Newbie EitB Game?

[Instinct]

How do you pick civs in MP ? :D this will be my first one

[Qgqqqqq]

If you want a fair amount of water should OO/Lanun be banned?

[Mist]

Is Mist around?

Yes.

[Druxee]

If you want a fair amount of water should OO/Lanun be banned?

That's why I think a largish-Pangaea map would be nice. There's water, but you don't get such an enormous advantage from using it, I think, unless someone corrects my newbism.

Can someone post a link to a download of the version we will be playing?

http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?t=5762

Also, if we're going to play a RP game, we should maybe clarify what we mean by it, before the game starts.

I take it to mean: we're encouraged to roleplay our diplomatic interactions, and encouraged to play our civs "thematically" (i.e., Amelanchier might be xenophobic and refuse to open borders to anyone, Tasunke might try to sell his services as a mercenary, Varn and Arendel are unlikely to convert to Veil just because ritualists are powerful, etcetera). But these should be taken just as loose guidelines, since who knows what kind of situation the game will throw us into...

I agree. Basically, some kind of theme you attribute to your civ and play relatively consistently, not just playing to win. So the Elohim could be hostile to Civs that increase the Armageddon Counter, Sidar could be isolationist, Perpentach could literally change diplomacy and goals each time his attributes change (that would be fun) etc.

So, how do we get a subforum for EitB PBEM XXIV?

[DaveV]

So, how do we get a subforum for EitB PBEM XXIV?

Send a PM to T-hawk, or post in this thread.

Unsolicited advice from someone who's played in a couple games and lurked a bunch more:

Difficulty: We can probably play on prince, if we have all Human players, it should only affect barbs.

It also has a big effect on tech rate. Do you want to be fighting your mid-game wars with axes and horsemen, champions and mages, or archmages and dragons?

Lairs: On
Huts: On (They are like Xmas presents, not having them makes everyone sad)

Not everyone :neenernee. This is not single player; if you pop a bunch of Mistforms out of a lair (or your neighbor does), you can't reload and pretend it never happened.

[Mist]

Suggestions from a bit more experienced player and questions from potential mapmaker :

• I'd advise Orthus off, or at least mapmapker placed. The axe is a really strong item that can decide games, having it randomly fall to one player is usually bad for long-term game health.
  
  
• Huts are no fun when one of the six players pulls half a dozen of early techs, consider having them off or at least garrisoned.
  
  
• Goblin forts can seriously break a game with clan present and are generally part of the strength of Barbarian trait. Decide if you want them present, and keep the fact in mind while picking civs.
  
  
• On a typical run-of-the-mill map, Tower is both fastest and easiest to reach victory condition. Do you want it to be harder to reach and if yes, by how much.
  
  
• Difficulty, World Size and World Wrap influence tech rate and maintenance. How fast do you want to tech and expand? Fast teching seriously weakens civs that are strong early.
  
  
• Do you want a lush, resource rich map, a barren, resource-poor one or some sort of a mix?
  
  
• Decide on how do you want Basium and Hyborem handled. Compact enforced?Human takeover? AI for one of the sides?
  
  
• How cutthroat do you want the early game to be? Players spaced far apart or in knife-fight distances?
  
  
• There's very few interesting ways of placing Unique Features that don't break a MP map. Some of them have little use outside aesthetic ( Maelstorm ). Do you mind not having all of them present / having more than one copy of others?
  

[Druxee]

Suggestions from a bit more experienced player and questions from potential mapmaker :

• I'd advise Orthus off, or at least mapmapker placed. The axe is a really strong item that can decide games, having it randomly fall to one player is usually bad for long-term game health.
  
  Seems like Orthus off, then. I think Acheron pre-placed would be nice though
  .
  
• Huts are no fun when one of the six players pulls half a dozen of early techs, consider having them off or at least garrisoned.
  
  Yeah, I think huts off for this reason
  
  
  
• Goblin forts can seriously break a game with clan present and are generally part of the strength of Barbarian trait. Decide if you want them present, and keep the fact in mind while picking civs.
  
