http://civ3.bernskov.com/RaR/download.asp

I've been involved in some random map PBEMs with some other 1BC members before (VC, and Psweetman), but things did not go so well for me and I conceded out of the game fairly early as I recall.

The problem I faced in that one was that, my starting location really sucked as far as food goes. Basically, this mod is set up so that, only high food producing areas (flood plains, cattle 1, or other early discovered food resources) produce enough food to allow a city to be able to grow very big. If you are lucky enough to start with good food in this mod, you are golden. If not, you're screwed. Course, later on, techs, and other food sources discovered gradually make more and more of the world capable of supporting larger cities, but at the start, if you do not have at least one good site for a major city, you are definitely screwed. Given the nature of this mod, it is a real shame if every civ (particular humans) do not start out with a decent starting location, because with all the various units, small wonders, etc., the possibilities for mid to late game twists and turns in a PBEM are dramatic and intriguging. In fact, it would almost be good to simply give each tribe an automatic two cities or something like that . . . just to skip ahead through the slow early game tedium.

Thus, random maps are a bit of a problem which we'd like to try to circumvent.

Normally I'm averse to having more than 3 humans, but if we can get some REALLY committed players, maybe we could do more than 3.

I figure we need at least four guys to be able to pull this off, because the easiest solution to the random map problem would be, lets say we have three human players and decide to have a standard size map with 4 AI on Monarch difficulty, slowest speed (the long turn version .biq). If we can get a fourth person who will upload the extended game version .biq (which BTW, had errors in the original DL, I'd have to send it to you) and generate us a random map, then screen it to make sure all the starting locations are good, that would be ideal.

If that person also wanted to play, then the solution would be to have two three person games going, and with two different guys (whichever two guys were not keen to play in two PBEMs at once) acting as the fourth map-screeners for the other set of three players.

Just in case no one else understand what I'm saying any better than I think I do, imagine the following: four guys express interest: Scipio, Scotty, Joe, Dave.

Team 1:

Joe = map generator, Scipio, Scotty, and Dave are players

Team 2:

Dave = map generatory, Scipio, Scotty, and Joe are players.

The problem(s) in the extended version .biq of the game were sort of serious. The turn durations, etc., were misset so that the game would spontaneously time out at about 1878 AD. Probably the easiest thing is, if everyone either DLs the latest version or else if they already have it, then I simply jot a quick note explaining what the settings should be corrected to in the editor. It is quite easy to do.

The even more ideal solution would be if the map screeners do three additional things: go into the editor and set which tribes are playable as humans (perhaps based on stated preferences of the PBEM players) and specify the tribal identity of the starting locations for the human players. This would be to insure that, (a) the Romans do not start out in the middle of a tropical jungle, and the Arabs do not start out in the middle of an arctic wasteland (not commensurate with their histories); that (b) no two humans are more likely to make early contact with one another than the other two dyads. Also, the map screener could insure that, (c) each human has at least one AI nemesis nearby to keep them busy in the early game, and that (d) there is a "New World" land mass with no starting civs on it (or not, at random depending on the map screeners preference).