Anyone for PBEM?

[kengel]

PBEM Mail #8

Hi all!

Well, that didn't last long for the next Mail letter...

1. Welcome Eddy!
I am happy to introduce Eddy to you, who will take over the civ from Makeo. I emailed him all the last letters, and wish him much fun with the game!

Macuser: From now on post to zeebo & Eddy,
Zeebo: From now on post to Eddy & me
Eddy: you post to me and to superstar


2. Since summertime is over now in most countries, here is the actual posting time list (the dayly time, to which you should have post latest your move to the next)

Skryke: 22.00 EST = 03.00 GMT
MacUser: 01.00 EST = 06.00 GMT
Zeebo: 05.00 EST = 10.00 GMT
Eddy: 09.00 EST = 14.00 GMT
Kengel: 13.00 EST = 18.00 GMT
Superstar: 17.00 EST = 22.00 GMT
Monkey: 19.00 EST = 00.00 GMT

And now, good luck to all!

------------------
greets from the Warrior of sky



<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by kengel (edited November 22, 1999).]</font>

[kengel]

PBEM Mail #9

Hi all,

first I wish you all a happy new year and a lot of fun for the ongoing PBEM game!

After the xmas- stress and holyday is over, I hope the game will speed up again a little bit

Two topics this time:

- First, since the moving time for one player changed, there is a new timescheduling for the posting time (= the latest time to which you should have done and posted on your move). I appeal to you all not to exceed this time, it really can help to speed up game!
"EST" means Eastern time (the timezone Apolyton uses)
"GMT" = Greenwich mean time

Skryke: 22.00 EST = 03.00 GMT
MacUser: 01.00 EST = 06.00 GMT
Zeebo: 13.00 EST = 18.00 GMT
Eddy: 15.00 EST = 20.00 GMT
Kengel: 16.00 EST = 21.00 GMT
Superstar: 17.00 EST = 22.00 GMT
Monkey: 19.00 EST = 00.00 GMT

To be sure that I calculated the right moving times for you all, I will send you a further email which you can reply if you see I did any errors.

- The second thing:
Eddy came up with a nice idea: How about sending every PBEM player a message when you did a turn? I would suggest an empty email just with one subject line like "PBEM turn sent to XYZ". So every player knows where the turn is now, it doesn't waste much online time and the other players can estimate if their move will arrive today or not. Thats just a suggestion; I will do it from now on. Please reply me what you think about it, or just do it

Wish you a lot of fun with the game!

------------------
greets from the Warrior of sky

[Monkey]

Just thought I would push up this old thread up again. can we use this thread for diplomacy? I don't know too much about the inner details of a civ2 internet game so I'm not quite sure how diplomacy would be conducted.

But if anyone in this game is still reading this, I invite you all to join the Mongols on their world wide domination program!!!!

The Great MonkeyKhan will be coming!!!!!

[kengel]

Hehe... Rumors have it, that real mongols don't know the word "diplomacy"...

Seriously, Monkey is completely right, we should discuss out the diplomatic thing here! Although I think, since this is a PBEM game, some of our players won't have the (online) time to go through the forum. Anyway.

Here is a question MacUser asked per email:
Q: "How should we handle diplomacy? In fear of being attacked by a civ that I am currently at peace, I could send an emissary and let the AI withdraw the attacking troops. But in a real MP game that would require at least a conversation with numerous possible outcomes. What to do... I saved my turn both with and without foreign advisor move. Give me a consensus on what I should/could do before I forward the move."

my suggestion: "My suggestion would be NOT to use the AI diplomatic contact window, cause the other player has no chance to influence the AI acting in any way. If you want the other player to withdraw his troops, tell him so . If the other player is serious about the peace treaty, he will react
adequately.
To my knowledge, AI won't take over the other player to any time, so you needn't be afraid of changes done by AI in the official relationship without the willing of the other player.
There are possibilities to get a human vs human diplomatic contact, although it is a little bit difficult. I see two possibilities:
- The best one is you simply make an internet date with the other player and you do the diplomacy as usual in a MP game. Of course I know this is sometimes difficult to manage.
- The other way is, you find someone who will sub the other PBEM player in this game with his authorization to avoid the different-time-zone-problem.
- The last possibility is, you both agree about what diplomatics to do and send the information and the game file to me. I have the possibility to run the game on two PC's, so I can sub both players and do the diplomatics for you. I don't really like it, because that means it is inavoidable that
I get game information from both of you, and I am still one of the PBEM players "

(you may have a look at the PBEM mail #7 four post top of this one here)


------------------
greets from the Warrior of sky

[kengel]

Monkey: There are big differences between AI and human diplomacy.
In human to human diplomacy you principally can give, exchange or demand on any of theese goods: money, tech, units, cities, maps (with or without your city positions), contracts or war declaration to third.
There aren't any limits at all, you can trade (or give or demand on) whatever you want.

