OK, you guys seem to be at least dedicated enough to talk about this...
I think that NTB would be good to play with, but because of the huge shit storm that would happen when a single person fucked up it's really not worth the hassle. Probably best to not actually use it and just double the known tech bonus for such a game (which will still be worth jack all with so many players).
Second, if PB13 is anything to go by, the map has to be toroidal with so many people. This will fuck with most peoples heads enough that no special map twists are needed, and a map size of 124*100 with 29% water and 8% peaks gives about 230 useable tiles per player. I don't know what the figure is for PB13, but PB15 was half of that, so it's enough space. Add in some islands and there is enough land for each person to play with.
Timer still needs to be 24 real hours at least at the start; this is what keeps the games sane, constant movement also means it is over sooner rather than later. Even though there would be more players, each civ will still interact with only 3-4 others for war for the majority of the game, so the war splits are not likely to be any more strenuous until the late game, and late game the turn timer often has to be paused and extended anyway.
With so many players, expecting to win is frankly stupid. Better to appropriate the PB7 lurker awards and update them so you can try to win these instead
much more fun as well.
Finally, I'd want remove map trading from the mod entirely. For something like this it's a little less about balance and trying to stop people, and more about not wanting out of memory errors to occur.
I think that NTB would be good to play with, but because of the huge shit storm that would happen when a single person fucked up it's really not worth the hassle. Probably best to not actually use it and just double the known tech bonus for such a game (which will still be worth jack all with so many players).
Second, if PB13 is anything to go by, the map has to be toroidal with so many people. This will fuck with most peoples heads enough that no special map twists are needed, and a map size of 124*100 with 29% water and 8% peaks gives about 230 useable tiles per player. I don't know what the figure is for PB13, but PB15 was half of that, so it's enough space. Add in some islands and there is enough land for each person to play with.
Timer still needs to be 24 real hours at least at the start; this is what keeps the games sane, constant movement also means it is over sooner rather than later. Even though there would be more players, each civ will still interact with only 3-4 others for war for the majority of the game, so the war splits are not likely to be any more strenuous until the late game, and late game the turn timer often has to be paused and extended anyway.
With so many players, expecting to win is frankly stupid. Better to appropriate the PB7 lurker awards and update them so you can try to win these instead
much more fun as well.Finally, I'd want remove map trading from the mod entirely. For something like this it's a little less about balance and trying to stop people, and more about not wanting out of memory errors to occur.