PBEM Hosting Suggestions

[snowcrash22]

Hello! First post and all that good stuff.

I am seriously considering hosting a PBEM game, which I understand is a long term investment of time with MP games Lasting months.

However, I would like to get some suggestions/comments from experienced players about hosting a DoM noob game.

Preferences about settings?
Ideal turnaround time?
Managing players who are tardy with their turns?
Websites? Posting maps or updates and such?
Genral PBEM gamer etiquette? (I have only really played Diplomacy by email in the past...usually dying rather quickly)

Thanks and I appreciate any input.

P.S. This game rocks.

[Gandalf Parker]

the tcpip mode is generally prefered if you have a machine which can stay up and Online 24 hours a day.

definetly set the master password which is a new feature to make it easier to manage players that drop out

Independents should be set 5+ but I think most of the other settings are left standard. Oh except for turning on re-naming of commanders. Thats new. I think most people want it on though

Turn-around daily at midnight (handles tardy turns.

gamer etiquette tends to take 2 forms. Mostly its based on whether the players will "know" each other. If only you know who they are, not even getting the "I want xxxxx nation" posted here for people to see logins, then you have a faster more cutthroat game. Known personalitys tend to generate more careful fair play with lots of alliances.

Usually people say their top 3 nation choices and you iron out the assignments based on first-come-first-served basis. Oh they usually vote on a map, sometimes other settings but thats up to you whether to vote or just announce it from the start

Posting here isnt bad tho it helps if you only post links to things like maps.

Welcome to the addiction. For safety sake please make sure someone checks on you at least every 3 days. Side affects can include but not be limited to dehydration, starvation, and exploded bladders. Please dont plan Dominions strategy while driving heavy machinery.

[ March 04, 2004, 18:49: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[PrinzMegaherz]

I'm running a pbem session right now.

We have settled with 2 days per turn, as there definitly will be days someone wont be able to get his turn done, especially on weekend. However, after the time runs our, you should host without mercy.


By the way, if you want to host a game, I would like to join as Abysia

[ March 05, 2004, 20:32: Message edited by: PrinzMegaherz ]

[ceremony]

I'm running 4 PBEM games right now (two specifically for newbies). All have been organized via messageboard where the nation selection is "first-come, first-served" so that when you post, you know exactly which nations are available based on who has posted in that thread before you.

The map is really a function of how many players you have in the game. You can give the players a choice or just choose one yourself. I'm running one 13-player game on Orania, two 7-player games on Aran, and one 8-player game on Aran. I'm only playing in the Last one (which is the one that started first). The larger the map and the more players there are, the longer the game will be and thus the more time commitment there will be on your part.

Unless you know all the players, I strongly suggest setting a master password so you can deal with players dropping out and not at least turning their positions over to the AI.

Richness and independents strength is up to you, or to the players if you want to open it up to suggestions.

Tracking down tardy players: I strongly suggest you set guidelines out clearly in advance. You may be running the game at a turn a day (perhaps better to simply have an Online server that hosts once a day in that case) or you can set a more relaxed deadline. In my games, I ask that everyone take no longer than 72 hours to submit a turn. If it goes longer than this, and I don't hear from the player, I will send out a global email saying "we're just waiting on X," then I will Force Host after a certain period of time, and then the position will be up for turning over to the AI. In practice, the newbie games are running at a turn a day, and the large (13-player) game is running at a turn every 2 days. I'm always willing to put a game on hold for a few days, or a week, or whatever, if a player lets me know in advance -- all the players are adults with careers and business travel is just a reality to deal with in this case. Vanishing without a word, however, is impolite and will likely result in position forfeiture where a simple advance warning would have preserved the position. My feeling is that players generally conform to the guidelines set at the beginning of the game - the game I am running and also playing in never had a suggested turn-around time, and thus is running at almost 3 days per turn, which is fine, but I point it out simply because I think there is a correlation between my not stating a turn-around time at the beginning, and the generally slow pace of the game. It is, however, at Turn 50 with two players eliminated, so it is probably taking players much longer to do turns now. It certainly is for me.

Diplomacy: This is totally up to you and the players. Some games only allow diplomacy through the in-game message system and public forums such as a messageboard; others allow private email as well. Keep in mind that if players want to circumvent restrictions on diplomacy, they can do so and you can't really police it, since they can just exchange email addresses via the private message system in the game. Thus, it's best to ask your players what they want, since they're going to be the ones enforcing whatever rules are set. If everyone wants to keep diplomacy in-game, they'll do it. Some players prefer this as they are not forced to keep up with prolific diplomats who have a lot of free time to write multiple detailed Messages each turn via email.

Lastly, you can make your job as host much easier by automating the turn-collection and turn-mailing process. Have all the players put a standard subject line on their turns, set your email client to sort according to this subject, and make a new folder just for turns. Then all you have to do is check the folder to see if all the turns are there.

For mailing turns, I've written a Perl script that handles sending the proper .trn files to each player. Once you have it all set up, you just double-click on the hosting.pl file once and everything gets emailed automatically. There is no way I could host 4 games (or even 2 games) without it. You can find instructions at:

http://www.maladjustite.com/dom2_hosting.html

I hope that helps.

[snowcrash22]

Thanks for the replies!

Is it possible to switch from TCPIP to PBEM?

I'm thinking have everyone agree to an weekend afternoon/night (dependant on time zones), set up an irc channel in a little window, pound through the first 25 turns on a server and then drop into a nice relaxing PBEM games

What I really need is a test buddy to try these things out.

[ March 06, 2004, 00:16: Message edited by: snowcrash22 ]

[archaeolept]

that sounds excellent. get the first part of the game out of the way in a nice little mini-marathon, and then settle down to more thoughtful/diplomatic turn/day or turn/2days.

that way, as well, there's less reason to have a small, cluttered, cut-throat map.

up to 6 or 7 players on Karan (orania if more), magic 50 or 55, indep str 6, hall of fame 15, 1 starting province? (or 4 or Orania. 2 provinces is too random as the extra one might be great or it might be crap)

oh, and I'd vote for having the stats off, as the information given by them just seems so illegitimate in an MP game.

If you do get one going I'm definitely up for it. Jot or Marignon or Ulm.

[djtool]

i might be down send me a pm when you get it started if you'll have me

[Kel]

I'd be up for Ulm

- Kel

[PhilD]

I might be interested, but it's likely that the "semi-marathon" start will be a problem for me - I'm in Europe, so if the majority is west of the Atlantic, my possible semi-marathon times are likely to not be the same as for the rest of the crowd...

Otherwise, I'd be in as Man.

[Baalz]

I'm game.

C'tis
Jotunheim
Tein Chi