My thoughts on participating in a MTDG progressed from a cross-team conspiracy to a silent neutral force intent on maintaining an equilibrium on the map.
Certainly, a mind sharp enough will understand exactly how this is to be achieved.
I shall divulge no more in public.

An intriguing idea for a team objective. But how do prospective team members find out more?

Are they compatible?

We could give every team a secret mission. The first team to fulfill their mission wins...

We could give every team a secret mission. The first team to fulfill their mission wins...

Risk! :)

I see this leading to lots of conflict, and when do you set the goal? Would it be achieveable pre-modern era? If not then would they really serve a purpose? Also there would always be the post-game "They had an easier goal than we did!"

The conspiracy part includes executing a master plan for the game from behind the scenes.

The public part could consist of maintaining an unspoken balance of power system on the map to prevent the defeat of any party, thus preserving political variety.

@DaveShack: the approach would be made using the system of private messages.
http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/3171/postr.jpg (http://img121.imageshack.us/i/postr.jpg/)

Unusual, but if you can find interested players then sure. You'd need to at least have a team roster though, otherwise we can't see if you have enough members to keep a team running for the ~1-2 years that these games last. Also, do you intend to be a turn player for your team? Because if not there's that to sort out too.

To be honest, I was hoping to dedicate my entire effort to diplomacy and intelligence. Playing the turns and recording them in the process is something I can do, but only given accurate instructions.
Team X needs at least 1 reliable player with expertise on hybrid ee.

But how do prospective team members find out more?

@DaveShack: the approach would be made using the system of private messages.

If people who want to join a team have to PM the organizer just to find out what being on the team would be like, it might be difficult to find interested players.

I'll let the picture slide this time but generally that's not a good tactic on CFC. ;)

If this team does launch I see it being an early target :D

Dear DaveShack, you and everybody else will have to grasp at least a part of the vision by yourselves; imagine, as a team, knowing everything and influencing every action of every team.

hell_hound,
We are your insurance.
And we will find competent leaders, don't worry.

Forgive me if I've got the wrong end of the stick here. But it does seem like by "knowing everything and influencing every action of every team", you are alluding to members of your team having double accounts and joining several or all the other teams, influencing their polls, gathering information, etc. If that's the case, you should know that that's really not at all the type of game we're having here, and it would cause a huge amount of trouble if anyone from any team was caught doing this. (And that's not that difficult to figure out - moderators can easily track IP's and logins, so any person doing this would be caught at some stage. And of course, if you post any of the information you find in your forum, that will be easily spotted.)

If that's not what you meant, then fine. It's just that I have seen this happen once before in a different game, where active spying on other teams' forums was not specifically outlawed (and it IS outlawed in this game, by the way)... and even in that game it caused such a huge fuss when someone was caught that it almost destroyed the game. It might seem like a nice idea from the outside, but it risks massive arguments when one team does it and another doesn't. And if it's allowed for everyone, then that doesn't really help either, because nobody ever trusts their teammates and you end up with "closed teams" that bar any genuinely interested newbies from entering. It's just not healthy to the demogame atmosphere.

Anyway, it's possible that this wasn't at all what you were alluding to. However, I just thought I'd warn you against this type of play, just in case. :)

and it IS outlawed in this game, by the way
sauce plox?


A conspiracy can only be successful if it's so smart that working against it is really meaningless.
Working with us is the opposite of betrayal.
We face opportunities a bit more complex than the rat race destined for our opponents.

sauce plox?
Rule 1.1 of the standard demogame ruleset.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=7584385#post7584385

1 Out of Game Actions
1.1 -- Team Espionage
Using external forms of intelligence gathering against opposing teams is forbidden.
example: Entering Team Forums, joining multiple teams using different accounts, actively petitioning other players for information, looking around on the CFC (or a 3rd party website) image database for screenshots and save uploads, or anything else deemed as deliberate espionage is not tolerated will be harshly dealt with.

Moreover, the rules for the whole CFC forum itself.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/faq.php?faq=cfc_forum_rules#faq_cfc_forum_rules_08

Multiple accounts are not permitted.
Create one account, make sure you're satisfied with the name, and keep it. Be sure to choose your user name carefully. If you wish to change your user name for whatever reason, please contact the admins.

