Sid Meyer's Civilization

[Luzahn]

I'd certainly be up for a PBEM game. I always loved reading those on the Realms Beyond forum, and I'm sure there would be some people interested in following one here, if we wanted to set one up.

[zabbarot]

I didn't notice that GMR had been mentioned. In any case, if you're actually available to play at the same time you're probably better off using the built-in multiplayer function (although it doesn't support mods), GMR is more like one of those boardgames where you play for a real-life year, only meeting once a week to.
At any rate, I could certainly be interested in playing, look me up on Steam where I go by Sartain if you want to.

The reason we used GMR for just the two of us was because it supports mods. He was playing as Princess Bubblegum and I was the Earl of Lemongrab. The Adventure Time civs are actually pretty well though out.

I'd certainly be up for a PBEM game. I always loved reading those on the Realms Beyond forum, and I'm sure there would be some people interested in following one here, if we wanted to set one up.

Alright so that's 4 possible players, including myself.

I'll need Steam names. I figure we can wait a couple days to see if anyone else is interested and set this up on Saturday evening?

I go by zabbarot on steam also.

[Mx.Silver]

I brought that up at the bottom of the previous page, so it kind of got buried :P
The only person who expressed interest though was qwertystop. >.> I'd want at least 4 players if I was gonna bother with that.

I'd be willing if you need players, although I'm not sure how interesting a player I'll make given my lack of Multiplayer experience (and being firmly on the Prince level). Steam name is SorrowShade89.

[zabbarot]

Yay. 5 players.

If we're gonna make a thread for it we might as well get a bit theatrical :P
Turn it into a bit of a RP, then it's a little bit less competitive and skill level won't matter as much.

Preferably we'll play BNW, but if anybody wants to play who doesn't have it I'm sure we can work it out.

[Luzahn]

Luzahn on steam as well. It would be great to get at least six players though, four is a bit sparse without AI, and we wouldn't want any of them open for predation by humans. And yeah, theatrical is fun, definitely the way to do it.

The German people will fight proud and strong, and no heretics will dare stand against them. The Emperor protects.
(Sadly my best game is actually Science. Ah well.)

And I would say that it would be preferable to play BNW, I'm sure there are enough around with it on, and it just feels a bit strange to play without.

[Driderman]

Like I said, I'm Sartain on Steam. And I'll have to insist on Brave New World, the game isn't complete without it.
My initial impression is that with GMR, 6 players is probably a good bet: Enough to have a good game, but less risk of having people not taking their turns.
I'm all for a bit of RP in the game. If we, for some masochistic reason, wanted to we could even make a Steam group for it. Anyway, who wants to be primus motor?

[zabbarot]

Like I said, I'm Sartain on Steam. And I'll have to insist on Brave New World, the game isn't complete without it.
My initial impression is that with GMR, 6 players is probably a good bet: Enough to have a good game, but less risk of having people not taking their turns.
I'm all for a bit of RP in the game. If we, for some masochistic reason, wanted to we could even make a Steam group for it. Anyway, who wants to be primus motor?

GMR has an OPTIONAL setting where the AI will play turns for someone if they wait too long on their turn, if we really think that'll be a problem. Also there is a vacation mode you can turn on if you won't be able to play for a bit that has the AI play your turns.

Anyways anyone who has some experience with GMR can set up the game. I still recommend giving it a bit to see if anyone else is interested though.

[Qwertystop]

Qwertystop on Steam as well.

[zabbarot]

I'll make sure to add you guys when I get home

[Closet_Skeleton]

I'm closet_skeleton on steam. I can make up numbers if someone can't make the time since I'm unemployed and lazy.

[zabbarot]

Ok, I added most of you on steam...

Closet Skeleton, two people come up with your name and I don't know which one is you >.> Most people had other people come up, but I could just pick the one who had hours of civ time in their recent history.

You are either the private one or the one that isn't set up yet.

That gives us six though

Luzahn
Mr. Silver
Driderman
Qwertystop
Closet Skeleton
zabbarot

What size map and what game speed? I usually play on marathon, but that would be ridiculously slow for this. So standard is probably good? And for six players a standard map is probably fine also. I like large maps though so I'm open to suggestions

And who does everyone want to play, since that will influence set up? (if we have Siam, Austria, and Venice I think we'll need more city states :P)
Luzahn called Bismark I think. I might play Spain, just because I've been meaning to for a while, but I do still want to give Venice on honest shot.

