Pitboss 6 Planning Thread

[luddite]

If you did that, it would need to be at least a 48-hour timer, probably 72 or 96. Especially because in-game "6 hours" isn't 6 hours of real time, so a 6-hour window would fail miserably with missed turns all the time: the narrow window would change from day to day, and you'd find yourself having to play at 2:30 in the morning in order to keep the game going at some point. The advantage of that type of setup is that it makes it a little easier for a team's players to coordinate on a turn, because they'd all be moving simultaneously, but there could be issues with people wondering "Is It My Window Yet?"

This game will be slower than anything but PB3, I suspect, no matter how it's setup.

Maybe start with a 20-hour timer, which would roughtly sync up to 24 real hours, with an occasional pause if it gets out of whack. Once the serious warfare begins it could be shifted to a 48-hour timer or whatever.

[Sullla]

I enjoy how everyone assumed that I'd be playing in this game, even though I didn't post anything. Well... you're right, I do plan on playing if we run this game, so I guess you're all correct after all.

Two quick suggestions:

- This game may be better off with four teams of 2 players, rather than four teams of 3 players, if only for logistical reasons.

- I think the best way to run the game (knowing now how Sequential turns run) would be a 96 hour turn timer, with 24 hours for each team and an understanding that each team only plays during its period. (No changing ANYTHING when it's not your "turn", and a mandatory requirement that everyone must click the "End Turn" button when they're done.)

That sounds like it would take forever to play, but it's no slower than a PBEM game really, and I'm not sure how many here have played Medieval start before. Unlike an Ancient game (where it takes about 80-100 turns to really get going), a Medieval game will start seeing action around Turn 25-30. It picks up very fast, in other words. So long as the map is reasonably sized, no one would have to wait that long before the turns got very interesting and slowed down anyway.

[Lewwyn]

So, I'm tentatively throwing my hat in the ring here. My issue is that when I was in China I kept crashing while trying to load a pitboss game so I have no idea if I would be able to get it to work. I'm only in America for a month, which actually is kind of a pain because I don't get a chance to test and see if I can get it to work before I commit to this.

That said, this is really enticing... I'd be willing to play with someone if I can't get Pitboss to work. Put me in the tentative file.

[T-hawk]

- I think the best way to run the game (knowing now how Sequential turns run) would be a 96 hour turn timer, with 24 hours for each team and an understanding that each team only plays during its period. (No changing ANYTHING when it's not your "turn", and a mandatory requirement that everyone must click the "End Turn" button when they're done.)

But here you run into the problem that the later slots are better because they're closer to the production phase. Earlier teams can get their resources pillaged or tiles blocked; only the last team can fix those and adjust city micromanagement before production occurs. You could write an exception to allow those, but that creates the need to play clock games; try to pillage or invade somebody in the last minutes of the turn before they'll have a chance to adjust workers or MM in response.

Would there be interest in me trying to code up the solution I was considering in the Pitboss 4 lurker thread? Each player gets his production phase when he clicks End Turn, and can't make any changes after that until the actual turn rollover. That comes pretty close to creating sequential turns within the overall simultaneous framework.

[Kuro]

2v2v2v2 would be okay with me.

[oledavy]

2v2v2v2 sounds promising. I do think that a 96 hour turn timer is too long though. Realistically that only works out to about 8 turns a month I think?

[antisocialmunky]

I like the 2 player teams. I don't think there's a ton for a third person to do so atleast one player would check out in the long run. If we go with teams, could we do it by time zone and run a shorter timer?

I'm not in favor of city elimination since that brings up the issue of what to do with the land. Can we just mod it so we get no WW instead?

[plako]

I would also like to suggest prohibiting temporary city between allies to build cheap buildings for the other. It just adds annoying MM that you need to handle to do it properly. Of course there probably are players that would enjoy such a MM challenges .

[Shoot the Moon]

I like the 2 player teams. I don't think there's a ton for a third person to do so atleast one player would check out in the long run. If we go with teams, could we do it by time zone and run a shorter timer?

You realize we are talking about the number of civs per team, not the number of players per civ right? Assuming we actually keep to the "don't log into other civs on your team except maybe once or twice rule" the third person certainly has something to do: keeping control of an entire civ. That being said, 2 civs per team might be smart otherwise because of timer issues. I for one would not play in a game with a 96 hour timer, and am extremely hesitant to join one even with a 48 hour timer.

I'm not in favor of city elimination since that brings up the issue of what to do with the land. Can we just mod it so we get no WW instead?

I'd be rather strongly in favor of city elimination, as it provides more incentive to war. Without city elimination, you're running into major problems that discourage any fighting due to the fact that any two teams that fight are only falling behind compared to the other two teams. Without city elimination, the risk of wasting resources compared to other teams usually outweighs the potential reward of a culturally crushed border city, so you'd risk just having this become a builders game.

Also, what do you mean the "issue of what to do with the land"? I think what to do with it is somewhat obvious...you settle it. (Obviously while making sure not to leave yourself open to city elimination yourself though).

I would agree with no WW though.

[plako]

Based on the team game they arranged between CFC and league way back I think that turn based pitboss can be configured so that team members can act during the same "time slot". This would make it feasible to have 3v3v3v3 pitboss game, if there is enough intrest.

Here is CFC link and Game Settings thread clearly indicates that game would be turn based and 24h for each team:
Link removed since apparently it is still private forum despite the fact that the game ended long time ago.