Discussion about the format of the longturn game

Planning and discussing Freeciv Longturn gaming
User avatar
Canik
Veteran
Posts: 91
Joined: Tue Jul 18, 2017 4:26 am

Re: Discussion about the format of the longturn game

Post by Canik »

pungtryne wrote:It seems to me that with so many players, getting a free tech when researching philosophy gets a little unbalanced, or at least gives an effect that was probably not intended when making the ruleset. As of today, one can save off researching philosophy for later and get a tech cosing thousands of bulbs for just 200. When many people do this together and share, it's lots of "free" tech that gets researched very fast.

Others than me that don't think this is optimal? Same issue can be raised about Darwins voyage too.
I agree.
User avatar
Corbeau
Elite
Posts: 1291
Joined: Mon Jan 13, 2014 11:13 pm

Re: Discussion about the format of the longturn game

Post by Corbeau »

Depends. Do you get a random available tech or just the next in line? Or the one set as your goal?
--
* Freeciv LongTurn, a community of one-turn-per-day players and developers
* LongTurn Blog - information nexus with stuff and stuff and stuff
* Longturn Discord server; real-time chatting, discussing, quarrelling, trolling, gaslighting...
User avatar
Corbeau
Elite
Posts: 1291
Joined: Mon Jan 13, 2014 11:13 pm

Re: Discussion about the format of the longturn game

Post by Corbeau »

wieder wrote:There has been bigger games like LT30 where 70 players joined the game.

http://longturn.org/game/LT30/

Lots of people felt that was simply too much. At least with the ruleset and settings used for that game. Nowdays 70 might be doable since the rulesets have been modified for dealing with lots of players if necessary.
Actually, I would prefer more people to be in the game. The thing is, people complaining about "too much people" are playing a different game. What I want from Civilization - and, consequently, Longturn, wihch is actually the best format for this - is a simulation of real world politics, diplomacy, war, basically, Civilization. For this, there is no need whatsoever for Vietnam to deal with Mexico or Zimbabwe to have any kind of special relations to Kuwait. They may, but it isn't necessary. What may be the case is that, in the real world, major superpowers do much more diplomacy and they do it with everybody, but on the other hand, they can afford to have more people employed in diplomacy to make it happen which currently isn't feasible (although, it may be fun to implement; see my idea about "more people running a single nation"). But that isnt' possible at the moment.
--
* Freeciv LongTurn, a community of one-turn-per-day players and developers
* LongTurn Blog - information nexus with stuff and stuff and stuff
* Longturn Discord server; real-time chatting, discussing, quarrelling, trolling, gaslighting...
wieder
Elite
Posts: 303
Joined: Thu Jul 27, 2017 10:43 am

Re: Discussion about the format of the longturn game

Post by wieder »

Yeah, the number of the players depends on what you want to want to play. With 30 players it's kind of optimal because there you can have relations with everyone or choose not to deal with most players. I'm not saying a 70 player game would to be too far from the optimal atm. Stuff has been fixed.

If we will really get 126 players for alongturn.org game one day, that would be really great. I wouldn't try to split them to two games as a default solution. Maybe first getting some new experience from that many players and then thinking what to do.

The biggest challenge for longturn.org, as far as the number of players is concerned, is that we need to avoid idlers. Too many idlers unbalance the game and make it less interesting for everyone. It's not nice if your enemy suddenly conquers an idling neighbor and doubles his/her production without any extra effort.

The issue with the idlers should be solved somehow but there is no easy way for doing that.
User avatar
Corbeau
Elite
Posts: 1291
Joined: Mon Jan 13, 2014 11:13 pm

Re: Discussion about the format of the longturn game

Post by Corbeau »

What I'd like to see is slower progress, more time to do diplomacy and make use of existing tech before getting the next one.

Also, something to think about: incorporate defeated players into existing nations; maybe even create some kind of "vassal states"; the defeated player surrenders and gives control over his nation to the winner. Maybe by use of delegation. (Is it technically possible for one player to receive more delegations? Something tells me "yes", but I'm not sure.) in return, they are "incorporated" into the larger empire and can actually take roles regarding diplomacy or something. Actually, this may even be possible to do using current code.
--
* Freeciv LongTurn, a community of one-turn-per-day players and developers
* LongTurn Blog - information nexus with stuff and stuff and stuff
* Longturn Discord server; real-time chatting, discussing, quarrelling, trolling, gaslighting...
wieder
Elite
Posts: 303
Joined: Thu Jul 27, 2017 10:43 am

Re: Discussion about the format of the longturn game

Post by wieder »

The sciencebox setting works well for that purpose. In some of the previous games it was intentionally set really low and that was 60% or 70%. For future games, with the exception of SG1, we will probably switch back to 100%.