[Luzahn]

I'd like Bismarck, but I had a thought that we could play as all BNW civs (Including France, due to the rehaul).

If we want to do something like that, I'd likely play Poland. Their colors and symbol are great, and I haven't had a chance to play as them yet.

For turn speed I'm in favor of Standard, but maybe with map size we could make it large and then subtract two players and maybe the difference between Large and Standard's city-states, just to give more land to work with. Standard-6 just feels too cramped sometimes.


I'd think we could still do with more players, if anyone else wants to join in. Eight feels like a good maximum.

[Qwertystop]

I usually go for Random for my civ, actually.

[Mx.Silver]

Standard size and speed seem good yes.
I'm leaning towards France as I'm curious to see how their update has changed things (or watch in dismay as everyone else snipes all the multiple work slot wonders). Chataeus look to be pretty interesting regardless (sort of a fort+Moai+trading post combination improvement, with fairly strict placement limitations).

I'd like Bismarck, but I had a thought that we could play as all BNW civs (Including France, due to the rehaul).

No complaints here. It might be fair to allow Arabia as well since they also got a rehaul, albeit not quite as large a one as France.

[Luzahn]

No complaints here. It might be fair to allow Arabia as well since they also got a rehaul, albeit not quite as large a one as France.

Ah, did they? Makes sense. Yeah, that sounds fair. I'm just still in the early stages of playing through the expansion, and I want to run civilizations that play with the new mechanics well.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Closet Skeleton, two people come up with your name and I don't know which one is you >.> Most people had other people come up, but I could just pick the one who had hours of civ time in their recent history.

I assume you're the Zabbarot with the Avatar who has been playing Realm of the Mad God and Civ V? There seems to be two of most people and I'm not sure they're all real accounts anyway.

I'll set it to public temporily. Then I'll be the one with a rediculous amount of time in Civ 5 and Crusader Kings 2.

What size map and what game speed? I usually play on marathon, but that would be ridiculously slow for this. So standard is probably good? And for six players a standard map is probably fine also. I like large maps though so I'm open to suggestions

Standard map is large for 6 players.

I'd go with Denmark but I remember something about non-Expansion DLC not working in multiplayer so I might go Portugal or Shoshone since I haven't tried those yet.

Rapid conquest Civs like Huns, Assyria or Zulu that try to win in the first 2000 years don't feel right in multiplayer.

[Vitruviansquid]

Well, I just crushed another game at King difficulty as Askia. I usually like to stay in one difficulty for a bit longer before moving onto a new one, but perhaps it's time to start trying Emperor.

[Mx.Silver]

Ah, did they? Makes sense. Yeah, that sounds fair. I'm just still in the early stages of playing through the expansion, and I want to run civilizations that play with the new mechanics well.

Arabia now get a range bonus to their trade caravans and a bonus to spreading religion through trade routes instead of their city connection bonus (their increased Oil is still there). Their unit and building are unchanged, although since you can't trade lump sums of gold with a declaration of friendship as of BNW the Bazaars aren't quite as easy to abuse.

[Driderman]

Ok, I added most of you on steam...

Closet Skeleton, two people come up with your name and I don't know which one is you >.> Most people had other people come up, but I could just pick the one who had hours of civ time in their recent history.

You are either the private one or the one that isn't set up yet.

That gives us six though

Luzahn
Mr. Silver
Driderman
Qwertystop
Closet Skeleton
zabbarot

What size map and what game speed? I usually play on marathon, but that would be ridiculously slow for this. So standard is probably good? And for six players a standard map is probably fine also. I like large maps though so I'm open to suggestions

And who does everyone want to play, since that will influence set up? (if we have Siam, Austria, and Venice I think we'll need more city states :P)
Luzahn called Bismark I think. I might play Spain, just because I've been meaning to for a while, but I do still want to give Venice on honest shot.

Standard map size is usually meant for 8 players, so with 6 players it should still feel large-ish. I usually prefer epic for my game speed when playing, but considering we're only going to get a couple a rounds off per day presumably, anything longer than standard pace is probably optimistic :)

I suspect the Shosone are grossly overpowered for multiplayer though, considering their special unit is a replacement scout that can also fight and gets to choose what they get from ancient ruins. Very powerful starting game at least.
As for DLC Civilizations, as far as I understand it works so that everybody has to have the DLC involved. I have all DLCs personally, so I'm good on that account.

[factotum]

I suspect the Shosone are grossly overpowered for multiplayer though, considering their special unit is a replacement scout that can also fight and gets to choose what they get from ancient ruins.

