PBEM 2 Organizing/Tech Thread

[oledavy]

ban the demang gold abuse (which, frankly, I don't know exactly how it works).

If you have a sufficiently large military in the vicinity of the city-state, it will become afraid of you and you can demand tribute. This can take the form of a worker or straight up gold. Demanding tribute will give you negative influence with the city-state.

I'm really not sure if this needs to be banned either, but I'd like to hear what everyone else has to say.

[yuris125]

No we didn't, you and I both did one.

Oh did we? How not very nice of us!

I don't have G&K, so don't know how much this mechanic changed, but I would say any attack on city state units without intention to capture the city state itself is exploitable

[Ichabod]

ban the demang gold abuse (which, frankly, I don't know exactly how it works).

If you have a sufficiently large military in the vicinity of the city-state, it will become afraid of you and you can demand tribute. This can take the form of a worker or straight up gold. Demanding tribute will give you negative influence with the city-state.

I'm really not sure if this needs to be banned either, but I'd like to hear what everyone else has to say.

Yeah, that part I know. But from what I can gather, there's a way to abuse this mechanic at low difficulties. Though if none of us knows about it, guess there's no reason to be worried about.

[pindicator]

That seems a great way to abuse Austria's UA

[SevenSpirits]

So... How about playing at a higher difficulty?

[Ichabod]

That seems a great way to abuse Austria's UA

Why do you say that? I can't see the connection.

So... How about playing at a higher difficulty?

Probably a good idea. It seems that with the Aztecs and their warrior UU, at prince difficulty, you can demand gold from a city state as soon as you met them (the Jaguar warrior power is enough to make them afraid), getting a free worker or gold very early in the game at the cost of easily neglegible negative influence.

[oledavy]

Upping the difficulty is fine with me. I wasn't aware that it made the CSs more resilient to bullying requests. I usually play SP on Immortal, which makes them pretty resilient as far as I can tell (I've only ever bullied a CS once). So, if everyone is onboard with that, I will up the difficulty to immortal, which will additionally lower the barb combat bonus to 10% from 33%. Additionally, I propose the following two rules to prevent CS abuse.

1. You may not 'worker steal' from a city-state. If you go to war with a city-state, it must be for the expressed purpose of conquering that city.
2. Demanding tribute is permitted, but it cannot be followed by an immediate declaration of war. The bullying party must wait 10 turns inclusive starting the turn after the tribute demand they before they may declare war.

I think we can count on people to play honorably and not abuse these guidelines. There are enough consequences in declaring war on city-states to players from abusing it anyway. Conquering a city-state doubles the rate that your influence declines with other city-states, and declaring war on city-states more than twice puts others permanently at war with you. I would need to get it confirmed, but I also am pretty sure extensive bullying gives you the same malus to city-state influence.

At any rate, rules-lawyering aside. We're currently waiting on Azza to post his availability to finalize turn order, and for his vote on how many city-states. After he checks back in we should be able to begin

Ichabod, thanks for bringing up the matter of City-state abuse! :thumsbup: It really needed to be addressed in the rules. Since this is only the second Civ5 MP game I've played here, I'm still at a bit of a loss in regards to settings. Not addressing it would have been a major oversight. If anything else needs to be addressed, please bring it up.

[Azza]

0700-1300 GMT seems about right.

As I said earlier, 2 CS per person seems about right to me.

With declaring war on CS, I'd just say no worker steals. It seems to be the most exploitable aspect of it.

I'm fine with playing on a higher difficulty than Prince, but what are the differences between playing on King, Emperor and Immortal?

[oledavy]

Okay, so the turn order is thus

Dave: 2300-0500
Pindicator: 0300-0600
Azza: 0700-1300
Jowy: 1500-2100
Serdoa: 1700-2200
Ichabod: 2100-0100 (Gave Ichabod his preferred time)

So the Pick order is:

Ichabod
Serdoa
Jowy
Azza
Pindicator
Me

Ichabod, you're up!!!

Serdoa, you're on deck!

Let's get this show on the road!!!

With declaring war on CS, I'd just say no worker steals. It seems to be the most exploitable aspect of it.

So you would prefer 'no worker steals' be the the only constraint on interaction with city-states, or would you like a rule agianst tribute demand -> declare war as well?

I'm fine with playing on a higher difficulty than Prince, but what are the differences between playing on King, Emperor and Immortal?

The higher you go, more bonuses for the AIs (City-States), additionally making them more resilient to tribute demands. Also, the higher you go, the lower the combat bonus against barbs.

[Ichabod]

I was going to sleep on it, but I don't want to leave you guys waiting. I pick Mongolia.