A new AU idea

[Jawa Jocky]

miniAU303 - Industrial Age

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Jawa Jocky
miniAU303 - Industrial Age

I like it, the only problem being how we get there (start a scenario at the Industrial Age?). We've usually tried to make our scenarios as "normal" as possible, but maybe people are open to some change. Let's remember to include it in our next poll.


Dominae

[pvzh]

What about replaying the Aeson's legendary "So very cold on the map generator". When he on deity (Civ III 1.16) won by domination with MA's starting on all tundra island with couple of bonus resourses and iron. However it was a save, not *.bic. Is there any way to extract map from save to the editor?

[Arrian]

pvzh,

AU already did a "Son of So Very Cold." Same basic idea, but not quite as crazy as Aeson's.

-Arrian

[cumi]

I like your idea Dominae! This way we could really exact compare games.

I tried to qualify my game playing the latest AU. I read a few reports and saw for example someone (Dominae I think) wrote: "...then I destroyed England at about 900AD...". I remembered this sentense and checked where am I in my game...(almost at researching Alphabet)

But this was almost the only "catching" point for me. But if we have more "milestones", it would be more interesting and the most important: the "junior" civ3 players will have more chance to learn - sense of AU.

[Dominae]

'Milestone'. That's the word I was looking for when writing the original post. Thanks cumi.

By the way, point taken about the timeframe for AU games. We've been going at the pace of the fastest players, and not the slowest. Just to be a little different from CFC, how about setting a minimum 3-week interval between "courses"? You can always the game after three weeks, of course, but another scenario may have appeared by then. Or is 4/5 weeks better?


Dominae

[MrWhereItsAt]

Sounds good. We could try 3 weeks and see how that goes.

And milestones sound great. We could have generic ones like first civ killed, last same homeland civ killed, first overseas landing, end of each era....

Or we could have ones tailored to each game. For example in the last game, such milestones could be: the fall of Rome, the invasion of England, disocvery that the home continent was bereft of resources....

I'm not sure how we could specify game-specific milestones without introducing spoilers however. Moreover, when they find out one of these milestones, players would likely work towards them, subconsciously or deliberately, potentially restricting the great variety of strategies used in playing the game.

Any ideas on how we could do this or should we stick to the non-game-specific milestones for detailed reports?

[Dominae]

I think the "milestones" should just be a set number of turns. Anything else affects gameplay and meaningful comparison too much, IMO. Here is what I was thinking:

DAR1: 0-40 turns, the very early-game.

DAR2: 40-80 turns, the plot thickens.

DAR3: 1000BC-10AD, mid-game.

DAR4: 10AD-1000AD, make it or break it.

DAR5: 1000AD+, late-game.

1000BC = turn 80, I believe. That looks like a lot, but I think we should try it and see if it's a good format. DAR1 should be short and sweet (play and report in one sitting), but still useful as a learning exercise.


Dominae

[Mountain Sage]

Within the 'milestones', what about breakups like diplomacy (contacts made, trades etc.), research (pace, techs researched), wonders (+FP) and wars (alliances, units count, upgrades...) ?
This would allow us to make matrix charts and see where everybody stands.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Mountain Sage
Within the 'milestones', what about breakups like diplomacy (contacts made, trades etc.), research (pace, techs researched), wonders (+FP) and wars (alliances, units count, upgrades...) ?
This would allow us to make matrix charts and see where everybody stands.

Too complicated for me. We want this to remain somewhat leisurely, right? Charts and stuff obscures more than clarifies, IMO.


Dominae

[Panzer32]

Originally posted by Dominae
I think the "milestones" should just be a set number of turns. Anything else affects gameplay and meaningful comparison too much, IMO. Here is what I was thinking:

DAR1: 0-40 turns, the very early-game.

DAR2: 40-80 turns, the plot thickens.

DAR3: 1000BC-10AD, mid-game.

DAR4: 10AD-1000AD, make it or break it.

DAR5: 1000AD+, late-game.

1000BC = turn 80, I believe. That looks like a lot, but I think we should try it and see if it's a good format. DAR1 should be short and sweet (play and report in one sitting), but still useful as a learning exercise.


Dominae

1000bc = turn 81, but that would work out just fine still.

The other turns:

Turn 40 = 2190bc, not too great to remember...

10 AD = turn 129

1000 AD = turn 216

2050 AD = turn 540

[nbarclay]

The catch to year-based DARs is that they can easily contain spoilers. For example, one person might do a huge amount of exploring by 2000 BC while another does almost none. Also, differences in where people are in the game in a particular year (e.g. 1000 AD) can be enormous.

I would propose the following, with the first two written offline and posted later if players haven't seen the full home land mass yet and want to avoid spoiler information:

~2000 BC (I'm not sure how the exact years run there)

1000 BC

10 AD or shortly before meeting a civ off the home land mass, whichever is earlier.

Maps of all civs obtained.

Entry to the Industrial Age.

Entry to the Modern Age.

Game finished.

Any additional special points peculiar to a particular game. For example, "end of conquests using Gallic Swordsmen as primary attackers" would have been a good DAR point for Gallic Glory.

[nbarclay]

By the way, if a game ends before entering the industrial or modern age, it would be appropriate to post the final AAR in the thread for entry to the next age, since it has no information or events beyond the end of that age. In that case, the location of the final report could be noted in the Game Finished thread.

[Dominae]

The reason I do not like the "event"-based milestones for DARs is that they're much more likely to cause confusion. What if we play a Pangea map and you obtain maps of all civs far before 10AD? I know it's not a big deal, but might as well keep things as simple as possible so as not to alienate newcomers.

Just like the spoiler threads we have now, there is always the chance of seeing something you're "not supposed to". I think it's a matter of using common sense not to ruin the game for yourself. If you're at 10AD and you still do not have all maps, just delay your DAR a bit until you do. When you go back, try as best you can to recount events up to 10AD.

Entries into the Industrial and Modern Ages I have no real problem with, but might as well keep things consistent and leave all the milestones at specific dates. (or number of turns). Oftentimes a lot happens between 10AD and the Industrial Age, so I prefer breaking it up at 1000AD. If we find that 1000AD-2050AD is too long a time period as well, we can break that one up too.


Dominae

[Nor Me]

Another problem with the 1000AD/ entering the industrial era timings is how will we make sure that players on different difficulty levels have DARs that roughly correspond.

That can make a large difference to timing and is one that the GOTM doesn't have.