file: "PZ3_Surveys.txt" - 19Jan2005 - contains the results of 14 player's feedback 1) How did you enjoy the game overall 1a) fun? For the most part, it was fun, though the update schedule (coupled with a spectacular disk crash) doomed me VERY 9/10 It was as fun as an Empire game could be I guess. Yes I enjoy playing Empire, participation is they key. Not playing is no fun, playing is fun... As mentioned earlier, we formed a part-time country to reflect our part-time lives in Empire... Very enjoyable game (except for the ending of course :) Good game. Had a balance of economics + warfare. I guess the thing I didn't like is the campers in the game. FFA seemed to have either a beeper script running or a co-ruler. This put too much of an advantage to them... Empire is always fun, especially when you have the chance to actually join and play in a game :) I enjoyed this one very much! 10/10. Yes, in the beginning and middle. Last month no so fun :( I enjoyed the game a lot. It was fun to see the players commentary back and forth, and to wait for the first attack on my homeland. Yep. Well done on setup. No hitches or changes. For us, the game was very fun because it allowed us to take a minor role in the events of the world, rather than the various convoluted diplomatic situations we tend to find ourselves in of late :) I had an excellent time. Only wish there could have been more of a world war. 1b) playability? Quite, though tech allows too much offensive weaponry too soon 9/10 Just fine. ok. Good other than loosing my allies due to computers... Ok. GOOD I enjoy solving the challenges the deity creates. All Empire is playable as far as I am concerned :) Good It was very playable for me, even though it was my first game. Pretty good. Country size became a factor at the end. Taking an extra-Leutonia view, I think the game was very well run, scoring very high on playability and fun. Very 2) Game Setup 2a) Double Civs - did you like the double civs start & 20% civ growth? Yes. n/a. We came to the game late. No problem for me. Probably helped me with my shortages a bit. No problem with that. needed the double civ's to off-set the lower growth. Would have been REAL slow without it. Yes YES, ACCELERATES THE NORMALLY BORING START ERA yes Double civs good, gets game going faster. Didn't notice the 20% growth, as I didn't really get shelled too much. That was OK. Could have left well enough alone, too, though Ok. 2b) Resources - did you like the flat resources? Go renew with flat resources makes management easier, to be sure. The gold was a bit weird. I like that, every sector had equal resources. Took me a while to get it figured out. TWO mine, one cm center. I don't know why it took me so long. Yes, it gave more flexibility in the country layout. YES Yes yes Yes – FLAT=YES is the bast for much effecent growth. Yes. was fine Yes 2c) Resources - how was the qty of iron/dust/oil? Sufficient. We were never lacking for oil or iron. Dust was hard to come by, but I think that's a good thing. Seemed OK. Just right. That was ok. the [expansion] islands sucked. I think that was your plan. :) Seemed good. I was usually short of lcm/hcm which indicates that I was short of iron or mineral content was low. But you need to be short of something. Can always use more money. ADEQUATE fine sufficient liked how it was limited on expansion islands too. Too much iron - we had cms lying all over the place at the end. Oil just right. Getting petrol out to triangle and gumdrop islands was interesting - made tk worthwhile Never really lacked any resources in this game. Could have been partially even smaller amounts so you really would have paid attention to what you build and where. Iron, oil were OK. Dust is an issue. As set up, unless one wants to take a lot of time moving dust around from isles to home territory, dust isn't worth the trouble. Not that there's too much of it, just not in the "right" places. It almost would have been better to set things up so that the only way to get tech would be to fight for the little dust available. In PZ3, everyone had dust on their home islands, making the need for expansion for it alone unnecessary. (In most versions of empire that I'm familiar with--and I'm going back to the original versions played on Plato-- skills of the players showed early by their handling of primitive fleets, i.e., before tech starts to weigh in. That wasn't as evident in PZ3.) Kinda low on the iron. 2d) Map layout - world size? Good compromise. Not too far, not too close. Tight but that’s OK, the action starts faster. Never got off my own island. Ok size was appropriate Good. IDEAL good perfect Good for number of players I think random maps are better. Starting continents could have been a bit further away from each others but overall world size was ok. It was OK, though I would have preferred closer together placements of land 2e) Map layout - types / varieties of start continents? Interesting concept. Though we didn't use this, I think there was some problematic potential in that a potential attacker could learn the entire shape of a victim's island with knowledge of just a few sectors. My round [rock] island was OK. Perhaps there could be more different islands.. they look great on the map. And I found the scissors islands to be the hardest to invade. RPS? Ghey. Interesting. I