I posted this essay on Civfanatics, I thought to repost it here, partly because reading Sullla's essays on Civ4 and Civ5 were a big influence, and partly because I have lurked RB for a while and it seems to have a more serious level of play than Civfanatics or Apolyton, and has several members who have actually participated in beta testing for the Civ games.

The essay is quite a wall of text, but I promise you that it will be worth it

Reading some threads here it seems like most people are in the same boat as myself, liking Civ4 a lot but mostly disliking Civ5 and the direction it took the series.

The essay dissects the phenomenon of "Land Power" (what some players call the "economic snowball" that rewards building a large empire as fast as possible). It looks at how Land Power has functioned in Civ 3 and Civ 4, and how it was dysfunctionally out of control in Civ 5. And finally I look at how Civ could program other kinds of power that would help make small empires powerful in different ways from large empires. Might be interesting to anyone who is planning to make a Civ-game (I know someone here has a project like that )

Here's the essay. (ps - as I already made clear, I am indebted to Sullla for some of these ideas, as well as reading essays / hearing Youtube talks by Soren Johnson and Sid).

LAND POWER
1. Introduction

2. What Is Land Power?

IT'S ALWAYS BETTER TO HAVE MORE CITIZENS.


In Civilization ten citizens are unequivocally 10x better than one citizen. They generate 10x the production and commerce, finishing research, buildings and units faster. Citizens are interchangeable. A brand new citizen works just as hard as one who has been around for thousands of years, and any citizen can instantly be micromanaged to change tiles or to become a powerful Specialist.

Thus, citizens directly translate into production power.

There are three factors that might seem to diminish the benefit of a new citizen.

1) After a while new citizens are born unhappy due to crowding.
2) Citizens always work the best land available, so a new citizen is more likely to be assigned a subpar or unimproved tile.
3) As a city grows larger, population growth becomes more difficult.

Notice that all of these factors encourage you to send that unhelpful citizen to found a new city... where he will be happier, more productive, and reproduce without bound. With more cities, every objection to population growth is removed. This partly motivates the rapid-expansion phase of the game: there is a rush to claim land, not because you need it now, but because you will need it later to keep growing your population.

MORE LAND MEANS MORE RESOURCES.


Civ3 introduced Resources. This was a great step forward for the series. Unfortunately, the implementation was very rudimentary. It made sense that different parts of the world would have different luxuries, encouraging trade. It also made sense that late-game rubber, oil, etc would be rare, encouraging colonization and resource wars. However, I've never read of a civilization failing to conquer the world for lack of Iron... or even Saltpeter.

Fundamentally, resources are an incentive to claim huge tracts of land in the beginning of the game. This increases the chance of unwittingly settling near a crucial Iron or Horse. Strategic resources are a raffle, and four tickets are better than two.

Notice that over-expanding, claiming more resources than you need, is actually desirable because you can trade away the excess.

FLAT BONUSES TURN CITIES INTO FREE PROFIT.


A new city is almost always an immediate benefit to your empire.

The biggest culprit here is easy to pin down. It's an anti-feature which has been in Civ from the beginning: the rule that says City Tiles automatically generate free food, production, and commerce without needing to be worked. The goal was presumably to speed up the pace of the early game. But throughout the series these "Free City Tiles" (FCTs) have encouraged Infinite City Sprawl, a tactic of simply filling up land with the maximum amount of cities to get many FCTs.

Civ 4's lead designer Soren Johnson writes: "The essential problem is that 50 size-2 cities are more powerful than 5 size-20 cities as a number of bonuses are given out on a per-city basis."

As a comparison, in the initial release of Civilization V, these Free City Tiles could be buffed to become the best tiles in your empire (through alliances with Maritime City States among other techniques). This alone shows how Civ 5's design team did not have a real grasp of the game's mechanics; players instantly broke the Maritime Food system.

It turns out there are many other examples of "Flat (or Per-City) Bonuses" throughout the Civ series. One of my favorite examples is J.S. Bach's Cathedral in Civ3. This wonder arrives during the Middle Ages growth spurt, and it generates two happy faces in each city. The designers seemingly intended Bach's Cathedral to help you manage your bustling cities through their medieval growing pains. But does it work that way? Nope! Bach's Cathedral is a flat bonus, which means it rewards civs with more cities. Consider two civilizations called Tall and Wide, both with 100 citizens. The "Tall" civilization that packs its people into ten cities of size 10 could sure appreciate more happiness help than the "Wide" civ that spreads its populace across twenty cities of size 5 - but perversely, the Wide civ receives twice the benefit from Bach's Cathedral!

