Proposal: EitB Pitboss game

[Yell0w]

It would be cool to set the teams up as Good vs. Evil, although the Good civs are generally regarded as being somewhat weaker than the Evil ones.

I think it's vice versa... and there are a lot of neutral civs pickable for both sides. It would sure set a restriction to religions, where I think the evil religions are strong.

I like the idea Good vs. Evil, count me as interested!

[nabaxo]

Those are very good points. Another idea would be to try out something like a demogame? Like only three teams controlling one civ each? We could keep the timer sequential.

Just throwing ideas out there for discussion.

[Thoth]

My objections to in-game teams: super fast tech pace, inconsistent treatment of spells (Arcane Lacuna doesn't hurt your teammates; River of Blood and Raging Seas do).

On the other hand, having teammates be able to fill in for each other might mean a good turn pace (PB6).

IIUC, World Spells don't function (nor do events) in a PB game.

Tech pace can be controlled to some extent via the difficulty level and reported map size, though making techs too expensive vs actual land area heavily favours rush Civs/Leaders.

I don't know that they're *wrong*, per se, but here are some things that are major changes:

• Mana gets a lot easier to acquire
  
• It's a lot easier to get around the balancing aspects of a civ - Kurios and Khazad never have too few cities, Clan can feed gold to a real teching civ to get around Barbarian, Illians/Grigori can still rely on religous units
  
• Two Palaces makes early game teching fast (although I think EitB addresses this)
  

That said, I think if we banned city gifting (except, maybe, once on conquest) and maybe allowed each civ to be chosen multiple times, that might alleviate the worst of the issues. The game would still be mostly won or lost in the setup phase, though.

Edit: I see DaveV addressed the question too.

Illians/Grigori still won't be able to adopt Religions. They can get temples if their teammates use Priests to build the temples for them. I don't think this is OP.

Mana accessabilty has more to do with map design than the Team concept and loans (pre Meta II) have to be a minimum of 10t so that doesn't seem much of a problem. (plus I like having multiple options to play with WRT Mana )




I like the idea of a PB6ish Team Game with Sequential timer, but we'll need to allow some time for teams to form. I'd suggest 3/4 teams of 2/3 players, maybe 5 teams of 2. Team dynamics (ie how well the players work together) are a huge factor in this sort of game. A team of players who work well together and have tight co-ordination will outperform a team of higher skilled players who don't work together as well.


Other ideas that might be fun to throw at the wall and see if they stick:

1) Advanced era start
2) Advanced (point based start)
3) Nifty starting units (Adept, Flesh Golem, something else)



*not a signup yet....but I'm possibly interested depending on final settings.

[Bobchillingworth]

Question- assuming the various kinks regarding spells and having reasonable playing slots are resolved and this game becomes viable, how realistic would it be to have Basium & Hyborem appear already in-game, as player options? So Team Evil has the Infernals as one teammate, and Team Good gets the Angels. Would require either some creative WB file editing / save manipulation by the map maker, but should be possible.

[Square Leg]

Question- assuming the various kinks regarding spells and having reasonable playing slots are resolved and this game becomes viable, how realistic would it be to have Basium & Hyborem appear already in-game, as player options? So Team Evil has the Infernals as one teammate, and Team Good gets the Angels. Would require either some creative WB file editing / save manipulation by the map maker, but should be possible.

Surely hell terrain would become a problem for the evil team?

[Selrahc]

Surely hell terrain would become a problem for the evil team?

Potentially, but not until AC50 or adopting veil. I think there are bigger concerns.

Basium is basically a regular civ, except he:
1. Doesn't get to build scouts/warriors. For an ancient or classical start game. This means he will be unable to build military for a long time.
2. Starts with a powerful military force and an immortal super unit. This means he will smash any starting military(except Hyborem).
3. Starts with Iron, drastically effecting the power of Axemen across the entire team, as well as heroes like Lucian.

Hyborem on the other hand:
1. Is not a regular civ. His economy will be an odd stunted thing, entirely dependent on the map settings as to whether he can cobble something together from ICS, or if he has to wait for a *long* time for units with evil religions to start dying.
2. Also starts with an unbeatable super army.
3. Gives the team access to Hell terrain resources like Nightmares and Sheut Stone, as well as Iron. This can make a *drastic* difference in early fights. Hippus Horsemen with Sheut Stone, Nightmare and Warcry are S7 units.

