Looking for a reliable opponent

[akots]

Re blocking: Then, we just try not to block too much. Lets put it this way. "Every island having more than 3 coastal tiles should have at least 1 costal tile unoccupied by a military unit at any given turn." We can specifically ask the mapmaker to avoid islands with less than 4 tiles in them or to put an equal number of small islands nearby each of the continents.

Rules are then completely unmodded. SoZ is enabled and both continents have ivory. I'm Ottoman and you are Greece. SGL enabled as well. We can take some decent rules like Aggie's. Of all the exploits there is only Palace jump and negative cash research which make sense in a game without AI, IIRC. We (I) try to play Always War with no Embassies, tech stealing, city investigation and other weird things.

Anything else to discuss?

[Socrates]

I'm OK with gentleman rules of course. Noted for blockades, and agree ; does it mean that a 100-tile island may have only one free tile for the opponent ? And BTW, I suppose we can change this tile every turn ? We need a little more thinking there. I agree on not playing such things as city investigation, tech stealing, and no embassy if you ask. But as for always war on the turn we meet, I'm not sure. Imagine we both want, for some resons, to stay at peace for a while (like preparing our troops, or whatever)...

I wonder why I chose Greece... My hoplites won't be of great effect, but at least I'll be scientific and commercial, not so bad...

[akots]

Yes, with 100-tile island and a single coastal tile empty, you have a strong point. Don't know how to fix it. If I can suggest the following:

"The tiles on southern and northern tips of large islands or continents (over 20 tiles area) should never be blocked with military units. If there is a city placed on these tiles, then at least one coastal tile within this city radius (21-tile) must remain unblocked." Since these tiles would be within 3 tiles, the enemy can unload troops on that tile even if it is changed.

Re Always War. Surely, we can live in peace. I just don't see any benefit from this atm with a symmetrical map. There should be nothing to trade unless some resources start jumping all over the place. But it is quite possible things might change during the game...

If you agree to the above suggestion, we might consider asking for a map and starting soon. No need to rush the things though. I'd like also to see the list of what is allowed and what is not. As you already probably know, I'm a big ICS fan but it is not an exploit even with the RBC rules. All other RBC exploits are fine with me. I'd also like to specifically disable ship chaining and free Palace jump but would try to allow Palace built brick-by-brick or with MGL.

[Socrates]

About blockades : could we even not bother about it ? We may end with a big continent, and it would be very difficult to blockade everything, and very costly... I could agree on your latest proposition, but it means that we may want to land on already known places. Maybe it's more simple if we don't bother, but you might have a strong idea that such a situation will eventually be achieved in our game. Dunno, never played such a game. Or maybe we could say that every unit should be parked in cities, or on just a few tiles within each city radius...

No, didn't know you were a big fan of ICS... Do you know if I'm a fan of anything in particular ? Not sure if it is a real exploit in RBCiv, but the common sense says that it's not a nice way of playing ; I usually follow the rule that states that every city should be at least 3 tiles away of any other city (1 turn for slow units on roads). ICS allows 2 tiles away... Of course you're allowed to do it for an occasional situation... But ICS isn't only about placing cities in sardines boxes, it's also about cranking out settlers like mad ? Tell me your opinion on that please.

The complete list of RBCiv rules can be found on their site :
http://realmsbeyond.net/civ/etactics.html
Some of them are obsolete with C3C 1.22, but most of them still apply. We can also pick Aggie's rules to complete the list (and use the common PBEM rules as for human-human relations). Of course the Palace can be built brick by brick somewhere else ; but if you want to rush it, then use a SGL, not a MGL. Or am I ignorant ? Can a MGL rush the Palace in C3C ?

I'll post a request for a map this week, once those last things are sorted out. I hope we can start by next week.

[akots]

Re blockades: I would not bother much, just probably would try to block some critical tiles. By the time marines are running around, there would be many obsolete units. Instead of upgrading/disbanding them, they can be used to block the coastal tiles if the upkeep permits. There might be enough of them to block the coast completely. Hence, we might want to add a rule about sothern-northern tip but keep it optional, for example, "unless there are more than 75% coastal tiles blocked".

I'll try to limit my ICS ambition to a reasonable distance between the cities. Distance 3-3.5 (2-tile N,S,E,W or 3-tile SE, NE, SW, NW and their combinations) seems reasonable but 3 tiles always (distance up to 4.5) might be too much for my taste. Distance 2-2.5 indeed can be handy sometimes but not on a regular basis. And surely, I'll try to crank settlers like mad.

I know you are a seafaring fan and do not like Pangea maps.

You can rush Palace with MGL in C3C since it is a small wonder/city improvement IIRC.

Otherwise, should be an interesting game overall.

[Socrates]

Well, dunno if it sounds good, but about blockades I think I now want to wait and see what happens in the game. Surely it won't be of a big deal in the beginning, so we have some time before that. I keep your proposition optional too, and put it somewhere in my head.

About ICS, well, do as you want. After all I'm your only opponent, so it's not like if we had to face stupid AIs or any other humans. Dunno what I'll do myself ; I tend to pack my cities closer than before (before = no overlap !). And on a tiny map it will be useless to have cities not packed at least a little (big corruption !!). So ICS is all in all fine with me.

No, who said I don't like pangeas and like seafearing civs only ? It's just that I played my first pelago games very recently, and am pleased with them (hence why I wanted a pelago map for the 8-p game...). And the Byzantines are my new toys... Anyway this map will be a continental-like map, so...

I hope it will be an interesting game, very different from what we're used to. I think Skyfish (RIP ) and someone else tried such a game recently. And if we're happy with this game, I propose we start another one like that, but with little tweaks (remember the no-trait or no-UU propositions ?... and other stuff).

Well, I think we're getting very close to our map request. I'll post it tomorrow if you don't mind.

[akots]

quote:Originally posted by kryszcztov
... It's just that I played my first pelago games very recently, and am pleased with them (hence why I wanted a pelago map for the 8-p game...)

This basically means that you like it...

IMO, we are ready to place the map request and to start.