There are many similar examples of counterproductive design throughout the series (to name just one more example: in unpatched Civ5 with the new global happiness system, it was happiness-profitable to found new cities just to house Colosseums to maximize their flat happiness benefit).

TARGETED NERFS JUST MAGNIFY THE OTHER VARIABLES.


Throughout the series the designers have tried various methods to tamp down the power of Land, Citizens, or Cities. The problem is that, like pushing a bubble under wallpaper, nerfing one variable just increases the power of the other two.

Here's the biggest single example. In every Civ game a large city has a harder time growing than a small city. There are soft growth caps like unhappiness and health, as well as hard caps like Civ3's aqueduct. Why? I suppose there are historical-realism reasons for this, but the game design reason for limiting growth is to the limit the importance of Land. That might seem confusing - what does population growth have to do with the Land variable? Well, if all civs could quickly grow to 200-250 population, whoever had grabbed the most and best Land tiles would run away with the game in 800 BC. In theory, city size caps ensure that all players will have very-roughly the same number of citizens at the same time, and that no city will work all of its available tiles until the early modern era; this gives the small civs or civs with bad starts plenty of chances to catch up.

The problem is that by stomping down hard on one variable (the amount of workable Land in each City) the designers just inflated another (the number of Cities). They made vertical exponential growth impossible - but small cities that don't hit the growth penalties can still grow exponentially, so expansion just redirects horizontally into a swarm of moderate-sized cities.

What about sledgehammering the City variable instead? Well that's what Corruption was for. The idea was that your nth city would have vastly diminished returns because of hopeless corruption, therefore the game would "really" revolve around management of large core cities, therefore grabbing more land outside your planned core would be less crucial. As we all know, this did not work either.

To be fair, one exception should be mentioned here. In Civ 4 cities cost maintenance, and were initially an unprofitable drain on your empire. This simple change did work to limit growth. It forced the player to carefully consider whether each new city was worth it in the short to medium term (which is why many see Civ 4 as superior to both 3 and 5). However cities could almost always be turned into long-term profit. City maintenance was less like a true penalty for overexpansion (that would be Civ3's corruption) and more like a hefty down-payment or investment cost. So the problem of Land Power remained.

3. What's Wrong With Land Power?

Land Power, as we have seen, derives from having lots of Land on which you build lots of Cities that have lots of Citizens. This is the path to victory in every Civ game. The "different victory conditions" in Civilization are entirely a mirage. I don't intend that comment spitefully or uncharitably, but it's true. There is no real difference between the victory conditions. You can leverage your Land Power to do different things: build a giant army and conquer the world; or tech ahead and win the Space Race; or spam Cathedrals and win by culture. But no matter what victory you are aiming for, it is Land Power that gets you there. You are just translating Land Power into the production of units, buildings or beakers.

While the game suggests other sources of Power such as technology or diplomatic relations, each of these is either tied directly to one of the variables of Land Power (e.g. science in Civ 5 is entirely dependent on Citizens) or is not really that powerful (bad diplomacy has never been that big of an obstacle to a large empire bent on further conquests).

At this point, someone might honestly say:

"Why is Land Power a problem? Isn't it a good thing that you win by grabbing the most land and building the most cities with the biggest population? Isn't that what a 4X game (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate) is all about? Land IS power, bigger IS better?"

The answer is: Civilization is a civilization building game (not an empire building game) and a civilization can be any size.

Land Power is only one interpretation of what a growing civilization might look like. Namely, a civilization that is claiming more land and getting more and more citizens. This has always been the only viable source of Power in Civilization - because no other kind of Power was even programmed into the game. But that doesn't mean that a civilization should only be able to succeed by expanding into more land and more cities.

A second objection might be:

"Aren't you ignoring cultural victory? In Civ3 and 4 one-city cultural victories were very possible, and in Civ5 it actually hurts you in culture and social policy if your empire is too large."

