Ruff02 - Concurrent Succession Game

[ruff_hi]

I'm thinking of starting a concurrent succession game. What does that mean? In the Chaos game that we are playing (see sig at bottom), I'm the prankster and I marked 3 players as 'up', basically joking around with the roster. Well, they took that literally and all three played the next ten rounds and then left it to me to decide which was the official round. That got me thinking ...

In golf, there is a team game (2 v 2) where everyone tees off and the team plays the next shot from the location of the best ball. For example, Player 1, Team 1 hits a drive 300 meters. Player 2, Team 2 hits a drive 350 meters. For the next shot, both Players 1 and 2 would hit from the location of Player 2s ball. They would then take the best of those shots and play their 3rd shot from that location.

So, a concurrent succession game would involve a team of 5 or 6 all playing each round (including write up) and then deciding which was the best save. Then that save would form the basis of the second round - again, everyone plays the round but from the selected save.

This sort of game would be slower but it would enable everyone to compare their round with each others. There are a few issues that would need to be discussed before we start ...

• how do we decide which is the 'best' save - we would need a scoring method
• early exploration would need directional constraints so that we don't benefit from revealed map info
• timing - I was thinking 4 days to play and write up, 1 day to post, 2 days to decide which save is 'best' (maybe play / write Sat-Tue, post Wed, discuss Thur, vote Fri)
• other issues?

So - is there any interest out there for a concurrent succession game?

Parameters ...
Prince or Monarch (depending on feedback), standard size / speed, map - either Islands or Archipelago, all else random

Map Guide

Roster
Ruff_Hi
bobrath
knupp715 (got you in this time!)
chriseay
T_Raccoon
pholkhero
Spinoza
Mutineer

[bobrath]

Sounds interesting to me... much larger time commitment tho. I'm in (if only so I can learn more!)


In terms of limiting extra discovery, we could consider limiting even the starting turns to 10 a piece. Not the most optimal solution.

[knupp715]

I'm in. This is a really interesting idea you have here Ruff. It could be a great way to learn skills and share playing styles. How many players are we thinking here? Here's an Idea:

Roster
Player A--> Up
Player B--> Up
Player C--> Up
Player D--> Up
Player E--> On Deck
Player F--> On Deck
Player G--> On Deck
Player H--> On Deck
Player I--> Just Played
Player J--> Just Played
Player K--> Just Played
Player L--> Just Played

So... that would make 12 players, 4 people on a team (or any combination, just an example). I'm not sure everybody should have a certain team that they play their turns on though. Teams that alternate would allow more sharing of experiences. For example: in the first roster players ABCD were together, EFGH were together, and IJKL were on a team. The next roster could be chosen at random by you ruff like this: AEIJ, BFGK, CDHL. Or, the players could just discuss who will be on a team in the next round while we are discussing which save was "the best". Just some helpful (hopefully) ideas.

Players who join are going to have to expect some critisism though, and I'm sure somebody might not have their save choosen a lot (probably me )

[chriseay]

I'm in, this sounds really really interesting. I wasn't planning on another SG at the moment, but I think this is too good to pass up. I really like the schedule aspect as well, I think that's a great way to work things.

I think limiting exploration, etc is the hardest part of this. I can't think of any good way to deal with knowing more from a save that isn't chosen, other than all the players trying not to use that knowledge. For example, a save that isn't used reveals the location of iron. On the next turnset the players should "forget" that they know where that iron is, and try to explore as they normally would. The only other option is just to ratchet up the level, since we know we will have some advantages.

I'm looking forward to this one!

[bobrath]

@Knupp - I'd much rather play with a total of say 5 folks and always pick the best turn. In the case of your suggestion, it might be 2-3 weeks between each time a person was actually able to play.

@Chriseay - Best we could hope to do is just treat each new save as a unique point and not "know" about anything under the fog of war.

[knupp715]

Originally Posted by bobrath

@Knupp - I'd much rather play with a total of say 5 folks and always pick the best turn. In the case of your suggestion, it might be 2-3 weeks between each time a person was actually able to play.

I can see what you mean. One team though, would require everybody to be at roughly the same playing level. If one person was better than everybody else then his save would most likely be picked everytime. If this happened, it would be less like an SG and more like a tournament/GOTM type of game.

I wasn't thinking a week though for one turnset but roughly 2 days to play, 1 day to post, and 1-2 days to decide which save we are going to go ahead with. Time would obviously be more flexible though along with skipping issues. Maybe 10 people, 5 and 5. Not really sure though.

@Ruff I was thinking Monarch (maybe even emperor?) difficulty level because we are going to be going with the best save for each turnset and this will definitely make the game much easier.

I can't really think of a scoring method to rate the saves. I'm thinking maybe we should just go with our instincts and each one of us vote for the best save.

[BeefontheBone]

Might be best to stick to 2 players up at a time - it makes it slightly easier to avoid spoilers, and would avoid the issue of having any individual's RL delays etc hold up the entire game. Sounds like a fun idea, mind

[ruff_hi]

My thoughts on limiting knowledge only apply to the first part of the game (map revealing, etc). I would suggest that we only explore to the (say) north, within 8-10 tiles of the starting position. If someone pops another unit, then that other unit goes north too.