Technically there is no limit to the number of delegations. The limit has been set to 1, usually, just to make the game more balanced. Too good players playing too many nations was not really liked by some people.
User avatar
Corbeau
Elite
Posts: 1291
Joined: Mon Jan 13, 2014 11:13 pm

Re: Discussion about the format of the longturn game

Post by Corbeau »

Well, in LT38 it's 100% and, if it was regular and not team game, it would still a bit too fast for my taste. Especially with techleak. Actually, the default would be a maximum speed, I guess. Again, the civ tech rate is set for a single-player, where you want a feeling of a steady progress agains the computer. In Multiplayer, you (ok, I :P )want to take some time to do things. In the other hand, the start itself does seem a bit too slow. Not regarding units, that is also at its maximum speed, could be slowed down even further. But the start itself...

As for delegations, if people are against "stronger players running more nations", it would make perfect sense if the said player actually conquered and submitted said nations and is getting partial control over them in exchange for survival and some score in the end. Then you also get additional element: possible betrayal / breaking of an oath, if the dominating party breaks an agreement or something.

Militarily inclined players wouldn't like this, but those interested in variety and politics would deeply and thoroughly enjoy it.

BTW, what happens if the original owner and the delegate log in and use /take command at the same time?
--
* Freeciv LongTurn, a community of one-turn-per-day players and developers
* LongTurn Blog - information nexus with stuff and stuff and stuff
* Longturn Discord server; real-time chatting, discussing, quarrelling, trolling, gaslighting...
User avatar
Corbeau
Elite
Posts: 1291
Joined: Mon Jan 13, 2014 11:13 pm

Re: Discussion about the format of the longturn game

Post by Corbeau »

Actually, about "quick start". Can the "add to city" property be separated from "creates a city"? If yes, then that problem (if it is a problem) can be solved by creating a new unit: Early Settler. I had an idea about it, I called the "Founders", but for some reason, I couldn't get it to start. Anyway, these would be the properties:

- can not be built
- does NOT "add to city" (if possible)

And, while we're at it:

- when building a city, jump to size 2 (if possible)
- movement 1 AND IgTer (because why not? It reduces some bad luck with initial unit spawning)
--
* Freeciv LongTurn, a community of one-turn-per-day players and developers
* LongTurn Blog - information nexus with stuff and stuff and stuff
* Longturn Discord server; real-time chatting, discussing, quarrelling, trolling, gaslighting...
cazfi
Elite
Posts: 3077
Joined: Tue Jan 29, 2013 6:54 pm

Re: Discussion about the format of the longturn game

Post by cazfi »

Corbeau wrote:- can not be built
Easy
Corbeau wrote:- does NOT "add to city" (if possible)
I think this will be possible in freeciv-3.0 with action enablers for Add to City action, but I'm afraid in earlier versions you can't have some city founder units that can Add to City and others that don't (you can set the maximum city size for Add to City availability to 1, but that would affect all units)
Corbeau wrote:- when building a city, jump to size 2 (if possible)
Unit types have city_size property telling which size cities they found.
Corbeau wrote:- movement 1 AND IgTer (because why not? It reduces some bad luck with initial unit spawning)
Easy
wieder
Elite
Posts: 303
Joined: Thu Jul 27, 2017 10:43 am

Re: Discussion about the format of the longturn game

Post by wieder »

if I understood correctly, this could be done by removing the AddToCity flag from settlers.

flags = "Settlers", "NonMil", "AddToCity", "Cities"

I didn't test it but the Cities flag should be enough for founding new cities.

What I didn't see is the setting used to select what unit will be created as a start unit when it's C. How to select Early Settler instead of a Settler?

Making the cities size 2 from the start would result with an extra working tile. Now settlers take 2 population because a new city has 2 working tiles because that keeps it balanced. It's a cool feature from civ2civ3 ruleset :)
Post Reply