Hellas e-mail experiment

[McMonkey]

Anyone interested in a PBEM of Hellas for PBEM virgins? Seems like an excellent five player game and would be a great way for some newbies to get into the PBEM world. I think Eivind would be the first person to try and get on board as he is the PBEM King but I need three inexperienced volunteers.

Nations would be:
Athens (Player)
Sparta (Player)
Corinth (Player)
Thebes (Player)
Chalcis (Player)
Other Greeks (AI)
Persians (AI)
Barbarians (AI Barbarians)

If have modified the graphics and will post the new files on the SL wiki if I can find enough players.

Not trying to muscle in on the PBEM action, just thought it would be fun for some of the Scenario creation people to have a go and not get wiped out by the experienced players. If people enjoy the experience they can go on to the proper PBEMs!

Below is a screenshot of a SP game I played as the Spartans. Shows the modified terrain and units.

[McMonkey]

And an example of the main tribes starting cities.

[Eurisko]

Could you please post the graphics update anyway?

[McMonkey]

Here you go Eurisko:
Alternative Hellas Graphics

If I can find the novice players for this experiment I will post the fully modified version on the SL Wiki.

[EZRhino]

I would be very tempted to join you. I really enjoyed playing pbems on these forums a few years ago. I don't really have enough time these days though

Have you seen Gareth's graphics mod?

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=115432&highlight=hellas

[McMonkey]

I had heard about Gareths mod but couldn't find it. Thanks for the link. I originally updated the graphics a few years ago and just recently improved upon it. Most of the units are Gareths anyway!

Sorry to hear that you don't have the time for the PBEm. I guess the main thing required is time. I am lucky as I work shifts and can either play in the morning or the evening. Those who don't have the time probably have more interesting lives!

[McMonkey]

Just wanted to add an update to this old thread. After posting here I was directed to Civ Webring, the German Civilization site, by Eurisko. We started a game of Hellas and four months later it is going strong. To begin with we were averaging a turn every day (IE all seven players posted). As the game has gone on and the turns have lengthened this has slowed down to an average of a turn every two days or so. The game itself is highly engrossing.

I have also started a game of John Ellis' Bonaparte which is an absolute classic plus my own attempt at a PBEM, Aeterna Civitas which is building up a head of steam.

The reason I have reawakened this thread is to encourage any other Civ fans, who have not played PBEMs before but would like a try, to contact me. There is always room for reliable newcomers who may not have experienced this interesting alternative to the single player game

As a relative newcomer to Apolyton I often trawl through the old threads for interesting tidbits and that is why I have suddenly bumped this one!

[McMonkey]

More specifically, I am trying to start a five player game of "Casus Belli: Magna Bellum Borealis 1700-1721" Scenario v2.5 by Vegard Bjørketun.

Here is a link to the site if anyone is interested: Casus Belli PBEM at Civ Webring

[AGRICOLA]

@Werd100
I'm not partial to playing PBEM's but I do like to watch them and see what develops. IMHO, the Hellas PBEM in progress looks like it's much too one-sided, with Athens having three time as many cities as any other civ.

Casus Belli may be a better bet if you restrict the playable civs to Sweden, Russia, Poland and Denmark. Before you start, you may be interested in what follows.

I'm starting to play CB and have run into an immediate snag . . . . . . unit movements are 2-4 times too slow. I base this blanket assertion on a comparison of CB with techumseh's Frederick the Great. I am comparing CB and FTG because both scens are set in the 1700-1760 period and both use a x2 road multiplier.

The map in CB is 149 x 119, or approximately 9000 squares.
The FTG map is 71 x 55, or ~2000 squares and I know that it plays extremely well and has realistic movement rates.

However, the movement of ground units in CB with its much larger map is 1/4 to 1/2 that of FTG, making it about as fun to play as watching paint dry. Consequently, I'm adopting the FTG movement rates for equivalent CB units in order to bring a bit of life into CB. I know of no quantum leap in unit mobility or road quality between 1700 and 1760 that would account for the present huge disparity in movement.

Naval units are also atrociously slow. The Baltic Sea is not wide, generally less than 150 miles, yet it takes transports 3 months or 3 turns to cross it. The distance from Stockholm to Leningrad is only about 400 miles yet it is 6-month trip for a transport. Couple these numbers with the fact that transports can carry only a single unit and it becomes impossibly slow to get reinforcements from Sweden to the east side of the Baltic.

I'm changing ship movements so that the slow transports need a single turn to do the Stockholm-Leningrad trip and adjusting warship movement accordingly.

[McMonkey]

@Agricola
I take your comments about CB on board. At the moment we are testing its suitability for a PBEM and we could tweak the rules to make it more fun to play. I believe that changing the rules file while the game is in progress works so I will suggest an alteration of the movement points after everyone has completed their first turn (to keep playing field level!).

