We've got another one lol! One of the great bonuses of me making a Freelancer FB group a while back is that members alert me (the slightly obsessed fan lol) to all Freelancer & Wing Commander Privateer 'spiritual sequels' on the way haha. Been a good year so far.. first Rebel Galaxy Outlaw, Then Starpoint Gemini 3 and now we've got Everspace 2!
The sequel is looking even more amazing than the first one did. The whole rogue like randomly generated galaxy put me off playing the last one but it sounds like they're going proper open world detailed pre-made galaxy like good old Freelancer this time around! And the planet surface areas look awesome too! Kickstarter total looks a bit worrying though but hopefully they get there over the line!
In my current game with 1oom, I have an ultra poor planet w/o factories (my 2nd colony of course ...). With 52 pop it produces 29 RPs in tech (I play the Humans and have some trade income).
When I try to send half the pop away, the tech output drops to only 3 RPs (probably my trade income). I checked with MOO 1.4m and the behaviour is the same. Is this a bug, present in both versions, or does MOO have transport costs after all? I know the OSG mentions 1 BC/pop, but I always thought this is unimplemented. Anyway, this would only add up if the pop to be transported would also work for its ticket before departure.
What I always have thought before, was, that the production increase stems from the fact that pop scheduled for transport does not work - so you get a waste cleanup problem and have to adjust eco. Now it looks like departing pop does put in a last year of work but that they have to pay for the ticket and the production drop is merely the ticket price.
As player, please ignore the stories here and @civforum.de from other players.
The conventions in both communities are slightly different. We had no subforums for each PB game, but one for all games. We used a cookie based 'workaround' to mark threads as invisible to omit accidental reading them.
Moreover, we do not share passwords in the threads, but over private messages.
List of players
0 Meiz Dareios
1 kreutzberg Napoleon
2 Elkad Friedrich
3 Der Graf+theindless Gilgamesch
4 xist10 Victoria
5 TeeRohr Süleyman
6 Frozen+Nahoimi Isabella
7 klops Ludwig
8 Dullland Huayna
9 CivNoob Hatschepsut
10 Ceres Gandhi
11 Mr.X Boudicca
12 SvenBVBFan Ashoka
13 nane Hannibal
14 Konsul+hackim Lincoln
15 Piccadilly Julius Caesar
16 firlefanzer+ElDuderino91 Suryavarman
17 Kendogan+Mongke Khan Brennus
18 ziankali Joao
19 Plemo Karl der Große
20 Lao-Tse Ramses
21 CocoRico Hammurabi
22 cheggined Mao
23 wahl-profi Peter
24 Fimi Wilhelm
25 BaII De Gaulle
26 naufragar Montezuma
27 Flunky Zara
28 aspi Mansa Musa
29 Aristobulus Justinian
30 SVE!V Perikles
31 Kaffeesatzleser Alexander
32 dvametraNINJA Bismarck
33 Jerry Demmings Pacal
34 Donovan Zoi Tokugawa
35 Hubabl Roosevelt
36 Holland Elizabeth
37 Jesper Portus Ragnar
38 Apenimon Stalin
39 superjm Mehmed
40 Empirate Kublai Khan
41 pico Washington
42 Admiral G Sitting Bull
43 shade Dschingis Khan
44 asdfg Wang Kon
45 Korialstrasz Katharina
46 Suite Saladin
47 Rob Anybody Qin Shi Huangdi
48 superdeath Churchill
49 Sauron44 Shaka
50 CivIVer Augustus
51 Leibniz Kyrus
Settings
• World map with shuffled starting positions
• 48h timer
• Handicap: Deity
• No diplo, only empty trade windows (like AI)
• No tech trade
• No alliances
• Vassals: No
• Goody huts: No
• Events: Yes
• Barbarians: Yes (no ragging)
• Start archer which must fortify in the capital until round 100. (Move towards the settler if you walk around with it.)
• Espionage: No tech steal, no change of civics/religion
• No victory by Apostolic Palace or UN (but wonders can be build)
• No nukes
• Fairplay/Dicing out critical decisions
Quote:If two players are competing for a city foundation and realize this, they should have the referee roll out the turn order. This prevents complains/reloads.
• No 'double moves' during wars and one round before. (Forces playing style like PBEM games)
Quote:War establishes a move order.
Ideally, the attacker should establish the move order already in the pre-war round.
If you haven't finished your turn yet, you can always declare war on someone who has finished already.
In the declaration of war round, the defender is not allowed to go back into play after the attacker in order to force a reversal of the order.
If a party misses its turn window, a double move is possible as a last instrument and must be discussed with the referee.
• Unit gifts: None allowed. (Decided by players vote)
• City trade: Only if arbiter allows. Ask the arbiter 'Lord of the Civ' by private message.
