Round Up for a Green-faced PBEM

[Whosit]

Errrr, OK, I guess we'll cap the PBEM at who we have signed up? That would be....

Whosit (me)
Yuris125
Gazglum
Dhalphir
Ilios
oohhaaaiithere (?)

Did I miss anyone? Or did anyone change their mind?

As for Diplomacy: I'm not entirely sure I want to do the full diplo circuit, but based on some of the games I've been reading, strict AI Diplo could be equally obnoxious in its own way. Have there been any games that allow diplomacy via the in-game diplomacy window, and if so, anyone know how that's worked out?

[Dhalphir]

There have been some games which allow you to go above and beyond the ingame window and offer (in text) things that you can ask the AI to do, such as declare war on another player or make peace with them.

I have no experience on how they went, but I'm easy.

[novice]

We played with full diplo allowed, but it had to be conducted in-game through the chat or trade window, in PBEM13. It worked great for limiting the time required to do diplo, and general diplo acitivity was pretty low in that game I think. You will see the full diplo effect on the game though, PBEM13 had a 170-turn NAP between the top two teams. So if you like full diplo but want to limit the time required to do it, in-game only is an option.

[Gazglum]

We played with full diplo allowed, but it had to be conducted in-game through the chat or trade window, in PBEM13. It worked great for limiting the time required to do diplo, and general diplo acitivity was pretty low in that game I think. You will see the full diplo effect on the game though, PBEM13 had a 170-turn NAP between the top two teams. So if you like full diplo but want to limit the time required to do it, in-game only is an option.

I would be happy with that style, although I don't have much experience with how diplomacy effects the course of a game. I would prefer in-game diplomacy to full email diplomacy though. Also happy with strict AI diplomacy,

[Whosit]

I think I'd vote for in-game (diplo window) diplomacy. Diplomacy can certainly add another layer of meta (or something) to the game, but I'm hoping that the limited nature of doing it via diplo window rather than full scale e-mail will slow it down somewhat. Or at least make it less obnoxious to handle.

[Dhalphir]

edit: nevermind

I would be happy with ingame diplomacy done through the chat window

Never played an MP game like that yet.

[Whosit]

On another note, since it was floated earlier, I'm trying to test out the RB mod but it doesn't seem to be working. Am I supposed to do something beyond downloading the mod, extracting it, plopping it into my mods folder, and then running the mod in Civ?

[yuris125]

The main thing is to put it in the game installation folder, not the folder in My Documents. For me, the path is C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods, could be different if you have a Steam version. This is the most likely problem, can't think of anything else that could prevent the mod from working

As I said before, I would prefer to play with RBMod, but unmodded BTS is fine as well. We need to decide whether we use the mod or not before discussing settings and bans

For diplo, I strongly prefer AI diplo only. In my experience, NAPs tend to dominate the game otherwise, and I don't see how in-game diplomacy changes it

[Whosit]

It's in the mods folder in my installation folder where all my other mods live (and work). I loaded it up with a Charismatic leader and was only getting a +1 happy from the trait. I believe it's +2 now? Also, do you know if the in-game Civilopedia is updated? I'll keep messing with it.

In-game diplo wouldn't do anything about NAPs.... I can swing AI diplo only. I just usually think it's fun to get to chat to my enemies and allies. Usually.

[Dhalphir]

RBMod is a nice mod to use if you want simplicity of setup. You don't have to have a thousand and one bans, because it balances most of the common bans that you want - Financial traits, Inca, India, war elephants, etc