Well, Fellas, The Time Has Arrived...

[Krill]

CIV is here, the beta testers can talk about the game. The other teams are choosing their civs.

We need to start organizing oursleves, and getting the game set up. That mean talking about the map type, size, number of civs difficulty etc.

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I am not an organizer at heart, but I will start the discussion. Out of all of the civs that are in the game, Bismark is my favorite, though I know that there are better.

Saladin is not exactly weak, SPI/PHI, can get an early religion, changes civics on the fly, and can get a hell of alot of GP. Camel archer is the UU, and replaces the Kinight, IIRC.

Ghandi is decent as well, IND/SPI, same as Saladin, but is better at producing wonders than GP. Double production on the forge, which gives +25% production, available with metal casting (can be 2nd tech researched, if need be).

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so, please, everyone just speak your mind about what you think we should try to do in this game, with regard to map, civs, and game rules.


and PS. Shared victory had better be off.

[Arrian]

Heh. I think it's early to make any actual decisions, but discussing works for me. I too like Bismark and Ghandi. Saladin is ok (good for SP, not sure about MP).

...

Map... hmm. Some of the scripts created specifically for MP strike me as... boring. Or contrived. Or how about "just not right."

I think continents or terran. It looks like we could have anywhere from 4 to 8 civs in the game, depending on when we start (which I think should be in early '06). It would be nice to have even numbers to balance continents (if 6 teams, 3 2-civ continents or 2 3-civ continents... NO LEGO SITUATION).

And yeah, I'm sure shared victory will be off.

Oh, imagine what we could've done in the Bobian war if we could've actively defended Roleplay's cities!!! :faints:

-Arrian

[asleepathewheel]

What if we could....

nah...

never mind

[Harovan]

My favorite so far would be either Gandhi (for the reasons described) or - even more so - Elizabeth of England. The FIN / PHI combo makes up for an absolute research and cash monster. More cash means faster expansion (you just can afford more expenses), more military etc. And more Great People are always of use, too.

[Arrian]

Hmm. Not a bad idea, SR. The Redcoat is a solid unit, too.

We turned GS into a major cash/research civ in the PTWDG (with Hurricane being the lynchpin)... so that's kinda our MO, eh? Imagine if we're more diplomatically nimble this time!

The only problem I see with Fin/Phi would be that it predisposes us to be fairly weak production-wise. In order to leverage that FIN trait well, one must invest in cottages. That's GREAT for money, but bad for production. Plus no cheapo forges or wonder building boost. I remain of the opinion that, in general, production is better than commerce - even in CivIV.

I am, however, no expert at this game. I'm currently playing (and winning) on Prince. And I've only tried a few of the leaders. I have done well with the FIN trait (China - FIN/IND). Speaking of which - that's a pretty solid civ!!

-Arrian

[DeepO]

I'm not so sure we should need to have favourites... what about having fate decide?

If not random, organized is very powerful if used well. Spiritual matches our style as well: changing civics every 5 turns just to get the most out of your empire.... yummie

I don't have current favourites yet. It also depends on the map. expansionist can be very strong an islands, for instance, while on pangaea it's less useful (still pretty nice)

DeepO

[Theseus]

I still don;t have a good feel yet, with only five experimental games (all SPI) and the first tournament under my belt (as of 10 minutes ago!), so I am up for anything.

Even more so than with Civ3, I'd look to the MP viewpoint in selecting a civ for this. That said, I'm wih DeepO for the moment: random is fine.

[vulture]

The problem with trying to make an informed choice is that we simply don't know enough about what is going to be important in an MP game.

In civ3, by the time the PtWDG came around, we all had a fair idea of how the game played. Here, we are largely flying in the dark obviously, even with some playtesting experience. Making the best possible decision based on the information you have, when you have this little real-world (so to speak) information, is no better than guessing randomly. So we may as well go with what sounds interesting, or go random.

[DeepO]

Just a thought: maybe we should delay this discussion until the new members can join. Or maybe we should open this forum for new members, so we can get this started...

Oh, and let's get rid of those 'members' not belonging here anymore
(No Trip, don't rush off, but if we are going to use this forum for real discussions, we can't have other teams snopping around.)

DeepO

[DeepO]

My biggest fear with random is that it sounds arrogant. "Oh look here, we're so good we'll make this game work with whatever you throw at us."

That's not my idea, I like random because it will require us to adapt extremely, hence giving a more interesting early game. This is not about bragging.

DeepO

[notyoueither]

Actually, we have several peoiple with access to this forum who have either not stated their intent or have declared for other teams.

The time is not quite ripe for totally open discussion.

[vulture]

Since we are now meant to be voting on the map issue, is it time to kick out those who haven't said yes to joining, and get the new members in so we can get to work?

[Arrian]

We need to start organizing in earnest.

I'd like to revise something I said earlier:

The only problem I see with Fin/Phi would be that it predisposes us to be fairly weak production-wise. In order to leverage that FIN trait well, one must invest in cottages. That's GREAT for money, but bad for production. Plus no cheapo forges or wonder building boost. I remain of the opinion that, in general, production is better than commerce - even in CivIV.

I still think production is important, but I left something out of my analysis of the Financial trait: coastal tiles. Financial civs basically have the Colossus for free in that coastal tiles they work are automatically 3 commerce tiles. So you don't necessarily have to cottage spam to get value out of the trait.

-Arrian

[DeepO]

Coastal tiles typically are worked later though, and one of the main attractions of FIN is that starting a cottage on a river already gives you the bonus you want before it grows. Early on, your options of getting the bonus commerce are rather limited.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Oh, and yes, maybe it is time to kick everyone not signed up to the CIV GS game out.

Bye bye guys, thanks for being part of us for the past 3 years, and hope to see you soon in CIV!

DeepO