new PBEM game

[LzPrst]

As for alternatives, none of my friends who live in this town have internet, and internet cafes don't allow people to bring in floppies for fear of viruses. They're idiots, because the damn network is already infested with every virus that ever crawled the internet anyway. And even if I could bring a floppy, over the week-end it's almost impossible to get into one of these places, because of all the kids playing Counterstrike.

And I'm dead serious about the cable guy. I've been telling him I want cable internet for the past 6 months. Not even a bribe offering helped.

A real bribe? wow.
Forgive me for I am spoiled rotten. been too used to having internet either at home or school or elsewhere i forget how its like other places. guessing from your name and flag you're romanian right? dont worry i'll be patient
But why wont the cable guy hook you up?

[LzPrst]

But back to the game. If I take el menceys map, create a reasonable number of resources compared to each civ (a little surplus wont matter much) hit random and redistribute, ie if we get silks in europe i'll swap it with a dye in east asia or similar. And I'll use my brains a little too of course Stuff like sugar and tobacco will only be found in the new world for instance etc Everyone gets to take a peek before we start, would we all be happy then?

I can be impartial, dont worry about that, sometimes I even despise my own civs so much that I try to get them killed by bigger neighbours, unfortunately I'm just too smart for them and most of the time I end up brutally massacreing their poor troops

I can have it done later tonight and post it here maybe ten in the evening GMT +01. Would people agree with that?

Also, I could crank up the depletion rates. That would make gameplay very dynamic.

[Dr. A. Cula]

Originally posted by LzPrst


A real bribe? wow.
Forgive me for I am spoiled rotten. been too used to having internet either at home or school or elsewhere i forget how its like other places. guessing from your name and flag you're romanian right? dont worry i'll be patient
But why wont the cable guy hook you up?

The cable guy is a lazy bum.

Yes, we do things a bit differently here, plus there is also that real life (tm) thing that hits you when you least expect it, like it happened to me this week-end.

[Dr. A. Cula]

Originally posted by LzPrst
But back to the game. If I take el menceys map, create a reasonable number of resources compared to each civ (a little surplus wont matter much) hit random and redistribute, ie if we get silks in europe i'll swap it with a dye in east asia or similar. And I'll use my brains a little too of course Stuff like sugar and tobacco will only be found in the new world for instance etc Everyone gets to take a peek before we start, would we all be happy then?

I can be impartial, dont worry about that, sometimes I even despise my own civs so much that I try to get them killed by bigger neighbours, unfortunately I'm just too smart for them and most of the time I end up brutally massacreing their poor troops

I can have it done later tonight and post it here maybe ten in the evening GMT +01. Would people agree with that?

Also, I could crank up the depletion rates. That would make gameplay very dynamic.

Luxuries redistribution could be beneficial to trade, but increased depletion reates might lead to unexpected results, as I've seen in one of my SP games: world map, I was playing as the Americans, with the standard rule set. I managed to settle both Americas and Greenland, when, suddenly, I keep seeing new iron deposits appearing in Greenland (I have even seen a couple disappearing and reappearing on the same spot or 1 or 2 squares away!). Pretty soon, most everybody in the world was getting their iron from me. And that was with standard depletion rates. Imagine what could happen if you increased them.

[LzPrst]

I got so inspired I decided to do it right away.
Aside from the deletion of a whole lot of resources I've added a little sugar and tobacco in the americas, not much since I dont have clue, but still there. Am considering whether to make it a strategic or lux resource, but I want your opinions first.

Also, I've taken the liberty to fix some small stuff.
1. a few lakes of different types in finland, cause finland is full of lakes. Its not called land of a thousand lakes because of the vodka, despite what some people might think.
2. The river Seine. Important river, and Paris has historically always been a big city. MO anyways.
3. The river Tiber (Rome) in order for Rome to be an ancient empire Rome needs to grow large early on.
(4. I'm considering putting in the river Rhone in south france and the river Oder in east germany, but I havent decided yet, also putting rivers all around tenochtitlan.)
5. A few minor rearrangements of topography at Inca starting position. I'm not sure if I've missed their home by a few thousand miles, but i dont care.
6. Put in a volcano in sicily, a few well placed locations other places in the world also.
7. Added a few marshes in russia, not sure where to place otherwise... Inform on your local marsh, make sure its on the map, so YOU can cut it down, personally!
8. Added new civ starting locations.
9. I have planted a seed in the US. It needed a lot more forest. It might look like el menceys map now, but it didnt 6000 years ago. This would make the colonization of the americas much more a choppy experience. (this is based vewy woughly on my remembrance of the old colonization america map, you can argue with me, but you cant argue with Sid)
10. tweaked the rules on sugar so i could plant them in grasslands.
11. I increased max player number to 24, just in case.

thats my 5 cents. If anyone has any suggestions or just wanna put a bullet in my head feel free. Though I demand due warning for the latter.

oh, yes, you can find the map here:
er... i seem to be having some problems with the map. is it enough to just put an url? I've placed the .biq file here: http://www.student.uib.no/~st09446/TIERRAfix.zip
but for some reason I just get it as a html file. Why?
does it work for any of you? If not I'll try something else, I could mail it to you all.