This is true, but players created the "One City Challenge" and "Five City Challenge" as a way of making the game more difficult (similar to Always War or other self-imposed challenges). Cultural victory is perfectly possible with large empires as well as small, except in Civ5 which favors small empires by imposing punitive restrictions on large empires. Simply "ruling out" large civs from participating in the cultural victory contest is neither fun nor particularly good design.

Finally someone might say:

"Land Power isn't too problematic if we give small empires a way to compete with large empires. For example, large empires could face corruption, an increasing chance of revolts, Dark Ages, etc."

Notice that "let's give small empires a way to compete with large empires" seems to have translated into "let's punish large empires for succeeding at the obvious goal of the game." Why give the player anti-bonuses for achieving the only kind of Power the game offers? We shouldn't cripple big empires - mostly because it's contradictory design (punish the winners for winning too much) but also because it makes the game incredibly unfun.

4. Two Alternatives To Land Power: Mastery And Heritage

Small empires don't need a "level playing field" in production power - small empires have either tried to become large and failed, or decided not to try. We need to give small empires ALTERNATIVE sources of Power.

Other Powers would necessarily be new components of the game: distinct from Land Power but just as important. These new Powers would not come from owning land or having large populations, but from... something else.

(Of course, we can still modify Land Power through rule changes like removing the FCTs).

So what are some alternatives to Land Power that could be programmed into Civilization VI? I will suggest two, which I'll call Mastery and Heritage.

Mastery Power

Different civilizations have been good at different things. The games have tried to represent this with civ traits, leader traits, great people, specialist citizens, unique units and unique buildings. These concepts will all be replaced by Mastery. (So, rather than "adding chrome" to the game, Mastery will actually streamline it).

Mastery is a domain of the game where all players compete at the same level irrespective of size (that is, irrespective of Land Power).

Simply put, each player's capital will train one Master every ten turns. You can choose which kind of Master you want to produce next from a menu - for example you could train a Master Architect, Banker, Farmer, Shipwright or Scientist. A Master can travel to and permanently settle in any of your cities. Masters don't need to be fed.

Which Masters you can train will depend on your technological advancement and which religious or civic Philosophies you have adopted.

From a high-level game design perspective, Mastery is a way of modifying the raw power of production by including an ingredient of skilled labor. In vanilla Civilization, a city with twice as much production can produce Swordsmen twice as fast. In Civilization VI, you could lodge several Master Smiths in your small city and then actually outproduce the large city. Of course, those Master Smiths would be useless in helping you complete a Library or the Hanging Gardens.

A large civilization will still outproduce a smaller neighbor, but each civilization can gain a competitive advantage in its chosen area of specialization. A one-city civilization could actually be quite powerful, although it would face big challenges like military upkeep and a lack of raw production power.

Development in depth (training many Masters of the same kind) will be rewarded. There will be buildings, units, wonders, and even Philosophies that are only available to civilizations that have developed the proper Mastery, meaning that for the first time you cannot build everything and do everything.

Mastery will encourage city specialization as well. For example Scholars will give a bigger benefit in large cities with lots of infrastructure, while Smiths will give a bigger benefit if the city has many ore resources.

Please note that Mastery will NOT be the same as the Social Policies of Civ5. One key difference is that Civ5's policies often give you a per-city effect. As we've already discussed, this flat-bonus system just gives more advantages to larger empires: adopting a new policy is like putting a new Master in EACH of your cities, which obviously helps the large empire more. In Civ VI, each player would have the same number of Masters at each era of the game. (Yes, Masters could be captured together with their host city, but they could also be ransomed back to your capital.)

Just like units, Masters could be promoted to keep them relevant from era to era.

The single technological victory in the game (Space Race to Alpha Centauri) will be removed and replaced by three possible "Utopia Victories" - Lunar Colony, Genetic Revolution, and Thinking Machines. Achieving one of these Utopias will require some long-term Mastery planning (instead of just switching all production over to spaceship parts in vanilla Civilization).

Heritage Power

I hope you noticed that I said Heritage instead of Culture - that was for a reason. In Civ3 you won culturally by spamming Temples in as many cities as possible; and in Civ4 you could win by generating huge commerce and turning up the culture slider. In both cases, you were just converting Land Power (production) into culture victory points; not much different, philosophically, from converting that Power into military units to conquer the world.

