Tarzan PBEM

[Dominae]

After thinking about it a bit more, I can go with the terrain restrictions plus the OCN tweaks. But please no hard limit on the number of cities! I want to be able to capture cities! A 10-city version of 5CC is not particularly appealing to me.

[ducki]

Especially cities with wonders.
Do wonders get built in PBEMs?
I just thought of another reason to play at Emperor or higher - SGL chances, unless we can disable them without disabling MGLs. Aren't SGL odds at Monarch much better than Emp+?

[Dominae]

AFAIK it's the same odds across difficulty levels.

[Rommel2D]

Wonders do get built in PBEMs, I'd imagine moreso if it will be going until the industrial era.

SGLs can be completely disabled with the latest patch (just like cultural conversions). This weakens scientific tribes- maybe not a big deal if you aren't playing random...

[alexman]

Originally posted by Dominae
I want to be able to capture cities! A 10-city version of 5CC is not particularly appealing to me.

What if we have a rule where captured cities still count against the limit of the founding civilization? So the limit would not be on the number of cities you control, but on the number of cities you have founded that are still existing.

That would make culture a more important part of the game, as you won't be able to raze-and-replace as easily.

[Harovan]

Alexmans idea sounds good to me. I suppose, razing would be not allowed then? I just hate it anyway, it's just too easy to get rid of all that unhappiness and flipping risk. I suppose, if a city is autorazed (size 1, no culture), it's bad luck for the taker, since the victim can refound it then?

Overall, this game should show every nuance the game usually denies to us due to the AI's city founding spree. I'm speaking of colonies, outposts, may be even airfields. Should be exciting.

[Harovan]

Another idea: What about making forest unchoppable (and unplantable) and make it a tile with a terrific output by adding another food? I've seen that in the "Middle ages" conquest, and I liked the idea to maintain a not too industrialized look of the map.

And one more: Since the game is balanced between improvements and units and this game for sure will be unit heavy, what about slowing down science a bit by increasing the tech rate (+25%) and the minimal research time from 4 to 5, to get a bit more time to build units?

[ducki]

On the captured cities counting against the founder....

I've got my 10 cities, and Dom has 10.
I get lucky and capture 5 because I have a great UU.
Dom is now stuck with a 5CC until capturing cities elsewhere and I have 5 more cities than anyone else.

I've got a 50%(work with me, El Corruptino) production and tax advantage because I plan my MGL-assisted new Palace in the middle of those 5 and leave an FP back home.

Unless a "good" alliance forms that can truly outnumber and outflank me, I win. All I have to do is use my population and production and income advantage to maintain more and better troops than anyone else.

Maybe I take just 2 cities but from 3 or 4 people.

Is this an unbalance arising from this limitation, or is this a desired effect?

[alexman]

MP games have a way of keeping such positive feedback effects under control.

Also, the reduced OCN will help make large empires less useful than normal.

About razing cities, I don't think it should be forbidden. With the city limit, there is enough incentive to prevent razing captured cities, and I would like to be able to raze my own cities to relocate them to a better spot.

I like the unchoppable forest with the food bonus idea.

I also like the increased tech rate, but keep in mind not to overdo it since the tech rate will already be slowed by the underpopulation limitation.

[Dominae]

A cap on the number of cities will affect government choice too, right? Feudalism more or less goes out the window, as does Republic/Democracy (unless you like to live dangerously or plan not to do any research).

I think I will respectfully decline to participate in this game: it's diverging much too far from the description Sir Ralph gave initially in that other thread (and, truth be told, too far from stock).

Enjoy.

[Harovan]

Dominae:

All these changes are made to preserve the initial aim (more tactical choices by limiting movement of fastmovers) on a standard map. In my SP games I achieved this (as described) by limiting settlement on different terrain types. But this works only on a huge map. If you play a standard map, the patches of mountains/jungle/etc. are generally too small not to be swallowed by city radii and thus, roaded, which voids the initial aim for more tactical choice. You can't achieve this by the map generator alone. A hand made map could do the trick without limitation, but who would do that work?

Also, I believe to play on undercrowded maps should be fun as it is. You can have skirmishes for resources and luxuries without ruining and pillaging cities, you can sabotage road connections; outposts and colonies will shine and barbarians remain a nuisance throughout the whole game. But if you allow the players to strive for advantages, by founding more and more cities (talk unbalancing specialists in Conquests) and road every tile, the initial aim will be missed.

Sorry to see you go, but nobody can force you.

Alexman:

Ah, I forgot that we play "undercrowded". Perhaps we shouldn't increase the tech rate then. We should leave it on the default setting for a standard map, but nevertheless increase the minimal research time to 5.

[ducki]

So just to clarify, if I build 10 cities, then someone conquers a couple, I either have to dig myself out of a production hole and take the city back, find someone weaker to take a city from, or just make do with fewer cities, right?

I assume this is the mechanic by which we are creating undercrowding, but it just seems that it would be less heavy-handed to play on a bigger map.

As I see it now, this may not be "effective" at creating the big, un-roaded rough terrain we desire, as settling right next to a mountain range and building an early temple/library should eventually allow a player to road a large chunk of any standard-map-sized mountain range or doing the same next to a large jungle-forest gives a large defensive advantage.

Similar to Dom, I really like the original description, though all these house rules to shoehorn it into a standard-sized map feel odd.

For example, 10 cities seems a rather low number, especially if we expect to get to/past Industrialization, and it raises issues such as relocating a city, losing even 1 of your cities is a huge deal, yet capturing and holding any given city becomes more difficult if cultureflip is a risk, with the distance between civs being, or at least intended to be, much greater than normal.

So, if large ranges of rough terrain and a lot of open space is desired, it seems a larger map is the "best" way to do that, as it avoids the emergent effects that house rules will generate. Could we not look at perhaps using a large map instead?

[Harovan]

I would be happy if we could maintain the original concept without a lot of house rules. Anyone has an idea how to achieve this?

[alexman]

Huge map, decrease OCN to small-map (6 player) levels, and subtract 1 gold for each citizen.

Either that, or we find someone to make a map.

[ducki]

That sure sounds a lot simpler. I don't fully understand the 1g/citizen thing, though I'm willing to bet it has to do with corruption - is that all citizens or just specialists?