(Spoilers) Churchill's Old General Death

[Miguelito]

fwiw I personally agree with you that the combination of deity AND an explicitly dire map is not very healthy for the game. Basically stretches out the classical era for almost a year now, combined with the 48h timer.

Also I don't think that a 52 players game can be entered with the idea of playing for the win. You'll need to find local goals to keep you motivated. If from there a situation arises where you can shoot for the top, go for it, but ultimately it's out of your hands to a great part. So really I would play this as trying to make my civ prosper somewhat i nmy corner of the world, and accept fate.
I regret very much not to have signed up for this, hope there is a follow up.

[superdeath]

fwiw I personally agree with you that the combination of deity AND an explicitly dire map is not very healthy for the game. Basically stretches out the classical era for almost a year now, combined with the 48h timer.

Also I don't think that a 52 players game can be entered with the idea of playing for the win. You'll need to find local goals to keep you motivated. If from there a situation arises where you can shoot for the top, go for it, but ultimately it's out of your hands to a great part. So really I would play this as trying to make my civ prosper somewhat i nmy corner of the world, and accept fate.
I regret very much not to have signed up for this, hope there is a follow up.

As much as it pains me, if they post the sign up here again ill likely enter. At least with better goals and maybe a better than one of the top 2 worst leaders? ( churchill/toku are the worst right? Or am i forgetting someone )


I know i cant win from here, and although i had small thoughts about winning when i started the South America one... this one is more "dont get eaten by Plemo, eat Gandhi, consolidate and tech enough to stay out of digestion range of Plemo till Flunky or Frozen win the game"

[Papa Bear]

Thanks for the information! I can‘t speak for the other guys with regard to the „why don‘t we mod as heavily as you seem to be accustomed to“ question. The way I see it, modding will never be able to compensate for the two most crucial things:

The ability to „read“ the game / other players. This is where good players will beat others regardless of who has better land or leader traits (suited to the land).

The playing skill of your neighbors. A pro surrounded by three noobs will do better than a noob surrounded by three pros. No matter the land or leader traits.

If you take the „balancing“ idea to the extreme, you‘d only play games where everybody gets the same leader and the same land. And where, as they say, would be the fun in that?

No matter how much time you invest in an attempt to balance something like a world map, you simply will not get past those two influencing factors I mentioned above. Which is why just mega-imbalanced things like corporations (in a „plain BtS“ PB on a 52 player world map you just can‘t win without one) have been addressed.

This is not meant to „convert“ anyone, but just as a possible explanation.

[Charriu]

You are absolutely right, Papa Bear, about those two factors that never can be balanced. Still I think there is some merit in minimal balancing. Like take Financial for example, which in BtS is most certainly the strongest, if not best trait.

The benefit that I see in balancing is to see more variaty of play in your PBs. Like for example that not everybody rushes to the Financial trait.

Of course a PB with 52 players is a special case, but I know that you guys also play smaller PBs with fewer players. How do you conduct these? Do you have some elements banned or is everything on the table as in this PB?

[Papa Bear]

Usually, the same things get polled as they were in this game.

Starting positions are looked at (played for 30-50 turns or so, simulating the starting phase) not only by the map maker, but also at least one other experienced player. But there is no matching of resources to starting techs, for example. Why? Because the starting positions are chosen via RNG and not via „correct“ geographical placement in the real world.

Variety in approaches to the game are of course also depending on the player‘s individual skills. There is even an example in this game where someone is using the (in MP games) most useless of traits (PRO). Can‘t elaborate further in this thread, though

In the predecessor game I got „culture bombed“ in the opening of the war which ultimately led to my exit from the game, for example. I survived my attacker because I had a two-tile island I could retreat to  , but got taken out by the same player who took him out, eventually. That guy is the current points leader in this game, by the way

We also see a quite unique strategy with one player in this game, which I‘ve never even seen in SP, by the way. But can‘t go into more detail here, either (PMs welcome )

Sure, FIN is easier to use „properly“ than IMP, for example, but I‘ve seen players doing quite well with that (in this game), too.

I particularly like to read in parallel, how right or wrong players „get“ each other‘s intentions. 

To me, following this PB as a reader is very entertaining so far. And who knows? Maybe we‘ll get live screenings of future winner-take-all battles like we saw in „our“ PB37 some ten years ago. Zulan (the guy who wrote the Vodka combat result simulator) played in that game and it is still my favourite PB ever...

[Charriu]

I'm sure can tell us about all those players in the lurker thread

[superdeath]

Thanks for the information! I can‘t speak for the other guys with regard to the „why don‘t we mod as heavily as you seem to be accustomed to“ question. The way I see it, modding will never be able to compensate for the two most crucial things:

The ability to „read“ the game / other players. This is where good players will beat others regardless of who has better land or leader traits (suited to the land).

The playing skill of your neighbors. A pro surrounded by three noobs will do better than a noob surrounded by three pros. No matter the land or leader traits.

If you take the „balancing“ idea to the extreme, you‘d only play games where everybody gets the same leader and the same land. And where, as they say, would be the fun in that?

I both agree and disagree to various things in this paragraph. While of course reading the game/other players and the neighbor lottery play a big role in every single game, when things are equal on THAT front who wins? The player that has Pacal vs the player that has... Toku. In base BTS there are clear "holy shit" leaders/civs and very clear "this IS shit" leaders/civs. Its not a small difference like between pacal and say, Victoria. Its the difference between any Fin or any Exp leader and a leader that has... Base BTS Pro which is complete garbage as you never want to be the defending player, and Agg which is only mildly better.

