CIV5:GMR in the Playground 9: The short, SHORT version!

[OrcusMcP]

If you have not determined what it is by the 8 other GMR games in the forum, Giant Multiplayer Robot is a hosting tool for playing a HotSeat game of multiplayer Civilization 5. The threads are for diplomacy bickering backstabbing thinly veiled threats the players to communicate and are great fun all around.

Aww, man, another one?
Yes.

There's already 8 of these!
Yeah, but they're lots of fun for players and spectators alike!

But what will make this different? Don't these games take forever to play?
How fortunate that I can answer both of these questions with the same answer!

We will be playing scenarios! That's right, GMR can actually be setup to have multiplayer versions of the scenarios packaged with the game! Some are good, some are really lame and some are just goofy, but they all tend to end after 100 turns. This should lead to high-paced backstabbing and fun with much less muss and fuss!

Now typically, these games are run with all expansions and no mods/DLC as not everyone will have picked those up. Some scenarios are DLC exclusive, but they have a tendency to be among the lame ones.

So, I will need to know who is in, as well as which scenario to play! If the game goes well/fast we may do another round with a different scenario!

The (good) Scenarios!

• CONQUEST OF THE NEW WORLD DELUXE - an updated version of a previously DLC only scenario, half the civs are European Colonizers while the other half are the Native American Empires. The goal is the have the highest score at the end of 100 turns, and there are a lot of varied ways to get points. Can the Americans thrive with the more advanced Colonies encroaching on their borders? Will the Europeans get sidetracked by petty bickering over spoils?
• INTO THE RENAISSANCE - Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis in one big Civ 5 scenario. Once again the goal is to have the highest score at the end of the timer, with many varied ways to earn points. This scenario lasts 200 turns.
• WONDERS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD - (DLC EXCLUSIVE) - Live the Bronze Age! Conquer your neighbours! Build Wonders! Victory goes to the civ that controls a majority of wonders.
• SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA - The Europeans, North Africans and Sub-Saharan Africans are all competing to have the highest score at the end of 100 turns, while in the height of the Imperialism era! Can the Africans resist the Maxim Gun?
• EMPIRE OF THE SMOKY SKIES - Steampunk Industrialism! Lots of fun character banter potential, with entirely divergent tech tree/units/resources. There are special titles you can earn, and the one who earns and maintains the majority of the titles wins! Only downside to this scenario is that it only accommodate 5 players.

Round 1: Empire of the Smoky Skies
OrcusMcP - Eruch
Dodger - Vedria
Driderman - Orlin
Magentawolf - Dalmace
Neon Knight - Pulias

[Gray Mage]

How many players will there be? And how will the game be, in hours? Anyway, it has been a while since I played Civ and I'm not exactly a star player anyway, so maybe I'll just watch this one out.

Also, is there a recording/vod of the previous games?

[OrcusMcP]

How many players will there be? And how will the game be, in hours? Anyway, it has been a while since I played Civ and I'm not exactly a star player anyway, so maybe I'll just watch this one out.

Also, is there a recording/vod of the previous games?

GMR works as a hot seat game, so you play one turn at a time and pass the save around, so it's less "hours" and more "a couple minutes when it's your turn over the course of a month(s)"

As to the previous games, they got told in banter and screenshots in the forums, and can be found in some links.

As to skill, join! Worry not! It's more about having fun than super competition, snarky commentary notwithstanding.

[Gray Mage]

GMR works as a hot seat game, so you play one turn at a time and pass the save around, so it's less "hours" and more "a couple minutes when it's your turn over the course of a month(s)"

Oh, I thought it'd be done in a short amount of time (say a weekend or onde hour per day) sort of deal, not in the long run.

[Magentawolf]

Colour me interested, at least.

[The_Snark]

I am intrigued - I didn't realize you could play scenarios on multiplayer/hotseat. I would tentatively favor Conquest of the New World, but Into the Renaissance, Scramble for Africa and Empire of the Smoky Skies would all be fine too.

[Driderman]

For scale, our first GMR game took over a real time year and was a fast pace game (330 turns, I believe) with 6 players. And it could probably have run for a couple of months more if we all hadn't conceded the final world war.

Also, I'm totally up for playing a multiplayer scenario if there's room, never tried that.

