The test for SG1 has been restarted

[wieder]

City trading is now off.

I will delegate some player to myself and test stuff. Don't be alerted because of that.

Some players did pick valid nations but for several reasons the actual selected nations were admin selected.

If all goes well, we will start SG1 later today. Another post will be made and the actual game will have 23h turns and the first turn will be extended.

[Sketlux]

Nice! Maybe we can extend the first turn and synchronize it with LT38?

[Corbeau]

I would like to ask that the map be revealed to everybody at start. I didn't have time to check the test game, and some other people probably as well, which puts those who did at an advantage.

[Sketlux]

Ive asked wieder to just rotate the players. I just hope nobody took a screenshot and that everybody has the same bad memory as I do. Otherwise just take Google maps, its a rough guide, no secret where things should be.

I made the scenario but I still prefer to explore.

[kevin551]

I still have many questions / doubts about the ruleset.

1. What will unitwaittime be set to on the real game. Presumably you had to turn it off for the test game.

2. What is the revolution length. It has always been 2 on longturn games. Predictable and fair to all. In the test game I got 1. Is it just random. and I got lucky, or is it really set to 1.

3. Catapult / Cannon ... do not get the veteran bonus when built at a city with a barracks. Is this deliberate?
In civ2civ3 these units are "Big Land" class but here they have become "Big Siege".
The barracks includes the veterancy effect for "Big Land" but not "Big Siege".
These units cannot now be carried on a galleon.

Mech Infantry and Armor are still "Big Land"
This leads to the odd situation that they will get the veterancy bonuses.
And they can be carried on a galleon, whereas Catapult / Cannon cannot.

I assume the "Big Siege" class should have been added into the effects rulest for barracks and galleon.

4. Why are workers capturable but engineers are not?

[wieder]

1) The unitwaittime will be 10h.

2) I never tested rev length on SG1 and apparently that setting is inherited from the .sav file and not from the actual .serv file. If I read it correctly it's always one turn instead of 2. Sketlux probably knows best since he created the scenario and the initial server settings used there.

3) Yes, it's intentional that the catas/cannons/etc don't get veteran levels when built in a city with barracks. In the first game where this happened it was originally an error but in the later games it was compensated by making also catapults and cannons City Buster units. The attack values of the units were also changed so the game should be ok. Today the big siege units always start green because that way they can get more easy promotions. Also the green is already kind of comparable to v units. This rewards those players who actually use the units.

It's also deliberate that more advanced ships are needed for moving them. Not sure if we should change moving them with galleons. For the future games. Not for SG1.

4) The idea with workers being capturable is that the ancient people can be takes as slaves more easily. The more modern version of the unit, engineers are more educated and don't tolerate slavery that easily. It's also a bonus you get when you upgrade workers to engineers.

[Sketlux]

2) Back then I just took the default Britain scenario. Didnt know it would influence it...

[kevin551]

The file SG1.serv has set revolen=1 which would be 1 turn.
The savegame however has "revolen",0,0 which means random.

In the test game I got 1.

I much prefer this setting to be 2. It provides a much greater penalty / risk to frequent changes of government. With the setting 1 you can go into anarchy just before TC and be out of it a few seconds later. Having it set to 2 means you must spend at least a full day (the longturn day is 23 hours I think) and 1 second in anarchy.

[Sketlux]

I agree but dont know if it is still possible or if wieder has already enough of this buggy scenario. Its been a lot of work for him, probably we just have to swallow the pill but remember it for the next time.

[Corbeau]

Let's just play it this way. The settng is the same for everybody so no problem.

[wieder]

We can have a short discussion about changing the revolution setting. However the intended setting was only 1 turn and if we change that, the changed value will be 1 turn.

It's true that the length of the revolution could be 1 second if done just before tc. However the most important thing is that the nation will be in anarchy for at least one tc.

My suggestion is that the game will continue with the current revolution setting. There may be also some other surprises and if there are any we really want to change, those should be changed at once since the game needs to be saved, stopped, edited and resumed. All that needs to be by akfaew since he is the only one with access to the actual save files. This is the first scenario game and we have already learned tons of stuff about creating the scenario games. The future games will benefit from this experience.

[Caedo]

I believe that in general, rules should not be changed once the game has started, not even if a majoritz is in favor of the change, since it might create a feeling of "This isn't what I signed up for". We've had some very serious problems with that over on Freeciv-web when gold trading and city trading were turned off and unitwaittime were turned on mid-game. There were of course good reasons to do this, but changing it mid-game is still something that should not be done unless absolutely necessary.

[wieder]

Indeed, the rules should not be changed during the game. I made a mention about this on the post about winning conditions and game specific rules about SG1.

"Since this is the first Scenario Game, there may be errors. If there are game breaking errors, the ruleset can be changed during the game. This is however something that can be done only in extreme situations. For example, if unit has 3 moves while it should have 2 (or the other way around) there will be no fix during the game."

Now the intended revolution time was 1 turn:

set revolen=1

This is kind of grey area here. Revolution time may change the game but my opinion is that it should remain with the current value set on the .sav file. As Corbeau said, it will affect everyone.

[kevin551]

Sketlux - I really like this map, and I like the idea of playing scenario games. Thanks for creating this.

However I worry that the ruleset and victory conditions are less than ideal.
I would like to play a game where multiple strategies are possible, and if played well each have a chance of winning - combat, growth, diplomacy.
Also if possible the ruleset would try to mimic the conditions that really existed at the time the scenario is set in.

[wieder]

The ruleset was basically taken from LT38 with few minor modifications. This was the easiest route to set up this with the limited resources we had. Moves were changed to 2x from the usual LT 3x. Ideas about changing the ruleset for the next game are more than welcome.

Sketlux already had ideas for the next scenario game. As done with the previous LT games, since the current game has started,we could now open a new forum section for SG2 for ideas and suggestions about how to set it up.

[kevin551]

Okay.
If SG2 were to be based on the WW1 map, which I really like the look of, then it would really need a very specific ruleset to make it interesting.
Otherwise the Americans could just grow / race science and win the game without ever fighting.

[wieder]

I have now opened a forum for SG2 and there is also a short explanation for what to expect.

http://forum.longturn.org/viewtopic.php?pid=6999#p6999

Lots of ideas for planning the ruleset are needed to avoid stuff like Kevin explained in his post. Feel free to suggest stuff.

I will probably admin SG2 if someone else doesn't want to do that