[Game On] Civilization IV

lordthanda

GAME ON!!!

Victory conditions are: Cultural, Conquest, Domination, and Time.
Oh, and it wouldn't hurt to drop by the IRC room to chat with some other players. irc.slashnet.org:6667 #paforums_pax

The list of players is below. If you're interested in taking over for one of the computer players., just PM me for details.

Also:
Caelesto, Draknodred: You guys are late! You're missing turns. You're still welcome to hop in though! Just take over the AI.

1. LordThanda - Ghandi
   
   
2. Moe Fwacky - Napoleon
   
   
3. randomguy - Roosevelt
   
   
4. Qs23 - Bismark
   
   
5. DiscoDave - Victoria
   
   
6. Neuroslice - Caesar
   
   
7. Jdarksun - Tokugawa
   
   
8. HotSake - Ghengis Khan (Of Ceti Alpha V)
   
   
9. Jaiden - Frederick
   
   
10. The_Marshall - Isabella
    
    
11. Dondums - Catherine
    
    
12. COMPUTER - Cyrus
    
    
13. COMPUTER - Montezuma
    
    
14. COMPUTER - Saladin
    
    
15. COMPUTER - Huayana Capac
    
    
16. COMPUTER - Hatshepsut
    

Instructions for starting:
Go into Hamachi ( if you haven't already ) and join the network "Civ 4 Pitboss". PM me for the password.

When you connect to the network on Hamachi, start the game. Go to multiplayer. Direct Connect. The IP Address to enter is the one for CountThanda (5.45.37.164) on the network. No password for the game.
On the next screen, you should be presented with a list of available civilizations. Pick whichever one you want. As I said, it's first come first serve. At this point, you should be able to enter a password for your civ. Pick one that you won't forget, cause once it's set I can't get it for you and you won't be able to get back in.
Once you've started the game, please go to the menu (press escape) and go to "player information". Then please enter the email address to which you would like your notification emails sent. The Pitboss will have an SMTP server and will automatically notify you when the next turn starts. After that.... get building! We've got a world to conquer!

UPDATE:
It is important to note that the pitboss is running on my desktop and, as such, is subject to go down for a variety of things. Power failures, random issues, other actions that might require a restart of the computer, etc. Rest assured that I will attempt to keep the pitboss save file as up to date as possible. I apologize ahead of time for any inconvenience about this.


Original OP:
Ok everyone, listen up. During the CCST this year, we made a very short lived attempt at running a Civilization 4 game on the road. It was short lived mainly because no one had their CD / ISOs to run the game. Now, weeks later, we struck up the topic again and the IRC games of Civ 4 have started. We've been dinking around with the pitboss application and have had a generally good time with it. _______moe, formerly Moe_Fwacky, has subsequently been asking me to post on here and see if there is any interest in a massive Civ 4 game.

A note about the pitboss application:
What the pitboss does is act as a persistent Civ 4 server. It is the host. You log in and take your part of the turn. Unlike single player Civ 4 all turns happen simultaneously. When either everyone has completed their turn or the turn timer is up, the pitboss advances the game to the next turn. That means you DO NOT need to be continuously logged in to play. You're welcome to log in, take your turn, log out, and log back in later. The pitboss even has an SMTP set up, so it can email you and tell you when there's a new turn. You can even log in, take part of your turn, log out, and then come back later to finish it.

We would like to get as many human players as possible. It will be a 16 nation game, fractal map, huge size, and probably on Quick or Normal speed. (I'd rather this not take till beyond next PAX; it would on Marathon).

A few requirements:
The Game, obviously - must be patched to version 1.7.4
Hamachi (www.hamachi.cc) - we use this because the game is hosted as a direct IP, but I'm too lazy to set the proper port forwarding. Hamachi eliminates the need for that.

[Moe Fwacky edit: cleaned things up for lordthanda to make the OP look nice]

randomguy

awesome

Moe Fwacky

Je suis Napoleon!

David Coffman

I'm a huge fan of Civ4, but I haven't played it in about a year. So if you want some easy meat, I'll join in.

Dondums

Is this using BtS or Warlords? Or just Vanilla?
Either way, I'm in, I bought all 3 on Steam.
Hoho! (I still suck at it, though.)

lordthanda

Dondums wrote: »

Is this using BtS or Warlords? Or just Vanilla?
Either way, I'm in, I bought all 3 on Steam.
Hoho! (I still suck at it, though.)

