Anyone for ANY PBEM here?

[Humphrey]

roffle, you want me to get up before 3pm? Well, I'll try.

Are you sure you want AI? If you really do, how about the 2 aliens. Then the human players will get less benefit from capturing the AI bases, giving less benefit to someone who starts near to the AI? Just an idea.

[bluetemplar]

By "vanilla" I meant without any custom maps...
BTW it would be interesting to play on a Map of The Planet (normal size), don't you think?

I have a strange bug with the Aliens: even with all the patchs applied, I still have only one Alien per game! So if someone other than me started the game it would be better...

Now about the RULES:

Bugs/Features:

http://www.civgaming.net/smac/acad_buglist.shtml

14-(Pact Support Bug): I thought this was fixed with the latest patch?

There is also 3 other feature/tricks that are not described in this page:

(Transport in Sea Base Trick):
When you put a transport (sea or land(air?) in a sea base near a coast (and on the coast near a sea base?) you can transfer units from coast to base and inversely. The transport itself can also move from base to coast and inversely.

(Unit Sea/Cost transfer with help of another Unit):
When you put a unit on a coast near a sea base another unit can move from the base to the square where the 1st unit is (and inversely?).

(Transport Floating Bridge):
If you board a sea Transport with a land transport and move with the sea T out of the square, the land T will stay "floating" on the sea square! Repeating this you can make a bridge with land T!


GAME RULES:
Default rules + :

no Do or Die
Random events
Non-Blind Research
Look First



-No turn restarting
-No commlink before contact
-No going F1 => factions to see what factions you are up against...
-Only one SE change/turn



I think we should AUTHORISE these bugs/features:


-18 (Reverse Engineering)

-21 (Unload in Flight)

-26 (no Vendetta after Stealing) : as Dreifeils wrote:
quote:
A probe team operation is a secret service operation and it's just the character of a secret service operation that the victim doesn't see / know it and has no possibility to act at once.


35-(Sea Artillery Combat)

44/45 (Stockpile Energy Bug)

63-(Upgrades in Workshop): OK, but without attacking the same turn!

76-(fire Artillery from Transport)

(Transport in Sea Base Trick):

(Unit Sea/Cost transfer with help of another Unit):

(Transport Floating Bridge)

Upgrade crawlers for SP's...


And FORBID these:

1-(Extra growth w/ColonyPod)

2-(Multiple AirDrop)

4-(AI unfair Base Trade)

7-(Restart bonus)

16-(Editor Cheating)

19-(Probe to Rover Reverse Engineering)

22-(Terraformer Move-Again Trick)

25-(AI Withdrawal)

27-(Erase Vendetta Trick)

38-(Industry Switching with Crawlers Disbanding)

42/43-(Planetary Council Bribes) : We should make all elections/votes/bribes by e-mail first.

50-(Facilities in Queue trick)

65-(Air Defense with Vendetta only): It should be also for Nothing/Truce/Treaty without the approval of the other side!

71-(Terraforming Credit Up)

72-(Spying on Commlink Communications)

74-(Instant Patrol Upgrade Cheat)

75-(Citizen Remote Control)

ABOUT PEOPLE UNAVAILABLE TO PLAY THEIR TURN:
This method speeds the game but implies that all saved games are posted in the turn tracking thread.
Turn time limit on agreement: if you don't send the turn in that limit your turn will be passed by the next player/CMN, or if everyone agrees we can augment the time limit for this time.
I would say 3 hours. Post "logged" on the turn thread when you see that the person 2 "slots" before you posted the save file on the turn tracking thread. After 3 hours have passed you can pass the turn of the person that didn't show up, posting to the forum: "Azerty turn passed".

How to pass others turn without seeing what he's doing:

Switch off Monitor :-p
Enter
repeat Escape until "Production Complete"
Ctrl+Enter
And if you don't hear "Turn Comlplete":
Down
Enter

OR we might be able to find a CMN => then we can have passwords, but the CMN might not be able to pass the turn the same day!
OR we could post in the forum "Need someone to pass a turn - save game joined" but i think since it implies we don't have passwords and can trust each other the "shut off monitor" method is better.