also like having fixed types, makes it easier for the deity to have a fair layout between countries. GOOD scissors too much of an advantage for good players as extra resources interesesting. We could guess where main islands were from reconning a few key sectors. The pairs of triangles were a give away once we figured out the pattern Was okay, everyone could chose the type they wanted to start with. Liked PZ2 better. OK 2f) Map layout - player placements as in fairness of distribution? Good. Can't really comment. I know some players complained of too much fodder around some and not enough around others. My own personal opinion is the game is playable whether you try to balance the layout of experience vs. fodder or not. Not balancing tends to favor fodder, and a subset of experienced players. Balancing favors all the experienced players at the expense of fodder. I don't think that's good usually. No idea. Seemed fair enough I did not notice any problems. NO ISSUES Fine with me. fine seemed fine to me. Our nearest neighbors were Hegemon, RimFire, wales, and PCLoadLetter. Our next nearest neighbors were Sunnydale, Partimers, Johnnyland and Nova. We had three fodders close by, probably fair, but hard to tell. I'm sure Partimers would have wanted at least one fodder in the neighborhood but I guess so did every player who felt there were none :) Looking at the final map, it's not clear that skill sets were equally distributed 2g) Map layout - expansion islands, more / less / variety? Need way more variety--too predictable. I found the expansion islands too small and basically useless. good MORE EXPANSION ISLANDS A bit larger would be good. More if possible No idea. Was fairly built - could have been more variety and without clear pattern. It was good. fine ok Seemed ok these were setup nicely. I actually missed my 2 close 7 sector island until I had 4 of the 10 sector islands. 2h) Map layout - expansion islands, too close / too far / too tough? They seemed far at the time but now looking at the animated maps I see they were good. fine Seemed ok It took 2 updates to sail anywhere. We picked up on the quickly and had fleets of cargo ships just sitting between islands ready to ferry stuff (mostly civ's) I found that expansion islands tricky to capture. IDEAL Terminator islands sux (1 sector), esp. when 1st exploring. Not close enough. The solitary bases were an annoyance rather than making much impact Good distance. Not too tough, not too easy. More variety would be interesting. No idea Perhaps more expansion islands and starting continents further away from each others. I like current positions and distances. fine 2i) Tech - tech was log 3.00 with 80% bleed, too fast / slow? fine LESS BLEED NEXT TIME Way too fast Ok. I prefer slow tech in general. No idea. ok perfect Goldilocks. Too fast, believe it or not. Very interesting setup. Nobody really got a good tech lead (which hurt me, but I was stubborn and would not adjust) The killer was the TECH_POP option. Oh, if you get a small box about the size and weight of 4 sticks of TNT, don't open. Good. It was fine. Was a normal game for me, so I don’t know what the effects were. 2j) Units - liked / disliked the mobility mods & slower eff growth & did the reduced mob & eff growth effect your invasions or defenses? Meant you had to be well prepared for everything. Tougher for defender GOOD MOBILITY, YES No opinion other than tech allowed too much advanced offense capability too early Yes. Had to wait for lands. Just required more planning, though. I did not like Retro, because budgeting was a nightmare with 24% eff gain. I don't really like building units in one update. Two I like better than one or four updates. Didn’t make much difference to me. Was okay, no problem since it was a known feature. Made everything a tiny bit slower of course since building units took longer time. ok Just right. I don't think the eff or mob did make a diff for me. did not like the reduced eff growth and mob growth but it seemed to make things more realistic and balanced. Lower mob made defense in depth on rock islands probably easier. Not having actually witnessed this, except in an after-game attack where there were no units to fight, I can't comment directly. I love the eff growth. You have to plan ahead and most players can't. The lower mobility limit made them considerably less usefull (and a reason I built so few later on) I did not use the units that I built. 2k) Planes - liked / disliked the mobility mods & did the reduced mob effect your invasions or defenses? I felt like I had lead in my boots when defending my island. ok 100 max mob had no real effect. I did not use the units that I built. OKAY Didn’t make much difference to me. Again important to be prepared. Not a big problem. did not like reduced mob. had some effect since it's one less bombing run against a fodder with no planes. didn't seem as much of a factor later against a fairly equal opponent since it's the same for both sides. This would have worked much better if CVs and CVLs required much higher tech to build. Did not effect anything Fine. My invasions did change. It was ok. I think the idea of planes not doing anything for a long while, then suddenly being able to do a large burst of stuff all at once, then not being able to do anything for a long time is rather