Greetings & Introductions

[Nimrod]

Hello LT community !

I've recently joined the forums as a new player, and would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself.

My Freeciv experience is quite long (or at least, it feels that way!). I've been playing for many years, and have seen the game evolve quite nicely. I probably started playing a very early version of Freeciv 2 some time ago, and focused mostly on multiplayer play once the initial mastering of AI play was done.

Online play began, as most others, with pickup games advertised on the Metaserver. That's where I met a long time player called "Master" from Venezuela. He showed me a few tricks on the way. He also introduced me to Warciv, which I played a fair amount for a while but quickly realized that many of the members of that closed, insular community were.. how to put it, not particularly congenial people

Anyhow, I spent some time playing games against the usual bunch on Davide's freeciv-debian servers. Lots of fun, and some crazy games. It was here that Davide told me about his new project, Greatturn (or GT). Similar to LT in concept, but a new spin on it. I decided to head on out, register on the forums, and play a game to see what it was like to play a single turn a day.

That's when I got hooked. I've played in almost every GT game that was hosted, and even participated in the creation of a few games. Plus administered several games as well. Here's a list of the games that I was involved in:

GT01 (Victory with ally Monamipierrot on large, sprawling continental map)
GT03
GT05
GT06 (Victory with allies Sillo, Chill, Morphles and Hasp on Islands map)
GT07 (A World War I scenario that I developed with Ferdi-XYZ)
GT08 (A race to colonize the Americas scenario, partially developed with Davide)
GT09
GT10-Africa (A colonial era, late 19th Century African scenario developed by Ferdi-XYZ)
GT11 (A recreation of the Game of Thrones map by Ferdi-XYZ)
GT12 (never started)

So, as you can see, I've got quite a bit of playing/administering/designing of 1 turn a day games under my belt. Hopefully the transition to LT games won't be too difficult.

Also, I see that many of the players from GT are here as well. Perhaps some of them are suffering from detox like I am

I hope to see you all on the battlefield.

Cheers,

[wieder]

Yeah, welcome to LT!

I have been playing few games here in LT and one in GT. That one was GT00. I tried joining GT01 few times but the game crashed or was restarted twice and I missed the second restart.

I'm not sure how the rules were in GT but here in LT pretty much everything the server allows you to do is allowed. The exceptions are staying online 24/7 and hacking the system There is currently no limit to the online time, but it has been working pretty well if the game is disconnected after doing the moves, chatting and stuff like that. GT had a time limit of 4 hours?

Many players are using IRC but that's not something you have to have.

[Nimrod]

Thanks dudes !

Yeah, welcome to LT!

I'm not sure how the rules were in GT but here in LT pretty much everything the server allows you to do is allowed. The exceptions are staying online 24/7 and hacking the system There is currently no limit to the online time, but it has been working pretty well if the game is disconnected after doing the moves, chatting and stuff like that. GT had a time limit of 4 hours?

Many players are using IRC but that's not something you have to have.

Which IRC is being used, specifically ? I'm on irc.freenode.org with the freeciv devs sometimes. Is there a better one for here ?

Also, I noticed a rule that says one should NOT be connected while another player is playing their turn. Is that for real? That was never the case on GT... even the rule is worded as a suggestion, so I'm wondering how hard it's enforced here (or at all?).

[wieder]

Usually #longturn on Freenode for talk about the game and stuff like that but during the games some people have been using irc channels for team/alliance talk.

I think that rule means that it's highly encourages to let the other persons do their moves when you are done moving. In ideal world there wouldn't be real time strategy but sometimes it's inevitable and it's certainly not forbidden. What's forbidden is doing your moves first thing in the morning and then leaving the client open for the rest of the day so that you can react whenever someone makes a move against you. It has been ok to login, stay online even for few hours and do that.

The rule of thumb is simple. Anything is allowed as long as you make it at least theoretically possible for other people to do their moves when you are not online

What it comes to the turn changes, most people seem to agree that it's ok for playing it as a real time strategy even if you are normally a player who gives others to make their moves in peace. All that TC stuff has been very difficult to prevent from RTS point of view and it's more like a tradition that big alliances do it especially in the late game. Building roads in the last minutes of the turn, moving units into positions allowing them to fortify really fast and so on. This is not really fair especially for those who can't be online at the tc but what can you do...

