Anyone wants to commit to a PBM campaign again?

[Tricky Lady]

RTW is slowly becoming old news and the community is slowly getting divided in RTW 'lovers' and RTW 'haters', and the PBM forum... has become less active then ever. I'm not really a veteran of this forum, but I remember that PBMs were rather popular during my first months here.

And now with RTW this is all gone

I see many inactive RTW play-by-email campaigns... Some didn't even get further than a simple kick-off post.

I personally find playing PBM campaigns the only way to keep me interested in RTW. When I play a single-player campaign I tend to get bored with the game after 20 or 30 years in the game. Not so when PBM'ing: if you inherit a savegame I'm always surprised as the other player's style is usually very different from mine, or you get an incentive to finish your reign and make the best of it.

I just cannot believe that anyone is interested in PBM campaigns anymore?
Playing an heir's reign can be fun in RTW too (okay, reigns will be a bit longer than w/ MTW) and there are enough rules that can be applied to make the game slower (otherwise the PBM will be over in the second player's reign in most cases).

I say: come on people, let's try it again.

So: who'd be interested in a new RTW or MTW PBM campaign?


Tricky Lady

[Quietus]

Sure, sign me up! I've never played PBEM before though, so where do you upload the file (or is it literally by e-mail) ?

Anyway, my suggestions (notice only suggestions thus not set in stone):

• 5 provinces per player ( A player must take 5 provinces during the reign).
• Please, no more Roman factions.
• Huge units.
• Version 1.2 (I think this one is a must, meaning no mods).
• Difficulty (doesn't matter to me).

[Tricky Lady]

Yay! That makes already two of us!

Well, for the PBMs I signed up for last year, the savegames were uploaded on a filespace here at the Org...
You can download the savegames from here (http://www.totalwar.org/patrons/pbm/), but I'll have to check for the "automatic" uploader... I have bookmarked it somewhere but I can't find it right now.

EDIT: Found the link for the PBM upload page (http://www.totalwar.org/Downloads/Uploaders/pbmupload.php).

The rules you proposed seem to be fine with me. I apply most of them (except the huge unit size) on my PBMs too.

For the difficulty settings we probably best go for Normal battles/Hard Campaign as the difficulty settings for the battles seem to be broken (is this confirmed?), so Normal battles will give the highest difficulty setting possible.
I am personally not so keen on the "cheats" the AI gets when playing Hard campaign difficulty, but I won't object against it either. My preference is N/N.

[econ21]

I'd like to join in too, time permitting.

The rules sound fine - taking 5 provinces: is that a maximum, minimum or both? If we want the PBM to last beyond a few reigns, I guess it's a maximum?

I'd also like normal/normal difficulty - I like "fair" battles, including at sea (affected by the difficulty campaign setting).

Anyone got any preferences about what non-Roman faction to go for? Anything but Egypt would suit me (I dislike the ahistorical units).

[Quietus]

Ok, currently we have three players:

1) Tricky Lady
2) Quietus
3) Simon Appleton

Settings: Decided.
Normal/Normal
Version 1.2
Manage All Settlements
5 provinces maximum per player (That's at least 10 turnovers for 50 provinces).

Settings: Yet to be decided.
Unit Size (what's your preference setting?)
50 provinces or whole map
No Rome, no Egypt. (Have you guys played Germania yet?)
Who starts the game?

Ok, people, sign up for a fun PBM RTW Game!

[Tricky Lady]

I totally agree to the "No Rome, No Egypt" settings.

My personal favourites for a PBM would be (in no particular order): Pontus - Germania - Greeks
.... but other factions are okay for me too.

I'd say 50 provinces is okay, if we go for the maximum of 5 provinces per player.

Unit size: at least "Large".