Destiny of Empires [Diplo Game] [Setup Thread]

[The Priest]

And, I ask again, why are we revoting on tiers?

Why will a new vote on tiers override the old vote on tiers?

I think the point is that since the vote what seems to be involved in tiers, and the implications of it, have become clearer, which has raised some concerns for some. The idea of trying to improve balance everyone likes, but as what is involved becomes clearer some aren't so sure it will work or don't like the things which we now see goes with it.

[The Priest]

@Ozzy on Ship Movement (too long to quote)

I am basically with you on this. It would be very desireable if we could get the sort of late age intercontinental movement to allow the British empire.

However there are some difficulties too. Doubling ship movement will make amphibious invasion so much more difficult to protect against. In areas like the mediterrean galleys would be able to travel a comparatively massive distance - yo uonly need someone in Rome with three galleys with troops in them, and everyone with a coastal city in the Med needs to protect against massive seaborne invasion without warning, but with the extra movement it would be very hard to protect at sea. Might make an interesting game, but it would change the dynmanic, making navy much more important early game in places like the Baltic and Meddy.

Some of that is removed by having 1/2 cost oceans instead of double sea movement (as Rhye does), since then it doesn't change the pre-astronomy game. This probably gets the balance right - allowing England-India without making it too hard to defend coasts early on. But even that still changes some of the balance. Worth it if you are into history, but folks would have to watch they don't get caught out by it - enemy transports really will come from teh other side of the ocean in one turn. So, e.g. Indias defence in DoC would have been much harder.

[DNK]

I agree totally with Exploit.

Tiers are one thing, if you genuinely know the ability of all the players, but then castrating the 'lesser' players with dead tiles is quite another.
....
The real advantage the 'big boys' in Europe get is early interaction which means great early stories as opposed to 'I cut down my first forest today'. Give the little guys a chance if you want a tough fight for supremacy.

Yes.

And, I ask again, why are we revoting on tiers?

Why will a new vote on tiers override the old vote on tiers?

I don't have an issue with tiers per se, just tiers as they have been set out. Tier 4 is hugely disadvantaged and isolated. I don't think anyone should start in the Americas unless they specifically ask for it. I would much rather be a four-city "vassal" in Scandinavia or Iceland/Greenland or Malaysia instead of an 9-city middling power out in the boonies, given the nature of this contest.

Then again, I feel heavily creatively hamstrung since we're playing on Earth, and on a map we all will have access to before the first turn. It's hard to roleplay a society that knows nothing of its world when you yourself already know it in and out. It's also hard to create a realistic and unique society different from the historical one that occupied your land, since realistically the two should be fairly similar.

[Robert]

Ozzy said "revote" not "revolt"
It must be the terrible white on black

@Ozzy: that question has already been raised. It is because many people raised concerns.
This is not politics or democracy. This is a group of 18 players wanting to play a game. I'm trying to find ways to get a game up that's acceptable to everyone. Not to mention that this is not a vote but a poll.

Ok, most of you have now voted in this poll. I'll summarize and make a decision.
This decision is going to be a mix of vote results, poll results and current situation regarding civ pickings.

[DNK]

+1 movement for pre-astro units, sea speed doubled or tripled would work well. I agree that water travel is unrealistic in the normal game, but tactical/strategic reasons make it difficult to double everything.

[Robert]

Poll results: (This is NOT, I repeat NOT the outcome of the decision*, which will follow!!!)

1. What kinda games do you like to play?
a. tier-system with multiple civ picking (more choice, map needs tweaking after picking): 
YES	1111	4
NEUTRAL	111111	6
NO	11	2

b. tier-system with only 18 choices (less choice, no map tweaking after picking)
YES	111111	6
NEUTRAL	11111	5
NO	1	1

c. guided civ picking system, 'best' players pick last:
YES	111111	6
NEUTRAL	111	3
NO	111	3

d. free civ picking system (random pick-order, every civ is available from a pre-created list of 18 civs): 
YES	1	1
NEUTRAL	11111	5
NO	111111	6

----------
2. Do you like it to play:
a. With the place cities 2 tiles from each other mod?
YES	11111	5
NEUTRAL	11	2
NO	11111	5

b. With the terrain mods (marsh, tundra tweak, etc.)?
YES	11	2
NEUTRAL	1111	4
NO	111111	6

c. Shipsmod, all ships can sail twice as fast!
YES	1111	4
NEUTRAL	1	1
NO	1111111	7

d. Coastline mod: ships sail twice as fast in oceans only. Not in coastlines/seas!
YES	111	3
NEUTRAL	11111	5
NO	1111	4

e. Just plain good old civ4 without mods:
YES	1111111	7
NEUTRAL	11	2
NO	111	3


Voted in POLL:
St Jon
BranksDilly
DNK
2metraninja
Hercules
Black Knight 427
trev
Exploit
OzzyKP
rempedaalops
The Priest
deity

Not voted in POLL:
Robert (on purpose: abstains)
Toni
Pinchak
WarningU2
amarriner
Dubhghlas

[DNK]

Note I have changed from:
c. Shipsmod, all ships can sail twice as fast! YES
d. Coastline mod: ships sail twice as fast in oceans only. Not in coastlines/seas! NO
To:
c. Shipsmod, all ships can sail twice as fast! NEUTRAL
d. Coastline mod: ships sail twice as fast in oceans only. Not in coastlines/seas! YES

[Robert]

Decision:

A decision must be made.
I ask all to accept this. After this decision some minor tweaking must happen, which will be done by Ozzy (and me). (to Avoid a Californian bankruptcy of the game )

First of all the 'tier system'.
- Fortunately the 'middle option' won the poll here. (tier-system with 18 pre-defined civs). This requires us to redo the civ-picking though, which is not too bad, I think. I have considered for some time to just continue the current (less popular) system for the sake of start the game ASAP, but in the end I think that this 'b' option is the best for all possible reasons.