[DaveV]

IIUC, World Spells don't function (nor do events) in a PB game.

Simultaneous, sequential, or both?

OK, everyone, I'm convinced that the way to go is sequential with in-game teams. I agree with Thoth that it's best to take plenty of time to set this up and have teams that are ready and happy to work together. Time zone matching might be helpful for teams.

Other ideas (I'm not in charge of this game, just making suggestions and trying to get the ball rolling):

I think we should have a minimum of six players, two teams of three each or three teams of two.

Hallowed Ground (AC locked at zero. We've had a couple Armageddon rush games already).

If we get lots of signups, maybe expand to Good vs. Evil vs. Neutral?

@nabaxo: as I see it, the advantage of pitboss over PBEM is that it allows a larger number of players without a big hit to game speed. A game of only three civs would be well suited for PBEM.

[Mardoc]

(I'm not in charge of this game, just making suggestions and trying to get the ball rolling):

You're not? I tend to think a game needs a leader, to gather consensus in and make sure everyone's on the same page. It's not like you'd be a dictator, we can always wait for the next game if you become unreasonable.

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Anyway, I'm not sure if everything in your last post goes together, or if it's a series of possibilities. Here are my thoughts on them, with no particular connection to one another.

I could get behind a Hallowed Ground, Compact Enforced game. But if we do that, I think we should abandon Good vs. Evil.

I agree with Selrahc on Basium/Hyborem. The only way I see to have them from the beginning, is if we do a very Advanced start game. But I'm not really interested in starting with the game half over, so if you go with that, I'll just watch.

Personally, I'd prefer no theme > Good vs. Neutral vs. Evil > Good vs. Evil, but I'd probably be willing to play in any.

Mostly depends on what we decide on the other topics. Well, and whether Thoth is in, and whether we find a third teammate in the event we end up with three person teams.

[Thoth]

Simultaneous, sequential, or both?

Both AFAIK, but Bob's the person to ask, he's the source of my information on FFH PB games.

You're not? I tend to think a game needs a leader, to gather consensus in and make sure everyone's on the same page. It's not like you'd be a dictator, we can always wait for the next game if you become unreasonable.

+1

DaveV, you are hereby appointed leader for this game. After all, you went and started the thread.

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Anyway, I'm not sure if everything in your last post goes together, or if it's a series of possibilities. Here are my thoughts on them, with no particular connection to one another.

I could get behind a Hallowed Ground, Compact Enforced game. But if we do that, I think we should abandon Good vs. Evil.

I agree with Selrahc on Basium/Hyborem. The only way I see to have them from the beginning, is if we do a very Advanced start game. But I'm not really interested in starting with the game half over, so if you go with that, I'll just watch.

Personally, I'd prefer no theme > Good vs. Neutral vs. Evil > Good vs. Evil, but I'd probably be willing to play in any.

Agreed. I'm up for some sort of variant start, but the the Good vs Evil theme doesn't appeal all that much to me, it's not a deal breaker but I'd prefer to play with my hands untied.

Mostly depends on what we decide on the other topics. Well, and whether Thoth is in, and whether we find a third teammate in the event we end up with three person teams.

Assuming the settings aren't a deal killer for me you can count me as "in". I think we have a third, but no definite confirmation yet. (*pokes Ellimist*)

Other random thoughts:

I think 4 teams of 3 would be ideal if we can find the players (*pokes Illios, Ichabod, Iskender, Darrelljs, Uberfish, Ravus Sol, The Reverend Doctor, Gaspar, Tatan, Sareln, Selrahc, Serdoa, Krill, Square Leg, and all the other FFH vets.* ).

heck, if we can find enough players for 6 Teams/3 players each this could be Epic. :hat:

Do we want restricted or unrestricted leaders? I'm slightly in favour of Restricted....but I can be persuaded.

Duplicate leaders/civs? If we go Unrestricted, then yes to duplicate leaders but I think probably no to duplicate Civs.

Snake pick for leader/civs? Yes...unless there are better ideas out there.

Do we want a largish map (wrt to the number of civs on the map)? Or a knife fight? I'm inclined towards the former, but no strong opinion.

Huts/Lairs/Dungeons: Leave off? With no random events, a lot of the rationale for leaving them on disapears. Again, no strong opinion.

[Amelia]

If it's snake pick, please be no duplicate / unrestricted... there's no point to snake pick otherwise.

4 teams of 3 each seems good. I'm pretty sure there was a game like this out there