Quote:City trade can only be prevented if it deprives a (potential) enemy of loot or if the city trade is tactically abused by exploiting the game mechanics (e.g. beam units, border blockade, upgrading station, trait exploitation, spies economy, ...).
• Corporations buffed (see below)
• Capital movement forbidden after space ship start
• Beaming of units (by closing borders) not restricted.
Login, Mod installation, etc (Text translated by DeepL)
The contact point of a PB is its PBSpy overview page. There you can find links to the relevant files, a point list of all players and below a log of all events.
It's all on a single html page, but if you bookmark the page, you can use #Anchor to go directly to the section you want to see.
So e.g. http://civ.zulan.net/pbspy/game/84/#game_log jumps directly to the log. Most of the time this is the most interesting because you can see who is in the game right now.
Since there are so many players here, #players is also useful.
To participate in the game you need three things. It doesn't matter if you have the Steam variant or the normal variant.
1. the mod.
Select the installation path of Civ4:BTS and extract the zip file into the mods folder there. Then check exactly the name of the mod folder.
If it is "PB Mod_v9" (with spaces), the mod is completely installed.
If it is "PB_Mod_v9" (with underscore), your unzip program has created an extra folder. Copy "PB_Mod_v9/PB Mod_v9" one level up!
Depending on where the installation directory is located, you will probably need administration privileges to create data in the mod directory. This is also true for point 2.
2. for the other two things you need this zip
Extract the files into the installation directory of Civ4:BTS.
Now you have two options to enter the game. Due to the many players in this PB, the first variant should only be used in exceptional cases!
A) Start the game with Civ4BeyondSword2015.exe:
This exe is needed, because with the original exe, only one player can enter the server at the same time. You would then block 51 people!
Open the installation directory of Civ4:BTS in Explorer and create a shortcut to the 2015 exe (right click on the file and choose "Create shortcut-> Desktop"). Then open the properties page of the shortcut (right click on the shortcut -> Properties) and expand the line "Target from ...Sword2015.exe" to ...Sword2015.exe" mod= "PB Mod_v9" (note the space behind =).
Now you should be able to start the game incl. mod with the shortcut.
B) Start the game with BTS_Wrapper.exe:
Like A, but adds the faster login. This small program will do the trick at the point where the save is transferred to the player. It overwrites the default variant with an faster variant (over http(s)).
If you don't use the wrapper, all logged in players (and you) will have to wait a very long time when you log in. (This has already triggered wars )
To start the game with the wrapper, you can proceed as in A, but you create the link to BTS_Wrapper.exe instead of …2015.exe
The only disadvantage of the wrapper is that it is mistaken by anti-virus programs for malware. Therefore, you may have to create an exception in the anti-virus program.
Questions about the wrapper could ask here: https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/show...#pid697240
Once you've set up the game and started Civ4 with the mod, try best first of all the login in the test game.
Enter the url pb.zulan.net:2057 under "Multiplayer > Direct IP" (empty password).
Then choose any of the leaders (also empty password) and log in. If the game does not crash, you have set everything up correctly.
Then you can log into the correct game, pb.zulan.net:2088.
Game mechanic changes:
Espionage:
• 'Counter espionage missions' can extended if they already running, now.
This only works in the last round before the mission ends and it
removes 'protection hole' for the second player in a espionage war.
Corporations:
• Commerce output at headquarter: 3 gold instead of 4.
• The output in the cities was also reduced.
The map size influence the corporation output. Here are
the reduced output for this game:
F1-Screen:
• Button to "un-pause" game. Note that the screen is reachable
by mouse clicks if you're trapped in a diplo screen.
Diplo-Screen:
• Here should also be a button to un-pause the game. For some
smaler resolutions it is not reachable. Use F1-Screen is this case.
F4-Screen:
• Better distribution of the leader icons around the screen.
• Filter mechanism to hide displayed leaders/lines except for
a selection.
- A click on the label in the bottom left corner toggles the feature.
- To alter the leader selection use [Mouse Click].
- To restrict the seleciton on one leader use [Shift]+[Mouse Click].
- To find out all trade partner (etc) of a player, use the bottom right labels.
F9-Screen:
• Deselection of graphs by clicking on the legend.
Scoreboard:
• Added scrollbar allows the handle of long contact lists.
• Reduce width of scroreboad
Note about the timer and game pauses
https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/show...#pid717144' Wrote: […] also note that pause requests must handled strict for 52 players. With 2days/turn, predefined moves, and help by lurkers, the game should run without long pauses.
Moreover, a common problem of in game pauses are diplomatic screens: Some player de-pauses to leave the screen and to play the turn, other players join in and want also move.
At the end, the pause will not set again.
Exceptions are Christmas and Easter holidays. We will increase the timer on such a high value that no turn will be missed. If everyone moves, it is also ok…
Summer vacations are problematic because they are spread too wide for an useful pause of the game. Here, we prefer the search of a substitute for the vacation.
