Membership for Master Zen

[notyoueither]

quoted from an old, old thread:

Returning to the issue of veto, I propose that any new member must pass a poll, with a twist. Some groups use an interesting approach known as the black ball. In these groups when a membership issue is voted on it is done so with a box containing marbles. There are many white balls and a few black. Each member in turn reaches into the box and deposits a ball into a third compartment. When each has done so, the contents of the third compartment are examined by all. If the deposited balls are all white, the applicant is accepted. If there is a single black ball, he or she is rejected.

That sort of system works with a small number of people. It ensures that no one is forced to coexist with someone completely anathema to them. It does require that people be reasonable and not petty with their choices.

If we do this, then we would post a poll with White, Black, Abstain as the only options. A single Black vote would deny the application. Abstain would have no effect. People granted admission would see the forum and see the number of voters. People denied would never see it.

Here's how it goes.

Vote White for yes, let him in.
Vote Black for no, I have very strong reasons for not wanting this person on the team.
Vote Abstain if you do not care either way.

If after 96 hours (usually 48, but longer since it is a new forum) there are no votes for Black, and assuming that a reasonable number of people vote White or Abstain, then Master Zen will be granted entrance to the team. A single Black vote would deny entry.

[Dominae]

Seriously!? Our nemesis from the PTWDG, to join our ranks?

Seriously, it would be cool to have him with us - WB.

[Theseus]

White, in a heart beat.

Nominated for 'Minister of Foreign and Evil Affairs'.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Theseus
White, in a heart beat.

Nominated for 'Minister of Foreign and Evil Affairs'.

I whole-heartedly concur.

Unfortunately, MZ hates Civ 4 and won't be playing the DG.

See the Your Review thread on the general forum. I've tried to argue with him, but he really thinks it sucks. Maybe if some more of us tried to make him think again ....

Actually this was his first, rather short review.

[Harovan]

abstain

I partly share his opinion about Civ4. Not his conclusion (it does not suck IMO), but e.g. the maps are really lame.

[Cort Haus]

You could post a critique of the maps, SR. Sirian is open to ideas for improving them, I believe.

[Harovan]

The map generator is the Achilles heel of Civ4 at the moment.

I spent one week of my valuable holiday vacation to get a nice epic game running, and to try the new Marathon speed, which is really good and somewhat lessens the unit obsolete before use syndrome. As size I chose large with 9 civs.

First I tried a continents map. They are, well, standard you know. Or at least they should be. In the first two tries I ended up alone on a landmass. Really nice chunks of land, I wouldn't complain, but not what I had chosen. I abandoned both games, and a whole day was already wasted. In the next try I had contact to 7 of 8 possible other civs by 2280 BC. I didn't even look for the 8th. I scrapped the game and the next day was gone. Of course one may argue, that if the missing civ is on another landmass, it is continents. I would, however, give it another and more honest name. It is a pangea with one screwed civ. No more. No less. And not what I wanted.

There are 3 types of continents. Big ones - I call them Eurasias (including Africa, which is technically on the same landmass), medium ones - I call Americas, and small ones with only 1 civ - I call Australia. I would enjoy changing combinations of these. Perhaps one Eurasia and one America. Or three Americas. Or all three of them by one. But unfortunately I get a big percentage of 1 Eurasia and 1 Australia - fun on occasions, but too often to be enjoyable.

Next I tried out custom continents. Somewhat warned by my unpleasant experiences and looked on a bunch of them in the world builder first. It turns out, that maps with the same settings more or less look the same. You can learn them really quick. After you build Stonehenge and know your position, you can guess with a high probability, where the other continents are and roughly how they are shaped. Not fun.

Terra I did not try in this run. While I enjoy this idea per se, it is somewhat an exploit to me. The AI does not handle it well. It does not understand to rush for Astronomy. And it does not understand, how easy it is to get a huge chunk of the New world by conquering barbarian cities. You can so easily become a "Netherlands" civ; tiny on your home continent, but huge overseas.