Failure to follow these guidelines may result in removal of your posting privileges.
Depending on the severity of your violation and the number of times you have previously violated the Forum Guidelines, the Administration may choose to suspend your posting privileges or terminate your account. If you are suspended you will not be able to post on our forums for an amount of time to be determined by the Administration.
I sincerely hope you haven't joined in any (or all) other teams already. Or placed "contacts", or whatever, in them.

Dear Lord Parkin,
I assure you that from by design no participant of our team forum would ever:
enter another team's forum,
join multiple teams using different accounts,
petition others for information or
look around the site for screenshots and saves.
We are more sophisticated than that.
"Information gathering" refers to the action of one that gathers, which is not strictly necessary for our purposes.
Our out-of-game actions do not constitute espionage as defined by, for example, Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms.

Placing contacts would be infiltration. We are more interested in treason.
I'd like to reiterate on the benevolent and intellectual nature of our operation.

But we are paying too much attention to the clandestine, conspiracy part of our plan.
The team needs an in-game modus operandi and we are looking for people to help us maintain our ground among the teams. I find it extremely tempting to run a lot of espionage as to have the full knowledge of the other teams' actions. Such intelligence could be brokered in exchange for technologies, gold or units.
That would open endless diplo.
Parties would be extremely interested in influencing our foreign policy.
We are looking for a few (say, 3-4?) talented people.

We could give every team a secret mission. The first team to fulfill their mission wins...

I like the idea, but I think everyone should have the same goal. But here's my variation: no one knows what the goal is. It could be something like having 20+ cities and more than 30 workers, or something like domination land area and one legendary culture city. If we could get an admin that can check the game every or every few turns and could see where people were to achieving the goal and to see when they do. We could also give small clues (start small and then get more obvious) every 20-30 turns. I think it sounds like a great idea and I would love to have it in the game.

After careful deliberation, I have decided to withdraw from the MTDG.
My life is too chaotic to be bound by such lengthy commitments.
There is a chance it will become boring, and I don't want to face the dilemma of either leaving or participating in something no longer relevant to my interests.
Kudos for providing me food for thought.

I'll join this team

You know, Masagin's idea might not be as bad as it sounds. If I understood correctly, he/she proposed one known "secret" society. The world is full of them, not just the conspiracy theorists nuts, right?

Recruting key places/voices in all the "physical" teams/civs to "innocently" introduce and push for measures in the host teams to try meet the secret society goals(in Masagin's idea, the stability of the map). That would also be a solution for the early break of war problem that doesn't allow the big majority of MP games reaching the modern era.

But boy, would there be fingers flying! :lol:

Probably with a cure, another plague: most teams would disolve as paranoia would spread.

EDIT: Sorry to take this out from under the carpet, but it's an interesting subject and demogames are still in the infancy stage.

I don't think Team Sockpuppet is a good idea.

When this was necro'd, I seriously worried there would already be accusations flying, about double accounts and random posters causing trouble for some team. This should probably be closed completely, it didn't need a bump, nor this discussion.

Don't knock down debate/discussion, it's always healthy.

But independently of it's benign or malign simptoms(I mentioned both sides of the coin and there's more), it's perfectly doable within the (forum and game) rules. Overseered my the mods like anyother team and with a board that would be open later on like anyother team.

Anyway, I'm saying it's an interesting idea, not a particulary good one.

Anyone knows 79' boardgame Dune? There is a Bene Gesserit faction that IIRC don't have troops, but can work in the extra-board environment, sort of like this idea. The Bene Gesserit faction would win if the team they decided on in the beguinning of the game would win, therefore stealing the other faction's win. Very cloack & Dagger stuff.

But of course, there needs to exist a certain maturity level so that people didn't go around posting irractionality around.

No, it's generally dangerously close to infractable to talk about double-accounts and such stuff, and this has been an often discussed worry in previous similar games like this. The game already started, the OP's idea was not implemented, this thread should have died.

But Masagin mentioned anything of the kind? He/she even clearly negated those practices.
And this scenario has come up for discussion in other games? Didn't know that.

And shure, the game as already started and it wasn't implemented. Since when an impossibility closes the door on the discussion over a subject?

Again, I'm not saying that this is a good idea to implement as it is, just an interesting one.