Public available map of the previous world map game:
a few years ago, we at civforum.de played a quite spectacular Pitboss game with 52 players. Each leader of the game was represented on a huge world map!
We had doubts if a game will be playable with such high number of players, but they were ill-founded. We found solutions for all technical and human issues. The game lasts two years and ends entertaining with a parallel space and cultural victory.
Now, we're planning a remake on almost the same map and with at least all nations (34), but hopefully all leaders (52). With respect to the old age of the game we probably won't fill all slots on our own and invite your members to join the party.
Currently, 25 players with Pitboss experience from zero up to 15 years had appeal to the game.
It will probably already starts in November, but stops during Christmas+New year's eve.
Edit: Settings:
Fixed:
• 48h timer
• No diplo, only empty trade windows (like AI)
• No tech trade
• No alliances
• Start archer which must fortify in the capital until round 100.
• Espionage: No tech steal, no change of civics/religion
• No victory by Apostolic Palace or UN (but wonders can be build)
• No nukes
• No 'double moves' during wars and one round before. (Forces playing style like PBEM games, details will be given later)
In discussion:
• Handicap: Deity?
• Unit gifts: If target player fulfill properties to build them on its own?!
• Vassals: No
• Goody huts: No
• Events: Yes
• Barbarians: Yes
• City trade: Only if arbiter allows. (To complex to summarize idea here).
• No capital companies (too strong, especially on a huge map.)
If you're interested post in this thread or directly here. It is a German forum, but if you post in English we also answer.
_____________________________________________
If you not know me: Since 2019 we, Zulan and me, hosts your games on the same machine like our Pitboss games. This had already led to an unification of the playing environment of both communities. Thus, we will use the same mod (almost vanilla Civ4:BTS) as the players of 'Pitboss 44' and the same tools (unblocking fix + faster login).
I recently posted here about discovering that amazing Heroes of Might & Magic 3 Civilization 3 Mod! As a kid growing up in the 90s playing endless hours of Civ and HoMM I always wanted some sort hybrid game that gave me the HoMM experience but in the Civ sandbox world. Games like Master of Magic and Age of Wonders 2 sort of granted that wish however his mod has REALLY fulfilled that dream of a sandbox HoMM game haha. I was so inspired by the awesomeness of it that I wanted to try and make a Heroes of Might & Magic 2 Civilization 2 Mod to compliment it, as while I'm useless at Civ3 modding I'm pretty good with Civ2 modding. I was still hesitant to try though as I knew it would be a big job, however then I hit the jackpot!
Some of you may have seen me post in the HoMM3 Civ3 thread that I found someone by the name of Metropolis had already started my exact HoMM2 for Civ2 idea and had posted about it in a German Civ forum. However sadly he went and got himself banned before I found it lol but thankfully we were eventually able to track each other down on a different Civ forum and he speaks great English (thankfully as I only speak English and bad English lol) so we're now working together on finishing his vision with a bit of my vision mixed in with it. It's not going to be as amazing as that HoMM3 for Civ3 mod as it's creator (Tom2050) is a friggin genius lol and we're using an older game but we'll do the best we can haha. We know that it's 20 years too late, no one will probably play it and people will wonder why we're wasting our time but we're having a ton of fun making it so meh, we're doing it anyway haha.
Here's some early test screenshots...
One of our first terrain test shots, Civ2's GUI is VERY limited but I've made it look a bit more like HoMM2s. NO units or castles had been added at that point.
While Metropolis worked on terrains and units I started working on cities..
As we all know HoMM games only have 1 town and castle image to dictate city size/development while Civ2 has 4 unwalled and 4 walled sizes. So we decided to use the town for the un-walled cities and the castle for the walled cities in the scenario. The other BIG problem is that the original images are much higher resolution and are very vertically tall in HoMM2 which means to fit them into a short and wide isometric city cell in Civ2 they have to be shrunk so much that they look way too small (eg see Metropolis's old 2014 shots) so we're trying using a combination of stretching and pixel editing (mostly to shrink the big towers and tall walls) to fully utilize every pixel of width and height that a small Civ2 city cell can give!
Eg I have to somehow squeeze this (actual 1 to 1 size)
into the pink area in this little thing (actual 1 to 1 size)
I can go over the grey areas above but NOT below the diamond isometric cell.
WARLOCK
My first attempt. There were many revisions to get to this stage lol.
NECROMANCER
This castle was a NIGHTMARE as I had to change the shape of the walls to fit in the isometric cell.. still not thrilled about the skull and other stuff so will probably get revisions.
SORCERESS
This one ended up being rather easy compared to the last 2. Guess I'd started learning from dealing with the past problems haha. Like with the previous 2 the windows and city buildings were horribly distorted by the downsize requiring me to repaint them in. And also much like with the others the castle wall and village fence is completely repainted and reshaped to fit the Civ2 cell limits and remove downsize distortions.
