Balanced Pangaea PBEM

[Harovan]

I brought up the issues, let me explain how I meant it:

Alliances:

Alliances shall be visible in the diplo screen. They need an embassy. You can not make an alliance against a civ, if you aren't at war with it. Like in the game, alliances are limited to 2 civs.

You can say: Dear X, I'm attacked by the evil Y, will you help me?

You can not say: Dear X, let's be friends for the whole game, never attack each other and withdraw all forces from the common border.

You can also not say: I will attack Z in about 50 turns, when I have Cavalry, If you want to join me, prepare now for it.

Tech trading:

Tech trading shall be as close as possible to the trading with the AI.

It is not allowed to coordinate the tech research ("research treaty"). It is not allowed to "anounce" an advance, like "I will have Theology in 2 turns", or "I'm researching Polytheism, you should go for another tech".

Tech trades shall be done in 1 step. Like in trades with the AI, differences don't create a debt. If you gave somebody The Wheel for Pottery, it's been your choice and you can not later demand Literature for Mathematics and say "you still owe me 2 points from the previous deal".

It is not allowed to say "I gift you Feudalism now if you gift me Engineering in 5 turns". In this case, both have to wait 5 turns and trade directly. It is, however, allowed to help somebody out by gifting a tech or two. But this creates no debt or another kind of dependence, and it is not allowed later to say "You owe me this or that, because I helped you".

Research treaties are not allowed, you can not agree with a partner to gift him all techs you research, if he gifts you all his researched techs.

No tech whoring:

Just an idea, to be discussed: You have only the right to trade a tech, if you researched it. If you bought a tech, you can not sell it to others. It is, however, allowed to transfer the monopoly over a tech. For instance, A has Polytheism and wants The Republic from B. B answers, that is not a fair trade, I would, however, agree, if you give me the trade license for Polytheism and haven't traded it to nobody else yet and could trade it to at least 2 other civs. If A agrees, the deal is perfect, and from now on A has lost the right to trade both techs, while B can trade both.

[Nor Me]

You can not say: Dear X, let's be friends for the whole game, never attack each other and withdraw all forces from the common border.

As I pointed out above, the chief problem with this is that saying this is almost redundant. If you do say it, it doesn't guarantee that you aren't preparing to attack them and X will no doubt realize this.
Actions are far more important. If undefended cities on your border are given plenty ofopportunity to become defended, if you only trade tech with each other and if there's an obvious dangerous common rival, what needs to be said?

Tech trading:

Your entire list of proposals doesn't stop two players from trading exclusively with each other. Sensible things like researching from techs you've recently researched can greatly weaken your restriction on communication of future research. It would obviously go against the spirit of this for two players to sell techs to each other for 15 gold but what about half-price?


Humans just don't behave like the AI so trying to make deals between them like SP is not going to work.

I can understand the original restrictions on needing Communication and Map-making but I'd imagine that we can get the game to work as it is better than others seem to think.

[Nor Me]

I forgot part of what I was trying to say again.

No tech whoring:

This kind of thing might be a sensible in game agreement but I don't think you can enforce it. Firstly, if the idea is that if A trades a tech to B then B cannot trade it to C, what if A is actually at war with B and C?
Also this will probably encourage players to deliberately research the same tech as others and so might encourage research partnerships.

[Harovan]

Ok, let's drop it then.

[DaveMcW]

I think if we allow "tech whoring" and prohibit "research planning" it will result in a competitive tech market. Nor Me's point about the 2-player research team is valid, so we should agree on some kind of limit to that.

What about non-aggression pacts, or "renegotiating peace." Can players promise not to attack each other for 20 turns? Can they complain if they get backstabbed?

[Dominae]

My vote can be summarized with one simple rule:

Dominae's Rule (cool name?): No communication between players other than with the tools provided by the game.

This means no PMs, emails, chats, etc. If you want to ally with another player, you have to put it on the trade table in-game. If you want to trade a tech, you have to put it on the table in-game.

Crafty players may find some code so that they can communicate with each other in-game, and so more power to them. I say we just avoid the hassle and say that this is not allowed (of course, there would be the problem of figuring out the code just by looking at it, since you would not have any outside "crib sheet").

I know this eliminates the roleplay element of the game, to my chagrin (I loved being Shaka...). But the way people are talking about this one it looks like we all want it to be strategy-first, so the rule against chit-chat should not be a major impediment to fun.

To partially solve this last problem, we could agree that if we want to communicate anything, we have to do so publicly in this thread.

How about it?


Dominae

[Harovan]

Last try:

1. I don't want, nor do I need to enforce anyone to obey the rules. Who needs to be enforced, should leave this game. I can't enforce anyone not to use the load bug or others, too. Who wants to cheat, will cheat. And the rules I proposed actually even need 2 players with cheating energy at the same time.

2.

This kind of thing might be a sensible in game agreement but I don't think you can enforce it. Firstly, if the idea is that if A trades a tech to B then B cannot trade it to C, what if A is actually at war with B and C?

I don't see your point. If A is at war with both B and C, he obviously couldn't trade it to B either. And if the war started after the trade, to C has to research the advance himself.

[alexman]

I actually like Dominae's proposal. It's Sir Ralph's initial idea taken to the extreme.

Besides emphasizing in-game skills as opposed to diplomacy, a game like that would also go faster, as we don't have to negotiate and coordinate our actions with other players. I say let's try it.

[Nor Me]

What exactly were the original problems we're trying to solve here?

[DaveMcW]

You can send brief messages by renaming units every turn, but I think that goes agains the spirit of non-communication.

We still need some standards for communication in the thread to prevent it from turning into a 3 on 3.

[Dominae]

Nor Me, we're trying to avoid a 3v3 standstill/faceoff. If we do not set up restrictions for communication, players will naturally attempt to draw on the immense of power of alliances.

DaveMcW, I agree that renaming units would be abuse, so it should not be allowed (crafty idea, though). The idea of restricting communication to this thread is that anything that could be construed as against the spirit of our theme will be publicly viewable to all players. If you still think this could be a problem, I'm ok with barring comm in this thread, too.

Let's take votes (for my proposal):

Dominae: yea
alexman: yea
DaveMcW: ?
Nor Me: ?
Sir Ralph: ?
jshelr: ?


Dominae

[DaveMcW]

Originally posted by Nor Me
What exactly were the original problems we're trying to solve here?

The researchers vs. warmongers problem. If a small group of researchers gets an age ahead, they can kick the butts of everyone who didn't research, thus eliminating half the competition.

So the only logical ways to play are a peaceful 6-player research team or a 3 on 3 warmonger vs. researcher battle.

We are trying to break up the research team by making it impossible for them to communicate.

[jshelr]

Thanks for waking me up that we switched threads Alexman.

After reading this over, I like my idea from the other thread more than ever. I'll paste it in here. I believe it is a very good idea to keep the barbarian stage barbaric.

[Nor Me]

I'm still not sure it will work.

With communication and in a 3 way alliance, I'd be worried about the other 2 players ganging up on me. That's harder to arrange without communication.

A 2-player research agreement is just as easy without communication. It's just as easy to determine if the other player has broken it. It would not really be that hard to set one up.
A 2-player alliance might actually be better without communication because you know your ally is not planning to backstab you with help from another player.

Yes, I'd play with it. It'll make for an interesting game but I don't know if it's going to solve the problem.

[Harovan]

So will we be allowed to whore around techs we didn't research ourselves?