Another game? Focused discussion

[DaveShack]

While this game was winding down there were some talks of another game, but it was split among several threads and mixed in with commentary on how this game would end.

So, who's up for another game? What can we learn from the just-completed one to make a next one better?

Some starter ideas gleaned from earlier comments: I do not take credit for these as original ideas nor do I claim accuracy of what was said before.

• Use "new random seed". Eliminates loading & testing results, but can no longer recreate results accurately after a crash.
• Use simultaneous turns. Eliminates loading & testing results, but now have to police double moves. Have to run 2-3x a normal turn timer to allow for MTDG style diplomacy.
• Try always peace. Won't get folks leaving because there is no hope of winning a war. Might not attract people who like to make war. Might attract people who would like to see a non-war victory. Might be hard to recover once getting behind.
• Turn off espionage
• Turn off random events
• More teams to get a richer diplomatic environment. However does this thin out the available player pool too much so that we risk a team going defunct?
• Smaller map?
• Start in a later era?
• Start with team captains? Sometimes this helps, other times people just get in a rut. Refer to Apolyton DG history -- alliances tended to carry over to next game etc.
• Random team assignments? Or directed assignments splitting up more successful teams from prior games? Takes away team chemistry but might give more teams a chance to be good.
• Distribute players to teams based on skill? Balances teams but same negatives as captains or random.

OK, there's the memory dump on some ideas. Discussion?

 

[Sommerswerd]

First off, please count me in for the next game, and put me on any mailing lists, etc for same.

Thinking about the next game… What about a system that includes, but limits war, through a mini-war/final-war system? Maybe it could work this way (or something like this):

DoWs work as normal until all teams have met each other.

Once all teams meet each other, we could enter a ‘Mini War’ or ‘Final War’ period. The way the ‘Mini-War’ works could be as follows…

If any team declares war on another (besides accidentally), regardless of who declared war, attacked first, etc., both teams are obligated to agree to unconditional peace in 3 turns (Conditional peace can be agreed to prior to the turn deadline). During this 3 turn period, other teams could also declare war on each other, but once the 3 turn Mini-War period is over, all teams would be obligated to make unconditional peace. This Mini-War would be followed by a 30-turn mandatory peace period where none of the teams would be allowed to declare any wars.

If any team elects not to make peace at the end of the 3 turn Mini-War period, then a 30-turn, Final-War count starts, at the end of which, the team with the highest score is declared the winner and the game is over.

This would:
Most importantly... Give a fixed limit to most conflicts, which will help game morale, and minimize game collapsing conflict over War-related issues
Discourage Warmongering but encourage War-preparedness
Discourage runaway scores
Encourage Culture building - for larger border-cushions
Elimminate lost team morale (during losing wars)
Provide a large incentive to 'stick it out'/fight to the end
Create incentive to dogpile the score-leader (if Final War starts)

many many more pluses, but I am interested to hear thoughts...

 

[azzaman333]

While this game was winding down there were some talks of another game, but it was split among several threads and mixed in with commentary on how this game would end.

So, who's up for another game? What can we learn from the just-completed one to make a next one better?

Some starter ideas gleaned from earlier comments: I do not take credit for these as original ideas nor do I claim accuracy of what was said before.

• Use "new random seed". Eliminates loading & testing results, but can no longer recreate results accurately after a crash.

• 
  
  A must. It's better than the alternative.
  
  

  [*]Use simultaneous turns. Eliminates loading & testing results, but now have to police double moves. Have to run 2-3x a normal turn timer to allow for MTDG style diplomacy.

  
  Also should definitely be used. I'm sure an enforceable DM rule will be written well enough to prevent exploitation.
  
  

  [*]Try always peace. Won't get folks leaving because there is no hope of winning a war. Might not attract people who like to make war. Might attract people who would like to see a non-war victory. Might be hard to recover once getting behind.

  
  Not a fan of always peace, but it wouldn't stop me from playing. This strikes me as more of an option to be decided after teams have started forming.
  
  

  [*]Turn off espionage

  
  Bad idea IMO. I don't think there were any issues with Espionage as such. The SANCTA style of hiding demographics and techs would be mostly be prevented by simultaneous turns anyway.
  
  

  [*]Turn off random events

  
  Yes, because it's possible to completely avoid bad events.
  
  

  [*]More teams to get a richer diplomatic environment. However does this thin out the available player pool too much so that we risk a team going defunct?

