Imperialism 1870 v2.0 PBEM

[PinkyGen]

No spies. Level, I don't really care.

[JamesJKirk]

I'm worried about the AI changing all our stuff and everything during other peoples turns, but if we can be assured it won't be much of a problem, I'm all for King.

so what can the spies do in the game, I haven't got one yet. Is bribe city the only thing they can't do?

[Darius871]

AFAICS, they can only bribe/sabotage units, and can't do anything to a city, not even peek into it.

As for difficulty, the problem with King isn't the AI changing production or moving units. The problem is that other human civs' units (which are technically controlled by the AI when playing a PBEM turn) are stronger on defense than in Prince, at least according to the PBEM guide.

[germanos]

Difficulty level

The votes so far:

Russia: ?
Japan: King
France: abstained
Germany: leaning towards King
US: leaning towards Prince
UK: not voted yet.

[conmcb25]

Russia is the default recommneded , whatever that is I dont have time to look it up right now.

[germanos]

Latest updated votes:

Russia: default/recommended (=General (King) Level)
Japan: King
France: abstained (doesn't care)
Germany: King
US: leaning to Prince
UK: Prince.

So, mayority vote has it still as King.

Fire it up, conmcb25

[academia]

prince


The higher the level, the better the AI.
Remember that the tech rate was increased... it will take us too much time to build "better" units in order to show our superiority in the battlefield and capture the spanish/rebels AI territories...
No complaints in singlelplayer... but in a multiplayer... i´m not sure.

[JamesJKirk]

Originally posted by academia
The higher the level, the better the AI.
Remember that the tech rate was increased... it will take us too much time to build "better" units in order to show our superiority in the battlefield and capture the spanish/rebels AI territories...
No complaints in singlelplayer... but in a multiplayer... i´m not sure.

This actually sounds like a pretty good reason to have it at King in multiplayer. We all have too easy of a time taking out the Spanish and the Orientals, which is something exile was going for with the new version.

Now let's get this thing going

[academia]

This actually sounds like a pretty good reason to have it at King in multiplayer. We all have too easy of a time taking out the Spanish and the Orientals, which is something exile was going for with the new version.

Ok. it seems we have different points of view...

If the majority says king, i´ll have to accept it

[Darius871]

Btw guys, the new tech paradigm will have almost no effect on research speed. In this scenario, the vast majority of your beakers are earned by trade routes rather than conventional research, and IIRC the paradigm doesn't affect reserach bonuses from trade routes. We'll still have the same ridiculous progress here as in the other games.

The only way to prevent this would be to ban tech trading, since an alliance fully cooperating on research triples the progress the allied states would have had seperately. I don't know if the game would be as fun if we couldn't trade techs however; for instance Russia and Japan would be struggling to discover rifled artillery while their closest allies are building zeppelins and battleships.

[JamesJKirk]

One of the suggestions in the scenario thread was to replace the Freight unit with the Caravan unit, and I'm not really sure why Exile didn't do that, since it's not like the Spanish would get a huge bonus from getting the same bonuses as the other powers.

I think you're right, but an outright ban of tech trading might be a little extreme

[conmcb25]

Three Kings to two princes

I guess King it is!

On a side note we should decide on the tech trading pretty quick.

Ill defer to the guys more experienced in this scenario to decide that. I just need to know one way or the other.

[conmcb25]

Not much to report on the first turn.

Beginning to establish trade.

Considering a Siberian RR

[germanos]

For ALL:

Please refrain from using the F11 (diplomacy) screen. It has been known to mess up with peoples production!

On the tech issue:
I really don't know what to do to stop lightning speed research . I have no idea what the increased tech paradigm does to research cost, but I guess that sufficient Mfg.Goods shipped overseas will still allow for a fast research-rate.

I had hoped the cost of Mfg.Goods would have been increased, but it has not.

Disallowing tech-trade might make for a more interesting game, but I fear it will not make too big a difference. As Darius has pointed out, nations who are significantly behind tech-wise, will have little to no possibility to catch up. Playing as Japan here, I'm not too keen on disallowing tech-trade. On the other hand: as Japan is not too far behind, I just might do things on my own, and abide my time. Obviously though, even with trade, Japan will fall further behind in the immediate future. But tech-trade or not, Japan faces an interesting struggle in any case.

The increased cost for units and improvements though might lead to the awkward situation that nations might have the tech for certain units, but hardly the recources to build it, which could well lead to a completely different game then in the old version. In this respect, I'm looking forward to the game.

In any case it seems obvious that, as most of us have experience with the old version, nations will have to develop strategies to stop extremely fast tech-aquirement (is that a word?) by their adversaries, while allowing for their own .
I'm really curious how the new version will work out, and if the new tech paradigm will cause skyrocketing research-costs for each succesive tech, but I'm not sure if this will be the case. We'll have to find out .

Conclusion:

Being the small Japanese here, I will abstain from a vote on the disallowance of techtrading: whatever the turnout will be, this early in the game it will only have moderate effect on the course Japan will take. Faced with the HUGE other civs, and an even greater Triple Alliance, Japan will watch events from a distance (hopefully )

[JamesJKirk]

What if we just banned trading techs that give military units or something like that? Or we could make special exceptions for Russia and Japan perhaps?