New Horizons - New Diplogame Set-Up Thread

[LzPrst]

sounds fair.

[OzzyKP]

Ok, so it looks like DoC is over! So that means we need to get started! I'm going to do another crop of the map, as indicated above, and use Germany & Austria as Lz suggests. I'm going to keep Germany in their original starting spot and move Austria a little east (to where Hungary should start).

At least that way we don't have to fumble with a mod.

[St Jon]

Why not just make life hard for Russia with terrain. If you don't like Russia then Turkey is also hugely over-powered.

[OzzyKP]

I don't think it is such a slam dunk for Austria.

Check this out:
Hungary was a dominant power from 1000-1500 and Austria was from 1600-1900.

But if we go with Austria, what do people think of the more extreme cropping of the map? I think that would balance everyone well, but with the current dimensions of the map Austria is too far west and will cramp Italy more than Russia or the Ottomans.

[LzPrst]

Hungary was incorporated into Austria, but in 1867 they agreed to have separate governments, but a common King. Therefore they were in effect 2 nations who shared the same head of state. The main player here was always Austria. Which is why I am against Hungary as a nation. Then we could put in Dutch instead of France, Lithuanian instead of Russian, Greek instead of Russian and Luxembourg instead of Germany.

Either we are dealing with the great powers, or we can just use any european civs. Austria was a superpower that dominated central europe for nearly a millennia. Hungary was gobbled up by Ottoman and Austrian armies. The natural choice is Austria. I'm scandinavian and I'm not making claims that Sweden or Denmark-Norway gets included. Let's be rational here.

Austria-Hungary was a single state not two independent countries.

[deity]

I agree on waiting for DoC to finish is good before starting this but I hope Cyber is still doing another full traditional diplo game soon after DoC ends?

[St Jon]

Austria-Hungary was a single state not two independent countries.

Tech-Buddy is just where you agree only to trade with one other player. You co-ordinate research and can get a real head start. Does not matter if trades are banned.

Esp-Buddies are when A goes 100% on B, B goes 100% on C and C goes 100% on A. Very cheap spying and a way to get round no tech trades. When I was told about it I ran a test and it does work. It is very dodgy ethically but will it be banned? It was, I think rightfully, in DoC but I'm really only seeking clarification. We do have to have rules set prior to start time or we will just get later arguments.

[OzzyKP]

Ok, so I shrunk the map as we had planned.



I put lines on it again as another possible, more severe, shrinking. Almost totally cutting out Africa & the mideast. It does seem that the Ottomans would have quite a lot of mideast land to expand to if we don't. But it might be too severe a cut, so I'm just throwing it out there.

If we did that though I think having Germany at their original position, adding Hungary and bumping Russia west (to the box) would be a good balance. Otherwise, I think moving Germany east (box) and having Hungary would still leave a large amount of land to the east, and Austro-Hungary would be fairly cramped. Ukraine, while not as important as Austro-Hungary would be in a better spot.

Though if we went with Hungary, I'd definitely want to use a mod, since there is an awesome Hungary mod out there. Plus Mxproz and I are both Hungarian.

[LzPrst]

Austro-Hungary (or just one of them) can be made without a mod. By unrestricting leaders and agreeing upon a limitation of choices for that civ should work fine. other civs must choose their standard leaders.

ideas for this would be (renaming is required):
Charlemagne or Justinian in charge of HRE = Austria
Charlemagne or Justinian in charge of Carthage/Spain = Hungary

This represents the imperial ambitions of those nations as well as their unique specialties. Austria had formidable soldiers, was often on the defensive and had good administration, furthermore their leaders were often devout catholics.
Hungary had for some time exceptional cavalry.

I am opposed to a Ukraine civ, no offense, but they were never a major player outside their own local area, barely even there, in that situation, the nordic countries were far more important.

If we want Europe as in medieval onwards, Austro-Hungary is the civ we're looking for.

[LzPrst]

I think we should try the noscore mod. there are things with it I like, but somethings I'm not fully happy about. however, by trying it out we will gather data which will form a basis for further study to evaluate its usefulness in later diplogames.

the 100% tech bleed that the mod gives will balance things out a little techwise. with that in mind I am tempted to say no tech trades.

what does Tech bud, Tech esp mean???

also, we need to flesh out the details regarding regime changes. we need to have an extra player who can be "interim" governments. we need anonymous play accounts.

as for agreements and pacts. I say that any deal or treaty that is not published on the forum is no more trustworthy or binding than loose talk. all major deals should be publicly made known in order for them to be considered official.

as for other rules? use the DoC ones?

[OzzyKP]

Yea I think it is a good idea to wait for the end of DoC. I thought we were going to go with the same tech trading rules from DoC. What are tech buddies? As far as I know at least there weren't any attempts to be "espionage buddies" in previous games, I assume/hope people have more integrity than to try to get around the rules like that.

While I think the DoC tech rules were good, I wouldn't be opposed to banning tech trading altogether either.

As for mod or normal game... I guess that depends on what we do about the 8th civ. Lz's idea to move Germany east and use HRE for Austria would work with standard BTS. If, however, we wanted to add Ukraine (or Hungary or something) that would require a mod, and I'm sure there are easily added mods out there for it. If we used a mod I'd love to use Italy instead of Rome. Rome is a bit out of place in this game.

[St Jon]

Are we now playing any Mod or just straight on a custom Europe Map?

Whatsoever, have any rules been set on Tech Trades, Tech Buddies or Espionage Buddies?

These are important as even in succession you are only looking after the Civ you are running so such agreements will serve extremely well even if you inherit them. Tech Trades can only be banned or free in such a game as this. Tech Bud or Tech Esp will make a huge difference early on and to abandon an inherited one would be a very tough decision. Are they to be allowed?

Personal interest. Can the start here be delayed until the end of DoC? 3 pitboss games plus a pbem and smac game will be very hard work for me. If DotD required stories I would not have even considered both of these regardless. It sounds weak but real life hits home and I will end up being very late on the pbem's, which is unfair on the other players, and they are well advanced. I doubt DoC will take more than 10-12 days to finish now and there are still the questions I raised above to be answered.

[LzPrst]

no problem that there is no north, with a few short exceptions the scandinavian nations were never powers to be reckoned with (exceptions: viking era 800-1000 and swedish power status from 1600-1815). perhaps a mini civ owning copenhagen and south sweden would be in order?
but I still say we move Germany east to Prussia. it wil balance things with Russia and give more room to France.

then another civ (Austria-HRE) in central europe will be possible and it will compete with the Ottomans and Italians.

[OzzyKP]

Yea, no Vikings. I cut off most of Scandinavia too. Sorry. Btw, one of my interns this semester is from Norway.

[LzPrst]

Ok, I worked on the map a bit, but I'm not 100% finished yet. I shrunk it, so I cut off tiles from the east, south, and north to make it as compact and playable as possible. Now I just need to add in our mystery civ (I'm leaning toward Ukraine) and do some more tweaking and we'll be good to go.

I think we should move Germany east, rename them Prussia and add in Austria (symbolized by HRE)


Do I understand that there are no vikings?