Mr. Cairo v. Cornflakes duels

[Mr. Cairo]

These first-to-meet envoys are very un-balancing to the early game. I think I see why you were asking how many CS there were, I've just met my 10th now. I think it would be advisable in the future to have someone roll the map and assign the starting locations to guarantee that they are distributed somewhat evenly.

yeah, I think that would be a good idea too. idk how this keeps happening to me 

[Japper007]

You guys could try a game without City States, it's how most lobby Duels are played. City States really screw the early game balance and their other effects (suz bonus and district yield boosts) aren't that impactful in Duels as the game is often over before the first envoys and Districts come in.

[Mr. Cairo]

Yeah, that makes sense on duel sized maps. But since we're using a larger map specifically so the games last longer, I think city-states sill make sense. I just wish they spawned nearer to me...

in the future (which might be quite soon depending on how this goes) I'd rather just ask someone to check the maps beforehand.

[Cornflakes]

FWIW I'm perfectly fine playing on with the current start or re-starting with a map-maker to balance things a bit better (only 1 day invested so far, after all). If we end up re-starting early in the game on a more balanced map I'd like to give Aztecs another go and would prefer if you didn't read my strategy thoughts in the current thread until later.

Regarding city states I'm thinking reducing the number would be better. Yes there will be less "action" in the sense of combat and interaction with the city states, but the early bonuses from many CS make the early game feel very fast and different from a normal game (if we got a perfect split with max CS that would still be 7 CS bonuses/player). It wouldn't necessarily be un-balanced since we would each have equal opportunity and could play to the strengths of our local CS, but it just feels like a different game. Since we are on the same landmass maybe do 5 CS? Should be enough to get Political Philosophy boost in reasonable time, and an a odd number of city states for an extra incentive to good exploration. The barbarians should fill up the empty space and provide some diversion and keep us honest in terms of defense the early-mid game.

[Mr. Cairo]

I do want to play on, as it happens. But your suggestion for less CS's in the future seems fine to me.

[Cornflakes]

When I tried to access the PYDT site I got:

Your connection is not private
Attackers might be trying to steal your information from www.playyourdamnturn.com

When I tried another browser I got a similar error:

The security certificate presented by this website has expired or is not yet valid.
Security certificate problems may indicate an attempt to fool you or intercept any data you send to the server.

This is the first time I've seen something like this. I'll check again in the morning, hopefully it resolves itself.

[suboptimal]

When I tried to access the PYDT site I got:

Your connection is not private
Attackers might be trying to steal your information from www.playyourdamnturn.com

When I tried another browser I got a similar error:

The security certificate presented by this website has expired or is not yet valid.
Security certificate problems may indicate an attempt to fool you or intercept any data you send to the server.

This is the first time I've seen something like this. I'll check again in the morning, hopefully it resolves itself.

Their certificate expired this afternoon at 3:45pm and their server settings are preventing a user from letting their browser connect anyway (Firefox says it's using Strict Transport Security).  The PYDT client is working fine as I had no problem with either of my PBEM saves after the certificate expired.

[Cornflakes]

Congrats on beating me to Petra ... by 1 turn

[Mr. Cairo]

good thing too, losing out on Petra would have been the final nail in the coffin.

[Mr. Cairo]

So a few turns ago I had some issues with the save, it took a few tries for the client to upload the right one, and somewhere in there a pretty key civic change of mine (Feudalism) never happened. So, unless we can find a way to go back ~5 turns (and you're willing to), I think I'm just going to concede here. I still want to see if Australia is viable, so if you want to play another at some point, let me know.