Pitboss 18 Organizing Thread (RB Mod 34 Civs)

[Bobchillingworth]

This is a joke, right? RB can barely handle pauses and turn splits for games with a third as many players :P

[Qgqqqqq]

I'm interested (read:crazy) enough to go for this, and I agree almost completely with Boldy here:

I'm intrigued (in a moth to flame sort of way) based on the size and near certainty that the game will be an utter train wreck. I hate tech trading in all its permutations and that ruins the fun for me. Despite that, I would be inclined to sign up for this game. My concern, though, is that the game would be played mostly casually by many and would be even more imbalanced than you would typically see. This is not going to be a competitive game really in any respect, just a butterfly effect of pure madness and random happenings after a certain point. I'm worried that this may lead to a large number of players becoming hopeless and discouraged and the entire event becoming a massive chore from that point forward.

A HUGE game is exciting, but it needs to be well thought through before starting or this could be a net negative experience.

Tentative sign up.

Edit... Another concern: In a game this large, how will we ever find enough subs for the eventual vacations and unexpected time away from a civ-worthy computer? As of this moment, I will be away four days in March, another four in May, and around ten days in June. I doubt I'll be the only one. Just thinking ahead a bit here, not trying to ruin a good idea before it gets off the ground.

Although I'm less hating on tech trading.

A part of me is considering proposing some sort of setup where players command another random civ every ten turns, but I'm not expecting that to have a chance. I suppose a greater part of what I'm feeling from this game is simple: embrace the randomness. As some have commented, those with a shot at winning in large pitbosses are chosen pretty much at game start, based off starting location, neighbors and personal competency. So I personally wouldn't expect a prayer of a chance to win in this hypothetical game.

As part of the above, I think the best setup for covering turns is simple: let a random lurker to do it. Most of us aren't going to get dedicated ones in a game like this, so use the Spacetyrantxenu treatment from PB9, just bringing in whatever lurkers are a) willing, b) unbiased about how they handle the civ and c) reasonably unspoiled.

[Krill]

OK, you guys seem to be at least dedicated enough to talk about this...

I think that NTB would be good to play with, but because of the huge shit storm that would happen when a single person fucked up it's really not worth the hassle. Probably best to not actually use it and just double the known tech bonus for such a game (which will still be worth jack all with so many players).

Second, if PB13 is anything to go by, the map has to be toroidal with so many people. This will fuck with most peoples heads enough that no special map twists are needed, and a map size of 124*100 with 29% water and 8% peaks gives about 230 useable tiles per player. I don't know what the figure is for PB13, but PB15 was half of that, so it's enough space. Add in some islands and there is enough land for each person to play with.

Timer still needs to be 24 real hours at least at the start; this is what keeps the games sane, constant movement also means it is over sooner rather than later. Even though there would be more players, each civ will still interact with only 3-4 others for war for the majority of the game, so the war splits are not likely to be any more strenuous until the late game, and late game the turn timer often has to be paused and extended anyway.

With so many players, expecting to win is frankly stupid. Better to appropriate the PB7 lurker awards and update them so you can try to win these instead much more fun as well.

Finally, I'd want remove map trading from the mod entirely. For something like this it's a little less about balance and trying to stop people, and more about not wanting out of memory errors to occur.

[Jowy]

I'm in if this setup means we only have to manage a city or two before conquering our neighbors.

[yuris125]

I'm in if this happens

I was thinking that it might be nice to have...not a ban per se, but a "strong discouragement" for people NOT to sim or do extensive micro plans for the game. It'd only be enforced on the honour system, but I think it would be nice to enforce the supposed casual nature of the game a little.

Don't like it. Those who prefer not to make extensive micro plans (myself included) deliberately put themselves at a disadvantage. Don't see why we need to get rid of this disadvantage by outlawing the extra effort we're not making

How about another idea to try and constrain the madness a bit while still being crazy: 3 10-11 player games split among skill level (expert/intermediate/greens) on the same map, but the three people sharing a start are on the same team and can communicate with each other. That avoids a lot of the logistical problems, while still having 30/33 people each controlling their own civ.

