CTP PBEM Challenge Ladder -- May 2003

[Mathemagician]

a little correction:

the 'next button' does not disappear when you pressed 'n'.
you simply have to wait a few moments.
but when the window appears that lets you quit the program, neither the big nor the little map in the corner is there anymore, which is quite important..

[quinns]

Math -- Personally, I wouldn't recommend this "auto-nexting" in challenge games, but it is up to the players involved to decide, of course.

My main reason for not recommending is because the beginning of the game is crucial to the rest of the game, IMO, and one can learn a lot about what your opponent is doing by using your "Free Spies". What I am referring to is the intelligence you can gather on the screen after hitting the "End" button in PBEM. It is a built in "bug", but there is no avoiding using it in PBEM, where you can see:
1) The enemy's population;
2) The enemy's public works;
3) The enemy's gold;
4) If the enemy completed building anything this turn;
5) Other message icons that show what types of messages your enemy is receiving like: combat; exchanges; gifts; destroyed cities, ... etc.

In addition, the Power Graph and Top 5 Cities screens can reflect, in general, what your enemy is developing. By monitoring the Power Graph and Top 5 Cities turn by turn, you can get a rough idea in which direction your opponent is moving, and adjust your own strategy accordingly.

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by quinns
4) If the enemy completed building anything this turn;
5) Other message icons that show what types of messages your enemy is receiving like: combat; exchanges; gifts; destroyed cities, ... etc.

If anyone is interested, I developed a mod that prevents you from seeing other players' message icons, and I could try to find a way to hide the PW and Gold too, but I've thought about the problem in the past and seen no easy solution... The only way to fix the population problem is for all players to set the population per citizen numbers in const.txt to 0.

[quinns]

Hi J Bytheway! Thanks for the offer. By the way, you should join us in PBEM Challenge matches. You'd be a welcomed addition!

[Mathemagician]

thanks quinns for the explanation.
i see the point in your arguments.
but for the very first unit you build i think it should be worth the time advantage to get nexted. the information gain that early is quite irrelevant.
that is, if you start out with something cheap as a warrior or phalanx.

Originally posted by J Bytheway
If anyone is interested, I developed a mod that prevents you from seeing other players' message icons, and I could try to find a way to hide the PW and Gold too, but I've thought about the problem in the past and seen no easy solution... The only way to fix the population problem is for all players to set the population per citizen numbers in const.txt to 0.

jbtw (may i abbreviate you this way ? )
does your mod have any other impact on the way the game is behaving ?
if not i'd like to see this be common place in PBEM games.
does it also stop the windows asking you to complete settlers in cities of size 1 ? that would be quite good.
and does it work for or against the player who installed it ? that is, does it prevent the opponent from seeing your incons or the other way around ?

about the PW, gold and population, i do like these littles spies more than the message icons you can see.

for the population constant, i would find it good if we could generally agree to use or not to use it (probably not eh ?) as i dont like to remember one more setting that is different in each of my games and that even requires me to change a file each time.

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by Mathemagician
jbtw (may i abbreviate you this way ? )

Indeed you may.

does your mod have any other impact on the way the game is behaving ?

No - it just sends everyone a whole bunch of messages each turn so that all the important ones are pushed off the top of the screen.

does it also stop the windows asking you to complete settlers in cities of size 1 ? that would be quite good.

No, I could do that too, but I don't think it would persist from turn to turn unless everyone altered their default gamefiles, which would probably be too much to ask. It might do, though - I'll experiment...

and does it work for or against the player who installed it ? that is, does it prevent the opponent from seeing your incons or the other way around ?

It protects your own icons, but whether or not it works depends only on whether the person who started the game used it or not, not on whether the various players have it installed (like Keygen's quick start mod).

Of course, if one of the players did a reloadslic then it would break the whole system, but it would be too late to help them until the next turn came around, and all the other players would notice before that.

about the PW, gold and population, i do like these littles spies more than the message icons you can see.

for the population constant, i would find it good if we could generally agree to use or not to use it (probably not eh ?) as i dont like to remember one more setting that is different in each of my games and that even requires me to change a file each time.

Personally I never look at those numbers, so it makes little difference to me.

I attach the current version. I did want to find a way to make it automatically vanish all the messages it produces, but couldn't. You only have to open one and hit the button on it to remove them all at present.

Unzip into an appropriately named subdirectory of scenarios, and start up a hotseat game if you want to see how it works. It woun't affect the turn 0 - but you never get messages on turn 0 anyway, so that doesn't matter.

[Edit attachment changed - it was the wrong version]

[J Bytheway]

Here's a version that fixes the settler popup too. And again (I'm fairly sure) it only matters for the person who creates the game in the first place, others need not have it installed.

[Mathemagician]

Originally posted by J Bytheway

does your mod have any other impact on the way the game is behaving ?

No - it just sends everyone a whole bunch of messages each turn so that all the important ones are pushed off the top of the screen.

oh. thats the whole trick.. hmm..

You only have to open one and hit the button on it to remove them all at present

oh much better

[Mathemagician]

Originally posted by J Bytheway
Here's a version that fixes the settler popup too. And again (I'm fairly sure) it only matters for the person who creates the game in the first place, others need not have it installed.

you're a good hacker !!
can you tell me anything about the...
matrix ?

[ricketyclik]

[checkMate]

- sorry dup post

[checkMate]

--

[checkMate]

J.Bytheway,

Do you have a trick to make the wonders disappear from the game. I can do so if I modify one of the .txt files. But I want the change to be sticky so that it remains with the csg file instead of me and my apponents having to maintain that no-wonders file?

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by checkMate
Do you have a trick to make the wonders disappear from the game. I can do so if I modify one of the .txt files. But I want the change to be sticky so that it remains with the csg file instead of me and my apponents having to maintain that no-wonders file?

In CTP2 it would be easy... In CTP1, to the best of my knowledge, the closest you could some would be to force the wonders to be removed from someones build queue every time they added them, which is less than satisfactory...

[Mathemagician]

Mathemagician vs. quinns - turn 22

exploring.
interesting area, this what is to be the core territory of my empire in the near future.

Mathemagician vs. Hatschy - turn 52

i must admit i accidentally peeked in his turn while rearranging some CTP turns on my desktop.
i tried to move 4 files simultaneously to a folder. the cursor was shown on top of my turn when i mistakenly clicked the mouse button. suddenly i realized it was his turn, but still i had seen his capital city before being able to end the turn.
sorry again, Hatschy.

Mathemagician vs. checkMate - turn 93

since the game was delayed for such a long time due to my being away from CTP, we both werent sure whether we allowed wonders.
so, when he realized my philosophers stone was almost done we emailed some and agreed i would have this wonder and he one of his choice later on. else, no wonders are allowed anymore.
the scottish seem to be angry with me, possibly incited by the Californians that still seem culural strangers to my people.

Mathemagician vs. ricketyclik - turn 185

my Dornheimers are flourishing, whereas his Australians are suffering from some random strikes of buccaneers. rumors has it that these were sponsored by Dornheim.
government denies knowledge.

Mathemagician vs. Birdman - turn 200 exactly

finally an open war has ensued.
his evil Vikings made an alpha strike last turn, conquering Valencia, Pirmasens and Dornberg from my honest Dornheimer.
i took Dornberg and Pirmasens back however, as well as a strategic defense point on the way to Valencia.
the turn took me a while as i reorganized my civil production to war production.

Mathemagician vs. David42one - turn 60 ?

no turn for a while.
as i remember our troops were claiming their respective territories, forming a well-guarded rather long borderline.