Heritage Power would be different. It would be a new form of production entirely.

Just like Mastery, Heritage would not be an "added" feature so much as a merging of many of the things Civ has tried to represent in the past. These include: happiness, religion, wonders, histograph score, culture, philosophies, civics, prosperity, literacy, and tourism.

Heritage would also merge the U.N, Culture and Histograph victory options into a single option: Heritage Victory.

As with Culture in previous games, your civilization would generate Heritage points. But you would not generate Heritage by having many Temples. No country is famous for having many Temples, they're famous for having one of the world's FIRST Temples or the Temple that became the center of a world religion.

Similarly, Heritage would not come from having many Libraries, but having the highest Literacy rate. Founding/conquering lots of cities with no Libraries or Master Scholars would quite understandably lower your Literacy; your research rate might not suffer, but your Heritage output would.

In many cases a more powerful Heritage would come directly at the expense of outward expansion. Thus there would be a tension between trying to create a Land-powerful empire like the Mongols or Inca and a Heritage-powerful civilization like Israel or Venice.

With Heritage Power, you could direct your civilization to concentrate on the development of new Philosophies and Religions. Your Heritage would be able to infiltrate other Civilizations, generating benefits for you (Greek Heritage in Roman Cities).

Some of these benefits would carry over from the merged U.N. victory. With your neighbor sufficiently infiltrated by your Heritage, you could decree behavioral rules for them, such as they could not attack you (this would apply in multiplayer as well as against the A.I.). Your citizens would also be increasingly unhappy if your neighbors have more Heritage - they might even emigrate!

Great Wonders would be key components of Heritage Power together with the new feature Great Achievements. The first civilization to Become A Republic or to map out a route Circumnavigating The Globe would generate Heritage for their civ. Continuous Peace (OR Continuous War) could help you leave your mark on the pages of history.

Conclusion

Implementing either Heritage Power or Mastery Power in the next Civ game, or a similar kind of alternative to Land Power, would make the game deeper, more fun, and yet streamline the game as well.

I welcome your thoughts, comments and critiques

The first thing Tak did, he wrote himself.

The second thing Tak did, he wrote the Laws.

The third thing Tak did, he wrote the World.

The fourth thing Tak did, he wrote a cave.

The fifth thing Tak did, he wrote a geode, an egg of stone.



And in the twilight of the mouth of the cave, the geode hatched and the Brothers were born.

The first Brother walked towards the light, and stood under the open sky.

Thus he became too tall. He was the first Man. He found no Laws, and he was enlightened.

The second Brother walked towards the darkness, and stood under a roof of stone. Thus he achieved the correct height. He was the first Dwarf. He found the Laws Tak had written, and he was endarkened.

But some of the living spirit of Tak was trapped in the broken stone egg, and it became the first golem, wandering the world unbidden and unwanted, without soul or purpose, learning or understanding. Fearful of light and darkness it shambles for ever in twilight, knowing nothing, learning nothing, creating nothing, being nothing ...




-From 'Gd Tak `Gar' (The Things Tak Wrote) trans. Prof. W. W. W Wildblood, UnseenUniversity Press, AM$8. In the original, the last paragraph of the quoted text appears to have been added by a much later hand.

--Terry Pratchett


Welcome to my first PBEM, I realy don't know what to expect, so just follow me along the way...


After the restart we started with the same starting position so basically
not much has changed...

FIRST TURN

The starting position is more than nice, guess everyone will have a powercity right away. I decide to move my settler one square down to get 1 more hill tile 2 more forest tiles 1 more floodplain and 1 floodplain right away so my city will grow a little faster right away. I plan on getting hammers after the first growth to speed up my first golem. Unfortunately there is no "3-hammer-hill" in sight. Research is on mining, it will take some turns before my golem is ready so I'll have 2 techs done by then, so I take mining first to see copper earlier. Agriculture will be next, then probably animal husbandry, but we'll see about that.

I'm near coast or a lake which seals 1 side of for expansion, I like that one side less to worry about, at least till later in the game.