[Nimrod]

Thanks, wieder. I've personally seen those types of "strategies" used in the past (maybe "abuses" is a better word?) and have come to expect them, especially around turn change.

Actually, during end game, when the stakes are highest, that's usually when it happens the most. I'm no angel about it, either, since I've resorted to doing it with allies before. It seems there isn't much that can be done to prevent it... it's just a part of the game that you must come to terms with.

The good thing about having people from all around the world is that, at one point or another, some people simply cannot be around during TC.

We had a rotating clock of 23 hours over at GT. Is that also taking place here? Or is TC always at the same time. If yes, that certainly favors some time zones and disadvantages others...

[wieder]

Yeah, that TC stuff is so common that I don't really even TC roads and forts as traditional RTS. I'll do that when it's needed and at the same time I hope it could be avoided somehow.

Longturn uses 23h turns and the first turns has been 3*23h. Some of the admin(s) (Edrim I think) was proposing 25h turns but as of today it didn't happen.

Abusing... Lots of abuses have been fixed but some of them can't be figured out. One of the biggest issues have been the problem with the players making big and huge alliances. I've been part of those and the best fix so far has been limiting the number of winners but even that is not a perfect solution since there are (few) players who don't really seek to win but only play the game

[mmm2]

hello Nimrod, Welcome to longturn!

TWO MOST DANGEROUS STRATEGIES:
* RTS (real time strategy defense/attack)
* ETA or 2 for 1

Summary of "RTS": refers to being online often so as to be able to attack or intercept the moves of the enemy team during crucial periods of the clock when players most often move (the last hour, and first hour of every turn). Players such as Kevin employ this trick to be online all the time, and even to turn their speakers on high so they can be awoken to the sound effects of ships swimming and footsteps of war units. Normally it is considered bad manners to be online too much, so as to even block enemy RTS moves during non-RTS hours (non rts hours are anytime not during the first and last hours of the turn).

Summary of "ETA/2for1": refers to the tactic of attacking at end of turn, and continuing with move at beginning of following turn. Usually this employs using a group of 5-6 workers to lay roads at end of turn, and then move attackers at beginning of turn, or another variation of this is to move attackers with 10 hours remaining on clock, and then move them again at start of turn so as to avoid the "10 hour unit freeze."

These types strategies can demoralize opponents, sometimes finishing off an entire opponent in 2 to 3 turns. While these moves like ETA's/2for1 moves are considered sleazy and obnoxious, they are not illegal. We are trying to discourage this type of play, because recently we had quite a few players such as jhh and ifaesfu quitting because of the end turn abuses. We have found there is no real solution to these problems, but to just accept that every game there will be a small minority of players with a lot of time free to play RTS style. In usual games, there are 4-5 players playing RTS while the other 20+ (ie, maho), play very short 10 or 12 minute turns.

To summarize,..
TWO TYPES OF PLAYERS:
1) Vassal: a player who plays less than 15 minutes each turn all game, who generally will accept peace and fall into mega alliances (example of this: Maho, Temmakiel).
2) Micro-manager: a player who spends huge amount of time (sometimes 8+ hours in end game) each turn micromanaging every aspect of the game, and sometimes taking on responsibility of 2 or sometimes 3 delegations simultenously, employing ruthless tactics such as RTS, ETA's, and other effective gameplay strategies.

You can switch between being Vassal and micro-manager. Example of this is "Elrik", he is top 5 player as a micromanager, but just average when being a vassal. So you can see, that your rating/perception of rating in Longturn might be defined more by how much time you spend than your actual skill level. There are some exception such as Akfaew and Kryon who seem to play consist at the top even with minimal time spent every turn!

I would like to make tutorial at some point so that beginner players know all of the common algorithms, keyboard shortcuts, terms, etc. I will complete this soon hopefully!

