Course description for AU207

[Catt]

Originally posted by nbarclay
If your teacher tells you a question will be on the test, is it cheating to discuss the question with fellow students before the test starts? Not by any standard I've ever heard. That's how I see discussion of the opening move of the game, especially with a map of the starting position already posted.

I can respect Catt's view that he'd rather make his own choices (and, possibly, mistakes) so that he'll perhaps remember the lessons better. But some people would rather do their learning before the test and make a better grade.

You don't think I'm going to let you get the last word on this, do you?

I'd reject the implicit comparison of "spoiling" to "cheating." The starting position is what it is -- everyone will get to see it in the game thread or at the very least when they launch the game. I just don't want to have my virgin tableau of options regarding the opening move - and all the excitement such tableau holds - "spoiled" by outside advice and information from other players.

I'd also say that "making a better grade" is immaterial to AU games -- the point is to learn, not necessarily to do well.

I would welcome a Hints and Tips thread, but I just don't know that I would peruse it.

So, all that being said, I will also respect anyone else's view that differs from mine -- for many, I believe, that feeling of is not a pleasant one, and making a mistake early can make for a painful game.

Catt

BTW - all this is discussion over virtually nothing specific -- neither I nor Nathan has secret knowledge of "killer" opening moves for this game or "mistaken" opening moves (seeing as how the game hasn't even been posted yet ) -- wouldn't even be having this discussion if Dominae hadn't mentioned that what I wrote might be considered "spoiler" -- I hate spoliers enough that I edited it.

In other words, I am just enjoying the discussion.

[Dominae]

AU207 should be up sometime tomorrow afternoon. It sure takes a while to run some debug tests on a Huge map...




Dominae

[nbarclay]

Dominae, I hate to put you to extra trouble, but would you be willing to include an AU Mod version without Alex's modifications to the costs of Mathematics and Map Making? The more I think about those changes, the more I smell potential for unintended consequences. And the last place I want to play guinea pig is on a huge map, both because of the enormous amount of time involved and because I have so little frame of reference against which to measure the effects of rules changes in huge-map games.

[Mountain Sage]

Dominae,

I agree with your proposal (just include the French )

PTW: I just orederd it from Amazon UK (Civ3 is going to bankrupt me ).

DON'T YOU DARE START IT WITHOUT ME (1 week delivery)

Godspeed to all.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Originally posted by Dominae
Spanish: Might as well throw in one "bad" civ to add a little flavor to the AARs. Commercial/Religious should not be that horrible either, considering the amount of space available.

Their traits aren't the end of the world, but with any expansionists around, Isabella might not be able to keep up. A good challenge though.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Wowza! Never knew how complicated AU could be!

Mountain Sage: I at the very least will wait for you to start. That is, if you promise to start as soon as you get PTW.

I think we ought to all play the game for a good long while, perhaps until the world map is revealed (trust me, this can take a LONG time on a huge map!). THEN we can reveal spoilers.

I can't wait for this to start... Catt and Dominae, you seem to have the greatest grasp of the mechanics of the various threads we need, so I think we ought to all follow your lead.

But for us idiots out there, can one of you include a LINK directly to what we need to DL?

Ok, thanks guys!

[Konquest02]

I think we should proceed as usual (i.e. opening a spoiler thread right away and posting whenever one feels ready to). I know I will be dying to know what the others have dome I probably won't be able to wait until the whole map is revealed...

Usually, Dom puts a nice zip file for us to download, you just have to unzip it into your scenario directory and enjoy! It's pretty simple to do...

--Kon--

[nbarclay]

We may want two spoiler threads for this one, one based on knowledge of the home hemisphere and another based on knowledge of the whole world. That way people can start posting early-game spoilers before they know the whole world map without worrying about seeing things they shouldn't.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Originally posted by nbarclay
We may want two spoiler threads for this one, one based on knowledge of the home hemisphere and another based on knowledge of the whole world. That way people can start posting early-game spoilers before they know the whole world map without worrying about seeing things they shouldn't.