Regarding picks:

nabaxo: Varn Gossam of the Malakim (Spi/Ada[Cre])
probably the most standard that means financial and religion Empyrean. Could also go for Order and high promoted disciple units

Xenin: Capria of the Bannor (Spi/Ind)
Don't know the potential of the Bannor. Likely candidate for Empyrean or Order as well, would love to see both going for the same

Tholal: Einion Logos of the Elohim (Def/Phi/Tol)
Dunno, seems like a weak pick. If it comes down to a builders game I could still beat him thanks to financial. I don't even have a guess what or if he wants a religion at all.

Cromagnumpi: Tebryn Arbandi of the Sheaim (Arc/Sum)
Mass summons is fun in SP. Could be strong in MP we'll see. Maybe he does smth diffrent. Religion wise AV or OO, would like to see him go OO. I think AV is "better"

haphazard1: Rhoanna of the Hippus (Exp/Fin) <- talk about top tier pick, top traits, top WS, Horselord on top of it!
Don't be near me please. I don't worry about the str. but the mobility will kill me. No way are my golems keeping up with that speed. If he is near me I probably have to focus all my resources to fend him off. But I doubt anyone will have an easy time against him. Now after he changed to the better of the two hippus it will be even harder... since archduke would have spent more time trying to choke players with pillaging he could really profit from due to his trait. Now he doesn't even have to pillage if he decides not to, thanks to financial he will be a potential powerhouse all game.

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UPDATE:

Game is up and running again!
After TheArchduke droped out and haphazard1 replaced him we decided to start from turn 1 again and I was able to swap my leader pick to Beeri while haphazard1 chose to Pick Rhoanna.

Expect a new report at around turn 15 if nothing happens.

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TURN 4

I switched from floodplains (3/0/1) to deer (2/2/0), my city will grow next turn. I'll work the wheat resource (2/1/1) with the new citizen probably. Which should mean that my Golem should finish 1 turn before the mining tech. That should be the most efficient way to get my economy going, since a mined gold gives 6(7 due to financial) commerce after ruffly 20 turns. But I guess everyone has a high commerce resource, would be really unfair else since I think that fast early teching (first 30 turns) can snowball you to a tech and expansion lead. In BtS it wouldn't matter that much, even in EitB (no financial) but in the version we play it's amazing how important that commerce is right away.

I just now realized that in my starting city I can work 6 unimproved tiles with a yield of (combined) 4 each and 2 of them with 2 hammers. I think I never had a phenomenal start like this in SP.
Normally I'm lucky to have one unimproved resource with a yield of 4 and two hammers, now I can switch around between them to get my tech/built order perfectly without having to work mine tiles with a yield of 3.

Btw. feel free to disagree (strongly if possible ) and argue, turns take sooo long.

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I play EitB normally and just read the EitB changelog again and realized how many buffs Lurchips got...

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TURN 6

After some scouting, thats what I can see:



From the previous game I know there are the "Standing Stones" SW from me at the bottom of the map. I won't go for that. There also is Yggdrasil "far" in the South. Maybe a perfect 2nd city Location.

C&D tells me two enemy cities level 2 and two level 1. The soldier count is between 3000 and 9000, I wonder where the 9000 come from (most have 6000) the 3000 one probably lost a Warrior or Scout. Please correct me if I'm wrong. First time I try to read stats like that.

I use Blue Marble, it works perfectly but in FFH II, in EitB it's no problem. I'll try to fix this If I feel like it.

I'm thinking on a naming theme for cities and such, suggestions welcome =)

Btw. I got enchantment (+1happy), life (+1 healthy) and earth (+3 or 5% increased chance to pop mine) Mana. So every single one of my Manas gives me a bonus right away. Enchantment gives one of the strongest tier 1 spells you could ask for: +20% strength. Which ofc doesn't matter to my Golems, however it also gives Repair! Life tier 2 gives Destroy Undead, which could come in handy later. Earth has very situational use. It's always nice to capture a city and have a stonewall up right away, as it is good to have Stoneskin to walk through Hellfire.

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Might it just be that the standing stones are the worst unique feature after "Bradeline's Well" ? Is there anything you can do with it besides getting 1 Earth Mana and +1 happy? Cause thats not worth it.