KNIGHT
This was one tougher than I thought as I quickly realised that the brick pattern on the walls (which was destroyed in the shrinking/downsizing) was also all over the castle so I had repaint the bricks all over the whole bloody thing lol.
Those with a keen eye will see I'd played around with the forts a bit more too. Metropolis also smoothed out the beach shore lines a bit by this stage too.
BARBARIAN
This one took longer than I wanted as well, as the village had an annoying crisscross fence that trying to do a miniature version of on an angle was hell haha.
WIZARD
FINISHED! All 6 done!
And finally here's a shot I recently took where as you can see Metropolis has added HoMM2 units and Heroes to the game and I've snuck some extra decoration into the river tiles. Due to Civ2 not being an strategy RPG with lots of map locations to visit we're very limited in what objects we can place on the map so we've had to pull a lot of tricks like these to get interesting stuff into the maps. You may also notice Metropolis has put some ocean decoration at the river mouths too. Take note that the big Xanadu building is more than just decoration, like several other cool interactive buildings we're planning there is much danger there but also treasure too.
Let's see civs that benefits from industrial start.
-France, get UU from start, can farm GG with it and +10 bonus in own contintent and Catherine gives +3 strength from start due diplomatic visiblity. But other powers requires many building, especially expensive wonders and builder charges for Chateau's.
-Germany, always reliable bonuses which can be used in all era's. UU within reach but it is sea based and we aren't playing continents map anymore.
-Japan, only UU is missing from industrial start, but it is weak UU to begin with due placement at tech tree. Other bonuses are decent and UB is within reach but not really killer UB.
-Australia, tempting... stronger outbacks from start, strong UU within reach. Strong bonuses including 100% production if TheArchduke declares upon me.
-Brazil, UU from start, but it is naval UU, same problem with Germany. Other bonuses geared Great People don't tempt me.
-Russia, purely because Cossacks are unlocked almost from start.
-Scotland, some nice bonuses and UU from start. But it is scout type, not the best for combat.
-America, 5+ strength on home continent and extra wildcard is already nice for ancient start. But with industrial start UB and both UU within reach. Also tempting because I can change thread along lines of climate change being a hoax.
-England with Victoria, also seem interesting with UU from start and bonuses towards powered up industrial zones, iron and coals. But its main strength is upon sea and again we aren't playing continents map.
-Canada, UU within reach, stronger tundra farms almost from start, 5 turns warning for war since Canada can't be declared suprise war upon, but I can't declare suprise too. Bit too map dependt upon amount of tundra tiles.
After all summing up, I think that I pick Australia after all.
As game balance is finally reaching the place where -hopefully - no major issues remain, it might be a good idea to consider a final adjustment of AI bonus on higher difficulty levels.
The INTENDED difficulty is :
Fair and Advanced : what most people will play who already know how the mod works but aren't particularly good at playing it yet.
Expert : Consistent wins for veteran players with good strategies.
Master : Consistent wins for veteran players with their best strategies only.
Lunatic : 30-50% win rate even for veteran players with their best strategies.
I noticed in windows 10, when I press ctrl-esc to leave the doxbox window, it registers pressing the Esc key inside the game, and does so persistently - as soon as I return to dossbox, it start to spam Esc keypresses. While I could use alt-tab instead I'm too used to having to use ctrl-esc and keep forgetting it.
Now, this isn't something new, but in earlier windows it "only" caused the shift/ctrl/alt buttons to get "stuck" which is still very annoying but doesn't cause any real damage. Spamming esc however will close things in MoM and even set my units to patrol...
![[Image: ss_281959baff798b9c6d3043aac3e59fb8babf6...0x1080.jpg]](https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/1128920/ss_281959baff798b9c6d3043aac3e59fb8babf6fc3.1920x1080.jpg)
![[Image: ss_6cc4d7a1428620e18bca920f866be21830769...0x1080.jpg]](https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/1128920/ss_6cc4d7a1428620e18bca920f866be21830769c3a.1920x1080.jpg)
![[Image: ss_4d610538118f701942fcc47e6c4f648cd1b6e...0x1080.jpg]](https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/1128920/ss_4d610538118f701942fcc47e6c4f648cd1b6e1d7.1920x1080.jpg)
)![[Image: Civ4Nahrung.png]](https://www.civforum.de/images/smilies/civ4symbole/Civ4Nahrung.png)
</td><td> 0.37![[Image: Civ4Produktion.png]](https://www.civforum.de/images/smilies/civ4symbole/Civ4Produktion.png)
</td><td> 0.25
The game lasts two years and ends entertaining with a parallel space and cultural victory.![[Image: necro_chateau.png]](http://homm2.free.fr/a/c/necro_chateau.png)
