PBEM 38 Tech Thread

[oledavy]

Might consider banning diplo victory.

[Gaspar]

Ok, pending half-votes from Ichabod or Yuri feeling frisky here's the stuff that seems agreed:

Always War: No
Nukes: Off
Corporations: On
War Elephants: No
Blockades: Off

Here's the stuff still up in the air:

Spies: 2 votes for on minus Civic/Religion swap, 2 votes for off
Diplomacy: 2 votes for banter thread, 2 votes for no banter thread. AI diplo seems consensus otherwise.
Wonder bans: Mostly seems to be none, but there's a touch of concern about CR and I'd assume GLH/Colossus if too "watery."

So if Yuri wants to weigh in or someone has a compelling argument otherwise speak now.

Also, assuming we can count novice as willing, we have a mapmaker and hence can go ahead and move this to a new forum.

[yuris125]

From my experience with PBEM1, it just doesn't work well with AI Diplomacy.

I'm surprised by this, with the Civ5 PBEM denouncement thread being so much fun - and it's an AI diplo game. On the other hand, Pitboss 5 doesn't have a banter thread, and feels a little stale without it. I strongly feel that a banter/denouncement/whatever_we_call_it thread would add to the game

Don't have a strong opinion about spies and wonders

[Gaspar]

I think the thing with a Banter thread is to understand that some level of diplo is going to slip in. But I do fully support it being used as a trash-talking thread and less to try and negotiate deals/subtly strategize etc.

I am willing to forgo it but I would prefer it. Does anyone want to jump up and stand on a chair for their position Spies?

Oh, and I think the turn order probably should be Yuri > Commodore > Mistkebod > Me > Dave? Dave and I can probably go on either side. Any objections, speak now. Someone can random.org a turn order.

[novice]

Also, assuming we can count novice as willing, we have a mapmaker and hence can go ahead and move this to a new forum.

Uh, yeah... Consulting my calendar, I may not have time until monday to actually make such a map. I'm willing, though.

Since you all will be directly affected by this - what's the best way to calculate a numerical value for a tile's land quality? Does something like
- 8 points per food when tile is improved
- 5 points per hammer when tile is improved
- 5 points for being forested
- 3 points per commerce when tile is improved. Cottageable tiles counted as 2.5-commerce tiles. This means irrigated flatland is slightly more worth as a farm than as a cottage.
- riverside tiles are indirectly valued by the extra commerce and by making tiles farmable.
- ? Penalty for being jungled
- subtract 16 points (if it's not worth 2 food it's not worth being claimed)
- negative sums are set to 0

Make sense?

These numbers are fed into the balancing mechanism and influence what's considered a fair land distribution. They're also used to calculate spheres of influence - infertile land is considered harder to expand across than fertile lands.

Distribution of strategic and luxury resources is not factored into the fairness calculation. The mapmaker can balance this manually if you want, or you could leave it to chance.

What's your preferred map script and map script settings?

Oh and the algorithm accepts a minimum distance* between capitals - state your preference. A large minimum distance might make it harder to find fair starts.

*civ distance: max(dx, dy) + min(dx, dy)/2

[SevenSpirits]

Suggestion:
Forest is +3 points
Jungle is -3 points

[NobleHelium]

In case it is not apparent yet, I am teaming up with Gaspar again. :neenernee

I'm explicitly against the Civ5 banter thread because there has been a ton of information leaked there. Something along the lines of PBEM34 is okay, but I'd definitely want it to be well-defined. My preference would simply be to not have a thread to avoid issues of what is acceptable and what is not.

[Commodore]

Um, it makes sense, but I have no feel for the exact numbers. I guess roll a few and see what Mr. Gut says? Also, what is "improved"? Looks like now that pre-CS or MC, dry plains are worthless, afterwards they'd count. A manual resource re-balance would probably be needed in any case.

I favor something in a simple Pangaea flavor, but several scripts give that...tilted axis with massive continents, doughnuts, etc. Islands are interesting, but I'd expect the mass of players without cheap lighthouses/Fin would prefer them not to be the main point. Lakes actually might be my very favorite if your program can figure out the difference between navigable and non-navigable waters and chokes. Generally capitals between sixteen and twelve tiles apart seem reasonable.

[Gaspar]

Given 3 Fin Civs I'd rather prefer the game to be a bit less dependent on water. Sure, there should be some, but not as a main feature of the map.

[NobleHelium]

I'd assume minimum distance between capitals would be dependent on the overall size of the map. It seems obvious to have about the same distance between all neighbors. That's different from the minimum acceptable distance of course, but I wouldn't stray too far from that value.

I'm pretty sure that we definitely don't want anything that will be heavily dominated by post-Combustion ships if/when the game gets that far. Something like PBEM32 sounds perfect to me.