The theme for LT36

[wieder]

What kind of theme would you like to have?

LT34 had a theme with easier sim citying in the early game and more military action in the late game. There was also an attempt to make it easier to grow bigger with economy and I think that kind of worked well if you didn't want to make war. At least until the late game

LT35 has a theme of more naval action and weight on the naval operations.

Since not that many players are playing LT35, we could use the naval theme from there but maybe something else could be added? LW3 has a gameplay without the ability to build more settlers and the theme is basically huge cities, growing them and using the local resources to the max. To help this there is even bigger working are for the cities.

One way we could use this idea with LT36 could be allowing settlers but making them to cost 4 or 8 (or more!) population. Or maybe we could simply disable building settlers. The downside to this is the second palace small wonder Freeciv 2.5 allows. There is probably not that much need for a wonder like that if it's not possible to build settlers. Oh... And if it was impossible to build settlers, there would be 8-10 of them as start units. Settlers could also be very expensive. If one would cost 300 shields it would take a long time until anyone built one.

Any other ideas? More wight on the early wars or on the economy?

[maho]

I like idea of superexpensive settlers. But it would be also not easy to capture the city - they should be more easy to destroy, like in LW3.

[wieder]

It's harder to destroy cities in LW3? How easy has it been to destroy cities there?

With 8 settlers as start units there should probably be more than 4 workers. Maybe 8 settlers, 6 workers and no explorers?

The citymindist is now 4 but I guess it should be switched back to 5. LW3 has a bigger map but that's something we probably can't use with LT36 because with 50 players the map will be huge no matter what. Making it even bigger might make it too huge? Maybe?

[maho]

it's easier to destroy city, but is harder to capture it. When you capture city smaller than 8 - you will destroy ut. It's great idea IMHO.

Also, it's very funny when you can locate city only on grass and plains, huge change to well-trodden paths of strategy.

[edrim]

Sudden death ruleset, when you will be attacked earlier then you will attack you can loose a city or two, without chance to build another one it means your death soon.

You can start new test game without chance to produce more cities then initial once. So everybody can test ruleset without global warming after a week.

LW3 ruleset was created for fast warriors wars but it is ended in check-mate wars. It could be funny, but in hudge maps I would bring no upkeep for units.

[wieder]

Good comments Kryon!

How about 8 settlers in the start and a settler costing 4 population? Or maybe 6 settlers and a settler costing 3 population. The ruleset LT36 currently has makes it much easier to build huge cities. A size 9 capital can actually grow every second turn if there are enough grass tiles around.

We can also always play with a similar or close to similar setup we had in LT33 and LT34. It would be cool to hear more comments from LW3 players. We should copy the good features from LW (and the other way around:) but the idea is not to really copy the exact gameplay from LW. LT36 should be more traditional game.

I have been thinking about the alliance sizes and I feel that the problem is with veterans allying with each other. Not the actual alliance size. Would it be possible for you to think about some way to make the ranking scores to encourage veterans into joining with less experienced players? LT34 had survivors but those were effectively 2nd tier winners.

I'll keep thinking ways to encourage smaller alliances or making it harder to maintain a huge alliance. Then again if we really remove gold trading as planned, even the huge alliances would need to have carefully coordinated troops for effective gameplay. Lots of alliances have worked in the past by sharing tech and gold.

Lots of semi-random thoughts from me. Don't hesitate to reply and comment. I don't have all the answers for planning the ruleset and this is a kind of process to create the best possible set of rules for the next game

[edrim]

This rules is nod good idea, because ranking doeas not give powerfull of player at all.
I am bad player but I have many point on ranking because I am playing here since very long time.

[wieder]

There are good in using the scores but edrim is right about the issues with the scoring system. Hhaving a score based upper limit would might allow something like 15 player alliances, as supposed to, but it might also allow 4-5 veterans to team up and that's what I would like to discourage.

The ranking score becomes smaller if there are less players? In a way this should encourage to smaller alliances but it's not enough.

This is what we talked about (about limiting the number of veteran players) before LT34.

http://forum.longturn.org/viewtopic.php?id=437

[maho]

offtopic: I have idea how to prevent huge alliances: techloosing could be proportional to number of allies. Also each ally could generate some cost (money, trade, waste ...).

[wieder]

The problem is that the players don't need to ally in-game.

[maho]

offtopic enhance: "number of allies"=>number of ppl who a)has been chatted privately in last week more than X lines, b)who has other diplstate than war, c)who has shared vision with us, d)who has transferred techs via diplwindow

[wieder]

That would probably require some coding. Also, if you have a chained vision it may not work that well. If player a shares vision to b and be to c then c can see a and b but is onöy sharing with b. How to deal with situations like that?

[edrim]

How to deal with situations like that?

You cant, because every thing you invent will be not as good as leave as it is.

I remember one game where some players from warserver ganged up and killall. It was not so easy for them and not so nice.
They are not playing here anymore.

Everytime someone cheated many times more players didnt want to play with him and game wasnt bring so much fun as it could be.

So write your sentences on forum and ask to accept them before game starts. If someone will cheat that is only his honour and pleasure.

In other way everytime group of players will get stronger then other group of players (because they got better land, weaker neighbours, they are better in microm, etc.) so weaker group in a try of surviving will gang up with another group of weak players. For me it is normal, I dont care. I am trying not to joing to wolfpacks because it is destroys my enjoying the game.

Another way - I am going in the path of smaller games, because I dont have time for micromanagment in the last 2-3 months of a game but everytime I want to test something and joining big game so much that I am spending many hours planing strategies and talking.

Maybe I am addicted.

[Xercise]

Dear fellow Freeciv enthusiasts,

I used to play LT31, LT32 and LT34 and am now coming back for LT36, but as I do not have time to sift through all the forum, I was wondering if somebody has (or could) summarise(d) the main characteristics of LT36. For example:

- Tech trading/leakage
- Gold trading
- Alliance settings/rules
- Fort construction, capture settings (in regards to the end of TC strategies that are such a pain)
- Siege weapon limitations (can or can't attack mountains/hills without roads, non-native territory?)
- Settler cost

... and any other major changes compared to previous games.

I know I am asking a lot, but perhaps this will help many other slightly overworked, but eager players like myself to keep you switched-on players on your toes and give you a run for your money

Cheers, Xercise (LT31 Church alliance, LT32 Shriekers, and aka Mika the damned in LT34)