2v2v2v2 team pitboss anyone?

[SevenSpirits]

Barbs lose all techs when you save a .wbsave file (it just has no place to store that information). So even though deity is supposed to start barbs with archery (and several other techs), if you are playing a multiplayer game on a map that's so much as been looked over, barbs will have no techs. It doesn't have anything to do with AI civs knowing archery.

We could fix it by loading the game as a pitboss with a custom assets DLL that's been specially made to award techs to the barbs on load, but in practice we never bother with this. So barbs will start with no techs.

[Krill]

Relevant reading for those that are interested in the barb stuff: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=299483

[CFCJesterFool]

Hey, I was a dissenting vote. However, I thought the barb techs were based on the civs, ie, the archers were because the 'roided AI get Archery?

Barb starting techs are based solely on difficulty level when the map is generated...except a worldbuilder save requires the barb starting techs to be added back in. However, difficulty level determines when non-animal barbs start spawning and on Deity it is ~T10 (so if barb starting techs aren't added back in you would just have barb warriors on ~T10).

Edit: thinking animals by T6.

[SevenSpirits]

Does this rule stop the exploit?
"You may not make two gpt offers on the same turn to your partner."

Or does it need to be "you must cancel an existing gpt deal with your partner before proposing a new one"? That's a PITA, but would definitely stop any issues.

Doesn't solve it. The basic version of the exploit is just to sign a deal giving gpt from a player who's ended turn to one who hasn't. If you cancel it when you're both in the same state (ended turn or not), or better yet, when the beneficiary has ended turn one more time even, you are just getting free gold.

Just to check: is there any big reason not to just ban gpt gifts? Obviously means the fundig would be a turn later if you can only do lump sum gifts but as long as everyone has that shouldn't be unbalancing.

The reason is it's potentially a lot more work to do gold gifts every turn, than to just do a single gpt gift. It's certainly not the end of the world. It's just a matter of tradeoffs in complexity of rules, hoops you need to jump through in game, and removing these stupid free gold situations.

Btw in writing this post I realize that it's not enough to only ban accepting per-turn trades when one partner has ended turn and the other hasn't. You also need to ban cancelling them at those times.

[Thoth]

After rethinking things....I'm going to sit this one out and globally lurk.

*runs off to read everyone's spoiler threads*

[TheHumanHydra]

So, to clarify, the rule being proposed is "you may only accept or cancel gpt deals when either both players have ended their turns or both players have not ended their turns."

Enjoy, Thoth!

[SevenSpirits]

So, to clarify, the rule being proposed is "you may only accept or cancel gpt deals when either both players have ended their turns or both players have not ended their turns."

Enjoy, Thoth!

Yes. Well, that's one option.

Note that you can also get minor benefits from trading resources with similar timings.

[pindicator]

Could a simple rule of "You cannot make any actions/trades between ending turns of both civs" work, or does that open up other complications?

[Commodore]

So, to clarify, the rule being proposed is "you may only accept or cancel gpt deals when either both players have ended their turns or both players have not ended their turns."

I'd say, this.

[SevenSpirits]

Could a simple rule of "You cannot make any actions/trades between ending turns of both civs" work, or does that open up other complications?

It's definitely very simple, and that's good. Only drawback I see is it removes a couple of options from players. One option is for one player to end turn, then give gold to the other player. (This same action can be accomplished by trading them gpt and then trading equal gpt back the following turn to make it effectively a one-time deal. It's just a little bit more annoying to carry out.) Another factor is if one player is playing both teams, it's easier for them if they can just log in as one team, do all actions including diplo offers, then end turn, log out, log in as other team, accept diplo offers, end turn. And this rule prevents that even if the trade is harmless (lump sum gold, or a resource trade in the "bad" direction).

Both those cases are just about convenience, but I guess another thing it prevents (assuming that "actions" is very broadly defined) is one player ending turn to pop borders, then the other player taking advantage of the new territory with their units (e.g. workers). Of course for this case, if we wanted to allow it, we could just adjust your rule to only be about diplo actions.

Obviously it's not the end of the world to ban any of these things. I think that's a perfectly valid thing to vote for - it wins hands-down in simplicity.