  
  Whilst I would like to see more teams, even with only 5 teams we had three being run almost solely by a single person near the end (Husch/MS, slaze/Cav, Memphus/SANCTA). I don't know if it's feasible.
  
  

  [*]Smaller map?

  
  Could be interesting, but I think it should more or less be left to the mapmaker.
  
  

  [*]Start in a later era?

  
  I don't think I'd be interested in playing a game that started in a later era. The early game interests me much more than the late game.
  
  

  [*]Start with team captains? Sometimes this helps, other times people just get in a rut. Refer to Apolyton DG history -- alliances tended to carry over to next game etc.
  [*]Random team assignments? Or directed assignments splitting up more successful teams from prior games? Takes away team chemistry but might give more teams a chance to be good.
  [*]Distribute players to teams based on skill? Balances teams but same negatives as captains or random.

OK, there's the memory dump on some ideas. Discussion?

I don't think there's an issue with the current team selection policy. Teams generally seem to mix themselves up between games, and different people have won each time. I'd leave things the same.

 

[Indiansmoke]

I am up for another game.

Now on the settings.

I would recommend either always peace with tech trading off or always war game and some short of equal map like equal islands or equal inland sea etc. Having a situation again that 2 of the 5 teams have inferior starts and cannot be competitive is not fun.

For always peace there are 2 options, OCC game or non OCC. For non OCC the map would have to be such that teams have a specific land to settle that no other team can take from them (like equal islands map) and the goal would be first to space or cultural.

For always war I would not make the map big. For example for 5 teams small inland sea or pangea map is more than OK. Military resources would have to be balanced (all teams to have them 5-6 tiles from capital for example).

The logic between always war or always peace and no tech trading is that it still allows for diplo stuff (more limited true) but does not make diplomacy the one and only factor in the game. We saw in this game that a 4vs1 tech alliance can be achieved leaving that 1 team hopeless.

Random events and huts I would turn off

Espionaze I am not sure to be honest, first thought is having it off though.

Later era is a great idea for me...not sure about the majority here.

Now on teams....

Having team captains from teh start is a great idea. Of course if someone thinks he can put a team together he should be allowed to do it.

Also other sites can get involed. Realms beyond said they would put a team together for a future game, CDZ might apolyton might and Civplayers might.

On the format
I liked non simul turns so we don't have to deal with double moves. Just turning new random seed on should solve any possible issues. Of course if the game is always peace non sinul does not make sense. But in always war it will save time propably. But give teams 20 hours instead of 24. It is plenty of time to play and it accelerates the game alot.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I agree that we don't really need "random seed off" AND "simultaneous turns." Random seed off is fine.

To accelerate the game, we can go with a shorter turn timer, 15-18 hours should be enough AND NO PAUSING. This will force teams to work with multiple turnplayers, thus getting more people involved, and hopefully fostering more interest. Really, turn timers are almost meaningless when you can pause... why not just PBEM? (a joke of course)

No pausing will make the passage of turns a little-bit more more predictable, and stop people from losing interest due to long/endless turn delays.

A No pausing rule will also encourage more involvement within a team, because one person will not have time to manage diplo, play turns and still drive forum discussion. They will need to get help from other team members.

 

[Kaleb]

I'm up for another game but probably won't be able to be a turn player this time.

Use "new random seed". Eliminates loading & testing results, but can no longer recreate results accurately after a crash

Definitely.

Use simultaneous turns. Eliminates loading & testing results, but now have to police double moves. Have to run 2-3x a normal turn timer to allow for MTDG style diplomacy.

Agree on simul turns. Will make the game go faster and means it harder to analyse demographics screen and/or hide tech priorities in espionage.

Try always peace. Won't get folks leaving because there is no hope of winning a war. Might not attract people who like to make war. Might attract people who would like to see a non-war victory. Might be hard to recover once getting behind.

No, if we take out war it removes a big component of the game.

Turn off espionage

Aww espionage is fun. Particularly like having no-score mod as it makes ESP even more useful.

Turn off random events

Definitely

More teams to get a richer diplomatic environment. However does this thin out the available player pool too much so that we risk a team going defunct?

We can get more players if we involve other forums like Smokey has already said.

Smaller map?

Maybe a bit smaller, but not 'small'.

Start in a later era?

Prefer an ancient start but perhaps with 2 settlers?

Start with team captains? Sometimes this helps, other times people just get in a rut. Refer to Apolyton DG history -- alliances tended to carry over to next game etc.

