PBEM game: King of the Hill (Over)

[Alneyan]

The roster for the game is as follow:

- Cainehill: Abysia
- PhilD: Man
- Rainbow: T'ien Ch'i
- RonD: Pythium
- Sedna: Machaka
- The_Tauren13: Ermor

The definitive settings for this game are the following:

- Map: Theater of War (weights 6 mo), or any other symetrical game if such maps exist. I may have to make adjustments to this map however; more on this topic below.
- Number of players: 6 players.
- Independent Strength of 6.
- Difficult magic research.
- Zen's Pretender mod 1.81.
- 15 Hall of Fame entries.
- Special starting locations are switched on, and will be more or less identical.
- Graphs are off, but you will be given the rankings (and only the rankings) of all nations every five turns, unless all players would rather completely kill the graphs, and solely rely on their spies for intelligence gathering purposes.

The victory condition is to hold a central province, called the Hill, and to keep it under your control for 20 turns, not necessarily in a row. This condition starts from turn 10 onwards. Note that you will have to be in actual control of the province, or to be besieging it; being besieged does not count towards the victory condition.

A Last note about the hosting specifics, a.k.a. "The annoying part you are probably not interested in":
- The host (myself) will not be playing in the game, and will only set up the game and run the turns.
- If a player misses a turn, I will play a partial turn in her stead, if only to make the standard recruitment and putting the mages on research. If this absence is expected, I can make a more complete turn by following the orders of the missing player.
- The deadlines will be at a fixed hour, so any turn running earlier than expected will result in a longer deadline for next turn. In other words, if a game is scheduled to turn at 2000 GMT, and I received all the files at 1400, the game will run at 1400 and the next deadline will be on tomorrow at 2000. The game will only go ahead of the schedule if we gain a full day; for example, if I receive all the files by Sunday 1800 instead of Monday 1800, the next deadline will be on Tuesday 1800 and not Wednesday 1800 (as it would have been otherwise).
- Two mails will be used for this game; one of these addresses is very reliable and fast, but does not bounce when it fails to deliver a mail, while the other is just the opposite. Simply replying to my mail delivering the turn will use both mails by default. If one of the mails has bounced, feel free to resend it on both addresses, even if I have likely already received it on my other mail. It is far better to send twice the same turn than to stale the turn.
- Mails are sent individually, so you do not need to have a password since only you will get the file for your nation. The turns are sent in Zip files because of their supposed stability, but above all to help me avoid sending the turn files for the wrong game, and to warn me if I have forgotten to put back the current file in your mail. All turn files are backed up in my computer, barring a computer collapse.

[Cainehill]

I'd be interested - Theater is a neat map, especially if tweaked for 6 vice 12 players.


Getting the standings every 5 turns seems like a great compromise to the graphs, incidentally; I'd think that'd satisfy most of the people who either require or hate the graphs.

[Alneyan]

I have forgotten something about Theater: only land nations can play, as there is no sea province at all.

Cainehill, do you prefer the standard setup (where the Hill would be directly accessible through your fortress province), or the indirect access mentioned in my first post? I am not sure if the normal access makes the Hill too vulnerable, or if it is fine because of magical movement and the like.

[Cainehill]

Actually, the Version of the Theater map I have has the connections going to the small circular provinces on the outer edge of the inner sphere - following the white arrows, as you mention.

That leaves a good amount of maneuvering room as people attempt to get to the "Hill", which I think is better than having the capital fortress directly connected.

In particular, it changes the normal dynamic of expansion, since even if there are some appealing provinces in your sphere, you can't dawdle too long or someone else will get to the Hill and possibly win. Having 30 provinces all in your home sphere doesn't do any good if someone else took 7 provinces in a straight line to the center and got the hill.

I do think the SE sphere (Plains of Ermond) should be tweaked, even in the base Version of the map, because its connection is unlike all the others, which go deep into the outer sphere; the SE is a "shallow" link.

[Sedna]

This sounds like a fun game. I think it would clearly encourage early fighting which is often (in my fairly limited experience) absent as people decide to take independents rather than do anything interesting. For this reason I favor a shorter starting time� 10 turns versus 20.

It'll be very interesting to see how this develops. Will it Last long enough to be purely a battle of SCs and anti-SCs on the hill? I'm sure it will always prove interesting to have a scout sitting on the hill to watch...

[Alneyan]

Interesting Cainehill. I wasn't aware of this modified map; could you please send me the map file? Thanks!

I believe there would be more or less seven provinces between the closest start point (which will be used) and the Hill, so taking the Hill on turn 10 seems doable. No wandering around of course, and it might actually make more sense to have a decent productivity with this setup.

[Alneyan]

There was not a modified map; I should just have my eyes checked I guess.

A gentle bump as we are still looking for four more players.

[PhilD]

I'd be willing to play in this. I'm far from being an expert player, but I like losing in MP.

If naming nations at this point is acceptable, I'd go for Man.

[Alneyan]

Welcome aboard! Feel free to claim dibs on the nation of your choice.

The rest of the settings will remain as usual by default, but can be changed if someone feels a serious heartburn on any of these items.
- Independent Strength 6
- Magic site frequency: 40
- Standard magic research
- Renaming activated
- Master password activated
- Ten entries in the Hall of Fame

I will upload the slightly modified Theater of War tomorrow, after making sure all starting provinces are equally close to the Hill. The only modifications are the change to the SE isle, the addition of the Hill, and the removal of six of the starting positions.

And something I failed to address previously: do you prefer a 24 hour turnaround, or do you need 48 hours per turn?

[Rainbow]

Sounds like an interesting game. I would like to join it.

Not going to claim any specific nation just yet. Going to have a look at the map first, once it is uploaded.

24 hour turnaround is fine by me. Since it is a PBEM we can always slow down a bit later if people have problems meeting the deadline.

/Rainbow