Idea to speed up PBEM games

[Catwalk]

I'm two turns into my first PBEM, and I'm psyched! Already busy planning ways to outmaneuver and conquer my enemies and dance on their graves. And I haven't even met any yet!

So, I had an idea: If the players can agree on it, appoint a neutral player to play through the first 8 turns or so. Each player will supply a game plan for those turns, including a rough guideline for exploration priorities. If in doubt, the neutral player will use his own judgement. This way we can jump 8 turns into the game in an hour or so. If there are any demographics junkies, the player can take a screenshot of demographics every turn (although this might get a little tiresome).

Just tossing an idea out, anyone think it could work?

[Bobchillingworth]

Even in such early turns, too much can happen or require decisions to have a full operating plan laid out for a neutral player which can address all possible contingencies. And I personally know that I'd always want to play my own turns if it's possible. A better solution is to arrange for at least a couple "blitz sessions" where everyone is able to be online at once to rapidly pass around a slew of early turns- see FFH PBEMs 1, 3, 5 and 11 for examples of games which held a successful blitz or two (or three, in the case of 11).

[TheMeInTeam]

Blitz sessions are better.

I just joined up my first PBEM (25) but I've already modeled enough contingencies that I might want control during those turns.

Not to mention the denial of demo analysis to everyone if a neutral player plays all the saves. That matters more than you think! You can easily tell what kinds of tiles are being worked, whether people have trained warriors, what technologies have been researched, etc. Useful information, for a lot of reasons.

[Catwalk]

I suppose this is more of an option for casual games. In casual games it can also be harder to set up blitz sessions. Which decisions would be hard to plan out for the first 8 turns? I suppose 8 might be a little too much if you research a tech during those turns, though.

[TheMeInTeam]

Tech choices. Unit exploration decisions. Unit composition of opponents. Techs finished by opponents. Diplo (if contact). Sometimes, worker micro adjustments for new revealed tiles.

Although it would be funny if the "neutral" player killed someone off in the opening turns with a warrior scout .

[Mardoc]

In theory it could work. In practice - I think by the time you've found your neutral third party, planned out your first X turns' movement and gotten all orders into the third party, agreed on the details, and so on, you could have just played those first turns.

If it's too annoying to spend your first dozen turns normally - well, maybe take a page from Sullla/Speaker's book and start a game at a later age, classical or medieval.

[darrelljs]

Best thing is to blitz, and I like T-Hawk's technique of swapping from pitboss to PBEM. So mapmaker sends out the starting spots, everyone scripts ~20 turns, play a pitboss session, then swap over to PBEM. Nice way to kick start it.

Darrell

[Commodore]

Yeah, that's a lot of early decisions to miss out on. One thought that I would be interested in would be to start with a worker, scout, warrior, and settler. Might nerf Exp very slightly, but that wouldn't be the worst thing. Still nicely bump up the early interest, although I'd pity poor Spain in that case. Maybe everyone gets The Wheel, so roads could at least start going down.

[TheMeInTeam]

Yeah, that's a lot of early decisions to miss out on. One thought that I would be interested in would be to start with a worker, scout, warrior, and settler. Might nerf Exp very slightly, but that wouldn't be the worst thing. Still nicely bump up the early interest, although I'd pity poor Spain in that case. Maybe everyone gets The Wheel, so roads could at least start going down.

Roads have nothing on improved special tiles. The difference between civs that have the right techs and those that don't would be enormous.

[Catwalk]

Switching from Pitboss to PBEM after about 20 turns sounds really interesting. How easy is that to setup?