New Civ4 Pitboss (38?)

[dtay]

31.

How would you feel about a slot 19 higher??? on the cheap.

[OT4E]

12

[dtay]

Any forum posts i should look at in terms of rules ect for this gametype? ect ect, i know ill be easy pickings for most of the players, but i dont want to be That easy.

In terms of picking up the game-type - nothing beats lurking some of the better threads. Some others who lurk more comprehensively than me can probably give better recommendations, offhand would suggest FinHarry in PB13/PB18 and Krill+Novice in PB18 as ones with some good discussion. I thought Commodore/My thread in PB25 was also pretty good (thanks to him, not me). But those are just the ones I happen to remember. Generally the threads with teams will probably be better, as they'll go in more detail / have some back and forth. I also have great nostalgia for the classic Spulla in PB2, which I think still is a good reference for how to think about the game, even if I now disagree with a lot of the particulars (in fairness, much of that due to that being base BTS vs RtR).

In terms of logistics stuff, the two things to deal with are a) installing the mod and b) getting NatNeg server set up. NatNeg details are here, mod instructions should be in the Rebalance the Realms forum, though the mod will likely be slightly updated by the time this starts.

In terms of norms/rules, we often (unhelpfully for new players) summarize this as "don't be a jerk", with the idea being a precise ruleset invites gaming and rules lawyers and really everyone should just treat each other fairly. That said, this was a summary of extant norms in PB27 that I think was pretty good:

Diplomacy: "Pitboss-AI-diplo"

• You can make any offers for any item the trade window allows you to make.
  
• Any trades offered to another player are treated as valid trade offers. 
  
• You my not communicate using: chat box in diplomacy window, unit names, city names, outside communication, in game chat, anything else in this vein.
  
• You may not gift units to another player. 
  
• City trades are now disabled by the mod (city names still visible).
  

Double moves: "Don't be a jerk."

• Peace time or when you're not planning to start war: play as soon as you are able, no need to worry.
  
• During war preparation turn (at least 1 turn before) and during war, double moves are not allowed. When you declare on your opponent (and then end turn), he must complete a turn before you can play another one. 
  
• When going to settle a city, and you see that another player has sent out a settler in the general vicinity as well, you must attempt to alternate turns, to avoid double moving someone to claim a city site.
  
• If there is a situation not covered above, where a player gains a clear and 'underhanded' advantage over another player in an area of contention due to a double move, that situation can be appealed to the game admin, who can determine if the game needs to be reloaded or is fine to carry on at his discretion. 
  
• If there is a problem with play windows making it impossible to observe a turn split, or a tangled web of wars that need to be straightened out for turns to be practically played, please PM the game admin for assistance resolving the situation.
  

Keeping in mind the principle of "if you ever are moving twice before your opponent and perceive yourself as benefiting from that fact, you are probably in the wrong" will get you most of the way there.

I would also add to that norms about throwing away the game, which are more ill-defined than the above, but I think exist somewhere in the vicinity of "defend to the utmost of your ability // fucking over someone attacking you is fine and indeed, but don't attack people just to fuck them over (vs because you think it is to your benefit), or dedicate your civ to helping someone else out just because you can't win anymore".

Because it is so hard to parse, throwing away the game rules mostly have taken the form of just encouraging reasonable behavior, and I've only seen it used as a reason to toss someone from a game once - Tasunke in PB25. One thing not to do - don't just gift your entire navy to another civ. Though I think since / because of that we just settled on banning unit gifts all together, since they don't add very much to the game and are annoying to rule about.

[superdeath]

Any forum posts i should look at in terms of rules ect for this gametype? ect ect, i know ill be easy pickings for most of the players, but i dont want to be That easy.

In terms of picking up the game-type - nothing beats lurking some of the better threads. Some others who lurk more comprehensively than me can probably give better recommendations, offhand would suggest FinHarry in PB13/PB18 and Krill+Novice in PB18 as ones with some good discussion. I thought Commodore/My thread in PB25 was also pretty good (thanks to him, not me). But those are just the ones I happen to remember. Generally the threads with teams will probably be better, as they'll go in more detail / have some back and forth. I also have great nostalgia for the classic Spulla in PB2, which I think still is a good reference for how to think about the game, even if I now disagree with a lot of the particulars (in fairness, much of that due to that being base BTS vs RtR).

In terms of logistics stuff, the two things to deal with are a) installing the mod and b) getting NatNeg server set up. NatNeg details are here, mod instructions should be in the Rebalance the Realms forum, though the mod will likely be slightly updated by the time this starts.

In terms of norms/rules, we often (unhelpfully for new players) summarize this as "don't be a jerk", with the idea being a precise ruleset invites gaming and rules lawyers and really everyone should just treat each other fairly. That said, this was a summary of extant norms in PB27 that I think was pretty good:

Diplomacy: "Pitboss-AI-diplo"

• You can make any offers for any item the trade window allows you to make.
  
• Any trades offered to another player are treated as valid trade offers. 
  
• You my not communicate using: chat box in diplomacy window, unit names, city names, outside communication, in game chat, anything else in this vein.
  
• You may not gift units to another player. 
  
• City trades are now disabled by the mod (city names still visible).
  

Double moves: "Don't be a jerk."

• Peace time or when you're not planning to start war: play as soon as you are able, no need to worry.
  
