How un[CIV V]ilized

So as discussed in the general vidya thread, I'd love to get an Eagle Time Civ V game going. I know BRP and MrGuy have already expressed interest and I'm sure there are more Civ players here. Who else is interested?

It's critical that we all have the Brave New World expansion, because it lets you do asynchronous multiplayer through the Pitboss mode - you can take your turn at any time, leave the game, and then come back once the next round has begun. Otherwise we'd all have to be online simultaneously and that's just a nightmare.

That said, it would be cool if we could agree on a time to meet for at least the early rounds of the game, because those will go quickly. Once school starts back (Jan 6) I'm limited to Thursday evenings and weekends (EST), but until then I've got nothing pressing. What times work for you?

Also, if there are any special options people would like to play with, I'm open to suggestions.

Let's do this!

P.S. my steam profile is right hurr

P.P.S. It would be fun to do Let's Play-style narrative updates of what's going on in your civ - one of my favorite things about this game is the stories it generates!

I work Thursday evenings, but I could do Saturday afternoons or any time Sunday.

I have G&K as well so I have to wonder if I'll have to disable it before joining or if it's smart about that based on who starts it

Like, for example I was doing an online hot seat game with mods and stuff and that one started before I had any expansions, but even though it just finished yesterday it was like, there was never faith or trade routes or tourism etc the whole time so it still played 'vanilla.'


Anyways I'm available whenever

I'd be numerous varieties of down for such a thing, but I do have a couple of questions, since the last time I started playing multiplayer internet Civ, it was a bit of a pain to set up.

- One potential issue is that the Mac version lags behind the PC version in terms of updatedness any time a patch comes out, often by (if I recall correctly) weeks, so if a patch were to come out and we had some people on one platform and some people on the other, we'd find ourselves stranded on different sides of a compatibility barrier with no way but waiting to get back to the game. Which platform is everyone on? (My main desktop is Windows, but I can play on a Mac if necessary.)

- From what I remember, one of the pitfalls of pitboss is pitthat the Powers That Be didn't actually provide dedicated pitboss servers the last time I checked (which, admittedly, was over the summer). Is there a plan for who's actually going to host the server?

As far as mods and availabilities and such like, I've got (as far as I know) all the major expansions and content save for the most recent map pack (the Scrambled Continents one), and I'm available mostly whenever.

I generally do the Mac side of things, can get it set up on PC without much trouble. At least at some point in the past it was possible to make the Mac version basically one big ol’ lie for minor patches until they synced and it wouldn’t hurt anything; not sure if that applies in this situation. Surely we can have people disable Civ V updates on Steam

Times: I will probably be good to go some evenings and weekends for the next few weeks (EST). My schedule is never particularly reliable, but I can generally squeeze in turns even if they’re bad ones.

Narratives: Just be sure to censor any screenshots appropriately. Or don’t, you will have the gratitude of many living Bothans.

Good call on the Win/Mac thing - I'm on Windows.

As far as Pitboss server hosting is concerned - damn, didn't think of that. Truthfully, I don't know anything about how to run one. I have a friend who has a server and would probably be interested in joining our game, so I'll ask him. He's out of town right now though, so if we go through him we'll have to wait until school starts (Jan 6) before we can begin.

If anyone has an alternate solution I'm all ears.

I have G&K as well so I have to wonder if I'll have to disable it before joining or if it's smart about that based on who starts it

Like, for example I was doing an online hot seat game with mods and stuff and that one started before I had any expansions, but even though it just finished yesterday it was like, there was never faith or trade routes or tourism etc the whole time so it still played 'vanilla.'


Anyways I'm available whenever

The game will default to the "lowest common denominator" - so if you have G&K but others don't, it will be fine.

It should be a non-issue in any case because BNW includes all of the G&K gameplay additions (religion, etc.), just not its new civilizations.

I suppose I can use my PC to server... but... it’s not a very responsive machine, especially if I’m busy playing things on it. And (atypical for us) we’ve had a few unexpected second-long outages over the past few months.

Question: Is this gonna be full random for fairness's/fun's sake, or do we get to pick civs and such?

Because if I can, I call dibs on Egypt. Tried them out today and loved their gimmicks.

I've got no problem with people claiming civs. Dibs on Japan!

Also I will talk to my friend about sever hosting today

I would rather play the Randoms, because I feel like if I have a guarantee of which civ, I’d eventually run into that one key piece of information that allows me to wipe the floor with people. Ah, who am I kidding, I just want the propaganda department to be a bit more spontaneous.

Okay but if we do go random can we like, strike Venice? Venice weirds me out like a bunch.

Also, any word re: hostery, Stij? Worst case scenario I might be able to host but if we did that it'd have to wait until like February.

Sorry, I've been slacking on this. I shot him a message just now. In any case we wouldn't be able to start until Saturday, because that's when we get back to school (the server's at his apartment).

If pitboss mode proves to be too much of a hassle to set up, would you guys be against just meeting at a predetermined time for normal multiplayer? I know that makes coordination tougher but because there doesn't seem to be many of us I don't think it would be that hard.

I'd be okay with it I guess. Probably have to be early Saturday afternoon or sometime on Sunday for me, but alternatives might exist.

It would definitely have to be a weekend for me too, yeah. Any time on the weekend but Sunday afternoon is probably good.