For simplicity sake, let's do one thread, and people who have discovered the other continent(s) can post "Are you all ready for the spoiler?" and after getting others' responses, can decide whether to post screenshots or not.

[nbarclay]

People are probably going to be at wildly different points in their games before long. Indeed, some may not start until others have been going a week or two. So I'm not sure how practical trying to coordinate timing for having the world map enter the results & spoilers thread would be.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Dominae, I hate to put you to extra trouble, but would you be willing to include an AU Mod version without Alex's modifications to the costs of Mathematics and Map Making? The more I think about those changes, the more I smell potential for unintended consequences. And the last place I want to play guinea pig is on a huge map, both because of the enormous amount of time involved and because I have so little frame of reference against which to measure the effects of rules changes in huge-map games.

Nathan, I replied to this some time ago, but I believe my message got lost while Apolyton was momentarily down. Here's the gist of what I said:

I've used the AU mod version 1.17 in its current state. I believe that keeping things simple here is a good idea, since it will increase AU community spirit (it would feel weird if everyone played their own version of the AU mod), and makes the AARs much simpler. I'm also not sure how much of a difference the changes will make on AU207's Huge map.

However, I'm willing to send you a copy of the scenario with the changes you would like to see implemented. There is no stopping you from making the changes yourself, so I might as well help out by not forcing you to look at the map in the process.

I understand that I can be frustrating to use rules you do not much agree with, especially in such a big game. But I think that creating multiple versions of the AU mod is not a good idea, since it would put focus more on the mod instead of the scenarios and the learning. As I mentioned to alexman, perhaps we could have a 3-person panel that votes on which changes make it into or out of the latest versions of the mod (everyone else would propose changes and offer arguments for and against them). Whatever the panel decides would be final. I think alexman has been doing a good job so far, but if there is going to be this much conflict around our little mod, something needs to be done.

I nominate the following 3 people for the panel:

alexman
nbarclay
Catt

What does everyone think?


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Dominae, when you played with the revised mod, were you playing a "compete with the AI in research" strategy or a tech extortion strategy? One of my big concerns (especially after seeing just how big Alex's changes were in the AU Mod description) is that it could be a whole lot harder to trade for Map Making at cost 16 than at cost 12. That won't necessarily have much impact on extortionists, but I very often try to compete without resorting to tech extortion.

I'd definitely appreciate it if you would send me a version of the game without the Mathematics and Map Making cost changes. At this point, it would take a lot of persuading (with supporting evidence) to convince me that Alex's revised values have a small enough impact on gameplay for me to be willing to use them.

And I guess I could serve on a review panel if people so desire. At least that way I could be sure there would be a conservative voice on it.

Nathan

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Dominae, when you played with the revised mod, were you playing a "compete with the AI in research" strategy or a tech extortion strategy?

I have not yet actively played a game with the current changes to Math and Map Making. I only entered debug mode and checked out what the AIs were doing.

I'd definitely appreciate it if you would send me a version of the game without the Mathematics and Map Making cost changes.

I'll have it to you soon. If we do go on with this panel idea, though, I hope that this "multiple mod" phenomenon will not repeat itself.

And I guess I could serve on a review panel if people so desire. At least that way I could be sure there would be a conservative voice on it.

I think you're all conservative, just conservative about different things.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Well, I'm so conservative on this matter I'm a damn reactionary.

Can someone tell me where to go to check out the changes in the AU mod? I assumed we were going to be playing with the "same rules" as always... I don't mind trying something new, but I'd like some idea of what the changes entail.

[Dominae]

Yahweh, check the thread for AU207 (it just went up an hour ago): you should find all the links you want there. Again, you do not need to play with mod rules if you do not want to; the zip file I included contains a normal Play the World 1.14 version.


Dominae