It's not *that* much more powerful than a standard Scout. Where it would become silly is if you upgraded it at a ruin to some other unit type, then kept upgrading that through the years, but even then the main Scout ability (ignoring terrain penalties) isn't that great late game.

[Driderman]

It's not *that* much more powerful than a standard Scout. Where it would become silly is if you upgraded it at a ruin to some other unit type, then kept upgrading that through the years, but even then the main Scout ability (ignoring terrain penalties) isn't that great late game.

You misunderstand, the potential overpoweredness comes from the Pathfinder's ability to always choose which bonus they get from ruins since it easily lets the Shoshone get ahead on tech, population, social policy AND piety with just 4 ruins, not the unit's combat strength in itself.
Not to mention the insane boost you can get if you get enough ruins to choose an option more than once (I think you can choose it again every 3rd time).
Combined with the fact that the they don't have to worry about building defensive units early since their Pathfinder is equal to a Warrior and their extended starting territory which gives them a better chance at building more Pathfinders quickly/upkeeping more of them, they seem like a real early-game beast especially if you go Honor policy.
I agree that they lose their edge later in the game, but I suspect that if you play the Shoshone right, you're not really planning for a late game since your main advantage is an early game advantage.

[zabbarot]

I'm playing them on Pangaea right now, so the pathfinder bonus probably got a little out of hand. No oceans to cross meant I could just walk to every single ruin, so I think I picked up 10-15 of them. I just got Military Science and with it Comanche Riders, so I think the game will end soon. I have 16 fully upgraded Comanche Riders that are all upgraded from horsemen-knights purchased with faith. I kind of went all into faith just to purchase units. Since I'm playing marathon it was taking about 16 turns to build a knight in my capital, but I was earning over 100 faith a turn and they cost 1080 faith definitely a deal.

Comanche Riders are crazy fast. As soon as I upgraded my knights I started attacking Byzantium. I took 4 of her cities, including her capital before my canons ever made it. So now I'm just sort of on the warpath. I have become the stallion who mounts the world.

[Luzahn]

I don't see the Comanche bonus as being too overpowered; its advantage falls off after classic era, pretty much.

Just make sure you gun down any pathfinders you see.

Although that would be a good case to not make the map larger than the player count; without that, the Shoshone have access to too many ruins.

Oh, and my Winged Hussars will destroy your Comanche, zabbarot

[zabbarot]

Oh, and my Winged Hussars will destroy your Comanche, zabbarot

If it came to that I guess the goal would be to avoid you until we hit that gap between Combustion and Combined Arms, and see how well that went.

Or just try for numbers.

[Driderman]

I'm certainly not going to object to someone playing the Shoshone, just wanted to point out that their early-game can be brokenly powerful. Put them on archipelagos and their pathfinders lose much of their OP-ness.

[Luzahn]

Hm, that brings up a good point. What map type did we want? For a multiplayer game like this, I'm inclined to support Pangaea or Fractal, just to ensure that we're all able to contact each other.

[Driderman]

I, on the other hand, am I big fan of continents style maps of some sort. Apparently there's some sort of "perfect world" mapscript that builds a random but balanced map that features around 2-3 continents. I personally think that sounds great.
Having everyone on the same landmass from the beginning is'nt a necessity for me, there are pros and cons both from being alone and from being surrounded by other Civs.

BTW, created a "Giant Multiplayer Robot in the Playground Civ 5 Group" on Steam and invited those of you I could find, since I assumed it would fine to have one in case we need to organise anything.

[zabbarot]

I've used the 'Perfect World' script a couple times... to be honest it usually ends up really awkward. It's actually a bit like fractal but with more height variance(?) So more mountains and more lakes. In my experience it tends to make maps harder to move around. For example, last time I used it I was the Huns. It started me on a hilly peninsula. The point where the 10 tile peninsula connected to the main land was walled off by mountains When I finally got off the peninsula the rest of the world was basically just thin strips of land trailing into islands.

I really prefer continents.

And the group will be useful, I'm sure.

[Luzahn]

Bah, you've seen through my cunning plan of abusing a massive cavalry build.

(This was not a plan. In fact, I have a strange hatred of non-costal cities.)

[Mx.Silver]

Pangaea I dislike because it makes life difficult for the naval civs (albeit not quite to the same extent as Lakes). Archipelago is out for the opposite reason.

Fractal I'm okay with, and also Continents (plus or otherwise). I think Frontier also has a 'large continents' option although I've never tested it.