Pitboss 18 Organizing Thread (RB Mod 34 Civs)

[Jowy]

Might wanna wait with the map unless you wanna redo it once we realize we wont get 34 players to sign up :P

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Might wanna wait with the map unless you wanna redo it once we realize we wont get 34 players to sign up :P

~25 people have commented in this thread within a day. I don't think it's a stretch to think we might get there. I think you need to be happyized again...

[Cyneheard]

Double moves be damned or this game will die in a grease fire like PB7.

Edit: In case my opinion isn't clear, anyone intentionally engaging in double moving for advantage (or playing clock games for gain) should be modkilled at minimum and terrorized by any means necessary, online or in meat space, until they learn the error of their ways.

I agree - I think a double-move rule set for this shouldn't be "split turns with everybody perfectly" but instead "don't move the same unit in the 2nd half of one turn and 1st half of the next turn" and "try to split turns but don't kill yourself over it."

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I think the likelihood of needing a vastly different rule set other than "don't double-move/be a jerk" is very low. Most conflict will be within your own neighborhood, regardless of the number of civs in the game. Any conflagration larger than a regional skirmish will hopefully sort itself out if everyone makes a decent effort.

Edit: would it be possible to mod in a "lurker" faction with an invisible kill unit? This would be a unit with unlimited (or virtually so) number of movement points and attacks per turn, and an abusrdly high attack strength so it never loses, etc so we could wipe a civ off the board if its presence became disruptive? This would be the equivalent of a mod kill and the civ would not interact with the map in any other way and would avoid having to retire to AI. This civ would also be able to have unlimited (or again, virtually so) espionage points so that lurkers would have a good overview of the game. Just a thought.

[Cyneheard]

I think the likelihood of needing a vastly different rule set other than "don't double-move/be a jerk" is very low. Most conflict will be within your own neighborhood, regardless of the number of civs in the game. Any conflagration larger than a regional skirmish will hopefully sort itself out if everyone makes a decent effort.

PB13 is slowing down really badly because almost everybody is at war, and the conflicts are so intertwined that players who are stuck in 3-way splits or at war with 2-3 foes are really struggling to follow double move rules.

[scooter]

I think the likelihood of needing a vastly different rule set other than "don't double-move/be a jerk" is very low. Most conflict will be within your own neighborhood, regardless of the number of civs in the game. Any conflagration larger than a regional skirmish will hopefully sort itself out if everyone makes a decent effort.

PB13 is slowing down really badly because almost everybody is at war, and the conflicts are so intertwined that players who are stuck in 3-way splits or at war with 2-3 foes are really struggling to follow double move rules.

Considering there are 14 players alive in the era it's in and nearly all 14 of the players in the game are at war, I think PB13 is humming along exceptionally well. We're consistently getting about 5 turns a week. I'm quite happy with that, actually, and I think it says a lot for how the "don't be a jerk" rule can work quite well. We've had an 18 player game with an extreme amount of warring (more wars total than any other pitboss ever), and we've yet to have a major double move controversy.

[dtay]

Considering there are 14 players alive in the era it's in and nearly all 14 of the players in the game are at war, I think PB13 is humming along exceptionally well. We're consistently getting about 5 turns a week. I'm quite happy with that, actually, and I think it says a lot for how the "don't be a jerk" rule can work quite well. We've had an 18 player game with an extreme amount of warring (more wars total than any other pitboss ever), and we've yet to have a major double move controversy.

Agree with this. I think "Don't be a jerk" works fine, or at least has been working fine in PB13. Doubling the player count? Sure its harder to manage, but I don't think its twice as hard to manage given locality of conflicts and "every player at war" is probably a low probability occurrence (yet happened in PB13).

[WilliamLP]

Agree with this. I think "Don't be a jerk" works fine, or at least has been working fine in PB13.

Agree with this. If I have one other suggestion to move a game along: how about a rule of etiquette to play turns in one sitting if possible?

I realize a lot of people play in teams and break up a turn into parts to consider things deeply with input during the turn but this may not be the game for that.

Also with the size it could get very annoying to play with many people connecting to the game in order to quickly check things in the middle of the turn when they're not actually planning to play.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Edit: would it be possible to mod in a "lurker" faction with an invisible kill unit? This would be a unit with unlimited (or virtually so) number of movement points and attacks per turn, and an abusrdly high attack strength so it never loses, etc so we could wipe a civ off the board if its presence became disruptive? This would be the equivalent of a mod kill and the civ would not interact with the map in any other way and would avoid having to retire to AI. This civ would also be able to have unlimited (or again, virtually so) espionage points so that lurkers would have a good overview of the game. Just a thought.

This kind of thing comes up often where I work. Some PHB will ask if I can do this or block that to keep unruly employees from mucking about making a mess where they shouldn't. And when they hear the truth that the nature of their problem is policy based, not technical in origin, they usually don't understand what I'm saying. What they need is a solution to a human resources problem, not a solution to a technical problem. Plainly, we shouldn't have to mod in any kind of barbarian overlord race to handle adjudication of player problems. That's easily enough solved outside the game engine mechanics.

If someone won't follow the game admin's rulings (should we resort to having one or, should someone be fool enough to volunteer for it!) it's a straightforward matter for the game host to take the game offline and go through the password reset process to remove the recalcitrant player's access to the game. That's modkilling, as far as I'm concerned. And it surely won't come to that, but if it did, that would be the method I assume.

Regarding the lurker civ aspect, I chatted with Commodore about that, which he pointed out that we won't really have many lurkers, everyone is supposed to be playing. But as far as that goes, I could see utility in leaving the 34th (or whatever) civ blocked off in an inaccessible corner of the map playing a OCC with complete map and demographic information for the purpose of posting map screen shots or graphs for people in the lurker thread to view. Otherwise it would probably be impossible for anyone to publish a complete set of graphs in a game like this. That wouldn't be hard to set up, I imagine each starting settler in the game could have a great spy belonging to the "lurker civ" placed on top of it for immediate infiltration at the start of the game. That should handle graphs throughout the game I would think. Not sure if all the players would be OK with that or not, since it does give up some flexibility about what they're willing to report or not, but if everyone accepted it I don't think the additional civ contact at the start of the game would matter much with this many civs in the game (i.e., wouldn't dilute tech costs substantially via known contacts, etc). It would be known that the lurker civ is off limits for trades and interaction, etc.

[Bobchillingworth]

What about 34 players doing OCC on a small map?