Civ 5
+ Gods & Kings
+Brave New World
As regards game settings, there currently is no equivalent to Civ 4’s advanced settings. There are mods that can do all kinds of things however Firaxis, in their wisdom, didn't see fit to allow mods in multiplayer.
That means all we can do to speed up the start of the game is to begin in a later era. I’m thinking either the following:
Classical Era; 2500BC – 1 Settler, 1 worker, 2 spearmen or warriors
Medieval Era; 250AD – 2 settlers, 1 worker, 2 spearmen or warriors plus 1 scout
As for other settings:
Large map, standard game pace, prince difficulty,
Map-wise, I was thinking of Pangea Plus – Pangea maps lead to conflict quicker I think.
All victory conditions allowed, bar maybe time, since certain civs are better suited to certain victory types. It will all end in war anyway…
One other thing – regarding leaders, we may want to think about banning certain ones – I believe some are considered OP and unbalanced. We can finalise that once we’re about to get started but so far, I understand the following civs/leaders are usually banned:
Korea
Babylon
Poland
Spain
Finally, the elephant in the room is the time it is taking for turns at the moment. Waiting around for a week for your turn is incredibly frustrating and unfair to other players. At the same time, it’s not always possible to check for your turn or play it every day. I know Rev looked into Pitboss and it wasn’t a runner however, I think I've found a solution.
http://multiplayerrobot.com/
MPR is basically a pitboss like website that can run civ5 pbem games like pitboss does. You sign in through steam (so it’s secure), there’s a tiny client and it works more or less like pitboss. Most importantly, there is a turn timer. So if one player, (Cherry, *cough, *cough
) doesn’t take his turn within a certain time frame, the AI will take it for him. The MPR client will show whose turn it is, time left etc. Oh yeah, and it’s completely free.You should watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQNczFe5Icc it explains everything probably quicker than trying to read the stuff on the website.
Thoughts, suggestions?
Oh and one final thing, a certain ex-HIV member has expressed an interest in playing....