- The mod thing
None of the possible mods got a clear majority in favour.
Only the 'place cities 2 tiles from each other' mod got as much "no's" as "yes'" votes.
The 'no mod at all' option though got a very clear majority, eventhough 3 of you expressed to prefer a mod.

Taking into account that using a mod complicates the start of the game, while the start of the game is already dragging, and the fact that some people have expressed very strong antipathy against any mod, I think it's best to use no mod at all and just go with plain Civ4:BtS 3.19 (that's the last official patch)

This means that we have to reconsider the civs in Europe. I'll take that up with Ozzy.
For the record: 'no mod' doesn't mean 'no map tweaks'. This result means that Ozzy will finalize the MAP before the civ picking starts. He'll then send it to everybody. (everybody is free to open it, explore it, and also free to ignore it and just start without knowledge. The latter is advised by me. Everybody gets the map anyway for the sake of a level playing field!)

After sending this map to everybody the civ-picking will start.

This decision solves not all problems! It may even generate problems. But this is what it is. We'll have to live with that

Edit/Update: reading DNK's vote change after writing up the decision above changes one thing; the 'coastal/ocean' mod now gets more 'yes' then 'no' votes. (eventhough the majority still can live without it).
This leaves me puzzled.
I honestly agree with Ozzy (and others) that the world is too big for 'normal speed' ships.
Intercontinental wars are already VERY HARD to pull of in these games, and will be IMPOSSIBLE this way.

On the other hand though, if we include this mod that means that we have to load a mod for one tiny change. (For the record: the change would be: ocean tiles require only 50% movement, which factually doubles the speed of all ships in oceans. Sea/coastal territory will just be normal speed, so no surprise attacks are possible with huge speeds. It could be even possible to expand the 'sea' territory by 1 tile.)

Let me think about this, and discuss it with the 'NO' voters in private.

[The Priest]

Thank you Robert for your careful and thoughtful work here. Pluses and minuses from my point of view and I guess from others, but you certainly have my support for proceeding as you suggest.

[DNK]

Definitely, thanks. I've tried setting up much, much smaller games and know how difficult it can be, so thank you for the effort here.

[Exploit]

Increasing ocean speed travel is going to benefit those who research Astronomy first the most (presumably the Tier 1 players) and hurt the Tier 4 players in America the most since they will be invaded that much sooner. We have agreed to try out the tier system, which many players have expressed reservations as giving an advantage to the Tier 1 players while hindering the Tier 4 players, so why are we trying to modify the rules to give the Tier 1 players even more of an advantage and imposing a bigger disadvantage on the tier 4 players.

To make the balance of power even more lopsided, it is Tier 1 players who are deciding who is in which tier. If even one Tier 4 player does not want increased ocean speed then it should not be done since they are the ones most screwed by the tier system and the rule change. The game balancing proposals we are seeing are all designed to maintain a power balance where the upper tier players will have an easier time dominating the lower tier players. The tier system was originally advertised to do the exact opposite and make the game more difficult for the upper tier players and easier for the lower tier players as a means to make a better game for all.

[Black Knight 427]

Any idea of how long it will be till we have to repick our civs and will we be picking in the same order as before or a different one?

[Robert]

I hope 48 hours at most, Black Knight!

@Exploit: I believe that tier1 players are the most handicapped players, but we may have different opinions there.
I'm happy to switch tier with you if you believe that tier1 is better then tier2

[OzzyKP]

@Ozzy on Ship Movement (too long to quote)

I am basically with you on this. It would be very desireable if we could get the sort of late age intercontinental movement to allow the British empire.

However there are some difficulties too. Doubling ship movement will make amphibious invasion so much more difficult to protect against. In areas like the mediterrean galleys would be able to travel a comparatively massive distance - yo uonly need someone in Rome with three galleys with troops in them, and everyone with a coastal city in the Med needs to protect against massive seaborne invasion without warning, but with the extra movement it would be very hard to protect at sea. Might make an interesting game, but it would change the dynmanic, making navy much more important early game in places like the Baltic and Meddy.

Some of that is removed by having 1/2 cost oceans instead of double sea movement (as Rhye does), since then it doesn't change the pre-astronomy game. This probably gets the balance right - allowing England-India without making it too hard to defend coasts early on. But even that still changes some of the balance. Worth it if you are into history, but folks would have to watch they don't get caught out by it - enemy transports really will come from teh other side of the ocean in one turn. So, e.g. Indias defence in DoC would have been much harder.

Once again, you assume bad faith instead of giving me the benefit of the doubt. You act as if there is a switch I am turning on that doubles all ship movement across the board. Perhaps Robert is confusing you with his poll. I never said double movement, nor did I say I'd do it for all ships. It is incredibly easy to adjust some ships and not others. I don't know why you assume I hadn't thought of these things and automatically assume that any change will overlook issues like this.

But I suppose everyone will want a vote over every single ship, with options for how many movement points they should be increased by. If I don't describe every single ship and my plans for them, then I'm being secretive and keeping everyone in the dark for my own benefit. But whatever, it failed the vote (which was incorrectly stated and done when I wasn't even around) so its over. No mods. This whole thing is just very frustrating.

And congrats everyone, now we get to wait even longer before this game starts. Yes, I am sour about this whole process, especially since I still don't think most of the voters really knew what they were voting for.

[Black Knight 427]

Personally I think tier 1 players are really getting the worst end of all of this and it confuses me greatly why some would only like to make it even harder then it is for tier 1 players by going against something that would help all of us.