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Bernout

I know it was discussed briefly, but what do people think about going ahead and using Bhruic's unofficial 3.13 patch? You can find information on it at:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showth...246057&page=99

I downloaded the file and it is apparently only a 1 file change which is quick and easy.

Bernout

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|TG-MD6| TG Primer

Bernout

Ok...based on the comments in the signup topic and some private discussions, we'll keep The Gathering Storm as is with the official 3.13 patch only.

Looks like we got a good start on the signups over the weekend. Basically 12 people signed up so far if you include JMaltman. I'll give it a couple of more days and then go advertise over at CivFanatics to see if anyone else over there is interested.

Bernout

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|TG-MD6| TG Primer

Bernout

No, we will not be generating a new map on every restart. We will basically restart the same map until every person is good to go. And yes, this could potentially take several days. This is why it is important that everyone practice the Advanced Start in order to minimize the mistakes that are made. I don't know why the developers couldn't just give us a reset button or something.

What I'll do is make a list of players in alphabetical order based on their TG account name. That list will determine which nation each person gets. The first person in the list is player #1 and gets that nation, second person is player #2, etc.

Bernout

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|TG-MD6| TG Primer

oyzar

Well this is clearly abusable... You can log in and use all your points on exploration and settling cities as far in the corners as possible then rollback... What it was said about unfair due to login order still hold true(although i don't think it will be a problem), that someone can place a city to block for someone else... This is still better than normal advanced start though as my main complaint about that is the severe lack of information... Lets just all pray that bernout is online when we login to reset the 2-3 times needed before everyone are ready to go...

Bernout

No argument there...abuse of the visibility feature is possible. It's also clearly spelled out in the rules that it is not allowed. While it is not enforceable, I trust our group of players enough that noone is going to go and do something that lame.

Hmmm. During my multi-nation experiments I never did place other cities so I'm not sure how probable it is that you'd actually see where other players might be located. That is kind of interesting though. Perhaps that is incentive not to place too many cities? Personally I don't plan on starting with more than 1.

Why don't we make it our goal as a group to nail it the first time eh? There's no turn timer so no one should be under any pressure. Take your time to look at your starting situation, plan out what you want to do, and then make it happen. No mistakes!

Bernout

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|TG-MD6| TG Primer

oyzar

There is seriously no way to nail it the first time without knowing what is out there in the dark. With the money to see about as much as you already see there is very very little possibility that you can "get it right the first time" compared to just finding out what is right then reload then doing it. IMO this is much better than the alternative which is settling cities blind(yes 4-5 turns of production in the early game is worth alot). Oh this is not to mention that you can buy your way to IW with the kind of points we get, and same for AH. Are you starting to see why i think advanced start is a bad idea yet? If it was just for the visbility of the land then sure i could see reloading once for everyone to be fine(heck everyone can just place some cities to get a general idea of what to do then reload). That would avoid the abuse IW/AH problem(unless of course you want to get IW instead of seeing the land around, which would be a perfectly valid decision). Either allow misclicks(and have a horribly misformed early game, which is part of what i hate about advanced start(beside taking away a very interesting part of the game)) or do one reload so everyone get the option to get the same knowledge(reload after everyone have logged in).

None of these get around the fact than on a low land map it might get cramped and some cities might block other people of course but that is a rather minor issue and if that occurs we could just reload(from the start as it will still be the first turn), meaning everyone would get new starting positions.

Anything unlimited is a bad idea and can and will be abused, limit it and it will be the same for everyone...

Bernout

Woah! "Knowing what is out there in the dark" is all part of the advanced start strategy. You either suck up the gold and use visibility or you make your decisions without it. "Nailing it" is not about getting the perfect start. Nailing it refers to not making some kind of user interface mistake; i.e. doing something you didn't intend with no way to undo it.

It was expected that during restarts that players would do the exact same thing they did the first time around. Well, except for correcting the mistake that caused the restart of course. However, if this concept isn't immediately obvious to everyone then that makes me think that perhaps the whole restart idea isn't a good one after all.

I'm fine with having no restarts if that is what everyone wants to do. It just means you need to be extra careful when you are doing your set up. And if it is a crushing early game mistake then that person could appeal to the group and we could talk about restarting.

No, I still believe Advanced Start as a concept is a great idea. What we are talking about here is what is possible during restarts and what you think the odds are of someone abusing it.

I would not expect a problem from anyone who has read the TG Primer and accepts the philosophy that you don't exploit a game engine to give you an unfair advantage over other players. And this whole restart abuse discussion certainly falls into that category. This conversation does make me understand however why they didn't put in a reset button.

I also acknowledge the fact that we have players coming in who are new to TG and who may have potential language barriers to deal with on top of it all.

The original intention of the unlimited restarts was to be a courtesy to the players to ensure that everyone got off to a trouble free start with the understanding that nobody would take advantage of the situation.

Thanks for starting this discussion though Oyzar! It is important that we get everyone on the same page and resolve this before game start.

Bernout

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|TG-MD6| TG Primer

Dandridge

What about if the rule would be that everyone is allowed to build only one city during the advanced start? Might mean less mistakes and less to worry about the "dark" that oyzar is talking about. There would be more exploration for everyone, but more units to do it than in a normal start.

oyzar

That could work. That assumes of course that there isn't some very low limit on the amount of different units you can buy...

Bernout

You're limited to 2 military units per city. No other limits that I'm aware of.

But there's still the fundamental issue of trust here. Restricting people to 1 city, something I'd personally rather not force on everyone, doesn't change the issue. If you think people are going to abuse the restarts won't they still want to see where the key resources are? Sure they'll start with Settlers but it's a simple matter to move them to the spot you want to place the city and you're only 2 or 3 turns behind doing it during the Advanced Start.

I'll back off here a bit on this issue because I'd really like to see feedback from more people and get some other perspectives. I may just not be fully understanding the point Oyzar is trying to make.

Bernout

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|TG-MD6| TG Primer

Bernout

Yep...that's exactly right! And you did a much better job explaining it than I did.

Yep. The main problem with Barbarians is it can be unbalancing and even more so when combined with Random Events. AFSoccer and I have a 2 person game going and in our first attempt at it he got knocked out before turn 25 by a Barbarian Horde event. We don't want anyone's game to end like that.

"Unbalancing" also includes being able to take advantage of the Barbs for experience and free cities. Some may have the opportunity and some may not.

Advanced Starts is the topic of the day. lol

Bernout

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|TG-MD6| TG Primer

Bernout

Ok...there haven't been any additional replies on the restart issue during the advanced start setup.

What I'd like to propose at this point is that we do away with restarts. This puts the extra burden on everyone to make sure they don't make any very costly mistakes.

Some things to realize when doing advanced start which may not have been mentioned before:

• Once you place your capital city, you can not leave the game and come back in to finish your advanced start!
• You can undo some actions by using your right mouse button.
• It's not necessary to spend all of your 600 gold. The remaining gold will of course be in your treasury at game start.
• Practice advanced starts! Yes I mentioned this before but it can't be repeated enough. :P

I'm working with Asch to get a test server up so that everyone can test connectivity. I'll post when that is ready to go. I'll also be advertising the game at CivFanatics on Thursday. I'm not sure what kind of response we'll get but anyone who has been holding off on officially joining might want to do so. You can always back out anytime before game start.

Bernout

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|TG-MD6| TG Primer

GrizzlyDuu

This could be a problem, because sometimes (or always?) When people above me are already logged in, their Civs are missing from the list. This way you can't pick the right civ just by counting.

Bernout

No counting should be needed. I will post a player list which tells you exactly which nation you are playing.

Bernout

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