silly. In this game, with lower mob, that was much less the case. 2l) Market/Trade - did you use the Market/Trade? No Yes I bought a +4/+7 Scabbard of Enlightenment from PCLoadLetter. Trade Someone just lent me a few $$$, which I quickly repaid. Thanks Harlot! You’ll always to a Harlot to me. Yes, mainly to move goods to the islands. Yes, we used just for trading and it was expensive for trading. YES No yes Both No impact. Money is too plentiful too early to make the market important, and trade didn't seem to matter much as a result. If trade ships had much higher payoffs for much lower starting costs and there was less money in the world to begin with, trade becomes an issue. In PZ3, it was a non-issue. Used market to buy shells and kill Sunny - felt guilty doing it. Used it a few other times to buy petrol in a pinch - didn't mind it. I sold about 300 or 400 hcm early in the game and netted $3-4K which made a big difference at that stage. Did not use trade. No, except for a small undercost gun purchase. 2m) Market/Trade - what did you think of the 10Hour times to complete the sale and 10% taxes? To be honest I didn’t even notice. 10% was too much. no comment Tax rate was never an issue. 10 hour delay only benefited the countries with multiple co-rulers that were on ALL the time. Who thought up this stupid way of doing trade and market anyway. Oh, wait. Nevermind. Yes, we used just for trading and it was expensive for trading. TOO LONG, TOO MUCH TAX TO DIETY What kind of fool likes to pay taxes? What did you do with the money anyway? I prefer totally unrestricted and unregulated commerce. Seemed OK. Didn't really have much noticable effect on play Taxes not a factor. 10 hours was reasonable. No effect. Market/trade are broken, and ill used. To all of the above, I have no real preference, though I only hate FUEL more than I hate PLAGUE. Again, its the solving of the puzzle, that is the fun, and solving fastyer than the competitor does, and situated near to favorable "grazing": territory :) 3) Micromanagement 3a) too much or too little? The shape of the home island had a lot to do with this. With scissors, it required more than with other shapes, and in the early game, had an impact. Later, minimal effect Was okay - took some time to do it but still was bearable. Micromanagement prob increased in this game as optimization was critical and dist difficult OKAY It was all right. Too much, always too much. And my co-ruler wasn't very good at it. I guess I am a detailist. I was looking at ways to get max uw growth. (hence the reason why 2K4 mods have no civs or uw's) about right Flat resources reduced it. Very little, other that mobility. It’s [bleeping] EMPIRE – of course there is too much micromanagement. After 400 sectors, it was too much. We had so many units and getting supplies around was tedious. This is not a result of the game setup, however, just the game in general. 3b) did you like NOFOOD? Yes It was OK, but I think food could put an effective brake on the early development of islands, forcing the use of skill and strategy to expand than luck in coming upon an expansion island Definitely! Food would have been too much for this game. Also had to make sure used up all spare commodities because of plague risk. No. I like foob. YES YES Either is fine with me. Yes, another reason 2K4 has no food. yes I like food. Others hate it. Yes, yes, yes. Yep NO-food, the great fodder flag, I'd rather food and no fuel than the other way around, its not only the micromanagement, but the mob cost as well 3c) did plague have any effect? Nope Yes Hated it. Just an annoyance, not really a factor for us. Yes, but negligible because we worked at it. A PAIN ok No, only after Harlot attack, but it was too late, not my problem ;) Some, but not as much as it looked like in the news. We kept secondary dist points on most main islands "just in case". Plague occurred after I left the game. much indeed. I was gone before it ever got to me. Did I mention I hate PLAGUE...well, it forced us to be more efficient in our processes, even so we got hit a few times, but managed it well, just another pain in the butt yes Yes. I don't like plague but after having a thought, it added an interesting point to the game and also learnt a lot of plague so it won't be as big of an effect in another game. None. (and given the no food, it probably shouldn't have) 3d) approx how much time per update were you spending on country management? Too much time, and not enough brain 30 minutes roughly. AROUND 4 HOURS Yes, I really like that, first nofood game. 1-2 hrs. Not enough. We lost our aggresiveness before the Tiki invasion because of having to spend too much time doing other stuff. Without verbalizing it between ourselves, I think both [my co-ruler] and I knew that taking down an island was never an issue. But the time commited to bringing it under control and moving in civs and putting up defenses and etc etc etc discouraged us. 3-4 hours Maybe 2 hours. 