Anyone up for a succession game?

[Little Raven]

I see they've got a couple going on Apolyton now, and they look like tons of fun. That got me wondering...we've got quite a few talented story tellers on this board...any of you up for a succession game?

For a good example of a succession game in action, check out Gaius' Succession Game. Anyone who is interested, reply here or email me at littleraven@hotmail.com.

These are the game settings I had in mind, though everything is subject to change...

20 turns per person.
72 hours rule in effect.
Participation limited to 6 people.

Large world, 8 civilizations.
Everything random except barbarians, set to raging.
(The only setting I really care about is barbarians... can't have too many of those!)
Regent level.

You don't have to be any good to play, just willing to take your best shot and roll with the punches. You also have to be willing to write a story about your rule every time you take over for the board to enjoy.

Any takers?

 

[Ilspana]

I love that idea

count me in.

Also, you should have participants vote for which civ we want to play as.

I'm not sure which one i'd be willing to do yet. I'll wait for others to make their suggestions/votes.

 

[Little Raven]

That's one in!

As for choosing which Civ to play, I'm not opposed to the idea if we can all agree, but I figured since it's quite likely we'll all have different play styles and therefor favor different civs, it might be best to just let the random number generator decide. After all, part of the fun of succession game is inheriting an empire and seeing what you can do with it.

Personally, I tend to be a very peaceful builder type. Or at least I was until Civ III. Resources have made me into much more of a warmonger. I haven't played enough Civ III to really develop a style, though, and I'm willing to give any civ a shot. (though I admit I'll have to stifle a groan if we get the Americans. I could never get over founding Washington in 4000 BC)

 

[Captain Ludd]

I promise to do my part to make it all more interesting for everyone by doing my usual lame job at everything too (I can see it now..."dam! Why am I stuck taking my turn after the Ludd reign!"). Anyone that comes after me will have quite the story to tell ("first I had to extract our butt out of the fire")

No really...I would enjoy it as long as not everyone is expected to be a civ savant.

 

[Ilspana]

Americans in 4000 bc? yuck. I always hate to see that. Lets all of us agree to choose the civilizations so americans wont be included... Or i could just genocide the americans and their cities. Either way...

Oh, and dont worry about skill level Ludd. I'm far from the best player and do most of my games on warlord difficulty (occasionally try prince for extra challenge, but even warlord can be a handful sometimes.) The plus with this sort of game is that i only have to keep the boat afloat for a mere twenty turns

That'll be good so long as i'm not the ruler at a critical juncture. I think the more skilled of the participants should be given places at the important phases, like the founding and the dawning of the industrial age, etc.. I do like the ancient phase though, so I'd be partial to being the second ruler.

 

[Little Raven]

Ok, so we've got three now. Awesome!

Don't worry about not being good enough. The point of this is to have fun and write a cool story, not to win. (though that would be nice! ) I'm certainly no Civ savant (I've been playing at Regent) and I doubt that anybody that was would want to play after me. I don't think we need to worry about certain people playing critical junctures. Just let the chips fall where they may. We'll make do. After all, it's just an AI, right?

However, so that you guys can have some idea what to expect from me, I'll introduce myself properly...

I'm old, and therefor remember Civ I when it first came out. I quickly decided it was one of the greatest games ever and played it to death. Then came Civ II, which I also played into the ground. I generally played Civ II at King or Emperor, and won most of the time, but I pretty much stayed away from Diety.

I drifted away from Civ II when SMAC came out. I know many Civers didn't like Alpha Centauri, but I think it was (and still is) brilliant. I just adored playing Morgan. His faction suited my pacifistic/builder mentality perfectly. SMAC kept me busy for a long, long time, so I never played CtP or CtP II.

In my limited experience with Civ III, I’ve been trying to keep to my old strategy of building and getting ahead in tech, but honesty, it hasn’t been working as well as it used to. I’ve been playing regent, and I can stay ahead, but only barely. I’ve also found I need a MUCH larger military than I used to. I’m still a builder at heart, but strategic resources have been changing that. It really grates on me to have to trade for a resource, so if I need it and can take it by force, I almost always do. I also like denying said resources to the AI whenever possible.

My vote goes for random civs, with the exception that if we start as the Americans we start over. If we come across the Americans in the course of the game, well, Ilspana knows how to deal with them...

 

[jhigham]

I'll play, but I'd rather a standard map; my underpowered computer will have a hard enough time keeping up (assuming we get to the industrial ages).

I don't know about the barbarians, they ripped me a new a**hole when I bumped up the level. I'm willing to try it though

BTW, How do you take screenshots? Someone asked for some, but I didn't know if it required software, or a key combo, or what.

 

[Little Raven]

And the number grows again...

I've never played a standard map (have a penchant for big epic games) but I guess it would be fine. Any thoughts on whether we should choose a civ or go random?

The way I've always taken screenshots is to line up the screen the way I want it, then hit the printscreen button. Then I go into paint and press control-v to paste. Voila, one screenshot. It's kind of a pain but it's the only way I know how to do it...

