I like that idea, the Double Civ Setup.
However, from reading through some of the threads regarding the last MTDG, this would definitely generate an interesing start, but would it be enough to keep people interested and participating?
(Disclaimer: I was part of Team Kaz until late January 09, when I bailed out. Not my finest moment, but that is my history.)
Here's my rambling background for my question, and then it might make more sense.
Some Post Game Analysis
In the MTDG the prized role is that of the Turn Player because you get to implement the desires and wishes of your team. It can also involve a lot of work. It appears that one or maybe even two teams fell apart when the 'normal' Turn Player(s) left or were unavailable. That suggests several things. First, that the team structure was faulty, in that the team only had one head and could not survive without that head. Or that no one wanted to be Turn Player, which implies a lack of committment of the team to the game. It might be the case that no one was groomed/mentored on how to be a Turn Player.
There are also other roles in the MTDG, the most visible being Ambassdor/Spokesman for the team to other teams and the MTDG world at large. Sometimes this is handled by one person and other times by one person for each team. But it does give someone a chance to do something besides just post their opinions on things.
At least early in the game, no one is needed to handle city development and city production since this is generally discussed quite thoroughly. Late game could be a different story.
All of which leads me to this less than earth-shattering conculsion: if there are more people on the team than roles to fill, those that have nothing to do will go away, especially if the roles are being performed competently, unless they can make a role for themselves (Team Historian, for instance). And then, if something happens to the team leadership, no one is in place to step in and carry on. Which is what seems to have happened in this game.
I'm not trying to slam any team in any way. Some game related events caused bad feelings and people decided to drop out of the game due to that fact. I did the same thing.
So, while I do like your Double Civ Setup I wonder how it would play out after nine months of gaming.
Some interesting points. I'd say I tend to agree with Azzaman, that the early game is more interesting (for me at least), and so my interest tends to drop a bit later on. It's just natural really.
But with regards to your suggestion that more smaller teams might be better, I'm a bit reserved there. I think that a large number of the players that join (especially the newer members) are really just interested in casual lurking, rather than full involvement in all the micromanagement. The fact is simply that not everyone is interested in the big commitment that comes with being a turn player (or a diplomat) for a team. So I'm worried that if we spread ourselves too thin, so to speak, some of the teams might break apart from lack of activity. Heck, look at the last game - MS could really have done with another active member and turn player, but they were too short of interested people. And that was in a game with only 5 teams... with 8 or 10 teams, the risk of one or more of those teams becoming inactive would be far too great, IMHO.
I also don't think that having large teams deters people from taking part. Indeed, the opposite may even be the case. In a team where there's lots of activity and discussion, it's easy for a new person to join in and pipe up with their ideas. On the other hand, a team with few active members will have considerably less discussion, and new members will likely be put off by seeing a dead forum - there are very few people with the right personality to be able to come into a silent forum and take charge. For instance, in team Saturn in the early game quite a large number of newer members were participating because we had a lot of discussion going between the existing members. Whereas I'd venture a bet that a large part of the reason for MS's continued inactivity in the later game was because even though newer members were joining, they were seeing a practically dead forum and wondering "why bother?".
So I feel that increasing the number of teams in the game really won't help the problem. But it's an interesting discussion anyway, so thanks for bringing it up.
I would like to add to Lord Parkin's Double Civ Setup in that we have more teams (8 or 10). Each team would have fewer players but we might be able to keep more of them active in the game longer.
See my above reasons for preferring fewer teams.
I like the idea of two teams being known to each other at the start of the game, but is there a way to limit how long they must know each other? That is, Team A and B are paired up at the start of the game but soon realize they cannot stand each other. How long would they be forced to be paired?
Hmm... maybe you're not understanding how the team thing works in Civ4. Have you ever played a team game? (See my signature for an example if you haven't.) Basically it's like a permanent alliance between two civs for the whole game. You can't ever break it - you are unable to declare war on the other civ, have permanent open borders, shared line of sight, shared wonder benefits, etc. Moreover you have shared research, as with all of the other teamed civs in the game, so there is no reason why you'd want to cut ties with your teammate. Doing so would be suicide, since all the other teams would be working together, and would surpass you in tech, etc.
Plus, there's no reason to separate the teams. Since they can see everything their teammate is doing, and need to work together anyway, many teams would probably share their passwords in case their teammate isn't able to play. And it makes it so much more complicated if the teammates are in separated forums, because so much stuff will need to be cross-posted to maximize efficiency. So basically, if you split the teams that way, the then the civs that don't have good communication or organization with their teammates will be heavily sabotaged relative to those who cross-post everything between their forums. In other words, it makes a heck of a lot more sense just to have the two civs controlled by one team, in one forum.
Of course, citizens of the individual teams can role play and assign duties between their two different civs as much as they like - and I'd encourage that as much as possible!
But at the core, because they are eternally linked and need to work together to survive, it doesn't make sense to split the forums of teammates and have the individual civs run separately.
I don't like the initial idea of one team controlling two civs. It seems like more work for the team and one of the civs will be ignored.
I strongly disagree. It isn't much more work to start off with 2 cities than with 1, and indeed it gives the teams more room for discussion at the start. And it's far riskier to split the teams, because sometimes one civ will be more active and reliable at playing the turns than the other, and thus both teammates will be sabotaged. Whereas if both civs are controlled from a single central point, the turn player at the time will always be able to play both turns in succession. It leaves much less room for error and disorganization to have two in-game teams controlled from a single forum team.
Having two civs being paired from the start of the game (but not known to the teams involved until after the game is started) gives everyone a 'buddy' to work with, at least for a while.
There'd be no way of enforcing that though... and besides, that's not how a team game works. Effectively what you're proposing is a game with 8 or 10 individual civs, a few of which are told "you can work together if you want". There's no incentive to follow through, and indeed the civs who betray their teammate might end up better off. In a game with actual TEAMS, there's every incentive to work together, and no incentive to work against each other - indeed it's impossible to war with one another, and if you start trying to hurt your teammate in other ways (e.g. by researching the wrong thing), you're only dooming both of you.
So while I appreciate the input and thoughts, I still think my original idea of having each forum team controlling 2 civs would work better. Whether there are 4 or 5 forum teams (i.e. 8 or 10 civs) could still be up for discussion, but splitting the individual civs in a fundamentally teamed game just doesn't seem to make any sense.