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Financial/Industrious Lurchip got Gold, Gem and Marble. I don't need a lot of techs to hook everything up I need. I missed out on the Incense cause I don't need it for long into the game. And since I'll be going Education before Calender I'll just build a Cottage instead, will take a little longer but I'm financial so it goes up to 4 shields fast and ends up being better. Food isn't as important to me as to everyone else, since Mines are as good as Farms for Settler production, but way better for me in Mud Golem production. Marble is just too much. Not only will it almost guarantee me Great Library and Bone Palace (+100% with industrial). I need to pick up Masonry rather fast for Construction anyways. Only Xenin with Marble has a chance to beat me to it, but not techwise. And that opens up a nice possibility: If I'm done with Mining -> Agriculture -> Education -> Exploration/Mysticism -> ?Calendar? -> Masonry -> Construction/Writing -> ?Animal Husbandry? -> Way of the Earthmother (if it's not gone) -> Knowledge of the Ether -> hmm.. I'm getting a little ahead of myself. What I wanted to go at (it's pretty obvious anyways) is that I can go Mathematics -> Engineering and can build Guild of Hammers to get Forges (no need for Smelting, Golems don't get the bonus, neither do Catapults or Adepts) even though I can produce Forges quick which would go to waste. And I get Gargoyles (8 +50% = 12) for (120 -25% = 90). If I don't have Hippus next to me and can tech in peace for a while... I so hope they regard me as weak and Lurchip as a weak pick. Well, demographics should take care of that.

Speaking of Demographics:


This is my first time reading anything out of that.
One player has started with (most likely) a warrior and the other two have started with (most likely) Workers. EDIT: well... you can see that by clicking on "TOP FIVE CITIES / WONDERS" too -.- . Slight, meaningless difference in tiles worked.
Am I right?

I'm starting to repeat myself here. Next update follows if something happens.

I'm really getting into this, hope you can enjoy my writing (English as second language), if anyone even reads this ^^ (apparently not)

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TURN 17

Him who mountain crush him no

Him who sun him stop him no

Him who hammer him break him no

Him who fire him fear him no

Him who raise him head above him heart Him diamond

Mr. Pump, my first Golem, was just baked in Ankh-Morpork. At the same time the first and most important tech Mining (you can't play dwarfs without knowing Mining, obviously) was researched. So Mr. Pump will be building a goldmine night and day. Agriculture is next, kind of a no-brainer.

I'll train another Scout, if I start near the Hippus I need to know as fast as possible. Since there aren't any lairs near me I don't have to worry about spawning barbs that much. After that another two warriors and a settler probably. My first city isn't an optimal spot but I can hook up everything with the techs I'm going to research and really: this is still a lush land. I'll grab the Calender resources with my 2nd and 3rd city, by then I should have Calender. There is enough happiness thanks to gold/wine to not hit the happy cap before I can hook up either gems or Calender resources.

Updated map with city spots:


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TURN 19

My scout was eaten by a wolf, other scout heading east. Warriors getting build. Settler next. Agriculture was researched and Mr. Pump is hooking up the Wheat. He'll build another farm on floodplains, then mine/chop some hill forests to rush the settler. If Education is done Cottages will pop up. I decided to go Settler before 2nd Mud Golem. Also I think researching Writing for The Great Library would be the right move in SP but not here. So Construction will go first. I hope I'll still be able to get TGL. I will probably get either a Great Prophet for the religious wonder or a Great Scientist for an Academy, haven't decided yet. Both ain't possible cause I want to have two Great Engineers, one to rush Mathematics and one to rush the wonder. I should be able to produce Gargoyles with 40-50% bonus from Barnaxus quite fast. I doubt my enemies will suspect a midgame invasion force from the Lurchips.

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TURN 25

My 2nd Scout stands on plains across a Lion, if I lose him I lost too much for the scouting I did so far. I realized after I sent the save that I could have moved him in a Forest without losing movement. The time and the condition was deteriorating as I took my turn
Ankh-Morpork will grow to size 6 in two turns, my 3rd warrior will be finished as well and I'll start on a settler. Mr. Pump is mining the hill on the river after he finished the farm on the wheat. He'll chop one forest on of the hill tiles after and start a farm on floodplains. Education is due in 12 turns. I know aristocracy is OP but I hate it. Fuck agrastrocrazy it's so easy and so boring.

