Welcome, Soren

[notyoueither]

Interesting timing.

I get PMs because we are holding things up and am checking on things. I check on membership and some pretty seedy characters are pending authorization. One of them is one Soren Johnson, who joined the civ group some 3 or 4 days ago. I'm not sure, but I seem to recall this guy from beta testing. His post count wasn't the greatest, but I think he had a few solid contributions to civ...

I thought the fellow might meet our standards for being allowed to at least read the forum, so I went ahead and gave him a white ball on behalf of the entire team.

So welcome, Soren! Can you play turns?

[Theseus]

Soren,

I believe that I am stepping in as turn-player for the moment.

Ummm, errrr, do you remember that backdoor code THAT KICKS EVERYBODY'S @SS ALL AT ONCE??

Thank you very much.

-T

[vmxa1]

Theseus, good to see you. That code N-U-K-E-S, remember it was used on us a while back.

[Soren Johnson]

Hi guys, good to be back. Glad I made the cut!

I'm really interested in how these mp demo games are going. This one is PBEM, I take? And the other one is PitBoss? How is that going?

How has this game been progressing? Is there a good thread to catch up on it? How has this been different from the Civ3 MP Demo Games?

[DeepO]

Heya, Soren!

and Big T, you're taking turnplayer responsibilities for the moment? 2 good news things at the same day...

Soren,

I've got to say we've been slacking in our forum this time around... it seems the old team has too much on its plate, and the new team has put in a valiant effort, but simply have not been with enough. Anything you could add would be much appreciated.

DeepO

[Blake]

Soren!


To give a brief summary of the game.

We've got an excellent start, with a huge amount of floodplains, we're almost surely the most commerce-rich player. We've been at war with Vox all game, mostly it was just a choke while we expanded to take up all the floodplain. Recently we took out the Vox capital and soon Vox will be dead.

Our neighbors to the north AC also have a strong position, but instead of production they've got commerce. They have a stack of wonders including Great Lighthouse, Pyramids, Oracle (they used it to get Machinery), um Great Library I think (they either have it or will have it soon). While building these wonders AC also conquered Banana, who neglected to build any defenses.
If you missed it, AC are China and have their UU already. Yay.

Our relationships with AC appear to be good. They could be preparing a backstab, but more likely they're keen on keeping us around as a tech-trading partner rather than getting engaged in a long drawn out war where the outcome is dubious anyway.

The next challenge of the game will probably be creating borders with AC, through action and diplomacy.

Since the wars have basically wound down, we're entering an economic boom stage. What is important is expanding as quickly as possible.

[Soren Johnson]

Not sure how many of you guys were involved with the Civ3 MP Demo games, but I'm curious how this one is playing out differently... any thoughts?

[Solver]

Oh, Soren. Good to see you around our little corner of the Web

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Soren Johnson
Not sure how many of you guys were involved with the Civ3 MP Demo games, but I'm curious how this one is playing out differently... any thoughts?

None of the regulars from the PtW DG are very active here. vmx and DeepO are around, and maybe they can give you a better answer than I can.

I have been inactive here for a long while, so I can't tell you much.

What I can tell you is that this is very different for GS as we were on a land mass with 3 other civs. 1 of them happened to be... an old friend... and after some provocative early movements, and how close the map put us, it did not take us long to decide the best course of action was destroying Vox.

We've all but done so, at incredible cost in opportunity. That is my understanding of where we are. Some others may correct me where I am in error.

Also, although we have more immediate neighbours, we are also more isolated. In the PtW event we were alone with Vox, but not alone. All but 1 of the other civs were in contact at an early date. When the next turn is opened, GS most likely has contact with a single living civ.

It is very different, and civ placement on map generation contributed to it being very different.

Perhaps you could let us know what sorts of differences you are looking for if the geopolitical situation is not what you are after.

[vmxa1]

Not all that dissimilar really. Large part of the the was very dead. Then you get into some action and have some tension and excitement.

Followed by more just trying to get the empire going, till the next altercation.

The main reason we jumped on Vox was they had religion. I think most of us, at least I did, felt you could not afford to have them get their religion up and running.

The ability to see into converted towns would be too powerful as well as them getting a bonus, that essentially we provide. If we had gotten religion forst we probably would have taken a different tact.

We had to make a choice when they left an exploring unit next to Grog and we struck. We could not do anythign for a long time and when we finally did attack it was not smiled upon by the rng.

So we went with a more assured invasion and finally took down the town.

[vmxa1]

Nothing will ever match the the battle plans we put together to invade GoW or whomever it was on that huge continent that they had.

It was very exciting to plan and the taken of the battleship to be able to land was perfect, just perfect. Many fine players did a fantastic job and I will mention two here, Aeson and DeepO.

The entire battle to take them down was so fast and well done as to stand up to anything ever done in Civ3 and I doubt it can be matched.

The pace here has made for many dropouts, but that happened in our last game as well. Eventually palyer pop back and chip in.

The turn player at any point in time carries the load. We have been fortunate to have several step and now we have my friend T as the quarterback.

[vmxa1]

One other thing that was key in the last game was Gramphos being available to fix the many occasions when the game got to an unplayable stage.

[Soren Johnson]

Would you guys mind if I invite someone else to join Gathering Storm? I guarantee you he know nothing about Apolyton, so there is no security risk. I can't really fill you guys in on what I am up to, but... let's just say there is interest in improving this co-op/competitive experience, and it would be great for me to show this person the inner workings of an MP Demo game. He'll be using the name "Chedderly" (assuming that's not taken...) let me know...

[Theseus]

Sounds fine, Soren, but if you don;t mind waiting a little bit, as many of the team as can should chime in (especially the more recently active members).

[notyoueither]

It's fine by me, Soren.

If it would help the development of a 4x game I don't see how anyone could or would object. In fact, I could open up the old GS forum for them as well. That was a much more active game for much of it and would provide another perspective.

T, do you think we need to wait very long for this?