Pass limit per day/player?

"Gone" limit:
After X turns have passed, and the player is still not here, we will search for another player to take the turns. Then this player could choose to not give the place back to the original player if he desires so...

I would say 4 turns.

This will give us a GREAT turn speed, but might be too restrictive, have to test it yet...

What do you think of all this?

[bluetemplar]

Yes, 2 Aliens and the Planet Cult will be fine I think... (The Planet Cult will not be strong later on anyway... and early on you will have to keep up with his worms!)

[SebP]

i'm ok with those rules. thanks btw, i didn't remember/ most of these bugs, pretty much the only ones is still knew were energy stockpile and the various design workshop things (re, upgrading...)

btw. does anyone know what happened to MoSe who pointed out some of these? i played my last pbem (on planetacol) as his junior partner, and wow, i didn't backstab him (though i should have tried), because i was just to afraid of his ability

i expect after 8 years of playing you all are pretty much cracks like that... i stand no chance at all :-)

aliens is cool

about the turn time limits: i'd rather not do that. we can probably do 5-8 turns a week without it, and smax games don't take that many turns

[bluetemplar]

I only played 1 PBEM for 10-20 turns and I replaced another guy...

It might also be interesting to put Pirates instead of Planet Cult... so that in the middle of game everyone will fight to take Pirate's bases and we will have a Naval War!

I think the turn time limits is a good idea because I know that for instance "I" will be tempted by delaying the turn in order to do something other IRL, and that's not really cool for other players. That way, either the IRL stuff is important and I will skip my turn, either I will play my turn and delay IRL stuff a little bit...

[Flubber]

Originally posted by bluetemplar
?

I have a strange bug with the Aliens: even with all the patchs applied, I still have only one Alien per game! So if someone other than me started the game it would be better...

This is normal. if you mean that if AI factions are set to random, you can have only one in the game. I frequently play games where only one alien is present.

[bluetemplar]

From Firaxis: patch 2.0 : "During a random game, if an Alien faction is selected, and there isanother random slot, there will be two Alien factions in the game."

http://www.firaxis.com/games/game_detail.php?gameid=7

and I HAVE patch 2.0! i think i will test & see if the other bugs appear as well...

[bluetemplar]

Something we should use, especially if we use passwords without CMN...

http://www.civgaming.net/forums/showthread.php?t=5542

[Flubber]

Originally posted by bluetemplar
From Firaxis: patch 2.0 : "During a random game, if an Alien faction is selected, and there isanother random slot, there will be two Alien factions in the game."

http://www.firaxis.com/games/game_detail.php?gameid=7

and I HAVE patch 2.0! i think i will test & see if the other bugs appear as well...

Well I also have all the patches and I would swear up and down that if I set all AI to random, I sometimes get one alien. Perhaps this can happen if the AI are set sequentially-- ie if the LAST random slot is an alien then there is not "another" random slot for the other

[Flubber]

Originally posted by bluetemplar



GAME RULES:
Default rules + :

no Do or Die
Random events
Non-Blind Research
Look First



-No turn restarting
-No commlink before contact
-No going F1 => factions to see what factions you are up against...
-Only one SE change/turn

I like Do or Die on-- I hate restarted factions
Random events OFF- these are luck of the draw and unbalancing
SE changes-- the rule is generally one change per line per turn to avoid SE quickies-- If someone wants to start a turn in demo Planned wealth and end it in Fundy FM knowledge, that should be fine

Originally posted by bluetemplar





-26 (no Vendetta after Stealing) : as Dreifeils wrote:
quote:
A probe team operation is a secret service operation and it's just the character of a secret service operation that the victim doesn't see / know it and has no possibility to act at once.

