PBEM: On the Waterfront

[Claus]

Hi everyone and a good New Year,

I'd like to start a new PBEM with the following settings:

[edited Jan-15]

-- Big map
-- Archipelago, Winding Continents
-- Prince difficulty level
-- All other settings standard
-- 10 civs, including the 5 human players

Player list and turn order:

1. Claus -- Spain
2. -- AI civ
3. Canuck77 -- Mongolia
4. -- AI civ
5. Sabrewolf -- England
6. -- AI civ
7. Corossol -- USA [Washington]
8. -- AI civ
9. Vovan -- Random
10. -- AI civ


Please note:

The average turn speed should be around 5 turns a week. I intend to play very regularly. If you think you can do that, then welcome to the game. But please, please don't join the game if

-- you don't have your own computer (at home or at work)
-- your computer is generally crash happy or your email system is not reliable
-- you are regularly away for the weekend
-- you don't have the newest patch installed and for some reason don't want to
-- you are engaged in one zillion billion other PBEMs and are too unorganized to keep them all running.

Sorry to say that but I think it's in the interest of the other players.


Anyway, thank you for reading this. If you are interested, just put a note down here.

Claus

[sabrewolf]

i'd like to join in in our 4th try

elisabeth's england for me please.
level "noble" (although i think we should all try prince level as there are not many AIs around and they should at least be a little bit more of a challenge)

i fit all your criteria and i hope every other joiner is honest enough and knows that he'll fit too

cheers

[Canuck77]

Okay, I'm in too.

I'll take Ghenghis Khan on Noble as well - I'm up for Prince too (per Sabre's suggestion).

[Claus]

Thanks for the quick response.

Prince level, I don't know ... To be honest, I haven't won on Nobleman level so far. But of course, I will get more practice by the time, so we could give it a shot.

[Canuck77]

I've not won the game on Prince, either - I'm able to play to the end and am typically in the hunt, but I end up losing out (generally Space Race).

The problem with PBeM that has the AI in it is the weaker AI tends to get exploited by human players - so basically, whoever starts up next to the AI ends up winning, since you walk in and whip them into submission (grabbing a couple cities and a couple techs along the way), then turn back to normal play with that much more of a head start.

SMAC was a huge example of this. Even on Transcend, the AI was honestly very easy to pimp.

I'm fine either way, though. Will be my first PBeM for Civ4, and I'm pretty crappy... so I'm pencilling this in as my "learning experience".

[Corossol]

Hi Claus!

Happy New Year! I'd love to join, as Washington of America.

corossol dot civ at gmail dot com

Thanks!

[Claus]

Cool, where almost complete. I'll set up the game tomorrow morning. If there's another applicant, we'll play in five. if not, four is good also.

Canuck, please send me your email to

Claus *dot* Fritzenkoetter *at* t-online *dot* de

[sabrewolf]

regarding the prince thing: what canuck said is exactly what i meant.
the AI is exploitable. the higher its level, the tougher it is to dominate it. generally it is best if the AI part of the PBEM is 1-2 levels higher than your normal playing level where you are only up again AIs.

personally, i'd be willing to try monarch or maybe even one level higher. then of course only if there is plenty space for the humans to live. i guess prince is the best suitable for the average playing standard here.


oh, and claus, thanks for organising this

[vovan]

If you don't mind, I'd like to be the fifth player here. I've only completed one PBEM and one SG so far (and won four or five sp games), so I think noble will suit me fine (though if everyone else wants higher difficulty, I guess I can tolerate it too ).

Vovan
pbem ~=at=~ vovan ~=dot=~ net



EDIT: Also, random nation works for me.

[Claus]

Fine, we're ready to start now.

@Vovan:

Thank you for joining us. Yet, I need to know where you live so I can set up the proper turn order according to time zones.

Btw, I'm impressed that you already have finished a PBEM!


@Everybody:

I will take Prince level, as this seems to be the general wish.

Being 5 the number of human civs, I suggest we add 5 computer factions to a total of 10. This would enable me to put one AI civ between two human players in the turn rotation.

The game normally uses a big map with 9 factions or a giant map with 11 factions, so we are in between.
I would use a giant map which gives us a little bit more space do build up our civilization.

I've summed up all the game details in the first posting in this thread.

As soon as I get Vovan's time zone (and maybe Corossol's and Canuck's, too), I will start the game. Please also write me if you usually do your turns in the morning, during work or in the afternoon.

[sabrewolf]

huge map?

ok, but can you put game speed to quick? otherwise we'll be playing the classical era in 2018

[sabrewolf]

timezones:
- corossol from montreal which is GMT+5
- vovan iirc is in australia/new zealand
- don't know about canuck77...

turn succession is going to be like you showed or a switch between 5 and 7

and last: please not just england. i explicitly request elisabeth!

[Claus]

Regarding the map size:

"Large" maps are set up with 9 nations by default, "Giant" maps with 11 nations. So with 10 nations we are in between that. Maybe I simply fill in a 6th AI civ, so we can start a giant map with the number of civs that is recommended by the game itself. I've found those default values always sensible - it matches very well with the "real" tech development history.

*****

Interesting though to reflect on the importance of civ number for the game speed. I don't think that a larger map necessarily implies longer game play.

More space means more cities.
More cities means more science points.
More science points means quicker tech advance.
Quicker tech advance means shorter game play.

However, one might say that a large number of cities favors a victory via space race, while a stuffed map with few cities makes a military victory easier - simply because there are fewer cities to be conquered.

Then, it's not the map size alone which counts, but the ratio between map size and number of civs. If you have a "normal" map with seven factions it's pretty much the same as playing on a "giant" map with eleven factions. The impression that a giant map makes the game longer has nothing but technical reasons: In the late play there are many units which make the CPU take longer for its calculations. This would affect single or LAN play, but not a PBEM.

[sabrewolf]

claus: your assessment is very accurate except one thing: reasearch is not quicker on huge maps. it is in fact the same. while you are right that more science beakers speed things up, the cost for each is also higher.

two more effects of the huge map which you didn't write:
1) the slower start: costs are higher, but initially you start with the same many cities. this only is equalised when you've got your 5-8 cities or so running.
2) barbarians: in a huge map they will be an issue for a long long time. even on my recent large (highlands) game they were coming in permanently with axemen and swordsmen from the unsettled tundra area. pretty annoying as not even culture 5000 cities would cover all the tundra.

on the snaky continents the latter is less important because there is less area to come from therefore the defences can be concentrated

[Canuck77]

I've sent my email address, as requested... and I'm in the Eastern timezone.

The turns will be all over the map (no pun intended) for me - but 90% of my turns will be during working hours.

Personally, I'm good with a smaller map, even if it means crowding.

EDIT - "Eastern Timezone" = Eastern Standard Time, or EST.