• During war preparation turn (at least 1 turn before) and during war, double moves are not allowed. When you declare on your opponent (and then end turn), he must complete a turn before you can play another one. 
  
• When going to settle a city, and you see that another player has sent out a settler in the general vicinity as well, you must attempt to alternate turns, to avoid double moving someone to claim a city site.
  
• If there is a situation not covered above, where a player gains a clear and 'underhanded' advantage over another player in an area of contention due to a double move, that situation can be appealed to the game admin, who can determine if the game needs to be reloaded or is fine to carry on at his discretion. 
  
• If there is a problem with play windows making it impossible to observe a turn split, or a tangled web of wars that need to be straightened out for turns to be practically played, please PM the game admin for assistance resolving the situation.
  

Keeping in mind the principle of "if you ever are moving twice before your opponent and perceive yourself as benefiting from that fact, you are probably in the wrong" will get you most of the way there.

I would also add to that norms about throwing away the game, which are more ill-defined than the above, but I think exist somewhere in the vicinity of "defend to the utmost of your ability // fucking over someone attacking you is fine and indeed, but don't attack people just to fuck them over (vs because you think it is to your benefit), or dedicate your civ to helping someone else out just because you can't win anymore".

Because it is so hard to parse, throwing away the game rules mostly have taken the form of just encouraging reasonable behavior, and I've only seen it used as a reason to toss someone from a game once - Tasunke in PB25. One thing not to do - don't just gift your entire navy to another civ. Though I think since / because of that we just settled on banning unit gifts all together, since they don't add very much to the game and are annoying to rule about.
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Sweet thx, i guess that answers my other question on the prolly best part of alot of the spulla write up, the emails for diplo, so im assuming we basically dont communicate at all then compared to back in that game?

[Dark Savant]

Sweet thx, i guess that answers my other question on the prolly best part of alot of the spulla write up, the emails for diplo, so im assuming we basically dont communicate at all then compared to back in that game?

There are three main reasons full diplomacy isn't really the greatest idea for these games:

• It takes sooooo much time.  (This is the big one.)
  
• It makes it much more likely for people to get angry and emotional about backstabbing, rivals turning down deals, rivals making alliances with the wrong other players, etc.  Drama is only fun if you're an observer, not a participant.
  
• It makes it much easier to organize alliances against the strongest players.  "Kill the leader" is a significant problem in many 3+ player strategy games, and AI-diplo happens to make forming such grand coalitions much harder, and also discourages the common strategy game metagaming practice of going to great lengths to appear weak to avoid "kill the leader".  (It was a problem for Sulla + Speaker if you've read those threads.)
  

This is all bad for historical realism, but presumably you wouldn't be here if you care much about that.  

The main other thing you should know is that a like-for-like trade (clam-for-clam, copper-for-copper, whatever) is a non-aggression pact.  There's nothing stopping you from breaking one, but expect people to react as if backstabbed if you break the pact soon after agreeing to one.

[AdrienIer]

The main other thing you should know is that a like-for-like trade (clam-for-clam, copper-for-copper, whatever) is a non-aggression pact.  There's nothing stopping you from breaking one, but expect people to react as if backstabbed if you break the pact soon after agreeing to one.

Yeah fish-for-fish trades (or clam for clam etc) can be translated to "I have no intention of harming you let's be friendly to each other and grow stronger from that friendliness" while copper for copper deals (or iron for iron etc) are more in the vein of "I support you in your war/war to come and might even join in"

[taotao]

The main other thing you should know is that a like-for-like trade (clam-for-clam, copper-for-copper, whatever) is a non-aggression pact.  There's nothing stopping you from breaking one, but expect people to react as if backstabbed if you break the pact soon after agreeing to one.

seafood for seafood (like fish-fish) usually means friendship (or strictly non-aggression) while strategic resource (like copper-copper) usually means military alliance.
One thing that is often used, but I wonder if we could ban, is using gold as a meter for duration/time. Say, putting 5g on a horse+iron - horse+iron trade to indicate a knight-based attack in 5 turns. Or, even worse, fish-fish deals for 50 turns that will give a potential runway 50t of having a safe flank...

Are there people ready to jump in and play turns for players temporarily away / forgetting? / quitting??
Seems like this might become a fairly large pb and then those people are quite vital for moving the game along...

[chumchu]

Sign me up at # 8

The rules for the game sounds fine. I have one map suggestion, make the map smaller per player than usual (80-100 land tiles) as we are so many. The idea is to get a bit of player elimination to speed things up and to avoid an unwieldy endgame where every contender has 50+ cities.

[Old Harry]

Call me #9.

I'm happy with a fairly balanced map, I'd like to have a go at mirrored starts as I haven't played a game like that, but I doubt that'll be a popular option.

Have you approached any mapmakers yet dtay? Joey, BRick and Mardoc would be my first ports of call.

If we go for a cylinder and have a lot of players can we avoid having civs stuck in on the equator with enemies on all sides while others have happy polar back lines? (I'm thinking PB18 where dtay, pindicator and others had more trouble than my team, BGN, TBS and others did.)

Superdeath - this Pitboss etiquette thread from a couple of years ago might be useful for you to read: http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showt...p?tid=7311

[BRickAstley]

I can work on a map but I can't start until December (which looks like it might not be a problem, with people saying wait til the new year?). I would be happy to work with either/both of GermanJoey/Mardoc, or anyone else with mapmaking experience.