I disagree. The bug is that the prober gets the choice to declare vendetta or not when it should be the probee. This is relevant if we have AI since it impacts reputation. I shouldn't have to take the probe hit for declaring vendetta becasue my supposed frienmd has stolen my tech

ABOUT PEOPLE UNAVAILABLE TO PLAY THEIR TURN:

I would say 3 hours. Post "logged" on the turn thread when you see that the person 2 "slots" before you posted the save file on the turn tracking thread. After 3 hours have passed you can pass the turn of the person that didn't show up, posting to the forum: "Azerty turn passed".

How to pass others turn without seeing what he's doing:

Switch off Monitor :-p
Enter
repeat Escape until "Production Complete"
Ctrl+Enter
And if you don't hear "Turn Comlplete":
Down
Enter

OR we might be able to find a CMN => then we can have passwords, but the CMN might not be able to pass the turn the same day!
OR we could post in the forum "Need someone to pass a turn - save game joined" but i think since it implies we don't have passwords and can trust each other the "shut off monitor" method is better.

Pass limit per day/player?

"Gone" limit:
After X turns have passed, and the player is still not here, we will search for another player to take the turns. Then this player could choose to not give the place back to the original player if he desires so...

I would say 4 turns.

This will give us a GREAT turn speed, but might be too restrictive, have to test it yet...

What do you think of all this?

I don't agree. 3 hours is far too fast -- I work a job for 10 hours each day and will not play at all during that time. If that is too slow for you, get another player.

3 hours assumes that people are on the computer all the time. I play twice a day on most days. If thats not good enough, I repeat maybe I'm not the player for this game. I can drop out now

[Humphrey]

Originally posted by Flubber
I like Do or Die on-- I hate restarted factions
Random events OFF- these are luck of the draw and unbalancing
SE changes-- the rule is generally one change per line per turn to avoid SE quickies-- If someone wants to start a turn in demo Planned wealth and end it in Fundy FM knowledge, that should be fine

I agree about Do or Die and SE, I do like random events but I think the 20 years no commlink would be quite crappy in a mp game, so maybe they should be off.

Originally posted by Flubber
I don't agree. 3 hours is far too fast -- I work a job for 10 hours each day and will not play at all during that time. If that is too slow for you, get another player.

I think 3 hours is also too fast. I'm not house bound, I do go out sometimes, you know. I'd prefer to make the limit 24 hours, but ask people to give advance warning if they don't think they will be able to do the turn at their usual time.

The transport in Sea Base trick is normal behaviour. A unit can move from a transport to land, so it should also be able to move from a transport in a base to land. I don't think this is a bug at all.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Humphrey


I think 3 hours is also too fast. I'm not house bound, I do go out sometimes, you know.

Good I'm not the only one. I also sometimes sleep -- oh 6-7 hours consecutively

[Flubber]

On the transport things-- I don't see any issue with moving units from land to a sea transport or vice versa.

I have played with the bug of land transports creating a "bridge" but I always found the land transport disappeared on the next turn if left at sea.

I never really saw any functional use for a land transport at sea. If someone wants to use resources building those, I would be happy to see it

[Humphrey]

Originally posted by bluetemplar
(Transport Floating Bridge):
If you board a sea Transport with a land transport and move with the sea T out of the square, the land T will stay "floating" on the sea square! Repeating this you can make a bridge with land T!

This shouldn't be allowed, it's a blatant exploit of a bug.

26 (no Vendetta after Stealing)

I don't agree. I think it should be done as it suggests, that is 'Etiquette dictates that the prober should choose "declare vendetta" or "cancel pact" unless prior approval has been received from the victim to choose something else.'.

44/45 (Stockpile Energy Bug)

Shouldn't be allowed.

63-(Upgrades in Workshop): OK, but without attacking the same turn!

Not sure about this one.

1-(Extra growth w/ColonyPod)

I think this should be allowed up to the supported population (can grow a base without hab complex to 7 like this, but not to 8).

I agree over the other things.

btw I also get one alien sometimes when it's all set to random.

[Flubber]

I think I might like trying the Hive this time--

xxxsharris4141@yahoo.comxxx (without the xxxs of course