What Next?? (Adjunct to Aro's Poll)

[Beta]

As the Civ3 Demo game comes to a conclusion, many are nostalgic, some are melancholy, some are relieved, some are disinterested, and some are asking - what next? Aro has started a poll asking exactly that. And the other thread proposes other options, including the Double Your Pleasure option or AU mods.

I have been thinking of a few ideas, and would like to throw them on the table to add to the discussion, and to invigorate people's interest. This is not meant to replace Aro's poll or the other discussion. but just to generate some extra thought. In many respects, I think it is an extension of the idea GhengisFarb suggested in the 'future' thread. I had prepared this over a week ago, so thought it was timely to post it now, given the discussion.

A PTW demo game. Pbem. But three human teams only. The other 5 are AI civs. And we stick with a theme - all European civs, or all classical civs. Something like that. Standard or large map. Pangaea. Monarch - or even one of the higher levels to make the AI's significant players. The game would be set up by an independent 3rd party, so that the three human teams would be sufficiently far apart, and that all have similar starts. No out of game contact allowed, until teams actually meet on the board.

This should go faster than the present PTW-demo game. It would, in the early stages, be similar to the Civ3 democracy game when it was young, which by everything I read, was a hoot. Duken' it out in the rex stage with the AI. Then just when you climb to the top of your local AI crowd you run into the challenge of a human player, also trying to do the same thing. The next set of challenges will likely keep the game interesting through to the end. You will be facing the question of whether to conquer or co-opt the aid of the remaining AI civs. Three teams should create a tense stand-off situation at that point. Or will two take out the third, and then race or fight to the finish? The middle and later stages of such a game should be more interesting.

There is a large enough crowd currently involved in the demo game that making three teams should not be a problem. Each team can develop its own rules and history, much like the PTW-Demo game.

Now - as to teams - I would suggest that everybody sign up on one big list. Then nominations are held for team leaders. 3 nominations get you in the election. Then everybody gets 3 votes (yes that could be a few hundred cast) and the top 3 vote getters would become initial team leaders. They would then draft players, similar to sand lot baseball but in two rounds. To start with, they, by random order, would draft two players each (leader one getting the 1st and 6th pick, leader two getting the 2nd and 5th, etc). This core group then, likely via a closed chat, would have a draft where the remaining players all get picked. This would ensure the talent gets spread around and leaders could mix different skills knowing the membership. All players who signed up would get chosen for a team. The closed draft would remove any stigma from being chosen at or near the bottom.

The independent 3rd party would act as a referee, to make sure the game runs well, and to adjudicate on disputes.

This approach could be modified - 2 teams? 4 teams? If it is more, it would be too similar to the current PTW-demo game. As mentioned above, I am trying to come up with a game which will involve the best aspects of the demo-game, combined with the interest which can be injected by a PTW approach, and a set-up which hopefully will keep the fun and uncertainty well into the later stages of the game, which has been a problem with the Demo game.

The major downside of course, is that it becomes difficult to have the kind of public forum that exists for the current demo game. And therein lies its greatest flaw. However, to overcome this, I propose a few more additions.

First - each team must have a cultural ministry responsible for developing a theme, history, mythology, in short - a culture for that team.

Secondly - a common forum for sharing this information. Less secrecy than in the PTW game.

Thirdly - a UN. When the 3 civs have met in the game and have writing - the United Nations is formed. Each team will have two members at the United Nations. I am also thinking that 5 players who don't want to be involved, but would like to observe, could be the UN reps for the AI civs. Just a thought.

Another approach is to develop an overall theme for the game - something like this. Apolytonia (in the current SPDG) has grown to a significant size. World tensions rise. Nuclear holocaust ensues. The world is pitched back into the stone age. A thousand years later, the various tribes on the continent start to piece the world back together. A common heritage, but distant memories.

Or, an Apolytonian civil war. Maybe we pre-set the map and city set-ups so that each team has a moderately established, and equal, starting position at the start of the middle ages, or some other appropriate time. Each is an Apolytonian state. Each wants to dominate the nation.

My preference would be for a classical civ set-up, the three human civs being Rome, Greece and Babylon. Not only are they three of the classics, but they are three of the worst ranked civs according to this thread:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=77955

This will further handicap the human teams. And they are three evenly ranked civs. No one has indistrious or expansionist traits. If you rank the traits from top to bottom, with the best trait getting 6 and the worst trait 1, Rome gets a total of 4, Greece 4, and Babylon 5. Each has OK unique units - all of which come early. And each has a symbolic leader - Markos for the Greeks, Danius for the Romans, and Ming for the Babs.

Or - we go similar to the above - but only two teams - who start on either end of a continent, with 6 AI civs in between.

Anyways ... those were just some thoughts. I understand the problems associated with certain aspects of my ideas, but as I said, I am trying to stimulate thought and discussion.

Thanks for reading.

