Looking for serious PBEM
 

Well, nothing too serious. Just looking for PBEM games with one or several strong opponents to beat me up and teach the art of PBEM. Map size preferably tiny, small or standard at DG difficulty and up, C3C 1.15beta or 1.22 (both are OK). Conquest scenarios, cagematch, brutal variants are all OK. Prefer to play militaristic civilizations. It makes the opponents feel uncomfortable from the start. :)

I'm game, but not before middle of April (away until then). :)

/me in!

Pick your civ Akots, and your preferred map specs. :)

Oh, and what difficulty level you want too. Just in case you don't know you can only have 8 civs in PBEM's, so we tend to play standard size maps, with 6 AI's.

We have map makers who will also balance maps, otherwise you can win or lose at the roll of the RNG. I would very much prefer thsi to an RNG-created one.

Level is Demi-God anar ;)

"DG difficulty and up" [:p]

Are you trying to catch me out today Sky? You know you have no chance! [:o] :D

Thanks for the offer. It would be of interest to play a small map, Pangea-type OK. Deity, other settings normal (no barbarians). Preferably food bonus and river on start but probably we survive without it. Always wanted to try Japan, never had a chance. One twist though: maximal AI aggression. Should be able to survive that IMO. If that is OK, we can ask for a map and start right away on April 16th.

Thanks for the offer. Looking forward to you coming back. Will settle the details then.

You are a very strong player and it would be difficult for me to take over your AI conquest rate. Can you play without the AI? I have never tried that. Just two humans? Tiny Pangea map? No barbarians either. I'm sure to learn a couple of tricks before losing...

Indeed sorry for the hassle mate !
Its only cause I love you so much [love]
:D



ps : looks to me I already caught you out twice today, you on a bad slope baby [lol]

Hmm. 8 civs on maximum agression on a small map is just too agressive for me! I like hard games, but I also like to build an ampire before the AI come and eat me up. ;)

How about either 6 AI's max agression on a standard size map, OR 4 AI's max agression on a small map?

Since this is gonna be painful I want the Iroquois. :D

OK, then small map, Pangea (I'm talking real Pangea), total 6 civilizations, 4 AIs (random), no barbarians, deity, maximal aggression, normal settings for everything, victory types all normal (conquest, domination, space, UN, cultural) except wonder, no respawn, no culturally linked start, preserve seed, no kings/queens/VP and other weird things like elimination. It would be a brutal game but I still would try to make it with Japan. Just need some iron somewhere. Can we put this in the map request? You get (or don't get) horses hearby and I get (don't get) iron in the vicinity. Otherwise, if you get horses and I don't get iron or the opposite, it might be really unfair. Or we both don't get what we need. And both should have similar good or bad starting locations. If I'm asking too much, just let me know.

Edited: Not sure how you deal with exploits here. I'm pretty much used to GOTM or RBC rules but would accept anything you suggest (except gold mine and mobilization exploits). Just have to settle that to make the things clear.

akots - the balance issues you mention are exactly what our map makers are for. :)

I made a map request - see if you agree with it: http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/to...?TOPIC_ID=1690

IIRC we just changed the map making procedure for 1.22 (now the load bug is fixed), so we PM the map maker and they enter it in the game for us. I am sure a map maker will let us know in the thread I linked above.

I'm still inclined to discuss the rules a bit. (Edited a previous post but not sure you have noticed it).

Ahh yes, the rules! I keep on meaning to draw up a "standard" set of rules that I can use for all my games.

FWIW "mobilisation exploits" no longer exist, since now ALL production is switched to military.

I will grab the ISDG list tonight and use that to draw up a set of rules. That is almost totally exaustive, so it should be good to use.

Yes! That would be really nice of you! But don't you have some standard ladder rules?

I do also assume that in case of doubt, administrator (map designer, appointed ladder judge) can solve the conflict. (?) Do you keep turn logs and 10-turn increment saves or saves for some particular points of the game? In most cases with known honest players this is apparently redundant though.

No standard rules as such, apart from the "out of game" cheats like reloading and loading in SP mode (now fixed in 1.22).

I will try to night to get it done, last night was too hectic for civ...

Apart from restarts for balance issues (which we haven't had for a while), IIRC we have never had a dispute that couldn't be solved with the players. However, the map makers can judge for us if required. :)

FWIW I keep all my saves (160Gb hard drive :D), but you can delete them if you wish. On rare occasions we come across a trade bug that requires going back a few turns, but if I have the saves that would be enough to go back. (IIRC we have had this in maybe 5% of games).

Good idea to keep all the saves. Since maps are never huge or even large, this would not take up lots of space. Hope my 60Gb 3-year-old HDD can handle that. I'm also more or less familiar with ISDG rules and they cover everything reasonable IMO. Though some exploits they leave unnoticed and are just not willing to include them or find it redundant because there is no AI in ISDG.