Just Vanilla.

Moe Fwacky

no more takers on what could be an epic civ 4 struggle?
remember guys, it's pitboss, which means you don't have to devote your lives to finishing the game, just log into the server take your turn, and if nobody else is around to complete the round, then log out and check back in about a day

lordthanda

Or less. Preferably less. The more turns in a day, the better.
At least, that's how I feel....

Moe Fwacky

Come on people, we've still got 8 slots to fill. Better hurry before people get fed up with waiting and we start the game anyway.

ElectricTurtle

Yeah, uh, I tried to patch my install, and now it's broken, and I'm not in the mood to hunt down the disc for it. I'd blame you if I didn't know it was Vista Home Premium 64 bit's fault.

Houn

This sounds like an awesome idea, filled with fun and good times...

Alas, I own not the Civ4.

HotSake

We need to get a long term Diplomacy game going. But I'll play this until that dream comes true.

Caelesto

Count me in!

I've been looking for a good excuse to run down to Best Buy and grab Civ 4 for a while now, this is as good a reason as any, and better than most. :P

Anyway, I'm totally on board for this, I love Civilization (even if I suck at it).

randomguy

I cannot wait to get this party started.

Moe Fwacky

Hell yeah. Looks like this game is fleshing out nicely. Four more slots left people, jump in while there's still time.

edit: also, for those who don't already know, I totally have dibs on Napoleon.

lordthanda

We're planning on starting the game on Friday (September 14) night / Saturday Morning. Just a little bit more testing and then we'll be ready for you guys. There will be a maximum turn timer of 24 hours. That means that AT THE LATEST, the game should be done by.... PAX 2008? (Assuming we use the "quick" setting). Organizing 12-16 people to be on at the same time doesn't seem likely, so I'm expecting 1 to 2 turns a day after we get started.
I would like for everyone to send me a PM with your top two choices for civ/leader. If you don't care, then just put "Random". I ... THINK .. that's all for now. Keep your eyes open for any more if I remember it.
Oh, and it wouldn't hurt to drop by the IRC room to chat with some other players. irc.slashnet.org:6667 #paforums_pax

Edit: Moe just reminded me.
if you want to join in after the game is started, that is ABSOLUTELY OK. You will just have to take over from one of the AI's. You might not be in the best position, but at least you can still play

Moe Fwacky

Putting a poll in here, folks, vote for what victory conditions you would like turned on. You can vote for more than one. Here's a quote from a post on Civfanatics' forums about each of the conditions.

Civfanatics forums wrote:

1- The Space Race victory:
====================
This one seems to me to be the easiest victory, and is certainly how I won most of my games. I have recently taken to switching it off after a few games where I increasingly felt that the pressure to “join” the race was robbing my games of variety and “hijacking” my game.

Strategy description: You seem to need 10 or so good industrial cities. Have to focus on science and wealth production. Seems well suited to the defensive player who will have enough military techs to fend off harassing Civs while making a beeline to the needed spacerace techs. If you are not in touch with and trading techs with AI Civs from the get go you will probably end up way behind in tech and spend too much time trying to catch up.

Wonders do not seem too important. Space elevator, as was mentioned elsewhere on these forums, seems irrelevant as by the time you build it you’re probably well on your way to completion.

Questions regarding Space Race:
I read somewhere that the 1.09 patch has made this victory more expensive; I hope that’s the case. Do most people find this victory to be completely boring or is it just me?

Satisfaction rating 1-5 (in my opinion): 2



2-Cultural victory:
=============
Seems like you have to plan this one way in advance. I always get two, sometimes three wonders in the early game through chopping down forests and/or plopping my second or third settler straight onto a stone resource if I can find it. Have to focus on Great People generation, getting the defensive techs you need, and otherwise more or less switching off all science production in the late game to generate culture instead. All well and good, except I really dislike having all the other cultures get so far ahead of me technologically and militarily in the late game while I wait for my 3 cities to amass culture and for my great artists to emerge.

