PBEM is at least in right?

[Dauphin]

At the start the first player sets up the game and specifies every player's email address.
First player takes their turn and gets prompted for a password.

I've never played PBEM, but always wondered what the cheat protection method was.

What is to stop someone copying the game file they get in the mail, and replaying it until they get the outcome they want from battles before saving a prefered version that they then send on to the next player?

[Inverse Icarus]

no. no forms of multiplayer. ever. ha ha ha.

[Dauphin]

UberKrux/Jingo, do you happen to know why the "last post" is by UberKrux yet your current handle is Jingo?

[Inverse Icarus]

ming was changing my name for me at the time.

[Provost Harrison]

Damn, not another confusing name change

I have always found PBEM the most feasible form of multiplayer for civ, mainly because I have never had any luck with getting a connection sorted out with other people, and then there is organising mutually compatible times to continue playing the game, and yuck, it can be damn awkward. PBEMs are a bit more casual, although it can take an eternity to play a game. And it is probably the most low-tech of the multiplayer modes, so it should be included without too much of a fuss...

[fanatic civver]

I remember starting a pbem game in smac. It only lasted for about a month and a half because it was way too tedious pressing "end of turn" and then sending the file along to someone else for about 5 rounds until you built something. Everyone got bored and when a guy had to leave the game for a month we all decided to give it away.

To put it bluntly, civ pbem is just plain boring. There are just too many turns in a civ game for pbem to be fun.

I've been playing Diplomacy for four years too so I'm no newcomer to pbem

[Sarxis]

Originally posted by Wexu
But, who on earth would play Civ as PBEM??! That would be kinda sloooooooooooow...

You are kidding right? Go visit the Multiplayer SMAC forums here at Apolyton and see for yourself. I don't mean any offense, but there is quite a lot of us that have been playing pbem SMAC for a while.

And pbem may be boring for you, but there about a 1000 others who don't agree with that. Especially if you enrich the game with real diplomacy (which we do) and you are involved in several pbem game at once. Heck, chess has been played like this for centuries by way of correspondence, and now even the internet.

And to answer the top post: I certainly hope that Firaxis hasn't lost its mind and is not including pbem. The CIV community, and Apolyton, would lose a lot of fans if it wasn't inlcuded. But I know that they will, its just a matter of when.

[SITS]

Originally posted by Big Crunch

At the start the first player sets up the game and specifies every player's email address.
First player takes their turn and gets prompted for a password.

I've never played PBEM, but always wondered what the cheat protection method was.

What is to stop someone copying the game file they get in the mail, and replaying it until they get the outcome they want from battles before saving a prefered version that they then send on to the next player?

In SMAC there is password protection for each player. Also if you load the turn more than once then when the others do their turn it tells them how many times you've reloaded it. Of course it doesn't stop someone using a second computer to scout out but that would require way too much effort for me. It works well and a lot better than I thought it would before I started. Well worth a try.

[Father Beast]

Just a question, how would you deal with the diplomacy/trade screen used in civ3 with PBEM?

I just can't see it

[Sarxis]

In SMAC, every diplomatic transition takes several turns, or at least two for the proposing player. First, a proposition is made by player 1; then the proposee (player 2) makes a counter offer/trade; if player 1 agrees, he accepts the proposal and the agreement follows through immediately; otherwise, the proposal is either not accepted, or modified- in which case the offer exchange goes into another round.

And there is always out-of-game diplomacy through chat and/or email.

[SITS]

Originally posted by Anunikoba
In SMAC, every diplomatic transition takes several turns, or at least two for the proposing player. First, a proposition is made by player 1; then the proposee (player 2) makes a counter offer/trade; if player 1 agrees, he accepts the proposal and the agreement follows through immediately; otherwise, the proposal is either not accepted, or modified- in which case the offer exchange goes into another round.

And there is always out-of-game diplomacy through chat and/or email.

Yeah, you can always email someone, agree on whatever and then put it into the dip screen as accepted and then send it on and when they play the turn all they have to do is accept and then set it to give it what you want. Its not normally a problem.

[faded glory]

umm you guys should visit the SMAC and CTP multiplaying forums and read some of the reads.

Pbem is way better than continuous MP or SP.