Variant PBEM Ideas

[scooter]

So the somewhat wacky PBEM32 (go read my thread) has gotten me thinking about variant PBEM ideas. The jist of PBEM32 was SevenSpirits sponsored a game in which everyone has the same capital and can choose whatever civ/trait they want... The trick though is that each trait gets a certain bonus (some stronger than others) and each starting tech gets a certain malus (some worse than others). Combined with some funky map characteristics (pre-placed and occasionally nonsensical tile improvements) has made for an interesting variant game.

So I realized it's the first game we've had that's been excessively unique for a PBEM. We've had some cool maps, some sort of interesting rules, but no true variant games... Got me thinking we should look to the adventures/epics for some variant ideas. So here's a couple that I think would be really fun - and I'm sort of testing the waters to see if there's interest in this kind of thing:

http://realmsbeyond.net/civ/c4tourney/adv19.html

http://realmsbeyond.net/civ/c4tourney/adv45.html

That's Mao's Muse and Hannibal's Muse - two of the more popular games we've had. Mao's Muse had each player choose any tech they'd like, and they would start with that tech from T0. Hannibal's Muse let the players start with two wonders of their choice from T0.

I was thinking both of these make for fun PBEM ideas. Could play a game where everyone starts with a tech or a game where everyone starts with a wonder... Or even one where you can choose one of each. Imagine a 5-player snake pick where you could pick a leader, civ, tech, or wonder with no duplicates. Would it be perfectly balanced? Probably not. Mostly just a contest to see who could abuse a combination the best. The possibilities are pretty crazy - certainly enough for 5 players to get some pretty broken and really fun combinations.

So is there any interest in something like this? I'd certainly play something if others were interested and if someone is interested in sponsoring the game and making the map. Feel free to spout out other variant PBEM ideas too.

[Ellimist]

I was thinking both of these make for fun PBEM ideas. Could play a game where everyone starts with a tech or a game where everyone starts with a wonder... Or even one where you can choose one of each. Imagine a 5-player snake pick where you could pick a leader, civ, tech, or wonder with no duplicates.

That sounds like fun.

[dazedroyalty]

Scooter already knows i think it sounds fun, but I'm posting here to make it public too!

[Ellimist]

It's like a BTS draft.

[scooter]

Yeah there's not going to be perfect balance in this kind of thing, but that's not necessarily the point.

I do think the tech thing could be more problematic than the wonder thing - only because there's more disparity in balance on the techs (someone grabbing Rifles or Rocketry would mean practically unbeatable units)... Open to ideas. Cyneheard suggested having forced unit prerequisites to balance it, but that's tricky. Could always ditch the tech idea and go with the wonder (or 2 wonders like Hannibal's Muse) idea.

[Ellimist]

Maybe pick techs beforehand to choose from. 5 people could each pick a different tech from a predetermined list of ten or something.

For example:
Satellites, Constitution, Biology, Civil Service, Music, Computers, Corporation, Feudalism, Education, Printing Press.

[NobleHelium]

A single wonder or technology are probably too strong. I like the idea behind 32 a lot though.

[NobleHelium]

I ruminated about this a bit with Gaspar and the main problem with this kind of game is that it's way too easy to win or lose the game just on the pick. Nobody wants to spend months on a game that's a foregone conclusion. It's really interesting for SP, where the question is generally not about whether you'll win but how much you'll win, but not for MP.

[scooter]

I actually agree, I'm thinking the tech idea needs to be shelved. The military techs thing kind of breaks it, and if you take out the military techs I don't think there's 5 equalish techs. Someone could of course try to make a balanced list of selections, but at this point I think the wonder idea is much more doable.

So, new idea. Two wonders (a la Hannibal's Muse). We could allow duplicates and have everyone silently pick (most balanced), or we could add them into the snake pick which would be more fun. Snake pick is only doable if we can be sure we have at least 10 wonders (assuming we get 5 signups, 8 if we limit it to 4) that are all useful - national wonders included.

If you go by T-Hawk's meta list from Adv45, I think we've got that:

http://dos486.com/civ4/adv45/page1.shtml

There's clearly some that are better than others, but I think it's "tiered" enough that a 4-round snake pick would balance it sufficiently. Although I'm somewhat inclined to do it more like two different 2-round snake picks such that it's 1-2-3-4-4-3-2-1-4-3-2-1-1-2-3-4 (rather than 1-2-3-4-4-3-2-1-1-2-3-4-4-3-2-1).

Any interest in that? I'm just throwing out ideas here, if someone wants to sponsor a game closer to PBEM32-style setup I'd happily join one of those instead.

[oledavy]

I ruminated about this a bit with Gaspar and the main problem with this kind of game is that it's way too easy to win or lose the game just on the pick.

This ^

However, I am interested in seeing what you can come up with. A Great Person at the start, whatever Epic that was, would also be interesting.