I also find this victory condition extremely difficult to achieve for the following reasons:
a) Cultural victories are risky, in my opinion. Not only do they have to be planned in advance, but culture is only useful for creating your legendary cities and extending your borders (perhaps landing you a defecting city and a subsequent war in the process) – i.e. unlike gold or techs, it cannot be traded in a pinch. Also, significantly, culture in itself is a minor factor a time based victory score, except indirectly through making your boundaries a bit bigger and your citizens happier.
b) I am somehow always pre-empted by other Civs forcing me to join a Space Race

Questions regarding Cultural Victory:
- Are early religions good or bad for a cultural victory? Religious buildings generate a decent amount of culture, but in a recent game when I developed both Hinduism and Judaism in my biggest culture city I ended up with 5-6 great prophets when what I really needed were great artists (this despite forcing artist specialists).

Satisfaction rating 1-5 (in my opinion): 4


3-Diplomatic Victory:
================
This one I just plain don’t get. It just seems too risky to pursue willingly – the only time I tried for this was to salvage some 30+ man hours of gameplay in a game where it was obvious that I was not going to win any other way. I suppose you can “plan” this one in advance by somehow becoming really good friends with the 2nd and 3rd or so biggest cultures who have most of the votes after #1 (who will be a candidate for the election himself), but somehow I think that that’s not really a viable strategy.

I did not win despite a handful of ‘elections’ because others civs were not very enthusiastic about handing me or my opponent a diplomatic victory (he eventually won on Space Race). In fact my biggest problem with this victory is that it doesn’t make any sense to me; I always abstain unless voting for myself, and I don’t understand why any culture would choose to give the game away no matter how much they like you.

I noticed that after several elections other civs were more likely to become partisan and less likely to abstain (again, why?) and it was obvious to me that my victory hinged on getting Julius Caesar’s vote. He had been annoyed (and annoying) for the entire game and suddenly I was giving him free techs and resources in a feeble, futile attempt to bribe him for his vote. It wasn’t very fun – I mean all those many hours of thoughtful (and, ahem, intelligent) gameplay had come to this?? Next time around I think I will just switch this victory condition off.

Satisfaction rating 1-5 (in my opinion): 2. It just seems so arbitrary.



4-Time Victory:
============
To me this one makes the most sense. Engage in wars just enough to make your Civ land area significantly large (not necessarily as large as the biggest Civ around), then develop your cities to get high population, commerce, and science growth. Race to get techs and build wonders in order to boost your score, and use culture to expand your borders and grab border resources that will help make your population healthier and happier. This is not to say this is an easy win, esp. when Tokugawa or another warmongering Civ start expanding like nobody’s business.

The problems with pursuing this victory condition are (a) you will be preempted by other CIVs landing their own victory some other way. I don’t really mind this except in the case of Space Race, which I think is easier than the others. (b) I really think the amount of culture your Civ generates should logically factor directly into the score (c) It seems from what I’ve read that the “leadership” rating you get after you win hinges on the time it took to do so, which means that this victory guarantees you an ego-boosting “Dan Quale” rating. (Is this correct?)

Satisfaction rating 1-5 (in my opinion): 3.5


5-Conquest and 6-Domination:
======================
I don’t usually aim for these so I can’t really say too much about them. Both of these are the warmongerer’s path to victory, and seem to involve the following.

- Make a beeline to the war techs when everyone else (probably) isn’t, OR start pumping out UU’s as soon as you can for their (time-limited) comparative combat advantage AND cheap production cost
- Concentrate your production on military units
- Overwhelm your neighbors when they haven’t yet had the chance to build up militarily and/or have not yet invested/have fallen behind in military techs
- Do all of the above while keeping your economy afloat and your citizens happy. Ok I admit again I am not an expert on these and don’t have much to say about the subject.

What I do not find appealing in the warmongering victories is that I personally like to build up my civilization and snap up certain wonders before others do, and it seems that it is very difficult to land a conquest victory unless you start really really early (is that true?).

Satisfaction rating 1-5, Conquest (in my opinion): Don’t know
Satisfaction rating 1-5 Domination (in my opinion): 3, although I haven’t achieved it yet.

edit: it would help if i remembered to close the quote tags

David Coffman

[X] All of the Above

The Deliverator

jeez, i've had my arm bent into it, so i'm gonna play.

lordthanda

Updated. Check the top post for info.

