Pitboss 18 Organizing Thread (RB Mod 34 Civs)

[spacetyrantxenu]

The "don't be a jerk" rule works when jerks don't play in the game. That's something to keep in mind.

William brings up a good point, and maybe that's an actual factor to consider. I think with this many civs being in the game we would probably prefer to not do player teams for a given civ. If two people want to play, why not pilot your own civ? That would make the turns take less time to play, not having to coordinate, and we're going to have trouble filling this up anyway. I know some people prefer a team format, and who am I to argue how you should play a game, by all means play in the way most fun, but I think given the format of this game a lower time investment and quicker gameplay may be more suitable.

This isn't the game to play to show how good you are at civ. The winner will be the player who gets the most favorable neighbor matchups and is least buggered by the RNG as he goes (in addition to his own good gameplay). Super tight micro matters less I would think in a game like this than in the normal type of game we run. Maybe in that context playing solo instead of as part of team isn't such a big deal? Again, though, it's a game we play for fun, so do what is fun.

[spacetyrantxenu]

What about 34 players doing OCC on a small map?

I don't want to play a OCC, do you?

[Bobchillingworth]

I don't want to play a OCC, do you?

That's probably the only thing that would get me interested in this embryonic disaster.

[BRickAstley]

I don't want to play a OCC, do you?

That's probably the only thing that would get me interested in this embryonic disaster.

If it's gonna be a ludicrous game, it needs a ludicrous setup to even be worthwhile.

[Bobchillingworth]

Well, good luck then! I'm pretty sure we already once tried to have a game with ALL THE PEOPLE and EVERYTHING and it was called PB3. And that game died a horrible, sputtering death even though like every team had four players. This sort of game always sounds really fun in concept, but there is zero way this doesn't end in angry tech thread rants and universal disgust circa T100, when some of the players are treating it like a competitive MP game, others are tuned out & on autopilot after the initial jolt of interest has worn off, and a few are reducing the game to a crawl with endless pauses.


My only other suggestion if people just want a silly game with a bajillion players is to use Perpy PBEM rules- maybe only have like 8 civs, but each is controlled by four people, who play in shifts and are forbidden to communicate with each other.

[Sullla]

But as far as that goes, I could see utility in leaving the 34th (or whatever) civ blocked off in an inaccessible corner of the map playing a OCC with complete map and demographic information for the purpose of posting map screen shots or graphs for people in the lurker thread to view... That wouldn't be hard to set up, I imagine each starting settler in the game could have a great spy belonging to the "lurker civ" placed on top of it for immediate infiltration at the start of the game.

If the playerbase is interested in this sort of thing, I would be happy to run the ghost civ and post screenshots for whatever lurker thread exists. Best of luck organizing such a monstrous undertaking.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Well, good luck then! I'm pretty sure we already once tried to have a game with ALL THE PEOPLE and EVERYTHING and it was called PB3. And that game died a horrible, sputtering death even though like every team had four players. This sort of game always sounds really fun in concept, but there is zero way this doesn't end in angry tech thread rants and universal disgust circa T100, when some of the players are treating it like a competitive MP game, others are tuned out & on autopilot after the initial jolt of interest has worn off, and a few are reducing the game to a crawl with endless pauses.


My only other suggestion if people just want a silly game with a bajillion players is to use Perpy PBEM rules- maybe only have like 8 civs, but each is controlled by four people, who play in shifts and are forbidden to communicate with each other.

I wasn't here for PB3, but I thought a lot of the trouble there was so many players + diplomacy + tech trading (cartels). But yeah, mixing casual + competitive is a recipe for an unbalanced sort of game. However, that need not be fatal as long as the competitive people aren't powergaming and abusing the turn timer. It's all about having the right sort of players in the game and dealing harshly with malfeasance if bad behavior occurs.

[darrelljs]

PB3 was the worst experience of my life, and I'm 40 so that means something. To be fair though, the biggest reason was that it was a full diplo game with tech trading and Krilliavelli.

Darrell

[Jowy]

How about an islands map?

[Bobchillingworth]

Tech trading and diplomacy made PB3 miserable to play in, but it actually only collapsed around T140 or so, when at any given time there were a couple teams who either needed long pauses or were outright missing their turns. The game had started in a similar fashion to this one- a lot of people were pumped to just go play some civ with a ton of other RBers- but by the time the game ended the players were split between those who were taking it very seriously, and people who were in various stages of burning out.

And although it's easy to say that you can just turn control of indigent civs over to the AI, in practice that's a lot more difficult when doing so will dramatically imbalance the game (making playing on much less appealing for the competitive players not gifted an AI on their doorstep), and/or people have no intention of abandoning their civs- they just need long, game-killing pauses due to RL and have nobody to cover for them. And bear in mind that PB3 had multiple players for most of the civs- this game would be mostly one-man teams, and you know real life is going to take a fair chunk of them out of the game before someone wins.


In sum, I think there's absolutely no way this will work in its current form, and a lot of the people caught up in the hubbub now aren't going to feel the same way in a few months. But hey, should be fun to mock lurk if you manage to round up enough players!