30-40 minutes With four corulers, I think most stuff got done, and because of the shared responsibility it wasn't that onerous Towards the end I think we were spending 7-8 hours. can't remember. I'd say an hour on average which would have been reduced if I wasn't too lazy to set up an optimized efficient network. of course we were pretty big and I tend to take my time and be methodical. when rushed I managed to get things done in 15-30 min or even less at times. We were four persons taking care of this for almost throughout the game. I'd say it varied from 1-4 hrs per update per person. Too much 1-2 hrs. 3e) did rollover avail help or hurt? Yes. Still like it. Less management of civs. Neither Neither. Didn't even notice. n/a It helped some. I'm not really sold on the idea myself. helped some. Rollover avail I think is important in the begining, but my gut feel is that once the game gets rolling it has lesss an impact, I didn;t even consider it mid and late game, forgot it was there HELPED I do not understand that question, and feel threatened by that remark. was good both. helped a lot when the sector was idle or not working at capacity for a while and then had to ramp up. hurt when worked all the way and then needed avail again the next update. of course i've still never seen any docs on rollover avail. Imho it helped, at least I didn't notice it would have hurt at any phase of the game. Helped, but in retrospect, it would have been better without 4) Update Schedule 4a) too fast / too slow? A bit too fast Early game, too slow--much better would have been 12 hour updates for the first week--get everything going. In mid-game, it was OK, but in the latter game, it was a problem. And the holidays didn't help much. The breaks (Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year) were good and gave a small moment to take a breath. It took a while to adjust to normal updates after each break though. Overall I'd say it was good. 2,5 months of one game is about perfect time. about right. Sorta felt too slow, but not bad. Funny that. Too slow at first. Then it was good. When it went to 42 hours, it felt too slow again. At the end, it was better again. If game had continued, I would have like to see it go to 56 hours it was ok, or little bit slow sometimes. Not much micromanaging, moves last few hrs, and 40 hours waiting. But I think it was enough time. I like the faster start with a slow down after things get going. Fine. good. Could have continued the 24 hour updates for one more week. ACCEPTABLE fine 4b) convenient / inconvenient time(s) of day? Not an issue very convenient. almost perfect. 3am – that’s always great. Co-ruling was good as we were from different time zones. We had always someone for the update regardless of the time of update. Both, as rotating schedules do that. Good. I did not play Twisted Mind because of the update. Inconvenient, only Saturday update was ok, rest of updates was night or middle of workday. It was one big reason my bad game. I had not co-player, and update was very bad times for me. Maybe in USA or somewhere else it would ok, but not in Europe (Finland). When Harlot attacks, there was late night here, and she destroyed my economy just before real attack. After attack I had not money (broken planes spend much money). After update it was really easy destroy my defence, I cannot do anything with no money (before first strike I had $8000). Update schedule is only one reason that. Of course she surprised me with 30 - 50 ships. Because I had no money, I was broke, my defence didn't work properly (only automatic missions). Waiting next game ;) All updates fell at the wrong time on the wrong day for me. Some inconvenient but can not be avoided in World-wide game. INCONVIENT 5 AM sux. fair 4c) do you prefer fixed or rolling updates? Either All suits. depends on the time. since I'm on EST I'd say prefer fixed (8-10pm EST) since fixed updates tend to schedule well for us but overall I guess rolling updates are better. This game probably was the most convenient update schedule I've ever seen. Didn't interfere with my social life at all. No evening updates on weekends was great. Was still drunk or kinda out of it sat 11am at times, but that was also a good time since one had some time to sober up or if you had things to do saturday you still had a lot of time after the update. Both. :) Rolling, absolutely. Also, with Thistle, we have advantage with rolling updates. Either. Rolling updates, PLEASE ! And not 42 hrs, now updates was every week same times. Maybe 41 hrs or 37 hrs? Every week updates should be erratic times. That really was biggest problem for me. rolling As a deity, I like the rolling updates. Depends on the fixed time but in general rolling updates. again, four rulers spread around the world make this a no brainer, and it is my personal preference as well, to have moving updates so that the game does not become too USA-centric FIXED rolling is fairer 5) The Game 5a) what "rock"/"paper"/"scissors" did you chose and how did it work out? Scissors--it was OK, though I think unless one takes offense early, scissors is not defendable. (Did anyone with scissors survive an invasion--I don't think so) Scissors. Worked out just fine. Expansion islands were in good use once we got them bridged to the mainland. scissors. worked out fine. I always choose whatever gives more prod sectors or extra resources. n/a, I didn't choose. If I had, I would have chosen scissors. That 4 of the 7 remaining countries all chose scissors is indicative. scissors - the extra sectors and mountain made a difference. As we never were attacked, the defensive factor was not an issue. Also, the uniform resources