[Togas]

Beta,

You've put a lot of thought into this

This reminds me in some ways of Alpha Centauri as I'd like to suggest that if we went this route, our three teams should have different philosophies and use different tactics to dominate their sphere of the globe, and then in the late Middle Ages it would be a battle of three Super Powers.

A neutral creator should be enlisted to create the world and set it up so that each civ is challanged in a different way, and so that each of our human civs is separated.

I'm not fond of the idea of "drafting" players, though. I think all of the players ought to be able to pick which team they want to be on.

Our neutral creator should also serve as our historian and have access to all of the teams' forums. He would chronicle our history and put out chapters of our history every so often.

--Togas

[UnOrthOdOx]

I would volunteer to be historian, but I suck at creation.

[Aro]

All this is perfect, but I would like to point something... The Democracy game is the gate to Poly for a lot of people. I would like to develop two games, so... One, a classic Vanilla PTW, and the other this interesting way to play.
But please, we need a "classic" game, single player, to act like a "school" for new players, interested people and experienced players (they will came... at least some of them ). As this game has worked for me. I've learned a lot.
A proposal like that is more like the college, the University. It's superior education, with a new aproach. It's for masters...
DyP, Apolyton University or this complex "one civilization, two or tree factions" demand new thoughts...

[Beta]

Originally posted by Togas
Beta,


I'm not fond of the idea of "drafting" players, though. I think all of the players ought to be able to pick which team they want to be on.

I understand the point. However, I do see some imbalance now in the ptwdg - Vox vs GS for example. That was what I was trying to counter. But given your other suggestions, and the different philosophies which might be developed, it would probably be much more appropriate that members choose the team they want to be on.

But then we face the issue of ending up with a plethora of teams. So - how about leaders, or team cores, developing proposals, presenting them to the membership, and then these are then voted on, with the top three being the teams that are formed. Otherwise it becomes first-come first-served, and that is not always the best way.

And just to clarify my comment regarding the Vox-GS imbalance - I do think GS will be able to overcome the disadvantage.

[Togas]

Originally posted by BetaHound
So - how about leaders, or team cores, developing proposals, presenting them to the membership, and then these are then voted on, with the top three being the teams that are formed. Otherwise it becomes first-come first-served, and that is not always the best way.

If we went this route we certainly would want the 3 "best" concepts to be the ones we use, and have an election to decide it.

--Togas

[Kloreep]

Originally posted by Aro
All this is perfect, but I would like to point something... The Democracy game is the gate to Poly for a lot of people. I would like to develop two games, so... One, a classic Vanilla PTW, and the other this interesting way to play.
But please, we need a "classic" game, single player, to act like a "school" for new players, interested people and experienced players (they will came... at least some of them ). As this game has worked for me. I've learned a lot.
A proposal like that is more like the college, the University. It's superior education, with a new aproach. It's for masters...
DyP, Apolyton University or this complex "one civilization, two or tree factions" demand new thoughts...

There should always be a SPDG. IMO, anything else would fail to be open enough to attract lots of new players like this SPDG has.

I'm interested in this new 1-vs-1-vs-1-vs-5 AI game, too, though I'm already a little stretched as far as demogames go.

[Aidun]

Betahound, some thoughts of you I like others I dislike.

First of all I DON'T LIKE people being randomly chosen in certain teams. People should join teams because they like to be in a certain team.

Second I oppose the "leader elections". If people like to become leader of a team, but get not chosen they get dissappointed. I for instance would like to become the leader of a team. I doubt howver if people will choose me as their leader. The oldest with the most experience get chosen, I don't need to put their names here, you know which people I mean. Don't get me wrong: I have no problem with the fact that they become chosen, but others won't have a chance.

Third: We should have as many teams the people here want. Not just three if we want five.

Fourth: The UN after writing. I support this idea however, I have a comment on the AI representatives.
Humans representating computers doesn't work: the humans don't know what the computers are up to and represent the computers in a wrong way: their action is always based on the last move of the computer, they always act after the move, while diplomacy is being done before the move. If we want a UN, we should only have human players, without a UN we can have as many AI players as we wish.

fifth: The Apolytonian Civil War is a good idea, but it is partly continuing game of which we are getting tired. The exiting part to explore the unknown world is removed as well as the builing of a nation. I think we can better start over again and play on a new map with new civs etc.

Sixth: Why play just in classical or European (or perhaps even Asian) mode? Why not be free to decide what civ your team is.

Seventh: I strongly support you in the Idea of teams having a history, theme, flag andthings like that.

Eight: if we create teams, I'm considering a dutch/belgian team. There is a nice amount of dutchies and belgians here, perhaps we could re-establish the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. BTW, members from other countries are welcome too.

BTW good that you've thought about this, it is good that you stated this thread to have more discussion on this topic.

Aidun

[GhengisFarb™]

My thoughts:

The original suggestion I made was to have the human teams near each other and allow members to switch teams as they wanted. Everything would be out in the open so there is nothing secret to be suspicious of.

