what about a scenario for 4 players ?

[Matrix]

Em, so what scenario do you wanna play? I prefer Rise of Rome in that case.

Akots is right that Middle Ages is unbalanced. I thought if all humans would play as a Christian civ it would be balanced, but that's not possible, since there are only eight civs in the game, because it's multiplayer. The SP scenario has 18 civs (of which 13 are playable)!

[Arghis]

ok Matrix.

So for Rise of Rome, it seems that we're already 2 ready to go (akots are you interested ?). Anyone else ?

[Shabbaman]

quote:Originally posted by Arghis

@Shabaman : "There are three introductionary conquests as well, those maps are more balanced."
what do you mean ?
How was age of discovery unbalanced to your opinion ?

So Middle Ages seems to have some success. Why not taking it for a 4 player game ?

Also, if at CFC there's playing scenario games, why here do i see only common games ?

I mean the ancient treasures, 3 sisters and new alliances conquests. Especially the last one looks like a good mp game, although it's a team game. Maybe if you edit the locked alliances it's a good map.
An additional annoyance about the conquests is that they all have a time limit.

The AoD scenario is unbalanced because:
- Portugal starts with a golden age, and can build any great wonder they want (pretty important, since some wonders are unbalanced)
- Spain starts with a unit that can trigger a GA, unlike the dutch, english and french who can only hope for a late GA
- England has unproductive cities
- the dutch don't even have access to horses...
- Portugal has too many advantages to mention. In short, a human player should never play with this civ if he's looking for a challenge

Also, knowledge of the location of hidden resources (like the AI has, or any player who's already played the scenario) takes away a lot of fun.
If you'd want to play this scenario with multiple players, pick american civs only.

[akots]

quote:Originally posted by Arghis
... akots are you interested ? ...

Might be of interest in RoR only if I don't play Macedon. I'm already playing that one. Persia, Rome or Carthage please. And IMHO level at least Emperor. Otherwise, AI is too pathetic and they play a certain role in this game.

[akots]

@Arghis regarding the ladder: That should be may be another ladder?

Also, there is a problem on counting the score as a decisive factor in placement of the players. What if some are eliminated and some survive to the end? Apparently the winner is still a winner but the others may be arranged in different order then. What if there were 3 players, one won, another was eliminated but had higher score than the third which survived to the end? Who is second in this game? Don't really know, it looks complicated to me.

[Arghis]

Pk, sp wit Akots in (no prob for no macedonian), we're 3. anyone else interested ?

i'm currently testing the AoD scenarii. i've only played once RoR (as the roman and not to the end).

for the score calculation, yes it has to be tweak. i shall work again on this. the idea of a 2nd ladder is interesting, cause obviously, playing at more than 2 human changes things a bit.

[akots]

quote:Originally posted by Arghis ... playing at more than 2 human changes things a bit.

Some diplomatic skills in this case are required.



Regarding RoR: I'd like to have some special rules a little bit to make the game more interesting. But they are certainly optional.

1) No abandoning cities makes it more challenging for Rome to win. Rome is the only capital which is on the river IIRC and hence can easily snatch the most important wonders including ToA and Bacchanalia. The onther civilizations get the remains. Of course, unless Carthage manages to raze Rome early in the game.

2) No phony war tactics in Rome-Carthage and Macedon-Persia pairs. It is possible to have no active action for a while but no negotiations between these parties, only battle logs and GPS-type correspondence is permitted as well as public humiliation in the open thread.

3) Decent difficulty level, at least Emperor, so that AIs do play some role.

Otherwise, it is pretty much "out of the box". Just need to turn Accelerated Production off, turn on "preserve random seed" and set proper difficulty level.

[Matrix]

1: Rome can snatch the most important wonders, so to make it more challenging to Rome to win people are not allowed to abandon cities?

2: Good point! Those locked in war are not allowed to negotiate. (It could happen that they don't attack each other, but then one never knows when the enemy suddenly appears at ones doorstep. )

3: Sure.

[Arghis]

quote:
Regarding RoR: I'd like to have some special rules a little bit to make the game more interesting. But they are certainly optional.

1) No abandoning cities makes it more challenging for Rome to win.

++i'm not sure to understand why

quote:
2) No phony war tactics in Rome-Carthage and Macedon-Persia pairs. It is possible to have no active action for a while but no negotiations between these parties, only battle logs and GPS-type correspondence is permitted

++hmm what do you call GPS ... i'm not used to the subtlety of battle log.

quote:
3) Decent difficulty level, at least Emperor, so that AIs do play some role.

++yes, of course

[/quote]

[akots]

The problem with Rome is that Rome is virtually guaranteed ToA and has cheap settlers which take only 1 pop out of the city where they are built. Hence, good tactics by Rome can be defending from Carthagian attempts while hammering on Celts and Goths and expanding to the north. Even if Rome loses some occasional cities in Sicily and Sardinia, she is still able to expand at a huge rate. Macedon/Persia cannot seriously compete with this expansion especially if they abandon cities in anticipation of being captured from each other. However, if their cities are not abandoned, and one of them is really going down, the other can efficiently compete with Rome.

On the other hand, if Rome has an edge over Carthage, and Carthage cannot abandon cities, then Rome easily wins because of this.

GPS - got, played, sent.

I can probably call for a fourth player at CFC somebody like Romeo who is actually a very strong player.