Don't really know how this would work out, never tried it before.

Random team assignments? Or directed assignments splitting up more successful teams from prior games? Takes away team chemistry but might give more teams a chance to be good.

Ha! I kind of felt it was random in this game.

Distribute players to teams based on skill? Balances teams but same negatives as captains or random.

May as well go for captains if we take this route.

I also like the idea that's been suggested that captains can say how they want the team to operate and then people can join a team knowing how the team will operate in advance.

 

[damnrunner]

I love another game. As to settings I think the main thing would be a smaller map and a random seed.

I would also recommend no tech trading, but I think I am in the minority on that.
I would very much be against simultaneous turns and having always war/peace.

I think the turns in this game worked out just fine until the whole cheating allegations began. As to always war or peace it really limits game play options.

In always war you can diplomatically agree not to attack each other - then it just stops tech and other trading. It can be a fun challenge vs the AI, but with human players it takes away from the game. Always peace can also be abused - imagine highly aggressive strategy of culture bombing for which a team has no recourse to war.

As to other more complex game restrictions (Sommers has several) I think these just confuse and complicate a game.

Also not a big fan of team captains. Inevitably teams will disagree and whomever is captian will always carry the most weight in discussions. I think that greatly increases the odds of teams losing participation.

 

[HUSch]

I would like a next game to play.
To simul we 've a long discussion at GWT about situation of 2 teams want to conquer a city.and both are logged in. And perhaps they both are in an ally against the third. You can it play simul but who want to be a referee then.

So I vote against simul.

Espionage is an important trait in my view of Civ,

There is only small diplo without tech-trading.

Allways war or peace is a very hard approach for the map-maker, btw there is a team play (5:5) with a fanatics team and allways war.

 

[DMOC]

I'd be interested in a new game. I'd like to not have to install a mod (i.e. No Score) if possible.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I think a smaller map is actually pretty important, in trying to help people stay interested.

Smaller maps means fewer cities to keep track of, so you can see what's up in a civ with just a few screenshots a day.
Fewer cities means fewer choices as to where to put them, which takes less time, but the decisions are more important,
so people want to add their 2 cents.

I think we had a standard map with low sea levels for this last game, and that's a lot of land.

Less land means earlier conflict means faster war means a shorter game, all of which is more likely to keep people interested.

A few other things

1) Food bonuses in the capital have to be balanced. Everyone should have farm resources, or no one does - and they should be balanced - irrigated rice or wheat = non-irrigated corn, I think. Not sure where deer fit in there, but they might be ok. Problem with some civs having farm and some sheep is that they pretty much HAVE to go for AH, which can put them behind for BW and chops. Going for AH may be the smart thing to do for a civ, but that should be a choice, not forced.
2) Civs should either know about where they are, or pretty be guaranteed that if they go in any direction, they'll find another civ - ie, no one is going to waste 10 turns on a peninsula behind them when they are looking for other civs.
3) 20 turns of peace to start the game, so people can send their first unit out exploring without pain.

 

[DaveShack]

I brain dumped that list as representative of everything that had been suggested -- and I don't agree with all of the suggestions.

I prefer tech trading on, espionage on, random events off, huts on.
New random seed would mean there would be no point in carefully recording a turn so it can be played again the same way. Or would there?
I really wish there were a way to start simultaneous turns and then switch to sequential after it gets complicated.

If pausing isn't allowed, I won't play -- or at least I won't have much motivation once the first turn is skipped. A skipped turn can be enough to eliminate a team from contention, if it's at just the wrong time. In an individual game it makes sense to get a no-pause agreement from all players, but in a team game, no. Some restriction on pausing is OK, but really, what's the big hurry?

Smaller map -- yes, but not excessively so. Or teams start closer together with more space on the outside...

I had a nice argument with the mapmaker for the ISDG round 1 over map balancing. Starts need to be balanced without necessarily balancing resources. But we don't want them to be completely balanced -- it's ok to give one civ a couple more + and another more +, but not one civ +8 vs the rest or one with insufficient food to grow past size 6. And resources need to be somewhat balanced, or the teams with more early game luxuries can run a higher population cap.

Which reminds me, how about lowering the difficulty level? That would level the playing field to account for unequal (but close to balanced) starts.

 

[Sommerswerd]

What about doing an advanced start? That would elimminate some of the boring period in the beggining where there is almost nothing to do...