That, is why mods make sense. Leaders are just figure heads with traits attached, its the easiest thing to balance. Civ's are more historic-oriented which is why Germany/Russia/England/USA have late-game UU/UB's and are generally not played in any ancient era start because of this fact. Toning down the strength of Fin/exp and bringing the horrible traits up a notch or two makes it so the neighbor/player reading lottery is your only concern. I say this because you can overcome the neighbor lottery if you are able to expand and tech like a monster due to your overpowered traits, you are stuck however if you are not blessed with traits that are overpowered.

For instance, im not a terrible player. Roughly average at Realms if im honest with myself, id rank my military strategy as a 7.5/10 and micro at about 2.5/10. However, as soon as i was choked by Babylon any chance of winning was out the door. Now, if i was Pacal.. I could have used Exp to still out snowball Babylon and use Fin to out tech him to HBR before he himself got there. Instead i had Pure defensive traits with a smidge of happiness for my.... very hilly start.  


I enjoyed playing this pitboss. Meeting new players and seeing how the meta is quite a bit different over here, was exciting. If there is perhaps a more balanced map where everyone has a CHANCE of winning, id be quite happy to join. Would i prefer this new pb be modded to have traits balanced? Yeah, but i can deal with it. Would i prefer this new pb not be deity so the game doesnt have a 200t classical era? Yep, but i can go into the game with that mindset.

[superdeath]

Also, due to last nights frustrations and 100proof whiskey, i sent the entire stack in.

[Papa Bear]

I think I can say that many people (Lurkers) over at Civforum were surprised to see you do that after all. They were all wondering, why you did not do that right away. It seemed that your stack would have been able to handle his first strike at any time, so why these piecemeal "offerings" for him to kill? I understand that you did this in order to reduce the number of catapults he can use to attack your stack. It's going to be interesting to see (for us over there) whether that in fact ultimately led to fewer losses on your side than a full stack attack would have. But I guess people over here are at not as used to using the Vodka tool to calculate their odds as our people are. Not too difficult to understand why, either. Zulan is one of our forum legends, which makes using his tool an easier "sell", I suppose.



Regarding the balancing question, I believe it is a matter of perspective.

Simply put, one can either try to level the playing field as much as possible or one can accept that there are imperfections pretty much everywhere. So why bother to even try and level it out? Why not take it as it is?

Leaders, traits, neighbors, starting techs, starting techs not matching the land one has at the start, traits useful in the early game (it's no fun defending against an AGG axe rush where all units have shock promotions where yours don't have it...) vs. traits useful throughout the game like FIN... That's all part of the game, right ? Imbalanced (to a certain degree) is what it is supposed to be like.

Even the strongest player can not overcome getty a shitty draw on all these fronts, but a weaker player will still never really have a chance to win a game with 52 players if he is extremely lucky in all those aspects. This is exactly why we do roll the dice and see how it goes again and again, I suppose.

The community still playing Civ IV BtS PB games over at our forum has stayed together for quite a while, because all are willing to accept that this is part of the game. A reflection of life itself, if you want - you win some, you lose some, but that doesn't keep you from trying again and again.

[Charriu]

I think I can say that many people (Lurkers) over at Civforum were surprised to see you do that after all. They were all wondering, why you did not do that right away. It seemed that your stack would have been able to handle his first strike at any time, so why these piecemeal "offerings" for him to kill? I understand that you did this in order to reduce the number of catapults he can use to attack your stack. It's going to be interesting to see (for us over there) whether that in fact ultimately led to fewer losses on your side than a full stack attack would have. But I guess people over here are at not as used to using the Vodka tool to calculate their odds as our people are. Not too difficult to understand why, either. Zulan is one of our forum legends, which makes using his tool an easier "sell", I suppose.



Regarding the balancing question, I believe it is a matter of perspective.

Simply put, one can either try to level the playing field as much as possible or one can accept that there are imperfections pretty much everywhere. So why bother to even try and level it out? Why not take it as it is?

Leaders, traits, neighbors, starting techs, starting techs not matching the land one has at the start, traits useful in the early game (it's no fun defending against an AGG axe rush where all units have shock promotions where yours don't have it...) vs. traits useful throughout the game like FIN... That's all part of the game, right ? Imbalanced (to a certain degree) is what it is supposed to be like.

Even the strongest player can not overcome getty a shitty draw on all these fronts, but a weaker player will still never really have a chance to win a game with 52 players if he is extremely lucky in all those aspects. This is exactly why we do roll the dice and see how it goes again and again, I suppose.

The community still playing Civ IV BtS PB games over at our forum has stayed together for quite a while, because all are willing to accept that this is part of the game. A reflection of life itself, if you want - you win some, you lose some, but that doesn't keep you from trying again and again.

Most people here didn't know about the vodka tool.

Regarding balance. We should stop comparing this 52 player game to other "normal" PBs with less players. I do agree that it is near impossible to balance a 52 player game, where everything is on the table. I think what divides RB and civforum is the different meta that developed in both communities. Here at RB the meta developed into a lot of decisions made before the game even starts:

• Everybody gets a screenshot of their starting area
  
• We play with unrestricted leader and choose civ and leader separately.
  
• We developed a list of banned elements that we deemed not in good balance from the very early days.
  

Those things in the end led to the development of mods to remove unbalanced elements or implement rules.

From what I've learned not all of those things happen at civforum, which is totally ok. Our communities developed different tastes. Think about it as evolution. Our communities have a common ancestor, but where isolated and developed in different directions, neither being wrong or right.