I am playing as Poland-Saxony and have some very poor Polish units. To stand a chance I plan to start rush building Artillery. One problem is the revenue from trade. As I start with no transport ships I will need to start trading by land. I have experimented (using cheat mode) sending trades to high trade cities like Hamburg and Novgorod and the revenue is only in the region of 40 gold. Do you have any tips on how to make more money per shipment?

Re: Hellas
Dario had been a busy Bea! That is where alliances between human players may redress the balance There is always a lot of underhand diplomacy going on behind the scenes in a PBEM. They tend to play a bit like the board game Risk. If one nation becomes too powerful the others are likely to gang up against them!

If you like watching PBEM's then the most interesting one at the moment is Bonaparte:Bonaparte PBEM

I am playing Russia and have bases in Rostock and Oldenburg. I am allied with Prussia, Sweden, Britain and Austria. Academia is playing the French allied with Spain. So far there has been a savage battle going on in the Netherlands and NE France with no side being able to strike a decisive blow. Prussia have captured Paris (after Academia bugged out!) but the majority of the French army is alive and kicking!

If you have any general advice I would be interested in hearing it, though specifics about French dispositions and intel based on your knowledge of their location would probably constitute cheating on my part

[Case]

I'm not sure whether Hellas works as a PBEM scenario. I was in a game of it a few years ago and the scenario's slow start meant that the PBEM game quickly fizzled out.

[McMonkey]

It definitely works as a PBEM, in fact it is one of the favorites at Civ Webring, this must be the 4th or 5th time it has been played through.

The beauty of it is the speed of the initial turns. To begin with we were all playing our turns almost every day and sometimes once in the morning and once at night. As the turns begin to take longer to play the game itself gets more exciting as players have developed units such as the Hoplite Phalanx.

Currently we are at turn 632 B.C. Sparta (me) has gone to war with the Persians (actually Carthaginians) in Epirus where I have taken Ambracia and Dodona and have negotiated the surrender and withdrawal of the Persians from all Greek lands (not including Italy and the Persian events cities). I also have colonies in Pella, Asia minor and three cities on Lesbos.

So far the Hellenes have been co-operating but with Persia temporarily out of the picture and suitable city sites rapidly running out the chances of the Hellenic cities fighting each other must seem likely.

John Ellis' seemed to have a knack of making scenarios that work well as SP and PBEM, not an easy thing to do! I must mention Gareth's graphics which make the game a pleasure to play!

[AGRICOLA]

HELLAS
I think that Case is right. IMHO, Hellas is actually more like a modified Civ2 vanilla game than a scen. All civs start out with one or, at the most, 2 cities and a few units and techs. Players have to build a civ almost from scratch by capturing non-civ cities and doing reseach. That's pretty close to vanilla Civ2. However, if you folks are having fun, who cares.

CASUS BELLI
Werd, as Poland, you are between a rock and a hard place as far as trade goes. For the continental civs, the only city to trade with is Copenhagen because of the 2 continent bonus. I checked that out when thinking about playing the scen. So start building transports in your port cities.

PBEM's
The most interesting PBEM that I have watched, is the Red Front Democracy Game, back in 2003? . IIRC, participants were in in charge of the various "Fronts", with one individual acting as STAVKA and allocating resources.

This was a very high class game, with political parties, elections and even an occasional newspaper, beautifully written in the bombastic style so favored by the Soviets and with some interesting period photos. Despite some player turnover and RL interference, the game progressed nicely and its course amazingly closely mirrored what actually happened historically.

The greatest realism [and bystander amusement] came towards the end of the game as the overall Soviet front became shorter and individual Fronts were either eliminated, merged or squeezed. Just as with Stalin's marshals, there ensued a pretty fair squabble over who was going to be allowed to capture what German landmark.

Sharp-eyed readers of this thread may have noticed that one of the contributors has the little RFDG shield above his avatar. IMHO, he fully earned it for his contribution to victory in the Great Patriotic War.

[McMonkey]

Re: Hellas
We will have to disagree on this one I really enjoyed it as a single player game but playing against Human Opponents is much more challenging. Remember we are all competing to dominate ancient Greece with Persia waiting on the wings. In the single player game I never really felt threatened, it was just fun to build and conquer!

Re: Casus Belli
Unfortunately Poland-Saxony cannot build transports at the beginning of the game. Trade is therefore barely worthwhile until I can, hopefully, develop or trad that technology. Rush building will be hard and therefore I am in a difficult position. When my forces run out diplomacy may be my only option. A hard fight awaits me

Re: Democracy games
What exactly are democracy games? Does anyone still play them?

[AGRICOLA]

Originally posted by Werd100
What exactly are democracy games? Does anyone still play them?

There is no such thing as a concise explanation of a democracy game. One has to be a part of one to even begin to make sense of the combination of Brownian motion, ultimate chaos and maximum entropy that are involved.

The best that I can do is to provide a link to the EXODUS and RED FRONT DEMOCRACY GAMES at Poly.

http://apolyton.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=148

I recommend that you keep notes as you read the threads. Otherwise you will absolutely no idea of what you have been reading.

Good Luck!