DaveShack said:
It is very important to shuffle the players a little. I joined a Civ4 MTDG over on Apolyton to see how that crowd plays. They have a few teams who have stayed together through several games, and the atmosphere between the teams seems to be permeated by personal animosity bordering on hatred.
Staying on the same team and competing against other teams playing from the same start and having the same victory conditions is a good thing. The teams are different but they all face the same challanges and have a common shared experience.
Staying on the same team and playing against others who also stayed on their prior teams is a bad thing. Losers can be bent on revenge. Hurts from prior games will resurface and color events in the current game. It won't be a fun time, which is the goal of the MTDG.
I am proud to be an Idiot/KISSer (and an Idiot Kisser and a Kisser of Idiots).
But I do not think that Team KISS needs to be part of the next MTDG. I think the same about TNT, MIA and Doughnut. Those teams only existed in this past game. They should not reconstructed in the next game. They lived and died here. Their memory will live on.
One Method of Team Selection (not completely thought out)
Let's assume we have five teams in the next game. Let's also assume that 30 people from this MTDG sign up to play. How do we allocate them?
I would suggest that the players be listed by their post counts in the MTDG forum or perhaps just their post counts in the previous teams' forum, using the date they joined the game as a tie breaker. The highest post count would go to Team A, the second highest to Team B down to Team E getting the fifth highest poster. Then, just like in Settlers of Catan (a board game), the team order reverses and Team E gets the sixth highest poster, Team D the seveneth and so on, going back to Team A. Team would get the 10th poster and the 11th poster and that this process be used to allocate all 30 players.
I think this would give a random enough distribution of people across the five teams.
I like the five teams better than four teams, but seven teams seems a bit to much.
Adding New Players (that played in this MTDG)
This part adds some red tape, but I think it is needed. What we (really, I) don't want to happen is for previous team people not to sign up, look at the new teams, see one that sortof looks like their old team, and then join that team in enough numbers to in effect resurrect their old team.
So for those who were particpants in this game and who's post count in this game were over some number that would make them 'active' (10 posts? or 15? 20?) there would need to a special understanding about which teams they could join. That understanding would be this:
No current team could have more than 33% of its roster from any one team of the prior game.
This would ensure plenty of cross-pollination in the next game. It would also allow for 'natural' concentrations of former teammates, something that cannot really be avoided.
If the starting setup I described earlier is acceptably random, I would favor ignoring this limit in the initial set up, which could lead to having 4 people of one team in a new team. It would also allow the possiblity of two new teams having a majority of their team from one old team. But I can also see good reasons to keep that 33% rule consistent through out the game (no confusion for newcomers being the most obvious).
Of course, if the new player that was being added did not play in this game, they could join any team.
This is possible player allocation on a nine player team:
Team A (9 people)
Old Team KISS - 3 people
Old Team MIA - 3 people
Old Team TNT - 1 person
Old Team Doughnut - 1 person
New player - 1 person
And thus have two teams bumping against the 33% limit.
Things I Don't Like About This Plan
First and mostly, it puts a lot of work on the Admins and Mods. They would need to determine who posted how many times in this subforum. They would need to determine how many post counts in this subforum made a person 'active'. They would have to post that information and keep track of it (to prevent squabbling). They would have to police who joined what team and at times deny someone their choice of team.
Second, it adds more rules, which in turn causes confusion.
And somehow, someway, it could be abused.
Anyway, this is one plan. It can be made better or merely ignored. I am sure there are other plans that can be used.
).
, is as important than the ingame play.