Is it a good time now?

I'm still looking for the games.

Hey, hey, anybody out there looking for a bloody brain-smashing game?

I'd like to play a more or less random (map maker-balanced) tiny pangea map with another human opponent only (no AI). All other things are negotiable. Any difficulty is OK, even chieftain. :)

I'd like a game, tiny pangea sounds good. :)

What is the settings you want? Climate, barbarians, Wonders, victory types, civilizations, difficulty?

Don't mind at all.

I might try Persian as a civ though

OK, then tiny Pangea (we must be on the same chunk of land but on opposite ends of it?), everything else random, no SoZ and SGL, cruel barbarian settings with no goody huts to pop and only camps?? Then, I'll be willing to go for Celts. Difficulty may be Emperor. If agreed, we then can post a map request.

IMHO, the game would finish during the Ancient Age. :)

That all sounds cool,

although if the game is likely to finish in the AA it may not be that good an idea to use a scientific civ. For a change I think I'll try the Zulus instead. :D

akots - FYI your email provider has bounced the emails I have tried to send you for the last week.

It appears your email ISP has blocked my outgoing email ISP. This is shit, I will upload the latest save to an open thread later today, but we need to find another solution - do you have another email I can use?

Actually, mail.ru is very strict regarding junk mail. They frequently tend to exclude some domains which did not go through some approval process. Today indeed, the server has been down for 3 or 4 hours. Well, hotmail is no better and I'm using mail.ru for 8 years already. Besides, they have no account size limits and are usually very reliable. IIRC, they bounced 2 or 3 e-mails for these 8 years which is a rather good record IMO. Are you using MS-Outlook? Or the web interface? With Outlook it might be indeed a problem.

Please try akots at juno.com or sending to mail.ru from some other address or at another time. Sorry about that. It has been a problem sometimes. On the other hand, your CDZ address never gives confirmation hence I never know did you receive the save or not.

wtf has outlook got to do with it?

Don't know exactly. It is that if you don't update it to the most recent security settings, then there are some viruses or other bugs there which are filtered by the server.

btw, mail.ru is still not working. Guess, using juno would be the best thing to do atm.

Now mail.ru back online.
You never know what is going on. It is Russia, after all. :)

Well, I am a techie for a living and I can promise you I don't have a virus atm ;)

I have resent to akots at juno.com

Got it there. At work atm, so will play later.

It does not mean that you have to have a virus. It is just that somebody sometime ago from that particular domain has sent something suspicious. Hence, they are checking messages and placing them in junk folder or even returning undelivered. Never mind. :)

Well, my domain is civ3duelzone.com, so it isn't that either. :)

My ISP (ntl) is probably allowing open relays on their servers so they can get used for spam...

Certainly, it has nothing to do with CDZ domain but has something to do with your ISP which is ntlworld or even with their mail soft which is InterMail vM.4.01.03.37 or your Outlook IMO Build 9.0.2416 which looks up to date to me. :)

You'll never know... They've got Kaspersky antispam as well.

Annares, being a techie, have you heard much about gmail?

Since I retired from CFC IDG-2 turnplaying, I'm looking for a 1x1 no-AI PBEM. Tiny map either pangea or continents with balanced civs.

I am not sure I am good enough in PBEM yet, but I would give it a try if you like. Which other settings (barbs, level, geo) do you have in mind?

[lol]I'm also not so sure.

Barbs: no goodie huts, otherwise anything, better raging or none.

Level: not so important since there is no AI, Emperor is OK imo. Otherwise, on tiny map, there is too little production and hence too few units and too much depends on pRNG. If wanted, possible to tweak the tech rate to make it slower. Or faster may be.

Georgaphy: Continents (no safe passage till Navigation) or Pangea (bloodbath prior to middle ages).

It is possible not to allow wars intil certain period of time or tech discovered.

Ok, taken from your options I propose: barbs raging seems to random to me, so I would either like them lower or as you proposed none. Emperor level is ok for tech speed. I would prefer the Pangea bloodbath over the "lets build up till navigation" Continents.

About civ choice: How about we both (secretely) send our prefered choice to the mapmaker? Maybe send 2 choices, so if we both chose the same first, we both get the second?

OK then, Pangea bloodbath without barbarians. We better pick up the civs openly for balance. For example, there is no balance for Iro or Aztec. May be they balance each other? [confused]Even Celts is no match for both. On the other hand, Celts are rather balanced with the Zulu. And seems that there is also a possibility of "no traits and no UU at all" like Rik and Beam are playing. Also, it is rather difficult to balance agri trait. I would try Egypt but what if there are lots of jungle and mountain passes on the choke (if there is any)? This would render WChariots essentially useless. It is really more complicated than it seems. Why don't you try to pick something and I will try to balance it with my counter-choice? You then can have an option to accept or selec another civ and we continue until we both agree.

Ok, given that I would like to try the Maya.