allowed us to deliver iron exclusively, so mob on the scissors was not an issue either. Rock. It was easy and fine for me. scissors, worked well SCISSORS, LEFT HOME COUNTRY VULNERABLE just fine, thank you very much, we selcted scissor because it had extra dust onsite Rock worked for me. scissors was good choice for me. Scissors. No brainer. Extra production sector for money and extra mountain sector for gold. We didn't build enough bridges around our start island. We should have pushed that harder. Rock - it worked out well. 5b) how did you like the 4 starting sanctuaries? OK a lot. allowed the ability to do anything i wanted. multiple ships and tech. I'm sure it's better for less experienced players too. n/a. It was good Yes, the head start is preferred. Game is boring first updates, so extra civs gets things going faster. good GREAT Good. Makes getting started easier. Funny looking but worked well. No problem. this goes with the reduced growth rate. I ran a game one where the growth rate was real slow (real slow, but I forget exactly how slow). But I gave everybody 10K civ's to start. You didn't want to see some slob park a BB off your coast and take out 5-8 sectors because it took you a long time to grow new ones. Good. 5c) did you get your economy off to a good start? Yes, and knowing the layout of the island helped a lot--but I'm not sure that's a good thing Yes. Optimizing civ growth worked fine and we started with tradeships very early. Yes. No. yes n/a. Leutonia's original owner did only a so-so job. Yes. I played on the blitz and my own server to get it right. yes YES No. I was so much trying to ‘maximize’ my utilization, that I forgot about the requirement to say in the black. yes, no problem. yes Yes, I think so. Power report did not reflect. 5d) how did you do on initial expansion? Alright, had difficulty capturing the rest of the island. Lousy--too much luck required given the placement of the islands a few of us played in the test game so we had a feel for island location etc, Too slow. very well Really well – I found a new expansion island with both of my first two boats. Then I found NOTHING for like 5 updates. WELL n/a quickly in as many directions as possible. Just unlucky we initially missed most islands and therefore we were not the fastest to grow though we were the quickest to get a large fleet of frigates. Good. I went for the frg option, built lots of them so exploring was fast. Also, I always put 60 mil on those frigates, so taking Terminator islands went a little faster. Frigates rule. Shitty, really shitty. we were the largest early one I got only three expansion islands. 5e) how did you like/dislike the Terminator defenses? They were interesting. It was a problem, but it added to the game. I don;t know where you got the idea for them, but they were setup nicely. It was fun. Terminator was good idea. Not sure. It sux for exploring. I liked that the terminator defense were varied rather than identical LIKED fine. Next time you should make it different though so that people need to work it out. Liked them very much. Huh? was fun, challenging and interesting. maybe even exciting. With mil, fine. The planes were a pain, esp the camels. The camels weren't worth the effort. 5f) did you focus on tech, expansion, both, neither, or other? We were too small to have an effect on anything, so we just keep producing tech and research at slow paces. It worked well enough. Tech, mostly, some expansion. Both Tech, next game it would be more expansion.. I think our country tried an all around approach rather than focus on just one area, the experience level of our rulers allowed us to do that, rather than playing the game as a releative newbie with no friends.... tech. EXPANSION Expansion. I dropped from first to nearly last because of low tech production. Had lots of frigates, though, which paid off in the end. Early sacks of wales and Hegemon (and their banks) using those frigates made the difference in the end. I made a little bit too little tech at the start, but thanks to the 80% bleed, it didn't matter that much. Staying alive. I focused on tech, and also on trolling the annos. both Tried with tech, but after the first 50 tech points (once you get to CVLs), tech didn't seem to be as much of an issue. There was no major trading effort--because there was too much money in the world. Chose to build tech steadily and expand as much as possible. Thinking of it now, should have started to build research earlier but somehow we forgot about it. 5g) how did you do with diplomacy? pretty good. did I mention diplomacy, I think we played a great diplomatic game :) allied with #1 and an apparent game long NA with #4 :) I kicked ass. I was hostile to everyone by update #2. Everyone of us had a share of it - I think we succeeded well with diplomacy and could focus in attacking role. We make no NAs this game. Not deliberately, but it was not really needed. We gave 1/3 of Hegemon to and 1/2 of Sunny to Partimers with no contest, so that worked out well in the long run since we worked closely together. OK. But the economic dimension was minimized by the low return for trade ships. I didn’t have enough guns to be diplomatic. Went peaceful with beep, and he sent tradeships to us most of the game. With him being the largest border to us, this was a good