Civ6 PBEM4 Organizing Thread

[CFCJesterFool]

one turn per day? If so, then count me in.

[Japper007]

First time poster here, I've lurked the previous Civ6 PBEM's (and some of those for civ 4) with great interest, and would like to sign up for this one if it's still possible!

I have about 400+ hours of Civ 6 experience (mostly SP, though also a few MP duels), but I've never played a PBEM through the Play Your Damn Turn client. I promise I'll be able to keep up a one turn per day pace, at the very least, regardless.

Any idea when the game starts in earnest? I do have a short holiday planned monday-friday next week, but my schedule is free after that, at least for the coming months.

My time zone is Central European Time (I live in the Netherlands) , hope that won't be an issue.

[Singaboy]

Great to read about more interest in the game. For PBEM2, we kept a pretty good turn pace with around 2 turns a day. That was possible due to the different time zones we are in. Archduke is in Europe, Woden and oledavy in the States. I am in Singapore.

@Japper, I am sure your holidays next week won't be an issue. The start won't happen overnight. We still need to agree on the maps and Civs we play etc, maps need to be rolled etc

[Singaboy]

By the way, what about diplomacy? I found the current diplomatic options somewhat lacking. What is the reason that full diplomacy is frowned upon here?

[Japper007]

The argument around here seems to be that playing the metagame of diplomacy detracts from the "actual" game.

I would argue however, that in a historical sim game, diplomacy should be a main point so I don't have any issue with it whatsoever.

I've never played an MP match were full diplo was too much of a distraction, in most games I've played people just generally discuss borders, non-aggresion pacts and the like while focussing on their play most of the rest of the time.

[pindicator]

The other reason is that it is a huge amount of time required for full diplomacy. Late game civ 4 could take over an hour to do a turn, and adding more time for diplomacy just increased the game fatigue. (And I'd argue civ is not a historical simulator more than a 4x game with historical flavor, but that's more just one man's opinion.)

[oledavy]

I'd argue civ is not a historical simulator more than a 4x game with historical flavor.

Preach it. 

Seriously though, I do think this is the better way to think about it. 

As an aside, as someone who plays a lot of Axis and Allies, I can't tell you how many times over the course of a game someone looks at me and poses a question to the effect of "Do you think Germany would have won if...", or thinks the board situation can accurately conveys the reality of the conflict. For me, it's a game I love but has no bearing at all on the historical event other than theming. 

I digress.

Re: Full Diplomacy

Out of the 6 of us in the game, I think I was the only one around during the era when full diplo was the norm (PBEM17, PBEM25v), if someone else was there, please feel free to correct me and add your own thoughts.

It does change the game radically, not in a bad way necessarily - it just makes it very different. That being said, here are some things you should know before advocating a full diplo game. 

1. It increases time investment dramatically. I currently spend 45-60 minutes playing and reporting my PBEM turns. Handling the multitude of diplomatic emails and casual Gchats you need to work through to build rapport with people will increase that workload by ~20 minutes per turn at minimum. 

2. It doesn't reign in runaways. See PB4 for the quintessential example of this. You would think diplomacy would make runaways less likely, but inevitably someone signs the right combination of absurdly long NAPs and people are unwilling to break them for the bad blood it creates, which brings us to: 

3. It creates a lot more bad blood. Go look at the PB2 forums if you need any proof of this. It's hard to get too mad at someone for backstabbing you when for all intents and purposes they're just units on a screen. When it's someone you've been talking to for months finally plunging the knife into your back because there can be only one winner, it's a lot more personal. Conversely, this makes people less likely to play optimally to win and break NAPs that need to be broken because they want to maintain their reputation as an honorable player. 

4. It generally rewards the best diplomat. Kinda a no duh, and not necessarily a bad thing either. If you're interested in playing a game where the winner is the best civ player however, I would recommend not having diplo on. Diplomacy can swing the game outcome wildly. 

While I am tempted by the idea of having some limited diplomacy in a game for a change (maybe a public diplo thread), I am strongly against full diplomacy.

[oledavy]

Great! We have 6 people. I think before going any further, it would be best to figure out a play windows and turn order. Better to see if we have any major scheduling issues now than down the road. If everyone's schedules work out, we can proceed with settings discussion. 

I think we want to shoot for 2 turns per day for the first 75 turns or so. If we can maintain it after that as we have in PBEM2, that would be great, if not consistent 1 turn/day isn't bad either. 

For this reason though, everyone should post 2 play windows, ideally one in the morning and one in the evening, I will be editing them into the opening post. 

I have quite a bit of flexibility with my play time for the next two months, but my best windows are: 

14:00 - 16:00 GMT
02:00 - 05:00 GMT

[Singaboy]

Time windows:

21:00 - 22:00 GMT (before heading to work)
11:00 - 14:00 GMT (evenings here)

[Japper007]

My time window:

16:00-6:00 CET (I'm some weird nightowl mutant, it's almost 6 here as I'm writing this, in fact)

This may change when my university starts again in august/september but I'm usually at my PC in evenings

EDIT that'd be 14:00-4:00 GMT if my conversion checks out