New PBEM team game

[Aqualung71]

Interested parties for the team game so far are:

MrWhereItsAt GMT+12
Aqualung71 GMT+8
Krill GMT
Kloreep GMT-6
1889 GMT-7
Platypus Rex GMT-8

If all the above are definite then we're now full. If we can all commit to a reasonable pace of a turn a day, I don't think the widespread timezone's are really an issue. We will set the teams based on timezones.

I also suggest we select 3 "sets" of civ pairs, with each civ pair complementing each other in traits and possibly UU's. Any suggestions on this and other settings?

[Addled Platypus]

I think I could go for a spin

West Coast Local

Greg

I work 4-10 schedule, nights m-th

[MrWhereItsAt]

Teams? How exactly would that work? A mini-DG, where multiple people control one civ, or where everyone has their own civ but pledges to cooperate with certain others when contact is made?

GMT + 12, so I'm not foo far off you there, Aqualung.

[Addled Platypus]

Looking for how many more players?

[1889]

any more room?

I'd like to give it a try. How exactly does it work though?

[Kloreep]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Teams? How exactly would that work? A mini-DG, where multiple people control one civ, or where everyone has their own civ but pledges to cooperate with certain others when contact is made?

I assume Aqualung means 6 players, each on a cooperative team with one other player (sorta like locked alliances) to form 3 teams.

I'm interested too. GMT -6

[Addled Platypus]

new game

are we there yet
are we there yet
are we there yet

[Kloreep]

We need 1 more player...

[Krill]

I'll play, but I'm GMT, so it might be best if you pick somebody better placed

[Aqualung71]

Ok, looks like we've got a bit of interest now.

I was thinking of organising 3 teams of 2, play to be in order of ABCABC. Each team member plays individually, and each team member's score is added to get the team score. Similarly, military is to be on a team basis. This gives the ability to extend the concept of alliances in normal PBEM games to a total team concept, rather than just trying to get something out of it yourself but still being wary of your alliance partner.

I'm pretty new to this myself, so others may give suggestions. My feeling is to "suck it and see"!

I'll update the initial post with interested players.

[Addled Platypus]

my suggestions

No regicides

5 million
Restless

When picking pairs, keep in mind historical placements
Or keep us further apart for more entertainment.

Any random Civs?
One or two days to makes moves and pass on?


my .002

[Aqualung71]

Definitely no regicides. Normal SP victory conditions. Team players can cooperate in any way they wish - via email before they have met onscreen, advising of each other's location to hasten in-game meeting, cooperating on research goals, swapping workers to balance mutual tile improvement, sharing resources whenever needed. Giving each other cash to rebalance commerce and research goals, etc. Anything else?

The only things I think we should ban would be the "double duty" type things like sharing artillery for double use on the same turn, though with 2 other players between team players' turns this would be risky anyway since it would mean leaving artillery exposed.

Etiquette regarding alliances between teams should still be observed, such as no discussing future research plans until an embassy is established and no discussions at all until contact is made, etc (refer Rommel2D's full list).

[Aqualung71]

Anybody have suggestions on how to generate the map and start positions with team players not being too close together?

[Addled Platypus]

starting positions

cultural links is about the best I can think of


less water more land, could eliminate some useless research and hasten the game somewhat

[Aqualung71]

Ok, if we play with culturally linked start locations on, and choose all civs from 2 culture groups only - 3 from each group with team partners having civs from different groups, then we should end up with team partners being reasonably well separated. Does this make sense?

I suggest we choose the Mediterranean and Mid East groups. In arriving at this I eliminated all civs with the Agricultural trait. I then tried to pick civs with reasonable ancient or early middle age UU's. I also tried to shy away from the Religious trait, but couldn't seem to get a good balance of civs without using a couple of Religious ones.

So, my suggestion for the teams are as follows (first civ is Mediterranean, second is Middle East):

Rome (Com/Mil) & Persia (Ind/Sci) - the only team without a religious civ, but with a lethal ancient age UU the Immortal and very solid Legionarie.

Greece (Com/Sci) & Arabia (Exp/Rel) - good early defence with the Hoplite and versatile early middle ages Ansar Warrior

Carthage (Ind/Sea) & Babylon (Rel/Sci) - another good ancient age defender that can also double as an attacker plus the "cultural" civ with an average UU but cheap everything!

This is just my initial suggestion - anyone who feels these combinations are unbalancing, suggest some alternatives and we'll go with the consensus. The other group that would probably be ok would be the Asian group. If we replaced the Mediterranean group with the Asian group and used the Indians, Chinese and Mongols, each team would get 1 Religious civ and there would be more middle age UU's. I felt the European group did not provide good enough balance and the American gorup had too many Agricultural civs.

Standard sized Pangea map, 80% water to make up for the less than normal number of civs (or we could go for 70%). Barbs roaming or restless, temp/climate/age all random to add a bit of mystery.

I also suggest Monarch level, to give us a bit of a break on corruption and happiness.

I would prefer to use 1.22

Whaddya reckon?