With regards to scoring, I think it might change over time. Maybe we have a goal for each turn set (set at the start of the turn set by discussion) and the save that 'best' meets that goal gets the nod. I also think that the write up should have some influence in which save gets selected. Another aspect of this is that it will free up people to try some crazy ideas (ideas that you might not play in a standard SG because you might ruin the game for everyone) that could pay off big time!

I do like the idea of having a poll and getting people to vote for the winner. Anyone could vote (luckers too) with the team members' votes counting extra.

We can even start the process by all starting the game and posting our FIRST starting position.

[knupp715]

We can even start the process by all starting the game and posting our starting FIRST position

This idea gets better and better each moment

[bobrath]

I think this game will be very resilient to RL issues. IF you don't submit a writeup by the deadline then its just not included. As a group we'd suffer because we'd be missing out on a different viewpoint, but we'd never have to wait for it. <-- I like this a lot.

[T_Raccoon]

i want in sounds exciting!!

[pholkhero]

if you're taking more players, i'll join up...put me on the lower end of the roster please....i like the idea of having more than two people play each save, but at what point would we encounter a "too many cooks spoil the soup (or save in this case)" type situation

[Spinoza]

Id also like to play.

Also, if I may suggest, a seperation of the 6 players to 2 or 3 groups of 3 or 2 players each(respectively), could make the game go faster, and be easier to control(choosing out of 5 or 6 games seems a bit too hard and time consuming to me). Also, giving only 2 days for game and write up could also increase game time.

about difficulty, I would say go monarch, since we will have a large adventage at being able to choose out of several tested options, and the higher diff. level will balance it out. map wise-Archipelago- better for strategy.

about choosing the best save/scoring the save; since each of the players might have a different playing style(warmonger, landmonger, cultural etc), and since the results of many of the actions will only be seen far later in the game, I think each player should explain in the write up what were his strategic goals for the turn, why he choose to do this and not that(etc). This would be somewhat like politicians with theyre campaign notes thing. Later each one of the players would vote for his fav. save, and we would go on.

-Spinoza

[chriseay]

Let's go with 5 or 6, Monarch, but let's all play at the same time. Maybe we can even make it so we aren't all opening the save of each play, but instead no saves are posted until a winner is picked. Put any information you think is relevant in your report!

[bobrath]

Now that's a great idea!

[Mutineer]

Well, I want to put my Name in.
Suggest Monarch or Imperor dificulty.
I think Idea of every one starting rundom game is a good idea.
This way we could choise most interesting or most perspective start on higher level dificulty and avoide spoilers.
May be first time 30 Turns on Normal speed, so people can do there start up strategies.
Continent Game with Normal speed and probubly eveyrhting else Rundom?

[ruff_hi]

We currently have 8 in the roster. Lets leave it at that with 2 groups of 4. That way people's time commitment isn't huge. I like the idea of not posting the save and selecting from the info in the write up. Not that hot on everyone going their own way - suggest we discuss the goals for the round, 4 people play the round and then everyone votes on which is the best / most successful for that round.

We can juggle the make up of the two teams too - so people will be 'competing' against different people each round. However, to start with, can everyone start a game based on the following ...

Round 1 - Aim, starting location, no moving of units!

Parameters ...
Monarch , standard size / speed, Archipelago map, all else random

... and post a write up, picture of the FIRST starting position you are given. Obviously, everyone will start as a different leader - fun!

Status
Ruff_Hi - Huayna Capac - posted here
bobrath - Catherine - posted here
knupp715 - Kublai Khan - posted here
chriseay - Cyrus - posted here
T_Raccoon - Gandhi - posted here
pholkhero
Spinoza - Monezuma - posted here
Mutineer - Frederick - posted here

[ruff_hi]

It was a warm, windy day but the breaze coming off the ocean was cooling (a little).
We were in the usual get-up, feathers, and what not.
Someone suggested we settle here ...

... and that we should entrust this dude for the next 6000 years - Yeah Right!


(In all my games - I have never played as the Inca)

[knupp715]

OK, this is what I came up with. Much to my suprise I came up with Kublai Khan, one of my favorite leaders for early warring. Kublai is agressive and creative. Agressive is a nice trait. The Combat I promotion can help your units get promoted faster. Plus we would get cheap barracks which make any warmongers dream. Creative trait means we won't have to spend time building obelisks, early libraries, or spreading religions in order to expand our borders. The Keshik is a decent UU if you get horses early enough. Their greatest advantage is that they don't obey terrain movement rules.

Now for the starting position. The settler is on a river and the ocean which is great. We've got pigs to the south along with some hills although it looks like there may be a desert to the west of the pigs. Hopefully an oasis. To the north we have irory PHANTS! A downside I see though is that in the north we can see some jungle. It isn't usually good to start next to a jungle as it stunts early growth, but this being an archipelago map, I would hardly be able to believe it if it was more than a few tiles wide.

The Bottom Line: This start looks great, especially for you warmongers out there.

[Mutineer]

Well,
I got Frederick, Germany
Philosophical/Creative
Hunting/Mining

I like starting position and would consider move one tie to get fish and I hear incence work with out Calendar is city is on it, but never check.