 

[Ilspana]

I think we should choose the civ randomly, otherwise I'll always opt for militaristic/religiuos civs. Thats the only combo i've been successful with so far (the only one i've tried more than once) and if its not beyond my control to do so, i'd always pick them.

 

[ukrneal]

Sounds like fun to me. Worth a shot anyway.

 

[duke o' york]

Hey! Good luck guys - I'm surprised that no-one has bothered to try this yet. The Civ 2 succession games were very popular until Civ 3 came out, and then loads of players dropped out. I know KittenOFChaos is still looking for players .
It's a great thing that you've already decided to include screenshots with your reports - it definitely helps those who are reading the posts to get a better feel for the game. You have to remember to unplug your printer from the computer before you press the Print Screen button though or else you'll just end up with a picture of Civ on paper.
I wish I could play, but being a limey with a knackered PC then I won't be seeing Civ 3 for a long time.

 

[Captain Ludd]

I tend to play on the large map with 16 civs...if I'm going to lose then I want to lose BIG!

But any size should be fun...I'm just curious to see how this works out. Never done it before and I can see a lot of things happening...

Like I come on and suddenly I have a war I didn't want...what to do? I'm sure a lot of us have at least one little tactic that the others wouldn't normally use...your bound to curse the guy in fron of you at least a little. But I imagine that must be part of the fun...real leaders don't always get to choose the spots they find themselves in

As for background...
I'm in my late twenties (is that old here?) and started playing civ I as soon as it came out. Then civ II was a dream come true. Now civ III has culture and serious diplomacy? Very cool.

When I was reading up on the game prior to it's release I was intent on playing the Persians...they're industrious and scientific and that sounded like my approach. But after a few matches I've switched to the greek...corruption makes me want to have that commercial advantage.

Like Little Raven I try to get that tech edge before I fight a war. I like to know I'm going to win. But that edge is harder to grab now...I'm thinking that my wars will be shorter and for a very specific objective (I just fought the Romans because the two Rubber squares fell on their side of the border...and they had another two cities with a lot of incense. "Corner the market" I cried and attacked! :crazyeyes )

Here's my email addy in case it's needed captainludd@hotmail.com

Look forward to ruling the world with you fellows

 

[Little Raven]

Between the people who have replied here and Sebastian, who emailed me yesterday and should be introducing himself soon, we have our six people. So unless someone objects in the next 8 hours, I plan on launching this puppy when I get home from work tonight. The settings will be:

Standard map, 8 civilizations, regent difficulty.
Barbarians set to raging. All other settings (including civilizations) random.
If we end up as the Americans, I’ll restart. Otherwise, come fertile plain or fetid jungle, I’ll play out the first 20 turns as best I can, write a story, take a few screenshots, zip up the savegame, and post the whole lot to the forum. (not sure if I should start a new thread or not) Turns will be taken in the order that people responded, so after I post the savegame, Ilspana will have 72 hours to do his part. Then will come Captain Ludd, jhigham, Sebastian, and ukrneal. If you can’t play your turn in 72 hours, let us know and we’ll skip you. (but not drop you) If someone misses two turns in a row, we’ll consider dropping them.

Sound good to everyone?

 

[TownsendVol]

Hey Since I am too late for this game I would like to put my name in consideration for the next one.


I am a brand new civ. player (never played before this game) so I still suck but I really enjoyed reading the stories on civ 2 and would love to be involved.

I need some more practice anyway so it maybe for the best that I missed this game.

I look forward to your first posts and learning from what you all do.

 

[jhigham]

Just a short rundown on my playing strategy.

I am a defensive, infrastructure style player (although not necessarily that good at it . I don't go to war unless it's absolutely necessary, and work on having big culture cities, with well developed land.

The biggest problem with this approach is that I often don't have enough military units around, and have to hit panic mode every now and then (and the AI doesn't respect the fact that you CAN have a military, just the fact the you DO).

 

[Ilspana]

Well, i guess i'll follow Little Raven and Ludd's lead by giving a bit of extra info on myself.

My first Civ experience was on the playstation,w hen civ 2 came out on that system. Although it was a very primitive game compared to civ 3, i instantly was hooked. I didnt have any one strategy in the game. Soemtimes i played a war-mongering mongol, another time i played a peaceful, scientific Zulu. Yet another time i played an isolationalist Celt, never leaving my small island with five cities on it..

Anyways, this game eventually lost its novelty so i moved on. It wasnt until two years later when i decided to pick up civilization: call to power (mistakenly thinking that it was part of the same series). Even now, I'm astonished at how similar Call to power could be to civilization, fundamentally, and yet everything feels so different. One of my main gripes is that the ages go by way too fast. I never got the chance to enjoy new units such as knights as i would discover gunpowdre only a few turns later. After downloading a few player made patches the gameplay did begin to resemble civ two but it just wasnt the same.

I only heard about civ 3 around three weeks before it came out and then began watching it's progress religiously. I planned to play as the chinese, thinking that their civ specific abilities matched my own strategies in previous civ games (i liked internal development as well as having a good defense or offensive force).