[Ouro_827]

Downloaded fine for me.... I'll take a look see at it after school... I'm glad though, because 1. I didn't know you could import rules and 2. I was too lazy to try... now I get to be the one doing the critisizing! But for you people who are going on about Alaska having too much oil, I'll have you know we aren't mining even close to all ours, and we produce most of the US internal oil.... and, it makes us so rich, that we permanant residents of Alaska get paid for living here! Because of oil!

[LzPrst]

I live in norway, apparently the north sea is full of oil and it makes us filthy rich too. Just to satisfy you I havent taken away a single drop of oil in alaska compared to the original map. Actually I think oil is quite plentyful, but its in inaccessible areas mostly. Lemme know what you think. That map tweaker analysis you mentioned smellymummy, is it in the civ3 editor? cause I cant find it

[smellymummy]

maptweaker is in the civ3 files forum at:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=105546

it's not a light installation though

and if im one of those people who went on about alaska and oil (did i? ) i was just comparing it with the middle east, whom I believe accounts for a third of the 'worlds' oil demand. so say we have a map that will have 6 players, you gota figure at least 2-3 oil resources should be there, where as alaskan oil, which supplies the USA (does any of it get exported?), I would expect to see 1 oil resource.

btw i checked out the map, and things look better now

europe sure is going to get cramped !

[Dr. A. Cula]

Say, are we still playing the game we started last week?

Anyway, I managed to play my turn and sent it to LzPrst.


Oh, and someone ought to post turn order and e-mail for everyone on the first page of this thread. This way we could find them easier.

[Rasputin]

good point

[LzPrst]

the problem with the game was that it was ptw and not conquests, also the insane amount of resources made it, according to some of us, no fun to play...
A restart, with c3C was considered and I for one think that would be best, and I've reduced resources so there'll be a little more interesting to get them.

though its not balanced... theres and abundance of iron but very little wines for example. should I keep working on it? Currently theres: 20 horses, 30 iron, 26 saltpeter, 27 coal, 14 oil, 16 rubber, 16 aluminum, 14 uranium, 8 wines, 21 furs, 21 dyes, 10 incense, 29 spices, 11 ivory, 13 silks and 13 gems. Theres no horses in the americas though... I've tried to make the map so that it becomes somewhat historically and geographically correct. But some civs will have an advantage, india has a lot of luxes, I guess i missed a spot there, also I forgot to throw in tropical fruit though thats not very important.

I am also considering reducing the corruption rate to 70% of normal due to the size etc. Any comments on that?

Point is: I can do a little more work on the map now, but only if we're gonna use it.

Important bit: Who would be willing to do a restart and who wouldnt. We are playing ptw, I checked the tech tree and theres no curraghs, no mausoleums etc etc. I much prefer conquests. And nothing has really happened since its the first turn. I want a vote please.

I say restart with conquests (and use my map). We could be back on track again by tomorrow or wednesday no sweat. We could use the current map I have or I can do a little more fixes. But I must have feedback please. from everyone.

[Dr. A. Cula]

I agree. Let's restart with Conquests. It's not like we did anything important in that 1 turn.

Although, if you could wait until tomorrow, I want to take another look at the Ottomans starting position and the general area around there. If you can't wait, just go ahead and start the game.

[Ouro_827]

I'm up for restarting, once Dr. Cula gets his look... My feelings on the map: Alaska needs furs! One more Mideast oil.. More Ivory in Africa.. Less coal and Uranium, and a touch less saltpeter in North America... North America is still overloaded for resources, in my opinion...

[LzPrst]

theres 2 furs in alaska and 3 in nearby canada. but I'll rearrange 1 of the canadian beavers to alaska for you

I assume we're talking about my map now... I placed the ottomans in westernmost turkey cause my atlas says thats where they originated. as for furs and luxes etc, I've updated the map a little and the recent most scores are:
Horses 16. Iron 27. Saltpeter 21. Coal 20. Oil 13. Rubber 12. Aluminium 15. Uranium 10.
Lux: Wines 8. Furs 13. Dyes 17. Incense 10. Spices 21. Ivory 12. Silks 8. Gems 13.

Considering the worlds size, this means resources will be sparse. I must apologize to you Ouro cause I drained alaska of some of its oil. I dont think it should have 1/3 of the worlds supply, even if it did in real life, in game its too unbalancing. Oil is now located 2 in alaska, 1 in mexico, 1 in venezuela, 1 in algeria, 3 in mideast, 1 in north sea, 2 in russia, 1 in chinese desert and one that I cant seem to find...

We should have higher depletion rates for some resources, specifically oil and coal. For example the caucasus were very rich in oil in the 40'ies but they're dried up now. The default depletion rate for oil is 200 meaning theres a 0.5% chance every turn that it goes. According to my calculations this will happen 2 or 3 times during the entire game. I suggest we put it to 1 in 75%, that just might make hunting for oil a national past-time hobby, as it should be. This might add a certain dynamic to the game when it comes to resources and force players to interact more.

Also I'm putting in depletion possibilities for ivory, furs and gems, these are resources that are easily depletable due to human interference. Just remember that if a resource is depleted it will pop up somewhere else on the map.

The changes to depletion rates are as follows:
Coal 400 - 150, Oil 200 - 75, Aluminium 400 - 250, Uranium 100 - 80. Furs 0 (wont deplete) - 200, Ivory 0 - 100, Gems 0 - 150

[smellymummy]

i don't mind if the depletion rates are adjusted. more importantly i think is the no horses in americas. if the iroquois don't have access to the horses, then they will have no UU