Game will start Friday night / Saturday morning. I will post here when it has started

lordthanda

Ok, we're almost there guys. I'm gonna start the pitboss when I get home from work tonight. I'll post here when it's up. You'll be able to log in as soon as it's posted here that it's up. What I did with your picks for leaders is included as many of them as I could into the game. It's a first come first serve basis, so you might not get the one that you want.

More Info to come when the hour approaches

Moe Fwacky

Everybody get pumped! This shit begins soon.

lordthanda

GAME ON!!!!

Instructions for starting:
Go into hamachi ( if you haven't already ) and join the network "Civ 4 Pitboss". PM me for the password.

When you connect to the network on hamachi, start the game. Go to multiplayer. Direct Connect. The IP Address to enter is the one for CountThanda (5.45.37.164) on the network. No password for the game.
On the next screen, you should be presented with a list of available civilizations. Pick whichever one you want. As I said, it's first come first serve. At this point, you should be able to enter a password for your civ. Pick one that you won't forget, cause once it's set I can't get it for you and you won't be able to get back in.
Once you've started the game, please go to the menu (press escape) and go to "player information". Then please enter the email address to which you would like your notification emails sent. The Pitboss will have an SMTP server and will automatically notify you when the next turn starts. After that.... get building! We've got a world to conquer!

lordthanda

Exactly right.
Although I'm considering updating the OP on here with bits of status update.

I fully encourage other people playing the game to post here. Trash talk, strategy talk, deals you want to make, etc.

lordthanda

Round has begun. First turn is officially over. If you didn't log in, don't be discouraged! You can still join in.
I hope to set all the unclaimed civs to AI before the end of this turn, and if you want to play you can just take over an AI spot.
Happy Civ-ing all!

Dondums

I missed the first turn; DOH! Finally got one and claimed Russia, though.
I shouldn't be missing any other turns, save for the universe imploding.

lordthanda

It is important to note that the pitboss is running on my desktop and, as such, is subject to go down for a variety of things. Power failures, random issues, other actions that might require a restart of the computer, etc. Rest assured that I will attempt to keep the pitboss save file as up to date as possible. I apologize ahead of time for any inconvenience about this.

This is one of those times. I'm bringing the pitboss down for a few restarts. I'll post as soon as it's back up.

lordthanda

Ok, pitboss is back up.
And, we're working on a better solution than this thread for keeping you informed

lordthanda

http://www.civstats.com/viewgame.php?gameid=620
And there it is.
I recommend going there and setting up an account. I have a password waiting for you so you can claim your leader!

Moe Fwacky

Oooh, this is nice.

lordthanda

So, I thought it would be safe to assume that SAVING THE GAME would be a good step to back it up for those few times the pitboss goes down.

Somehow, 2K ( & Firaxis) let a game through that does not reliably (100%) save itself. So... We've lost the 5 turns that we started.

/Sigh
Minor setback.

Game is STILL ON!

we just need to restart.....

David Coffman

Is there some reason we think this won't happen again?

And my starting place here sucks all amounts of ass...I'm in the tundra. =(

Moe Fwacky

God damn it! At least set us up with a better map this time (might I recommend a tropical Terra map).

Qs23

DiscoDave wrote: »

Is there some reason we think this won't happen again?

And my starting place here sucks all amounts of ass...I'm in the tundra. =(

I've been digging though all of the CivFanatic fourms and I can't find any answer that will say that this can't happen again. So Idk... I would hate to get to see this game turn into some M. C. Escher sort of thing.

lordthanda

You're not the only one. The most I can say as far as preventing this repeating is that I'm manually saving the game on a daily basis. Hopefully, that way, even if we DO lose the current game, we won't lose the WHOLE game.

Moe Fwacky

Yeah, I think we lost a turn there.

Moe Fwacky

TAKE YOUR TURNS, YOU FOOLS!

Moe Fwacky

Lordthanda had to take it down due to some maintenance on the power lines in his building.

lordthanda

Jdarksun, the setup is not perfect. There will possibly be times that we will replay a turn and there will be downtime. I usually post them in IRC cause I didn't think anyone was really paying attention here. I'll post here too in the future.

David Coffman

lordthanda wrote: »

Jdarksun, the setup is not perfect. There will possibly be times that we will replay a turn and there will be downtime. I usually post them in IRC cause I didn't think anyone was really paying attention here. I'll post here too in the future.

This is the only thing I see. =/

Qs23

Ooo.... Dave made DiscoDave feel bad...