Next I tried my luck with highlands, in several studies. I have to say the concept of these is great. You can't hide behind coast lines, you have to fight in the open, to secure passes and chokepoints. Grand strategy! However, the lacking X and/or Y wrapping renders the advantages useless. You don't have to use a coastline to keep your back clean, if you can use the map border or even a corner for this purpose. Great idea, poorly executed. I stated this several times in the public forum, in threads where Sirian was present. Without any response.

My last setting was an Archipelago. Ok I thought, let's build a mighty British Empire, over which the sun does not set. Alas, guess who came visiting me in 3800 BC? Yup, it was Montezuma. Sorry, but I had chosen Archipelago, and I don't want anyone to visit me, if he does not come by ship. And especially not this lunatic.

After this I packed Civ4 in its box and put it on the shelf. Guess what I found there? HOI2. Boy, is that an excellent game. I have it almost a year and never actually played it. It saved the rest of my vacation.

I won't post rants in the public forums, I fear I have been flamed once too often there to bother about them anymore. And at the moment I don't have the time, and even less the will to start discussions about a game I don't even play this time.

The map generator is the Achilles heel of Civ4 at the moment.

[Cort Haus]

It's true that there are a lot of 6:1 or 5:2 standard continent maps and very few 3:4 or 3:2:2 spreads. I certainly haven't had a standard map that had a Lego, an BoB and a Stormia type three-continents.

This subject might be good for the modding forum. The map scripts are supposedly open, so there could be scope for improvement even if Sirian is not interested.

[Arrian]

Yes to MZ, if he's still interested.

On the maps issue, I know that Sirian is open to working more on map scripts.

I've generally enjoyed my experience with the maps in CIV... sorry to hear it's been unfun for you, Sir Ralph.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

It just takes a lot of time to get the game you want. Too long to enjoy. I play not to the extreme. I play to relax. Most of my games are planned ahead, have a theme, a story I want to put in scene. Sometimes with a renamed leader, or a city list. If I want to play a game with early warfare and a strong navy, I choose continents. Being alone disables the warfare. Being on a quasi pangea makes the navy pointless.

Sirian put too many thoughts in complete nonsense like wheel maps and such. The bread and butter of civ, the continents map, comes short, obviously.

[Krill]

The Continents map script was not written by Sirian.

It was written by Soren.

[DeepO]

DeepO

[Dominae]

Have you tried Custom Continents?

[Harovan]

Yes, as described. They tend to produce predictable patterns, always roughly equally positioned and shaped.

[Master Zen]

Hi guys, finally had some time to check out the private forum

Interestingly no black votes on having a scumbag villaneous GoWer on the ranks. I'm glad I have joined you guys this time around, I always admired your perfectionist play as well as being rather acquainted with many of you like nye, Krill, Arrian, Cort Haus, T-Man etc.

As some of you might know my feelings for Civ4 have been rather negative. I do not like the game, and aside from my first two games on Noble level (the first on a random map, the other on Earth) the second which I stopped playing after the industrial age I have not picked up the game since and probably won't in the near future save for a new patch or expansion.

Nevertheless as most of you imagine, diplomacy will never stop ceasing to be dear to my heart. Sadly I am neither as addicted to demogaming as I once was, nor do I actually have the time to be so involved as in the days of me being the emperor of GoW and a consul in the ISDG at the same time. I will therefore unlikely hold a leadership position and should I ever volunteer I hope you all vote against it since it will likely be an act of being possessed by the demogaming devil and not an act of reason and logic.

I have however been tinkering with an idea, roleplaying a sort of non-governmental diplomacy "think tank" and thus offering my advice and suggesting courses of action to the leadership of this team. Whether or not they chose to take it will be entirely up to them. I do hope however, that I will be a bit more than just a lurker and that hopefully my experience in diplo matters can contribute in at least a small extent towards kicking the Horde's ass err, winning this game.

So once again, thanks for accepting this old nemesis who is now honored to join the ranks of proud Stormia.