Warlords scenarios!
 

I've patched Warlords to 2.08. Isn't it a good time to start some PBEMs with it? [charge]

IMHO, even though I have not played them to the end in SP mode, most of them might be quite playable in PBEM. Especially those like Rise of Rome, Chinese Unification, may be Alexander and Peloponnessian Wars, may be Omen. Not sure about Vikings (have to try that in hotseat first) and certainly Genghis Khan is unlikely just because of weird scoring.

Any takers out there? Those Conquests PBEMs were of great fun, I've played them a lot and they were very enjoyable!

I'm game. I havent played any of the scenarios yet, but they look interesting. Which one is the most balanced?

I have absolutely no idea about balance. :)

There are a few technical problems with playing multiplayer with them which require minor editing of scenario ini files and of actual WBS files to enable multiplayer for these scenarios. This is not difficult, just has to be checked out. I'm planning to dig into this during the weekend and will post the resulting WBS files.

IMHO, at a first glance Rise of Rome looks the most tempting but the balance there might be somewhat questionable. While Omen and Peloponnessian Wars might be more balanced, Omen does require some knowledge of the Indian AI and how it can be manipulated (or killed, hard to tell). Chinese Unification is not really well balanced but it might be OK for the human players against each other.

I'll run through Rise of Rome tonight, let you know my thoughts. How many playable civs are there in that one?

It is supposed to be 4 including Rome, Greece, Celts, and Carthage. Other powers are minor however in human hands, they might be playable as well.

Im game.

Alexander is a totally worthless scenario however.

Chinese Unification is unbalanced as well.

Looked at Rome and Carthage in Rise of Rome, Rome isnt TOO powerful, their main benefits are that they are in good civics at the start, and are 10 turns closer to Praet IIs than Carthage is to their UU upgrade. Carthage has a bit better seapower to start, so it would be interesting to see how that plays into checking the Romans. Would pairing up Greece and Egypt vs. Rome vs. Carthage be equitable?

Don't know about that but this scenario can be played at locked war (always war between various teams) imho. That would allow to avoid any "unusual" alliances from the historic point of view like an alliance between Rome and Celts. Since Celts have to be conquered for the Rome to rise. [aargh]

I got warlords today:D and have it patched and ready to go.
I'd be interested in playing a scenario against some humans.

From what i've seen of Rise of Rome so far it looks interesting. Rome, Greece, Carthage and Egypt start off as established while the Celts have 12 Settlers dotted around Northern Europe and Britain. Its not totally balanced but with 5 humans in diplomacy anything can happen

OK, I've took a closer look at Rise of Rome and it actually needs 5 players. Egypt seems to be a minor power on a first look but it is actually not a minor power in human hands. So, we need 1 more player and can start this apparently as a PBEM.

Just a reminder:

Augustus of Rome (Creative, Organized, Imperialistic)
Ptolemy of Egypt (Spiritual, Creative, Protective)
Brennus of Celts (Spiritual, Expansive, Charismatic)
Hannibal of Carthage (Aggressive, Financial, Charismatic)
Pyrrhus of Greece (Phylosophical, Aggressive, Industrious)

are playable by human players.

There are also 4 minor AIs: Hispania (2 cities in Iberia), Seleucids (Antioch), Sabines, and Samintes. The latter two are apparently supposed to complement barbarians with their units appearing on the map at some point.

Scoring is based on VP which are contributed by VP resources. Each resource brings 10 VP per turn. But this is all in single player while in MP I could not figure out how VP scoring works. It seems that Domination and Conquest are still in effect though but VPs are considered only if the game does not end with these victory conditions. Domination however would be pretty hard to obtain since it for some obscure reason requires 60% of land and with considerable areas of desert especially south of Carthage this condition would be notoriously hard to achieve if not completely impossible. We can try to reduce that to a more reasonable number or leave it like it is.

Also, this scenario had not been patched essentially and a few features that had been implemented with patch in Warlords might be non-functional or incorrectly functional in this scenario. TBH, I have no idea and we can figure this out on the road imho.

We might also consider putting some artificial limits on diplomacy between human players but may be not. The tech paths are really non-overlapping so there is basically no tech trading and resources are pretty scarce except Greece which has a few extra clams for trade. It is not a game-breaker imho and we might leave it to player discretion.

Otherwise, we can start at any time, just need one more player and can pick up the civs.