Pitboss 18 Organizing Thread (RB Mod 34 Civs)

[Catwalk]

Here's an attempt, spoilered it so noone starts answering until we can agree on the ballot:

1. Room for expansion
- Very cramped ~ 4 initial cities per player
- Slightly cramped ~ 8 initial cities per player
- Spacious ~ 12 initial cities per player
- Mapmaker's discretion

2. Continents on map
- All players on same continent
- More than one continent, specify
- Mapmaker's discretion

3. Diplo
- War
- AI only
- Other, specify

4. Espionage
- Full
- Limited, specify

5. Barbarians
- Raging
- Normal
- Off

6. Corporations
- On
- Off

7. Tech trading
- Off
- No brokering
- Full


8. Other bans
- None
- One or more, specify

9. Game speed
- Quick
- Normal

10. Turn timer (game time, not RL time)
- 20 hours
- 24 hours
- 28 hours
- 32 hours

11. How to deal with quitting players
- Retire to AI allowed
- Replacement must be found
- Other, specify

12. Double move agreement
- Don't be a dick
- Actual DM rules, specify
- DM allowed

Anything to add or change?

[Krill]

My advice Catwalk is to not go down the route of voting on so many options. It just leads to arguments.

[Catwalk]

Which ones do you think should be removed?

[spacetyrantxenu]

We have too many players for building any real kind of consensus via voting if there's too many options. We probably need a benevolent dictator who uses the RB norms as the basis for settings. Likewise with the map, whoever is fool (brave) enough to volunteer for map maker should just make a map with the common settings in mind and let us know which bans (if any -- remember, RB Mod) are appropriate. Given the number of additional players, probably having fewer land tiles available per civ is a given, but I don't think we want to go clear to the side of a near OCC -- that's a different sort of game than originally envisioned here. Whatever the normal amount of land is, maybe something in the range of 60-75% of that should suffice here. When we're all out of land the real game begins, etc.

And yes, this 100% has to be an RB Mod game. There's no fair way to distribute leaders and civs in an BTS game when you have to use them all. Unless we're considering duplicates, which I don't really like the idea of. RB Mod makes everything playable enough within a reasonable band from best to worst that we shouldn't need duplicates. This is all my $0.02, and I'm not volunteering for benevolent dictator in any case.

[Krill]

1, 2, 3, 6, 7, and 10. State vague settings, turn a day, AI diplo, NTT and generic map idea to gauge how many people want to play in such a game. If you don't get close to 30 you know that this isn't yhe gimmick game for you and perhaps a smaller version of something is worth trying to set up.

[Cyneheard]

We have too many players for building any real kind of consensus via voting if there's too many options. We probably need a benevolent dictator who uses the RB norms as the basis for settings. Likewise with the map, whoever is fool (brave) enough to volunteer for map maker should just make a map with the common settings in mind and let us know which bans (if any -- remember, RB Mod) are appropriate. Given the number of additional players, probably having fewer land tiles available per civ is a given, but I don't think we want to go clear to the side of a near OCC -- that's a different sort of game than originally envisioned here. Whatever the normal amount of land is, maybe something in the range of 60-75% of that should suffice here. When we're all out of land the real game begins, etc.

And yes, this 100% has to be an RB Mod game. There's no fair way to distribute leaders and civs in an BTS game when you have to use them all. Unless we're considering duplicates, which I don't really like the idea of. RB Mod makes everything playable enough within a reasonable band from best to worst that we shouldn't need duplicates. This is all my $0.02, and I'm not volunteering for benevolent dictator in any case.

Agreed. Is Commodore the mapmaker? If so, can he post the settings?

[WilliamLP]

Plus many on the benevolent dictator. Comm is the obvious choice if he's not insulted by "benevolent". Exactly what we don't want is people playing to step forward and try and organize the settings mechanics of the game (or worse, lurkers: see PB16).

(That being said I hope people in this game aren't so wimpy as to want barbs off. )

[novice]

If you're doing this you need a setup that can handle missed turns, double moves, a ban on reloads, and players being kicked to AI. (I don't know what setup that is.)

[spacetyrantxenu]

I'd be careful about anywhere suggesting that double moves are acceptable. That was a big part of the problem with PB7. The "don't be a jerk" rule will have to be firmly agreed to if I'm playing in this game. After PB7 ended I couldn't sleep, I awoke from nightmares for months on end "omg Parkin and Mack/Seven are double moving me again arrrgh!" (no, not really). Anyway, peace time double moves are probably unavoidable and mostly harmless, but when it comes to war, cold war, near war, future war, imminent war, any situation for double move gain, etc., in all those cases players will have to strive to "not be a jerk" about double moving. Nothing else is as liable to kill a game with the settings we're likely to use (I assume standard AI diplo, not AW).

As far as missing turns, I think the standard should be that players who need temporary subs, whether for a turn or two, or few, to just put their instructions in their thread and let any willing lurker carry it out. Spoiled or not, as long as the player moving the pieces around follows instructions their spoiled status shouldn't matter. In the event of unforeseen circumstances, as is inevitable, some leeway can probably be given in terms of the spoiled sub improvising along with the evolving game state, for the most part. I'm sure there's cases where this won't work but if we let spoiled subs play the odd turn here or there it should keep things moving smoothly for the most part.

Then again...we shouldn't have all that many lurkers for this game. Anyone interested should be signing up!

[Catwalk]

I agree with trusted semi-spoiled subs helping out as needed. I also think that we should have a firm commitment to letting the turn roll on time, during the first 80 turns or so you can fairly easily give advance orders for a turn or two.