Another important thing is you can tune your attitude to every other leader between venerating and fuming (see the foreign minister menu, there is an additionally button you can use when you mark one civ). If you are in peace with someone, just change the attitude to venerating, if you wanna have war with him, change it to fuming. This helps to avoid any trouble when someone else moves, meets your civ and the AI forces him to some diplomatic contact.

------------------
greets from the Warrior of sky

[Monkey]

Hey that's pretty good. As far as I know half the stuff you mention isn't even present in CTP PBEM. Then again CTP did have a dodgy diplomacy model to begin with.

[kengel]

PBEM Mail #10

Dear PBEM players,

a new PBEM bug is found!!!!

When I started my 1500 BC turn, I was little surprised about I didn't build the pyramids which I rushbuilt the turn before. Well, it was not really surprising because Superstar did it just in time before me
But what me really surprised was that I was building Colossus instead !!! I never intended to do so or changed the production to it. So what happened?
After Superstar built his pyramids, the program automatically checks the others (now AI) civs if they are building the pyramid wonder also. If so, the program changes the production type in the city window to another wonder type (if availible) or something other (f.e. a warrior) if no wonder for the civ is possible to build.
So in our example the program detected me building the pyramids in Washington and changed the production to Colossus (and of course most of the other civs wonder production also changed), so when it is my turn I built Colossus. Then the program told me that other civs were changing production, especially poor monkey looses completely his shields because AI turned his shield to a warrior or whatever.

Well, what now? It cost me some headache and a programming night, but: here we are, I am proud to present a new civ2 utility to fix this "bug"!
It is called "cityrest.exe" and is a small MS-DOS executable. It changes the Cityproduction as stored in a saved game back to another production type by manipulating the saved game. More in detail, the information about what is produced in a particular city is stored in a single byte, and if this byte is backchanged the wonders will be produced again when reloading the game.

To restore the production in a particular city, you need two files:

sourcefile : this is an old saved game turn in which your city is already producing whatever you want to be kept producing (i.e. this would be your last saved file)

destinationfile : this would be the new save file you get from your foreplayer, in which your cityproduction was changed for example from "colossus" to "warrior" (the old shields value is still availible)

now you can restore the production type simply by opening a DOS session and typing in
cityrest sourcefile destinationfile cityname

an example:
"cityrest ab_b1550.net ab_b1500.net washington"
restores my pyramids production in "ab_b1500.net" I rushbuilt in "ab_b1550.net" in my city Washington.

You can simply start the program without any parameters to get a short
help how to use it.

Well, that was it; if you have questions or comments just tell me or post it

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greets from the Warrior of sky
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by kengel (edited February 17, 2000).]</font>

[kengel]

PBEM Mail #11

Hi all, I am happy to introduce a new player for Superstars old civ, the greeks.
Welcome, Ian! Have fun at the game

Still, there are two players pausing: Skryke and Zeebo; I hope they are still interested in the game...
Skryke is momentarly subbed by MacUser, and Zeebo is subbed by Eddy.

Here is the updated list for the time you latest should have post your turn (it didn't change, but please please please hold in the times for game speed

Skryke: 22.00 EST = 03.00 GMT
MacUser: 01.00 EST = 06.00 GMT
Zeebo: 13.00 EST = 18.00 GMT
Eddy: 15.00 EST = 20.00 GMT
Kengel: 16.00 EST = 21.00 GMT
Ian: 17.00 EST = 22.00 GMT
Monkey: 19.00 EST = 00.00 GMT

Now, have fun with the game!

------------------
greets from the Warrior of sky

[kengel]

Finally, the vacant civs in our game have new players now, so it is again a REAL seven player game
Although the active player number increased significantly, I hope the game will speed up again after xmas time is over. The new players were choosen in an order which should fit into a timeplan, which theoretically allows one turn per day (well, "theoretically" )

White (Romans): Milo
Green (Babylons): MacUser
Blue (French): Dave
Yellow (Egypts): Eddy
Cyan (Americans): kengel
Orange (Greeks): Ian
Purple (Mongols): SparrowHawk

Preliminary "furloughs" and nearly since a year missed old player of the romans: skryke
Please send your turn to the next two players in order and also a notification message at least to me.