[Neon Knight]

I'm game. I favor Scramble for Africa, Empires of the Smoky Skies, and Renaissance. Conquer the New World might be fun too.

[DodgerH2O]

Interested Here. Though I'm not quite as good as a lot of you I've seen in the other GMR games, I've been itching for multiplayer.

[Grif]

Technically there's nine other games.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Scenarios run for limited turns.

Analysis from my experience:

Empire of the Smoky Skies:
The win condition feels cheap, feels less like a scenario and more like a mod.

Wonders of the Ancient World:
Its like a iron age limited version of the base game. The custom civs with standard leaderheads feels low budget.

Into the Renaissance
This map is huge, it probably takes the longest of all scenarios so be warned. Also the Mongols can't be selected by a player.

Scramble for Africa
This is not balanced and isn't supposed to be. Which makes it the most Europa Universalis of the games (well, Victoria).

CONQUEST OF THE NEW WORLD DELUXE
It was easy enough in single player.

I'd vote for Conquest of the New World Deluxe or Scramble.

[OrcusMcP]

Looks like we have 7 confirmed people interested, if we get one more we can run CotNW, with 2 more we can do Scramble.

[DodgerH2O]

How will we be choosing Civs?

[OrcusMcP]

How will we be choosing Civs?

Well, it depends on which scenario we do. I'll post the list of who's who and what the special rules are and we'd pick them on a FCFS basis, I suppose.

EDIT: I also miscounted, we will need 10 people for CotNW and 12 for Scramble.

[OrcusMcP]

Well, it seems like we aren't getting any more people in, so I'm going to start with some Smoky Sky action! This means that some of you may have to miss the first round, but hopefully this will not go too slow and we can have another round before long!

So everyone interested, claim your Steampunk civs:
Wiki Info on the scenario and the civs

I'll claim Euruch

[DodgerH2O]

Looking at the Civs available, I'm liking Vedria.

[Driderman]

I'll take Pulias, then.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Darn, am I too late?

[Magentawolf]

I'll take Dalmace, then.

[Driderman]

Darn, am I too late?

Nah, we're still just choosing Civs.

[OrcusMcP]

Darn, am I too late?

Nope, not too late! There's One spot left in this round, still want in?

[Neon Knight]

That turned into a brutal first come first serve real quick! If Carpe wants Orlin, I will defer to his speaking up first, but if not, I would be happy to do so.

[OrcusMcP]

Invitations have been sent via PM, just waiting on Carpe to claim his place if they still want it.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Oh! Um! I'd love to! But I'll defer, because I hadn't been posting in this thread when Neon Knight came around.

EDIT: Also, another GMR game just went up, so I'm good.

[OrcusMcP]

Alright, looks like everyone is in and we are off! I set a timer of 24 hours, but since this is a smaller group we can do a longer timer if need be.

[DodgerH2O]

I should be able to do 24 hours, though for these types of games my preference is usually 72, with an agreement that all parties will do their best to act within 24 hours of their turn. Not sure how GMR works, does it automatically skip past the timer ending?

Also please forgive me if I have any questions about GMR in general, I'm new to the whole thing. I can ask on the GMR site or PMs if you'd prefer not to clutter this thread.

[Driderman]

Timer says turn ends in 7990 years... This may take a while

[OrcusMcP]

Timer says turn ends in 7990 years... This may take a while

That should be fixed now, not sure how that happened.

[OrcusMcP]

I should be able to do 24 hours, though for these types of games my preference is usually 72, with an agreement that all parties will do their best to act within 24 hours of their turn. Not sure how GMR works, does it automatically skip past the timer ending?

Also please forgive me if I have any questions about GMR in general, I'm new to the whole thing. I can ask on the GMR site or PMs if you'd prefer not to clutter this thread.

No worries, but yes if you miss the end of the timer your turn gets played by the AI. If you are finding the 24 hours too strict, let me know and I'll adjust it a bit. I don't want to make it too long as that may make the game drag, but there are only 5 people this time.

[Driderman]

I'm playing a casual game with some of my friends where a 36 hour timer is more than enough even though we're adults with real-life obligations. Well, some of the players get skipped a fair bit but that's more due to forgetfulness than a strict time limit