  If they are present, would it not be simple to limit their placement so that the map is reasonably balanced?
  
  
  
• On a typical run-of-the-mill map, Tower is both fastest and easiest to reach victory condition. Do you want it to be harder to reach and if yes, by how much.
  
  Hmm, I'm really not sure about this one. Tower suits the 'roleplaying' aspect, so peaceful victory can be achieved by peaceful nations, but I'm not sure how much it should be modified.
  
  
  
• Difficulty, World Size and World Wrap influence tech rate and maintenance. How fast do you want to tech and expand? Fast teching seriously weakens civs that are strong early.
  
  I think early game rushes should be avoided. If we're all new, looking to learn how to play multiplayer, a short game where Taskune just rolls over everyone would be a failure. I'm not sure about tech and expansion speeds though, I guess a tech rate where most tiers of units can be shown off at some point.
  
  
  
• Do you want a lush, resource rich map, a barren, resource-poor one or some sort of a mix?
  
  I think a mix could be nice. A mix could make more interestic strategic decisions about city placement and expansion, IMO.
  
  
  
• Decide on how do you want Basium and Hyborem handled. Compact enforced?Human takeover? AI for one of the sides?
  
  Human takeover IMO
  
  
  
• How cutthroat do you want the early game to be? Players spaced far apart or in knife-fight distances?
  
  Reasonably far apart. As this is a newbie game, I think this should be a learning experience. For this reason, I think that avoiding early combat rushes would be better for allowing all (including me) more room for mistakes and to get more from the game.
  
  
  
• There's very few interesting ways of placing Unique Features that don't break a MP map. Some of them have little use outside aesthetic ( Maelstorm ). Do you mind not having all of them present / having more than one copy of others?
  
  This doesn't bother me.
  

[Mist]

Hmm, I'm really not sure about this one. Tower suits the 'roleplaying' aspect, so peaceful victory can be achieved by peaceful nations, but I'm not sure how much it should be modified.

On a normalish size and tech rate map, the victory conditions rank like this

(easiest) Tower > Domination > Conquest > Culture > Altar (hardest)

Tower gets easier with more land per player and with faster tech rate.
Domination/Conquest get easier with less land per player and harder as the dimensions grow.
Culture is harder on smaller and more barren maps, but once you get past 150 tiles per player it does not really get any easier and can even get harder ( 4th legendary city required on larger map sizes ).

With no hurdles the average ETA for a tower win on RB is t150, we had games ( full diplomacy, fast tech ) where it fell much, much earlier.

[DaveV]

Mist - you forgot Religious victory; I'd probably put it between Conquest and Culture on your scale.

Druxee - if you have Acheron in the game, I'd strongly recommend banning the Clan.

[Druxee]

On a normalish size and tech rate map, the victory conditions rank like this

(easiest) Tower > Domination > Conquest > Culture > Altar (hardest)

Tower gets easier with more land per player and with faster tech rate.
Domination/Conquest get easier with less land per player and harder as the dimensions grow.
Culture is harder on smaller and more barren maps, but once you get past 150 tiles per player it does not really get any easier and can even get harder ( 4th legendary city required on larger map sizes ).

With no hurdles the average ETA for a tower win on RB is t150, we had games ( full diplomacy, fast tech ) where it fell much, much earlier.

I think a tower victory before t150 wouldn't be great, so I wouldn't want fast tech. But, the tower can be limited by Mana nodes, if we want fast tech but a hard to build tower, or can be turned off completely? I'd like some input from other players about what they want from this map.

EDIT: What map size or type would make a tower victory roughly as viable as a conquest victory?

The other thing to sort is what leaders people want. I think the important thing about roleplaying is consistency. Sure, if you're Sheiam, pretty much, Apocalypse is going to be your goal. Someone like Decius though has a pretty wide choice, I mean, you could make an operatic downfall story if you wanted. But, you can't just play to win, so people should bear that in mind for their selection.

Personally, I want Perpentach