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TURN 26

Scout survived promoted to Flanking. Moved him and will let him heal now.
I met Cromagnumpi: Tebryn Arbandi of the Sheaim in the east. Thats nice, I don't expect early military from him. I'll try to make trades with him whenever possible for now. My scout will then try to find the Sheaim and figure out what land they got etc.

Here is a screenshot of the scouts:


Cromagnumpi could be far away if this is his first scout and he moved him in a straight line.

A great deal of diplomacy went forth:

Yell0w Wrote:Good day to you Sir!

Amelia Wrote:Well, i was under the impression that the current metagame is actually

Solo Tanky with Sustain Champion top
AP Mid
AD + Support bottom
Jungler.

Atlas Wrote:I think you have captured the AD/Support metagame accurately. I am most interested in the next "metagame"-- personally i think double stun bot lane running Gp/10 items would best a AD/Support bot lane. I am thinking Pantheon/Annie or something like that, going all GP/10 items and splitting farm might be better.

Dantski Wrote:Something like this is probably best discussed in another thread.

And welcome all to the public trash talking thread, hosted by Team Reservoir Cats upon meeting all you [strike]toys[/strike] [strike]prey[/strike] [strike]enemies[/strike] fine opponents! Looking forward to a blast of a game, let's show those incompetent veterans how newbies party!

At the risk of appearing overbearing, I'm going to start this thread for most/all of our future game related posts.

Turn updates, planning discussions, random spam, I can't play my turn, please cover me messages. The whole lot.

We're not playing 3 civs.

We're playing a 3 civ team.

The only thing that matters is the total output of the entire team.

Catwalk, a third turn player would be welcome. But if you can't commit to at least participating in planning chats/threads then it might be best if you stuck to dedlurking us. This team has already lost far too many turns and far too much focus to uncommitted players. If you want in, you're welcome.

But, if you want in. Want in all the way. We're in a shitty position (I haven't had a chance to look at the game yet, but this team has had a lot of missed turns/player apathy. And we're up against some very good players so we're probably fucked no matter what we do.

I'm in this to make sure the other bastards know they've been in a fight when this is done.

We could really use at least one, and better yet two, players as replacements in the current Pitboss game. I think we're far enough into the game that someone mildly spoiled could play without any serious issue. I won't lie, these replacement spots on Team 4 are not in the greatest position in the game, but for anyone who's been sitting on the sidelines and looking for a chance to join a game, we could certainly use you.

I have an interesting game (as attached). Anyone want to try it?
It is from the start!

Settings: Impossible, Large land, 2.0x node power,
Wizard: CNSSSS node mastery, sorcery mastery, alchemy, archmage, conjurer.
Please use latest insecticide patch.

Hint: Watch for the BLACK wizard... (you know who he is, right?)

No specific rules! Just don't make use of Bugs.
Example:
Directly attack enemy wizard's capital is allowed.
Make use of stupid enemy movement is allowed.
250 production bug is NOT allowed. (if the bug is still there).
Save and load is NOT allowed (unless the game crashes. In that case you should load the latest save).


Have fun!

Occasionally I pick Minecraft back up for a little while.

This humbles me.

I figure we could use a thread explaining how to set up a PBEM tracker.

This world was going to be our new home. We were ready to struggle and overcome the challenges that all extrasolar human colonies face. Unfortunately, we were not ready for what we encountered upon arrival to this planet, an unprovoked attack by a barbaric empire guided by a malicious artificial intelligence.

Before launch, we colonists were divided into many competing factions. Several individuals were charismatic enough to recruit followers in significant numbers. Only four of these leaders are known to have survived the Crash, landing with only a few thousand survivors each. Even if additional groups are eventually found, we can be reasonably sure that over two hundred million colonists perished as a result of the savage missile attack.

Opinions will vary on how we can best confront the many obstacles that we will encounter. Some may favor unification(by violence, if necessary) of the surviving humans under a single leader. Perhaps some will prefer to confront the Ruffian menace head-on. Others might decide they have a duty to rediscover the technogies that were lost with the Crash, so that they can build a ship sufficient to escape this hostile world. I'm sure there are some who would advocate for something else instead, and all options should be heard and considered.

We owe it to our fallen brothers and the rest of humanity to discuss the circumstances we face, and present a united front to our common enemy. Among ourselves, we can disagree and quarrel, but we must always remember that our highest allegiance is to humanity itself.