move. Shakespeare and then Harlot both made attempts to take islands off of us. We gave them bloody noses in return, which helped to convince them we were legitimate non-fodder. Not good, last days good ally really could help me. Should of been more agressive. Should have stayed away from PCLL. He was a weak link. But I was too polite. Very glad I took out EK and Nova. Mostly alright, had a problem with ULKH. good OKAY, I GUESS 5h) any connection issues, server bugs, or deity issues? conn issues very rarely. I liked the no-plague deaths "bug." didn't notice any other server bugs. deities were @ssholes. All was taken care of very well. All problems were dealt with very quickly. Some problems with the WinEmpHub disconnecting and freezing up, which I think might have been related to the backups, but not sure. Otherwise, zero issues. Disk crash, but that's my problem Winace was funny at times, but I got over it. Tiki made an attempt to take an island off of us, but he's a rank beginner so it was repulsed. Some connection issues when the IP changed. I'd recommend having a mailing list for the players, so you can send out IP changes and the like. No problem. none Bugs - you and I have discussed. No other issues. YES. You are aware that the server hung quite a few times on me, and I would not be able to immediately kill the connection and log in again. There seemed to be a delay of about 5 minutes. Not long, but feels like a long time when you are in the middle of an attack. NO The deity needs to shave his beard. Some slowness on connection. Had one crash. 6) Additional Comments Thanks to the Deities for a great and very entertaining game :) After that last week of the game, I had to turn my computer off and crash for a week or so. Only thing I didn't like was the plague of course, and the increased tech costs proportional to population thresholds, but that seems like a good thing for game balance. All in all the minor gripes I have are good for game balance, realism or playability which prolly makes the game more fun overall. I like challenges and new twists. The biggest problem I have is with players not having the stomach for war, but that's also a good thing most of the time too until the end-game. Thanks for hosting an excellent game. Y'all did a great job. Looking forward to PZIV. Doug, you're doing a fantastic job! Keep it up. Except, your websites suck ;) Thanks, Doug, for putting up the game. It's not small job to put it all together, and you did a really good job. It seemed to me that when I was being attacked by Shakespeare that the early bird catches the worm. Namely he was up at 2AM, 4AM or whenever during the update, or he’d programmed some moves to happen during the update. Since I don’t plan to write scripts, or be up at crazy hours, I’m wondering how much that would hurt my ability to play Empire. Oh, and thanks a lot for hosting PZ3 there Bungy. I found that managing my country with WinACE was a LOT easier than it was when I played (for a few months) back in the early 90’s. I tried game scenario like "Small country, no friends, heavy defence". It didn't work. I should not destroy Harlots ships, she got mad with my annoying game ;) My next game would be: alliance with someone, better economy, more diplomatic with others, more expansion islands, more aggressive playing, small countries cannot survive alone. Thanks for excellent hosting !! A well setup and run game. It was enjoyable to play until RL interfered. I missed bridges in the center of the island and focused on tradeships instead of bridges which was not the best plan. Thank you for the great game, keep it up, set 'em up, and I'll play them one way or another THANKS, GREAT GAME Great game. Well done Bungy! I wonder if next time you might think of some modifications to make it easier for fodder to defend their country in the early stages. There were too many people who just rolled over. In the end it didn't make much difference, as Harlot didn't take advantage of his early lead, but it was certainly frustrating [bungy]> I tried this in PZ2, by giving all players a 100% stocked fortress in the centers of their start continents. You'd be surprised at how many of them re-des'd them within the first few updates. Questions for the Deity: How much time did you spend planning/testing the setup? [bungy]> quite a lot of time in the planning, with lots of discussions between myself and Ski for how to balance things and what would be neat to try for Termy. It took a good month of planning, and then a week of testing. Then I ran the test blitzes, which gave me time to see what peeps would do "if" and further tweak for the real-game. How much time did you spend on game related activities during the game? [bungy]> easily an hour a day of just making backups and poking in to ensure things were running smoothly. making the RGE posts (I only did 5) during the game each took ~2 hours to write up and update the webpage, etc. How much time have/will you spend on post game activities? [bungy]> a whole week of 3+ hour evenings to get this all put together. Where do you get these wacky ideas, for the setup? [bungy]> I was watching "Dumb and Dumberer" one evening in September 2004, and the scene in the back of the short-bus when they were playing Rock-Paper-Scissors knocked me off the sofa. (end of PZ3 player's survey)