TBH, I liked the settings of the last game. I would be fine with playing a similar style game with:
1. Random seed off
2. Events off
3. Either espy off OR some rule about demographics/techs hiding - Either it is all OK or none of it is OK, either way is fine by me... but inventing/changing the rule mid-game was kind of .
4. Some anti-accusation rule... Maybe any/all accusations of impropriety, unsportsmanlike conduct etc., should be made privately to an administrator or ONLY discussed in forums, but NOT publicly... Or maybe post-investigation, ALL discussion directly or indirectly related to the investigation should be made ONLY in private forums, OR to administrators, but NOT publicly...WDYT?
5. A clear-simple 'quit' rule.
6. Frankly though, I still feel like we need some discussion about managing participation after/during long wars - especially when a war will probably elimminate a team...

If we don't address this, the game will probably end when big wars start... Adding more teams or Making the map smaller, will only = More teams start quitting faster and the game has a even less satisfying conclusion IMO. All it takes to collapse the game is for one (maybe two) teams to quit... then its no fun and everyone else quits...

The last game was fun. Maybe we should just tweak that model (in terms of settings) instead of scrapping it and starting from scratch. If we just refine the problems of the last game, we may have more success in the next one. The more we change, the more likely that we create new problems that we did not anticipate.

 

[donsig]

I'm interested in another game. I have almost no multiplayer experience so I'm not going to comment on things like simultaneous versus sequential or the level of tech trading allowed. I would say though that some of these choices should wait until we decide what type of game we're going to play. (For example, all peace vs all war vs normal war and peace.)

I'll join the consensus for random seed off and no random events. I'd prefer to have no huts. (The less randomization the better.)

I prefer an all peace game next with only one victory condition enabled, either space race or culture. (The religious or diplomatic condition seems useless in this type of game.) I know some might think a culture or space race only game is quite limited, forcing teams to focus one goal. I'd point out that playing a so-called regular civ game (especially on a smaller map) inevitably means each team had better gear up for war as soon as possible if it wants to remain in contention. In other words, such a game is quite limited, forcing teams to focus on one goal.

Maybe we need some brainstorming as to the type of map we want to play on. I know part of the allure of this game is exploring a totally unknown world. But if we want to ensure a certain level of balance we will need to know something of the map parameters. Even in balanced maps positioning can be quite important. Teams are more likely to go to war with a close neighbor, yet there is great value in forming a lasting alliance with the first team met. The only way I can think of to counter these is to have everyone start close enough to see each other at the start. How about a small island with room for one (balanced) city per civ with more land beyond the sea? Trouble is, anything we do to balance things will skew the way the game is played.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I think that the food bonuses have to be balanced, at least for start. Different civs might go a different way, but early on, having 5 extra food vs 4 extra food is a large difference.

Another option for the "boring part" is to set up a day in the beginning where we play the first 10-15 turns. Generally, that's just exploration and getting attacked by barbs. How many teams vote on whether to send the warrior N or NE? Maybe set it up on a 15 minute timer for the first 10 turns.

 

[DMOC]

^15 min. timer is way too fast.

 

[DaveShack]

Not a 15 minute timer, but organize a play party where a rep from each team is there to burn through 10-20 turns at the same time. That might start 5 or so turns in, after all the teams have settled and had a chance to make MM plans. Use a regular timer so that if one of the players gets called away the game reverts to normal until another fast play session can be set up.

How about starting with a worker in addition to normal starting units? Unless it unbalances the decision of whether to start with a worker build...

 

[Tinkerbell]

I like the idear of burning some turns. Maybe play 10 turns together, then 2 days of team discussion and then another 10 turns.

Starting with some explored area so teams could discuss first city placement before we start would be handy.

 

[DMOC]

The early 20 turns are enjoyable to me so I wouldn't like to see that happen. But if it does, then I won't complain (as long as a second game DOES happen).

Anyone have an idea of who can make the map? Cybershy?

 

[Krill]

I'd be willing to make a map for you, as I'm nto going to play in another game.

 

[Kaleb]

I'm probably not going to have time to play either and I would like to help with the map. Perhaps it would be best not to be done by just one person?

The idea of starting with an area of the map pre-explored and playing a set of turns sounds great as you can discuss what to do and then play the turns out quickly. Would be the best way to kick start the game.

I think tech trading makes the diplo element of the game really interesting but should there be some cap on how many teams you can form a tech alliance with? Or some other kind of restriction that can avoid the game just being about which is the first tech pact to form or the usual things that can make alliances too overpowering?