[Corbeau]

So, really, why not limit online time to 4 hours?

BTW, I'm not really *new* here, played some non-LT games a long time ago, then disappeared, and then discovered GT, joined and... witnessed its downfall. Now I'm here to try to renew my daily fix.

BTW, played Civ for 20 years; not so long ago, I could sketch the whole Civ1 tree from my head. Not today, though.

So, when do we start?

On another note, as much as I'd like to start *now*, maybe a better idea would be to wait till September. I'll have a 3-week vacation with a lot of travelling involved in August and I presume a lot of people will be AFK then, too.

[Nimrod]

Hey Corbeau, nice to see you again

A good way to discourage RTS abuses is to make use of the "restrictinfra" setting, which I believe will be "enabled" for the upcoming LT33.

It's not a perfect solution, but it slows things down somewhat. At least until Mobile Warfare anyways

[HanduMan]

Hello all!

Since the OP put the subject of this topic in plural I dare to post also my greetings here. :rolleyes:

I have previously played a few private multiplayer games with 12-24 hours timeouted turn-block setup and heavily customised rulesets. It's been a while since we last played and I thought I might try and join a Longturn.org game for fun. So I just signed up for LT34.

As I am new to LT I started browsing the Longturn.org web site and forums for information about the gameplay in LT. I found the intro and rules and a lot of discussion in the forums. A lot. And partly irrelevant (like pre-game proposals which have already been ruled out etc.) What I failed to find and desperately need to know is, how is the LT game different from standard freeciv game with default ruleset? Do you have some basic LT ruleset which is slightly altered for each game and what are the essential differences in it compared to the default set? I'm sure it's somewhere here, in bits & pieces or maybe even collected in one all-explaining post, but I just cannot find it. Could someone please link me to that information. And maybe put that information also on the web site?

Also is the ruleset for each game downloadable from somewhere once it is decided for?

Thank you!

[maho]

I think Wieder posted some summary about it few months ago, but I cannot find it. And many people did it before, so it must be SOMEWHERE.

The major change is triple movement. Remaining changes are details.

[buggy]

You can get all the rulesets from Github. It's really useful to skim everything at least once, I learnt this lesson the hard way.

[evan]

Hi HanduMan,

You said you picked up some of the differences here and there, so you probably know about there being many more veteran levels, and how it effects MPs as well.

Knowing about the ruleset variations might not be enough to give you an appreciation of their relative importance in actual gameplay though - I'll give you an example:

Workers also progress in levels, but unlike military units which need combat victories to progress, the workers' progression calculation happens every time they do something, which is usually every turn.
So workers quickly reach the point where they can move onto a hills/forest/swamp tile and build a road in one turn.
This has imlications not only for the speed with which players can expand their territory, but also launch invasions.

LT33 was my first LT game, and I found it interesting to read the discussions leading up to the finalisation of the ruleset.
It gives you an idea of what to expect in the game, because people talk about various consequences and what has happened in past games, etc.

But there can be a lot of changes going back and forth, making it hard to keep track.
Wieder will put a post up once the ruleset is finalised setting everything out, then the Github will be updated.
So you might want to wait until then.

Once the LT game had started, I was really surprised when I read the ingame chat to see how many people didn't know even some of the most basic rule changes, like workers and settlers being able to be captured, for example. So if you're able to spare a couple of hours to go over everything before the game starts, using Github as a reference, it will give you a strategic advantage.

You don't want to make a silly mistakes in the early game like wasting half a dozen turns trying to build a city somewhere, only to realise that it wasn't 5 tiles away.

Don't forget, once the game starts some people will be wary about helping you. And some will lie by omission.
May the odds be ever in your favour!

[huru]

Hi,

New player to longturn.org here as well, I thought to drop few lines and say hello. Looking forward to interesting times with LT34 I have played few rounds of private long turn games in past but not recently so there will probably be quite a few surprises to be met. Looking forward to those as well

Anyways, good luck all and please don't kill me quick

By the way, any tweetlings among us? how about using #lt34 to tweet some interesting bits about game events? Kind of a social experiment..