Us Vs. Them PBEM

[polarnomad]

Originally posted by John-SJ
For our first few priorities, what resources do we have visible from our starting positions, we can start to assemble a tech research queue.

I only have wheat at the moment IIRC, but then Qin starts out with Agriculture (and Mining). Animal Husbandry and Bronze Working would be important ones to grab in order to reveal Horses, and Copper and enable Forest Chop. I had originally thought that I would just go for Meditation right away since I could, without realizing that we could actually research together, then quickly grab Priesthood and use Qin's Wonder building bonus to construct the oracle and grab a free expensive/important tech... but that all seems perhaps a little self-centered now, considering how things work in collaborative play.

It just occured to me that since normally Qin starts with Agriculture and Mining, I shouldn't have been able to research Meditation right off the bat... I guess since Spain has Mysticism to begin with we all do too then!

This is going to be interesting.

@Finarfin: I gather you did not receive a turn from Scowler...

[Finarfin]

Polarnomad,

Correct on both counts:

1) Team players share each others tech
2) I haven't received the turn from Scowler

[Scowler]

Originally posted by Finarfin
2) I haven't received the turn from Scowler

Eh? I sent it to you yesterday morning at george666 (at) comcast (dot) com. Could it have ended up in a spam folder?

[Finarfin]

Crap! I'm such a moron. It's supposed to be comcast.net. I'm sorry. Sometimes I seem to have the IQ of a rock.

[Scowler]

-1: You made me spray tea over my monitor

Save now resent to comcast.net

[Finarfin]

I played the first turn and sent it along. This is going to be fun. I decided to start researching Pottery so that I can get to Writing, as Libraries are important to me!

Does anyone know where in the game you can put your email address and SMTP server for automatic emails?

[John-SJ]

Yes, press Alt-D during your turn.

I am helping Finarfin research pottery as cottages are important to me.

I have corn and fish within my city area, and as American I get both agriculture and fishing to start. Lucky!

[Finarfin]

Well, I'd like a few cottages, too, thank you very much, as I always find myself hurting for money, as I tend to pour as much as I can into research.

Does this size map bog down anybody else's game? Even with 1 GB RAM and 128 MB video RAM this map is choppy and slow to respond. I hope they tweak the performance issues a bit more with another patch.

[John-SJ]

I've been playing my single player games mostly on standard size maps, I guess I'm used to it.

[polarnomad]

Ok, Scowler's up.

Will be interesting to see if we make it to Meditation. IIRC normally Meditation takes about 9 turns to research in a single player game. Here, with 2 people researching it takes 12. I wonder if the AI will all research the same thing, or split up its efforts.

Also, with 2/4 researching 2 different techs we will have the 2 techs in 12 turns at about the same time. If we were to all research the same thing, how fast would we get them? Research with 1 person was 25 turns, with 2 people 12 turns, with 3 people 6 turns? and 4 people 3 turns? If this is the case then we should always research the same tech, because in the the time that it is taking us to research 2 techs by splitting our efforts, we could have 4 techs... but like I said, IF this is the case.

(just pondering)

[Scowler]

Originally posted by polarnomad Will be interesting to see if we make it to Meditation. IIRC normally Meditation takes about 9 turns to research in a single player game. Here, with 2 people researching it takes 12. I wonder if the AI will all research the same thing, or split up its efforts.

In my (limited) experience, pacted AI factions always research the same goal. Recently I was playing a single-player game on Prince in which I managed to form permanent alliances with two of the other factions. It was very noticeable that each time I changed research the AI altered their settings to match mine.

Again, this is just an observation, but I have never known the AI not make a beeline towards Buddhism. So I suspect that if we are splitting our research like this we will lose out. We might be better off if two of us start immediately on Polytheism rather than wasting time on Meditation.

BTW, I've received the save, but won't have a chance to play it until later.

[John-SJ]

Suppose a tech requires 200 beakers to research. If 1 civ with 10 beakers per turn researches it it will take 20 turns to research (200/10 = 20)

If 2 civs do the research it will take 10 turns because 2 civs can contribute 20 beakers per turn (200/20 = 10)

Three civs, 30 beakers, 6.66 turns, or 7 actually with some research left over for the next tech.

Four civs, 40 beakers, 5 turns. So, 4 civs can research a tech in 5 turns, or 4 techs in 20 turns, which is the same rate of research overall as if 4 civs each began their own research, 4 techs in 20 turns.

So, we neither gain or lose by researching together or apart, what we do have is a way of expressing the importance of a given tech. Is the immediate acquisition of a tech essential to our survival? Fine, we can all four research it and have it in a few turns. Are there a couple of priority techs that we should get soon? Okay, maybe we can consider to civs to research each. Are we just filling in the gaps of some older techs that we have ignored and are now really cheap to research? Then we can at least consider having all 4 civs research on their own.

One interesting thing to consider, I doubt the AI will be highly motivated to go after many religions if they all count as founding civ of the first one they get to, but we might want to, and in this game we probably can.

Your thoughts?

[polarnomad]

We lose in situations where we are racing the AI for a religion, or we are engaged in military conflict (and need a particular tech to upgrade units), or we want to build a particular wonder before the AI etc. Otherwise I see your point. I hadn't really thought about it in terms of beakers. Chalk it up to morning grogginess.

EDIT: The difficulty in a team PBEM game seems to be that we really would need to consult one another to understand what is important for all on the team, yet the AI doesn't. Whereas before I thought we would be at an advantage as a team against the AI, I now tend to think the contrary. I guess this will just have to be a learning experience. Oh well...

[John-SJ]

Turn sent to polarnomad.

[polarnomad]

Well, since meditation seems to be a waste and y'all want pottery, I switched to pottery.