The Civil War idea:
It could be two human teams and 6 AI with the stipulation that the human teams could never contact each other, negotiate or trade with one another. All trading and contacts must go through the AI, consider the two human teams mortal enemies if you will.

[Beta]

Originally posted by GhengisFarb
The Civil War idea:
It could be two human teams and 6 AI with the stipulation that the human teams could never contact each other, negotiate or trade with one another. All trading and contacts must go through the AI, consider the two human teams mortal enemies if you will.

Yes! Excellent point. No trading between the human teams. In a way then, it becomes two SPDG going on at the same time on the same map - and then they meet.

And to the earlier comments about team make-up, the more I think about it, the less I like the 'draft' idea.

And Togas, yes, I agree 100% that we would want the 'best' concepts to be the ones used.

[MrWhereItsAt]

I too, would want a SPDG to continue. It has taught me so much already, and I look forward to it continuing to do so. The other idea of 3 human + x AI teams is interesting, but look a the PtW game going on - so much diplomacy! Honestly, if you think turnchats take forever here to get a couple of turns done, you should see how much discussion over ONE turn goes on in there, and it's only about 1300BC!

We need to take this into account - if that's what you want, then multi-human teams we go for. If, like me, you baulk at any more of the sheer time and energy needed, then we should seriously consider the implications of such a game. The idea of no Human-Human contact is an excellent way of avoiding this. No need to deal with the diplomacy mania, instead just the strategy and out-thinking your opponents moves would be the sole extension beyond an SPDG.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
I too, would want a SPDG to continue. It has taught me so much already, and I look forward to it continuing to do so. The other idea of 3 human + x AI teams is interesting, but look a the PtW game going on - so much diplomacy! Honestly, if you think turnchats take forever here to get a couple of turns done, you should see how much discussion over ONE turn goes on in there, and it's only about 1300BC!

I can only imagine what the RP forums must look like...

Arnelos alone is not exactly one to post short posts reguarding any issue, but he does some up points well if you actually read through the posts.

[theViking]

Just a idea: what about some time zone related teams, then we could play around the clock...

[Aidun]

Not a bad idea, Europe vs entire America vs Australia and New Zealand, let's see who is the strongest...

Aidun

[Aidun]

What would people think of a "Citystates" game. Some objective person would have to create a random map in the editor, put some cities and a large amount of civs on it and make sure it is designed for more than one player.
Each team plays a citystate: a very small state of a maximum of 3 cities. This compared to the large empires that the AI civs will build. Only through a perfect cooperation the Apolytonian citystates can survive. However, citystates are free to decide to cooperate with othet citystates ar be in war with them.
It is also possible to play without AI. We can simulate the peloponnesian war for instance.

Please post some comments on this concept.

Aidun

[mrmitchell]

Good idea, but IMO it's already too similar to the PtW-DG :|

Remember, anything more than a few paragraphs to explain it drops the newbie-join percentage by a lot.

You've thought of this one a lot obviously, but I'd rather stick to one team

[Aidun]

The difference with the PTW DG is that the citystates are much smaller than the countries in the PTW DG as they are NOW in this early stage already.

The citystates should be too weak to resist the AI enemy on their own so they have to ally with other citystates, that gives the game a new dimension that we have not yet achieved, not on the SPGD, neither in the PTW DG.

Aidun

[Aro]

Aidun, you're talking about an amazing challenge. It's a sociological experiment, IMO...
I don't know if we should mix this with a DyP game... so much work, and we'll be handicapped already compared with the AI.
Oh, well... both alternatives are very, very interesting...
And we're playing trhee games at this point. *Shakespearean accent* Where to find enough people, that's the question...

Oh, I almost forgot: It's Vanilla Game Spam Time! (you don't have to read this, if you can't take it anymore... )

After all this comments and thoughts, I'll insist... We need a traditional Democracy Game...

[Beta]

Aro, your vanilla spam comments are getting through to me.

I agree - we should run a new spdg. But as I said in the other thread, let's pick a weaker civ (Greece!!!) (or Rome!) (one with character), and use either Pangaea or Archipelago. Continents means we never really inter-act with a large number of the AI civs.

(But I would still like a 2 or 3 team 'theme' game as well)

(but maybe that is getting to be a bit much - but heh - there are lots of members and lots of talent to go around)

[Aro]

Some of the experienced guys can start a regular game, vanilla, PTW. Not a challenge after all, even choosing a weak civ. But this will be important. The others can lurke a little and help a lot... Meanwhile, they will play the modded one, with lots of RP and all...
I can help in this regular game, but I'm not a good player. We'll need some REAL players...

[Aidun]

Well Aro, if you support me, I'm willing to start the Citystates Game. Who wants to follow Aro and me?

Aidun

[Aro]

I support you, Aidun.
Btw, Togas, Uber and BetaHound (and many others)certainly can help a lot. We have to plan carefully the structure of this game. I can see fun in our future...