Strat Forum PBEM: Game 4 - Thread II

[jshelr]

Absolutely, didn't mean to suggest excluding people for patch reasons. Is it time to pick civs? I've got to travel this weekend through Monday, but I could haul along the computer if the game is nearly ready to go?

[alexman]

Catt has agreed to make the map!

He says he will be done before the weekend is over, but in the meantime, we need to pick civs. Should we limit the max of each trait to 2 or 3, or just let it free? With six players, we can have each trait be present exactly twice.

Anyway, here's what I wrote to Catt about the map:

Settings
We hope to encourage some early warfare. No REXing undisturbed until the middle ages, because that can be boring in a PBEM game. With that in mind, we agreed on the following:

Small (80x80)
Pangaea
Normal Climate
Temperate Temperature
5 billion years
Random Barbs

The reason for 5 billion years is so that the Industrious trait is not as powerful, and the Random Barbs is to discourage all but the worst gamblers to choose the already unpredictable expansionist trait.

It would be perfectly fine if you just let the map generator produce maps and pick one that seems balanced. The only requirement is that we are all on the same land mass.

Luxury resources
In MP war weariness is reduced, so we need to weaken the Republic a bit by having a shortage of luxuries. Just one luxury should be available to each player in the beginning, and the 7th and 8th luxuries should be remotely placed, or even completely absent.

Strategic resources
They should not be abundant, but if a player lacks a resource near his start, he should have a couple of alternative choices for obtaining a source. As for the number of strategic resources, leave them approximately the same as what the random map generator produced.

Bonus resources
It's important that all six starting locations are reasonably balanced in terms of extra food. Other than that, preserve the map generator's quantity of bonus resources.

[jshelr]

Carthage please, although I can screw up other civs equally well if Carthage is not available. We should probably not play the same civs as we have in other games to give others a chance.

[alexman]

I would prefer two of these three traits:
Industrious
Religious
Expansionist

[Dominae]

What about the Industrious trait? Are we removing a starting tech from Industrious civs? At 5 billion years, Industrious civs still have a great advantage in terms of Road networks.


Dominae

[jshelr]

Shall the pink frog be yellow men this time

[Dominae]

I would like to see an MP game where the Egyptians are not one of the contenders.

That said, I want Egypt.



Just kidding, I'm still thinking about civ choice.


Dominae

[Harovan]

I was also thinking about Egypt. If we ban them or Dominae chooses them (well, he said it first), I take Persia.

[alexman]

It seems everyone's still picking Industrious. Should we remove Masonry as a starting tech after all? Should we limit the number of occurances of each trait to 2? I vote yes to both.

[Nor Me]

I drew Egypt as a random civ in another game so I'm certainly happy to leave it to someone else - provided they don't start next to me close to horses.

Should we limit the number of occurances of each trait to 2?

How are you going to make that fair?

How am I then not at a huge advantage in having Persia as my first choice first with only Carthage behind?

If we're only dropping Masonry and going for 5 billion years that's still going to leave me up on the remaining 4 players.

[alexman]

I don't know, how about an extra free worker for non-industrious civs?

Or we could pick six more-or-less balanced civs (Industrious combined with weaker traits) and then each one of us could pick only from that list. For example, France, Greece, Aztecs, Zulu, Babylon, and America.

By the way, if we all pick Industrious it's fine with me. Sir Ralph is the one who suggested a more even distribution of traits, because in the last game there were too many expansionists.

[Dominae]

Industrious civs lose Masonry, 5 billion years, everyone chooses whatever civ they want.

Those are my votes.


Dominae

[DaveMcW]

I want Iroquois.

[alexman]

Originally posted by Dominae
Industrious civs lose Masonry, 5 billion years, everyone chooses whatever civ they want.

OK, let's do that then. We have:

jshelr: Carthage
DaveMcW: Iroquois
Sir Ralph: Egypt or Persia
alexman: Egypt or Arabs or America (since Dave is Hiawatha )
Dominae: ?
Nor Me: ?

[Nor Me]

I was thinking about Persia or Arabs. But I'm now tempted by the Zulu.
The range of civs considered by anyone will of course be small.