When i got the game, however, i found the chinese difficult to develop the way that i wanted. I found myself building cathedrals, temples, and colloseums more often than any other improvements. Those were the first i put up in new cities. The Industrial ability didnt help the chinese in making those imrpovements any quicker either..

For my next game, i decided on the japanese (who only take half as long to create military and religious improvements. Perfect for my new play style: Build military and religion/culture.). I did much better with the japanese. Before i could conquer the world toward the end of the game, however, i won a cultural vicotry. I was happy that i won and could move on to the next difficulty level, but that totally took away my drive to continue the game and conquer the world. So i started another game with the japanese on warlord and did even better. By the 1600's i conquered all seven civilizations that shared my continent.

Hopefully this gives you an idea of how i run things when i play... If i want an extended war, i will usually switch to monarchy, communism, or even despotism (getting four extra units added to your limit for the small cities you conquer is a great advantage for conquering nations.). Republic/democracy is probably even better for defense. With all of the gold they can make, they can suppport even more units than the other governments.

Ok, a little problem for when i start my turn in this game... I'm going on a little trip and likely wont be back until monday.. tuesday at the latest. Let me know on this thread, as soon as possible, if this is ok, and how this will work out. Good luck guys, and make way for the war-torn rule of Ilspana!

 

[Little Raven]

When are you leaving, Ilspana?

I'll post the game as soon as I can, but it probably won't be for another 8-9 hours. If you think you can squeeze in your turn before you leave, then I think everything will probably be fine, if not, then we can just skip you this time around and have Ludd take second shift. Either way we won't drop you.

 

[Ilspana]

i'm leaving in about two hours or so.. Normally doing twenty quick turns wouldnt be any trouble, but I'd rather take my time, and do the best job i can. Plus i need to concentrate in order to write. You can just skip my turn until i come back. I look foward to hearing of all your progress

 

[ukrneal]

It would help me to take my turn earlier, so it wiull help if we skip one this time round. If you like, I'd love to trade with Ilspana - that way noone misses a turn, but I have no problem just moving up.

A little about myself? Hmmm. Well, in CivII, I generally played on King and occassionally Emporer. I usually played the English because I could remember the city names easily (it's a pain when you have to search 50+ cities for a city name you can't pronounce!). With CivIII, I'v only played the Babylonians so far - it's only my second game - and I just kicked Persia's butt (it was early, I got iron, and he still hasn't gotten immortals)!

I already see that my strategies from CivII either don't work or need modification. I'm still learning, but am more than willing to kick the little AI where it hurts. I tend to micromanage a bit, and I sometimes get a little radical in my play - but I am not married to any one strategy. So far I like CivIII, but am still finding my way.

Here is a potential intro to kick off our story:

It was the year 4001 BC and the space module had just crashed into the mountainside. Over 100,000 people had been on board. The smoke was roaring down the mountainside as I gazed on in shock and fear. What had caused the sudden catastrophe?

I remember chatting away with the girls from section C4, when the alarm bells went wild. Explosions had rocked the ship, gravity had been lost almost immediately, and smoke had errupted everywhere. Everyone had immediately sought out the escape pods, where, to my good fortune, I had found my best friend for the past 10 years. We had ejected only moments before impact and I was still shaken from being thrown around like a sack of beans.

All our supplies had been aboard: the laser weapons, the e-books, our water supply, the food replicator, the robotic defense units, needed medical supplies, the uranium depot, the... A string of curses from my friend had shattered the shock of those of us who had made it. We all stared at each other in shock. "What do we do now?" could be heard on everyone's lips.

There couldn't have been more than 10,000 of us left. Worst of all, those in the forward sections had never had a chance to escape. Only the rear sections - family - had survived. All of our experts, military leaders, heros - my god, every important person - had been killed. We didn't even have a leader left! And here we were on a new world, unexplored and no place to call home...

Later on, over the fire that someone had been able to raise (how one does it without a laser pen, I didn't know - oh the knowledge that had been lost!), representatives from our group met to discuss what we could do. Despair reined! Story after story about our doom began to take hold. Somone has to take control of the situation and lead our people to salvation!

I stood, and spoke more eloquently than I ever had before: about hope, about our collective history, and our open future...

Later, I found myself alone. I listened in joy to the sounds around me. These people depended on me. In universal acclaim I had been asked to lead us to a new life! I had accepted - I was their leader - I only hoped I would lead them well...

- From the memoirs of the first Emperor, Saviour of the People and Guardian of the Realm

 

[Little Raven]

Nice intro, Urkneal.

I have a question, though. I started the game last night and managed to handicap us pretty good in the 20 turns allotted to me. Hope you guys are in touch with your feminine side. Anyway, it's just about ready to post, but I can't seem to attach the screenshots I took. I cropped them down and made them JPGS, but I don't currently have a web page to put them on. (so I can use the IMG linker) Can I just attach them along with the savegame using the attach file button? Will people be able to view them without downloading them?

I'll have to try and get some webspace to put these things in before my next turn. If anyone has advice on the best way to do that, I'd be much obliged...