Smack talk goes here for Archipelago FFA no mods! Game URL: https://playyourdamnturn.com/game/e5f47d72-0829-442e-aae6-72693daaff34
howdy all and welcome! couple questions for the group so far:
- would you like to play with 6 players instead of 8, or wait til we have 8?
- @Manoir requested a draft for civ selection, would you like a fully random draft from a group-approved list of civs (I use civilizationdrafter.com to assign each player’s civs) or would you like a list of civs (2 or 3) to pick from?
I don’t mind waiting for 8. As for civ selection, I defer to the group, but will happily learn and play any civ I get.
I don’t mind waiting for 8 either. As for the picks I’m a little confused what the difference between the two choices are? 
I use Civ Drafter too and I vote for it.
I’m in!
I presume the drafter will select seafaring Civs. If so, I’m happy with that.
I’ll try to be more clear. Both scenarios I listed would use civilizationdrafter, it’s just a question of how many picks each player will get. I assume (perhaps incorrectly?) that @Manoir 's reason for requesting a draft is to make sure not to get a non-naval specialized civ when other players have naval specialized civs. To avoid this scenario happening to any player, there’s two solutions I can imagine, both using civilizationdrafter.com:
- as a group, we decide that we will all have naval-specialized civs, identify a list of 8 naval civs and have civilizationdrafter randomly assign one to each player.
- as a group, we decide that no one will have a naval-specialized civ. We identify a list of the civs with the largest naval advantage, and eliminate them from the draft. In this scenario, I expect there to be enough civs in play that civilizationdrafter could provide a set of at least two civs for each player to choose from.
Personally, I’m indifferent either way. we’ll wait for an 8th before beginning
I’m in favor of waiting for an 8th player, and I prefer no one having a naval-specialized civ.
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No naval sea will probably be more equal
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I also vote for no naval specialized civs partly because I don’t know how to play naval, but also party because I would like to choose from a few choices.
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Yes, I misunderstood.
All non-naval would be fun. I’d like to have a choice from 2 or 3 Civs but am easy.
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awesome! that’s a majority I can get behind right there. so it’s decided – we’ll conduct a draft providing each player with as many options as feasible (2 or 3) after eliminating civs with special advantage. Here’s the civs that jump out to me as having navy/coast advantages:
Australia (coast bonus)
Byzantine (unique naval unit)
Netherlands (unique naval unit)
England (unique naval unit)
Germany (unique naval unit)
Indonesia (coast bonus & unique naval unit)
Maori (naval tech bonus & various naval bonuses)
Norway (naval tech bonus)
Ottoman (unique naval unit)
Phoenicia (unique naval unit & coast bonuses)
Portugal (unique naval unit & coast bonuses)
Spain (mild naval tech & trade bonuses)
that’s 12 civs, assuming no one has any further suggestions for civs to ban – leaving 38 civs – certainly should be able to give each player a list of 3 civs to choose from
what does everyone think? should we ban all 12, or ban the 12 and additional civs?
I think that’s a good list, thanks, but I admit that I can’t remember how the base game versus the modes/expansions changed civs.
Yeah that list looks comprehensive.
It depends @Catalpa. Are you talking about Civ 6 vanilla versus Gathering Storm? There are a lot of differences between those two. If you’re just talking the difference between GS and GS with mods then it depends on how many and which mods we’re using. A lot of them, like Better Balanced Start and Better Balanced Game don’t change game play. Others, like Sucrits Ocean do change the dynamics quite a bit and you have to familiarise yourself with the variations.
I know @Catalpa from the Civ Players League community and almost if not every game in there is played with the Better Balanced maps and Better Balanced Game mods. BBG especially changes a lot of the gameplay, as it rewrites the abilities of many leaders and civilizations, for the sake of multiplayer balance.
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I remember a game where my previous 2 v 2 partner and I went with the civ that we thought was going to complete a tech/civic each time it would have gotten a eureka. I forget the civ, but we had a nasty surprise waiting for us when we saw what BBG changed! Our fault for not looking into it. 
If I understand your plan here, the remaining 38 or so civs will get split into 8 groups, and then we can read about our 4 or so civs and choose one from them? I think that’s something I could do, read about my options and pick the best one for me.
Oh yeah I have almost done the exact same mistake. It is the Babyonian civilization ability in the base game
I stand corrected on BBG. I was thinking along the lines of the inclusion of Governors, Government Plaza etc. Though I acknowledge that Governor promotions are altered a fair bit too in BBG…I think I’m right in saying!
pretty much – the details of what will happen will be a bit different, but that’s the basic idea. I’ll tell civilizationdrafter.com to exclude those 12 civs from the draft, and generate a random list of 3 civs for each player. Each player picks their civ from their list of 3, and then I set up the game.
Now, for the list of 12 I didn’t scrutinize leaders (which have different bonuses in cases of multiple available leaders for the same civ), just made a list of the 12 civs in the nonmodded game with any kind of bonus associated with coasts/navies. At this point, it’s more of a discussion of whether anyone has an argument why one of the 12 should actually be able to be played in the game, or if there are civs amongst the other 38 people feel are sufficiently overpowered that they should be banned as well.
If you’re not familiar with the base game bonuses (as you’ve described), if I were you I wouldn’t stress about this part of the discussion too much and just look closely at your 3 possible civs when you get your list
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I’m happy with that @banman39. I actually like the challenge of facing powerful Civs or having a poor starting position as things can even out when later era resources are uncovered.
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