I agree with Matt. I play a lot in our company of about 30 Russian-speaking players. We never use the CPL or PYDT rules. But we do have our own set of rules:
FORBIDDEN:
1.1. Transferring unoccupied cities.
Example: Nation 1 is destroyed by Nation 2. However, Nation 1 is given a remote city, and Nation 1 loses the fruits of victory, as all the cities it captured remain occupied.
1.2. Fake Wars.
Example: Nation 1 and Nation 2 approach each other at the start of the game. They begin a FW. They plunder each other’s mines and plantations and immediately restore them, receiving a huge influx of gold and faith.
Also, declaring war to obtain a civic or, for example, an Australian boost is prohibited.
1.3. Blocking a tile with a unit in a friend’s/ally’s territory. Upon request, such a unit must leave the cell within the next turn.
1.4. Destroying your own tiles to harm an attacking enemy is only possible with units (example: clearing tiles by spamming Wonders or Suburbs is prohibited).
1.5. Skipping Great People.
We also often limit the number of city-states that can be captured.
I certainly agree with all of those and they seem like the sort of thing you’d just do to be a dick, which I hope none of us are.
Why no skipping Great People? I only do it rarely, but sometimes you really don’t want that particular one - there’s the scientist that needs a Holy Site, or certain Merchants who I wouldn’t use their power.
Any suggestions from all on rules regarding City States? I don’t mind either way but am unlikely to want to capture any…
Thanks guys. So yeah, good to play with existing rules (i.e. no rules). I am kind of with Matt though on the skipping great people though, as I am often looking for a particular GP to come available (not always guaranteed it will). What is the rationalization for this one Alex? I don’t exactly understand some of the rules you list Alex, but if I ever play in a game with rules, I will ask for clarification! But yeah, I was looking at CPL rules, and saw that I do break them in solo play, so was wary of breaking any rules here unwittingly. Even the city states one you list. In my other game, Gilgamesh will perhaps want to capture city states! I better ask about rules there too!
I also disagree with the logic of some of our rules. But they were discussed and accepted by the majority of our player group.
I even deliberately violated one of the rules to draw attention to its imperfection: the restriction on sabotage against an attacking enemy means they’re hesitant to capture a doomed city until they’ve plundered its territory. Furthermore, they force the city to work for them, for example, by having a merchant from the city pave the way.
I had another problem loading the game this morning but figured it out. The Hotseat Button wasn’t activating anything. Pressed it and it didn’t go anywhere. Fortunately, a google search led me to a fairly quick fix. Had to Verify the Integrity of the Files. At least we didn’t have to revert turns this time. Not sure why these issues are happening occasionally though.
Glad you got it sorted out. My only problem I noticed is that I got to keep my hot seat saved file region empty, especially when playing more than one game (like we are). PYDT looks at that folder and tries to figure out what to do, and if it has more than one file there it sometimes gets confused and won’t load.
Alright, this is kind of a bug exploit that I thought I’d mention since it just happened to me and could have used it to my advantage (but didn’t, I promise!). If you forget to move all your pieces, the game will still let you go to next turn, but it will then throw you back to make you finish your turn. So, I finished moving all my units, but then PYDT gets messed up with its sync and says I have to play my turn again – and I have TWO files in my saved games area. The only way I found to clear this error is to Delete all the saved files, then reset PYDT, and then download the turn again, and REPLAY THE TURN. But because I now have knowledge of what I did on the turn, I COULD change my moves to be more advantageous to me. But I exactly repeated the moves I did earlier. This could be used to cheat (a little) by replaying the turn. I propose that we do not replay turns, and if we have to replay a turn (for any reason), that we duplicate exactly the same moves. What do you think?
I ran into that too!!! I thought that was what you were referring to when you said you had to clear games from the PYDT folder. But yeah, I have read on the forums that if you have to redo your turn you copy it as much as possible. I don’t think there is any defense against it, so they say, other than some wise people getting a sense of nefarious things going on consistently in their games by a player. What says the vets, what is the common consencus on how to deal with that issue other than depending on a fair game by all. I liked SMAC where it actually gave a message to all the players following you that you replayed the turn!
If this happens and you go to the screen with both Save Game and Start Turn available, just click the Start Turn button and it takes you back into the game with the moves still available.
To be fair, at any point you can exit a game without saving and then go back and replay the turn but it is a common unspoken rule that you don’t do this expect in the event of a misclick and then, as you say, play your turn the second time exactly as you did the first apart from the misclick.
World Congress: My first one without the predictability of AI!!! A whole new strategy to think about. Will see how adept I am in figuring out what everyone is going to vote on, and of course weighing how the result would advantage my civ. Or maybe, just what old Laurier would do… Can’t wait to find out the results. It seems to be much more interesting in multiplayer format.
Interesting results of world congress. Looks like the Peacenicks and Artsie types win the day!!! What a wonderful world! I only managed 1 diplomatic point though! Way to go Gorgo with inflicting your will on the rest of us!
Hi Alex and Matt: Perhaps you can help Steve and I with how to register or declare a win in this format. We just finished a Dual game between the two of us, and when the Victory screen came up as I took over his capital, I was not allowed to save the game. Therefore, when I closed the game, it did not register on the PYDT client and I could not forward the turn to Steve to show it was won (although I redid the turn and took a screenshot of the victory image). How am I supposed to do this, plus have the client close. Thanks for your help, it may come up in this game as well when I win… OK, you can gang up on me now!
OK, you can gang up on me now!