Not sure how this would work. Games of 3 different people with the same start will be very different - starting with the early scouting. Also, forcing people into a team is not necessarily a good idea

In any case, I'm only interested in a huge game - a 10-player game would feel much less special, and I have plenty of games, so would only join something very special at this point

[BRickAstley]

I'm in if this setup means we only have to manage a city or two before conquering our neighbors.

This sounds intriguing.

Map where everyone has room for like 4 noncontested cities before bumping borders in all directions?


Also, I think having such a large amount of people in the game means that you can join and not take it all that seriously. It's a game to dabble in and maybe try something really off the wall, not to draw up 50 turn worker microplans. At least that's the vibe I'm getting.

[WilliamLP]

Map where everyone has room for like 4 noncontested cities before bumping borders in all directions?

and a map size of 124*100 with 29% water and 8% peaks gives about 230 useable tiles per player. I don't know what the figure is for PB13,

That's a hell of a lot more than 4 noncontested cities. PB13 has 204 land tiles per player, by comparison.

Also, I think having such a large amount of people in the game means that you can join and not take it all that seriously. It's a game to dabble in and maybe try something really off the wall, not to draw up 50 turn worker microplans. At least that's the vibe I'm getting.

I don't know, any PB game is going to take up many hours of your time over months. This forum is full of people who don't have it in their nature to play a game without trying hard. The way I look at it I need to sim and consider micro plans to level the playing field since some people are doing that in their head anyway. And the mid and late game are a lot more fun to play if you're in a competitive position.

But someone with the attitude that second place and last place are equal losers probably shouldn't play, to avoid depression.

[BRickAstley]

I was saying have a smallish map size for the amount of players to make it really crowded, not that krill's size suggestion would accomplish that. I would have more fun on a smaller map.

[Cyneheard]

I'm in if this setup means we only have to manage a city or two before conquering our neighbors.

This sounds intriguing.

Map where everyone has room for like 4 noncontested cities before bumping borders in all directions?

I've played that map before - PB3. It was nasty and brutish.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

Suggestions for some balance. Please do not take this as me trying to commandeer the setup. I'm trying to get some vote-able options out to move this along a bit.

Team Setup - Teams sharing civs makes wonder/religion sharing more viable, and also probably balances the field somewhat between good civs and bad civs. Make sure each team has one "good" civ and one "bad" civ to spread the bad ones around. I suggest that all players read and LEARN from PB6. Either coordinate, succeed, and enjoy, or fail to do so and muck about as a total screw up and be laughed at for eternity. Something along those lines.

I do not want to enforce any kind of player seeding, regardless of how it might balance the skill disparity. I want players to form up their own teams so the experience will be as enjoyable as possible. Ultimately, I think this is better for the game because players will cooperate better and be less likely to "do their own thing" and wander around the wild. We've learned this in previous game(s), right?

Map Setup: toroidal map - With this many teams, I just don't see a good/reasonable alternative. And, toriods are fun, m'kay?

mirrored continents/islands map - The idea behind mirroring is to save the mapmaker tons of hassle as well as to achieve a bit more balance than a random map. The game is going to be wildly imbalanced based on disparity in civs and player ability, so I'd like to take the map out as a factor a bit if possible. Sorry if this is boring to some people. This is certainly a point to discuss/vote on.

Anyway, each civ has a mirror that is "theirs" but must be fought over within a local regional continent/blob including X number of other teams. Other continent/blobs accessible post-astronomy.

32 individual civs on 16 teams

Regional blob contains four teams of two civs each. For example:



Stupid thing didn't format correctly in preview mode so I took a screenshot...

or:



etc.

27 individual civs on 9 teams

Three teams on the regional (pre-astronomy) continental blob. For example:



etc.

The mapmaker could figure the precise setup out once we know how many people are interested and whether we'd need two or three civ teams. [Edit: still didn't format correctly so another screenshot]

If everyone hates this, I don't mind. Again, just trying to put some concrete ideas out. I'm also great with banning map trades. We could just do this by agreement/fiat rather than having to mod it.