Ok, organization was slipping pretty badly, but it's getting worse now that we've had the long breaks. I want to try to take a survey to see what kind of interest level we have here. I'll quote my message in the Turn Discussion thread:
scooter Wrote:Alright, glad to hear that from both of you. Who else is still with us? I know things have been draaaaaaaggggging thus far so it's been hard to get into, but I still do think this game has potential. I just need to know we have several people on board here. We don't really have much of a plan right now (workers, short and longterm strategy, settling, etc) past settling the gold city. I can play turns, plan, do diplo, but NOT all at once . I'd prefer to stick to one of those, but activity level has dropped a bit. The last time somebody other than me logged into the game was August 24th, so that's kind of a problem.
I'm wearing a few too many hats here. We have no real plan at all and I don't really see any other people besides me logging in and being able to play turns. So let's start fresh here. Big things:
1) We're pretty much at the point where we need a dedicated turn player with backups only playing when vacation/emergency comes up. The "turn playing by committee" thing works fine when we're just moving warrior and hitting enter, but it's hard to dive into this thing on a whim and play a turn and not screw something up. I'd rather this not be me.
2) A lot of the more veteran players have kind of disappeared. If you're looking for a time to participate more heavily, this is a great opportunity. The turn discussion thread so far has pretty much been look at pictures and react and take a stab at what to do next turn. A more proactive planning process would be nice, and if you're looking for a spot to contribute proactively, this is a nice area.
3) Speaking of veterans players disappearing, any of you guys out there? Seven and Mackoti, you guys still with us? There's definitely some enthusiasm still here, but it would be nice to have you guys around. I feel like I'm usurping the team captain role right now since you guys haven't been around, and that's not quite what I had in mind when I signed up.
4) If you're on the team and reading this, it would be nice if you'd post here and indicate your current interest level and how active you'd like to be. I'd like to make sure we still have a real team here.
Thanks Scooter for putting this together. I was worried you were getting ready to give up on the game, which would have been pretty devastating for our team. As you mentioned, you're the senior player most involved recently, and we need you to stick around!
If absolutely necessary, I can take a stab at playing turns, but for the team's sake, I suggest this be a last resort. I've never actually logged into a PitBoss game before, and would surely mess things up here and there. If no one else can do this though, I can give it a shot. I don't want this team or this game to die because we don't have a turnplayer.
I'd prefer to continue helping out with C&D. I'm still learning here, so it's great when the veteran players weigh in with their input, but at the very least I'll keep tracking the score increases / demos and posting them with my thoughts.
I can emergency play and am fine with helping on the diplo side. I'd prefer not to take it over completely, however. Possible next goal: Settle the nice horses, etc. site. This will also allow us access to the sea.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
scooter Wrote:3) Speaking of veterans players disappearing, any of you guys out there? Seven and Mackoti, you guys still with us? There's definitely some enthusiasm still here, but it would be nice to have you guys around. I feel like I'm usurping the team captain role right now since you guys haven't been around, and that's not quite what I had in mind when I signed up.
4) If you're on the team and reading this, it would be nice if you'd post here and indicate your current interest level and how active you'd like to be. I'd like to make sure we still have a real team here.
I'm technically here, but my level of interest in the game is pretty much zero. Mainly it's the glacially slow pace and the disintegrating opponent teams (2 out of 4). Also contributing are the map (I REALLY don't like it so far), our team name (), and our apparent deficit of sandboxers/turnplayers (believe it or not I wanted to do neither of those things in this game). But, mainly I don't think this game should be happening anymore with the number of people who have bailed, particularly on teams M3 and Pirate, and the amount of apathy that's apparent in turnplaying, with long wait times and reloads necessary just to correct missed or botched (?) turns.
So in a normal situation I would just check out, but being a captain that seems a bit lame of me, so I'm sort of lurking and trying not to completely abandon you guys while minimizing my actual interaction with the game (i.e. only speaking up or playing when there's a clear need no one else is filling). Thus I'm combining the lameness of bailing with the bother of paying close attention to something I'm not that interested in. Kind of silly of me I guess.
You don't like the map? I'd love to hear why; the topic of map-making is very interesting to me.
Edit: I don't mean to derail this thread, sorry.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
Our most obvious first expansion site is supposed to be a contested area between two teams. Teams seem to be arranged in a ring with each team having two neighbors, and a gold/etc area directly in between each pair.
The result is that borders are liable to be decided before first contact, based on arbitrary scouting directions and specifically which gold site a given team found first. The most prominent factor in your land quality and quantity, is which direction your neighbors scouted in with the initial scout. Once those first cities are planted it's pretty obvious which remaining sites belong to which player, and with diplo enabled, the border will be discussed and everyone will end up with analogous land albeit with a bit more or less of it depending on the early scouting luck.
The terrain we've seen so far is pretty bland. Very plain coastline. No jungle. Worst, no chokepoints. And with barbs off, lack of always war, and full diplo, there should be no meaningful military movement for a long time.
A contrast would be the map and setup from pbem39, which I thought was extremely fun to play on.
I'm here and not going anywhere. That being said, I lost all my recent games due to big mistakes, and feel that I need a break from Civ in general. So I can't say how active I will be in the next few months
SevenSpirits Wrote:our apparent deficit of sandboxers/turnplayers (believe it or not I wanted to do neither of those things in this game).
What did you want to do? We pretty badly need someone in charge of planning worker turns and also someone in charge of general strategic direction with techs/wonders/etc, and those two things are kind of up your alley. I see those as our two primary needs. I'm happy to become primary turn player and spend less effort on diplo with Merovech taking the lead there.
Not pressuring at all, just pointing out you'd be really useful even in a limited capacity. I can definitely see the map comments. I think Donut is a nice base for this game, but the gold between each team just totally dominates settling plans and early diplo in an unnatural way. There's definitely land out in the water though somewhere, so I'm looking forward to that phase of the game if we miraculously manage to get that far.
I have played a couple of turns here and there so far and would be willing to do that when needed (or even as primary). But I can only play during some late mornings or any late evenings (North American eastern time) so there might be delays if our turn comes up during the workday.
I would be happy to contribute to worker planning (got a little involved in that earlier). Not sure how useful I might be for longer term stuff like wonder planning -- people with more MP experience would likely be better there. But I am happy to throw in my comments anyway. :D
. I'd prefer to stick to one of those, but activity level has dropped a bit. The last time somebody other than me logged into the game was August 24th, so that's kind of a problem.
), and our apparent deficit of sandboxers/turnplayers (believe it or not I wanted to do neither of those things in this game). But, mainly I don't think this game should be happening anymore with the number of people who have bailed, particularly on teams M3 and Pirate, and the amount of apathy that's apparent in turnplaying, with long wait times and reloads necessary just to correct missed or botched (?) turns.