I didn't setup a new time schedule yet, since I would like to have your actualized moving times first (from some I already got them, please just repeat, thanx). Also, there arises some questions about game rules, which I would like to be voted out democratically (per email).

• Up to now City bribing is not allowed; would you like that bribing barbarian cities should be allowed?
• Should unit bribing be allowed or not?
• Should stealing advances be allowed or not?
• Should trading advances be allowed or not?

[kengel]

Here are the results of the game rules voting for our PBEM game:

• City bribing will keep forbidden, also barbarian city bribing is forbidden. ( 4 no, 1 yes, 2 abs.)
• From now on, human unit bribing will be forbidden ( 3 no, 2 yes, 2 abs.). However, barbarian unit bribing is allowed ( 2 no, 3 yes, 2 abs.)
• Stealing technologies is still allowed ( 1 no, 5 yes, 1 abs.)
• Trading technologies is still allowed (1 no, 5 yes, 1 abs.)

However, please keep in mind that every peaceful diplomatic action must be in agreement to the other player. Every aggressive action (fights, stealing, sabotaging etc.) must be reported to the other player. If in agreement to the other player, any possibility of diplomatic contact (AI, online meeting or loading on a second PC) are allowed for tech or map
trading.

Furthermore, there is a new time scheduling: Given are the latest times for when you should have forward your turn to the next player.
EST= (american) Eastern Standard Time, GMT = Greenwich Mean Time

• White (Romans): Milo 5.00 EST = 10.00 GMT
• Green (Babylons): MacUser 7.00 EST = 12.00 GMT
• Blue (French): Dave 14.00 EST = 19.00 GMT
• Yellow (Egypts): Eddy 16.00 EST = 21.00 GMT
• Cyan (Americans): kengel 17.00 EST = 22.00 GMT
• Orange (Greeks): Ian 19.00 EST = 24.00 GMT
• Purple (Mongols): SparrowHawk 24.00 EST = 5.00 GMT

This time scheduling should match at least to your possible times; if not please send me a note.

Have fun at the game
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by kengel (edited January 04, 2001).]</font>

[kengel]

For the log:

Monkey as well as Zeebo left the game for private reasons. Also, there is no message from Skryke for nearly a year now, making it evident to find a new player for him.

Meantime, new players were found; see http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum2/HTML/001942.html for the search.

[kengel]

Howdy,

we, Abraham Lincoln, leader of the now better feeling american folk would like to let you know that we finished a great project the last turn:
Michelangelos Chappel!

However, we noticed another civ was also building this wonder and under AI control it changed to something other (perhaps a warrior?). Since this is an AI artefact, I used (for the second time) the small
little city-production-restauration utility (see also PBEM mail #10 for details) to rescue the other ones shields.

There should be nothing else influenced in the game except for that the one city which was producing michel's chappel now keeps on producing it.
However, if you notice problems just let me know!

Have fun all in the game

------------------
greets from the Warrior of sky

[kengel]

The king is dead, long live the king...

Milo left the game (as well as Civ2 in general it seems? )

However:
it is a great pleasure to introduce a new player to you, who will take over the temperamentful old roman civ. He is known for his wise leadership. He is a master of the sea. Friends highly estimate him. Enemies fear his strategic power. And he is a worshiper of the fine art of brewing good beer and celebrating good fests:

Welcome, Crustacian!

Keep care for the old roman civ

[kengel]

Just an update since Carolus asked for this thread

(oh.... did you noticed we passed the second anniversary of this game? )

first, the game slowed down massively due to a missing Crusty...
Let's hope he is not affected by the terrorism (the last message from him was before Sept. 11th... )
Now, he will be subbed preliminary by MacUser.

Eddy has left the game after moving to the U.S., but will probably come back after a undefined while. He will now be subbed by Carolus Rex.

Besides that, there was found evidence for another AI-Bug...
Everytime when a civilization is attacked and a city is captured, in some cases it happened that AI changes the production in the other cities of the attacked civ.
This effect can be repaired by the "cityrest.exe" tool, but it is a pain to do it for every city...
If this effect happens again, please let me know, I will work for an update-tool to repair this bug.

[Carolus Rex]

It is an honor to be part of this old and venerable PBEM game!

Eddy is moving to the States? I didn't know that... As if it isn't difficult enough to find players within a reasonable time zone...

My first turn was a disaster. A lot of cities revolting and a lot of units on goto command. My guess is that the AI was in charge, but it's ok.

The Egyptians will soon rise to their former glory!

Carolus