the 18th is starrtd date you need to find someone to play my civ...

if it can be delayed ( iknow you lot wil lnever aloow a delay) then it even better.

[Toni]

Raz the start date has been known for weeks now, seems you are the only one who hasn't been reading the forums etc.

Also you missed the fact that the 1st turn will be 3 days, to allow all players to take their turns.

Please do be fair with us and let us know if you are serious about this game - missing from turn 1 speaks ill about your reliability.

[Rasputin]

Raz the start date has been known for weeks now, seems you are the only one who hasn't been reading the forums etc.

Also you missed the fact that the 1st turn will be 3 days, to allow all players to take their turns.

Please do be fair with us and let us know if you are serious about this game - missing from turn 1 speaks ill about your reliability.

toni you really should ask Robert to send you the copy of the PM i sent to him when he asked me to play. I responded that my computer wss in for service and i would be unable to play till it fixed, There has been no change in that situation so i havent felt the need to check for a start date as i had informed the organsier of my inabilty to play at present.

You make some accusations here assessing my seriousness to play without knowing i had made it clear already.

as the first turns are usually jsut build a city and start contstucting something that truly is not much to worry about and anyone can play those turns. Reality is most people usualy make similar starts depending on where their first city is and techs they have eg make a worker, a work boat etc..

I will play when my computer is back , if that is inadeqaute for you then fine i will withdraw and you can find a permanent sub. I will be here for the long term barring anyworld changing events