Best Civs for Timmy, Johnny and Spike

[Navelgazer]

My friend and I are co-designing a game right now, and tend to thus spend a lot of our time in discussions of different design theories. Because he's a big fan of Magic: the Gathering, he explained the concept of Timmy, Johnny and Spike to me recently, and I've started thinking about those concepts in broader terms.

For those who don't know, Timmy, Johnny and Spike are the three broad archetypes of players, specifically for MtG but these definitions could easily be applied to any type of immersive game. Essentially, Timmy is the player who loves the RPG aspect, and thrills at the "cool" moments and big victories. Spike is the super-competitive player most interested in finding the most efficient way to win, and Johnny is the creative player who theorizes and tries to do new, perhaps weird, things with the game.

Obviously real people have overlap in these categories.

Still, knowing that designers must consider all types of players when making these decisions, and will try to play to all of them in different ways, I'm curious what the community thinks are the different civs for the different types of players. For instance, Timmy might go for Germany, because winning barbarians over to your side is cool, and the Panzer is the toughest UU in the game, even though other things might be more useful. Spike might instead go for China, knowing how to most efficiently make use of the Great Generals that other players might not know how to maximize. And Johnny might go for Byzantium, trying out different belief combinations to see what sort of results he could get.

Anyways, what are y'all's thoughts?

 

[SYKOJAK]

My friend and I are co-designing a game right now, and tend to thus spend a lot of our time in discussions of different design theories. Because he's a big fan of Magic: the Gathering, he explained the concept of Timmy, Johnny and Spike to me recently, and I've started thinking about those concepts in broader terms.

For those who don't know, Timmy, Johnny and Spike are the three broad archetypes of players, specifically for MtG but these definitions could easily be applied to any type of immersive game. Essentially, Timmy is the player who loves the RPG aspect, and thrills at the "cool" moments and big victories. Spike is the super-competitive player most interested in finding the most efficient way to win, and Johnny is the creative player who theorizes and tries to do new, perhaps weird, things with the game.

Obviously real people have overlap in these categories.

Still, knowing that designers must consider all types of players when making these decisions, and will try to play to all of them in different ways, I'm curious what the community thinks are the different civs for the different types of players. For instance, Timmy might go for Germany, because winning barbarians over to your side is cool, and the Panzer is the toughest UU in the game, even though other things might be more useful. Spike might instead go for China, knowing how to most efficiently make use of the Great Generals that other players might not know how to maximize. And Johnny might go for Byzantium, trying out different belief combinations to see what sort of results he could get.

Anyways, what are y'all's thoughts?

Well now. That is certainly a new way of defining player-type personalities. Personally, I would classify players a little bit differently. Power-Gamers,(ie. min/maxers,) Social Gamers, (folks who are there to just socialize.) Rules-Lawyers, (folks who like to argue about every nuance in the game.) Judges, ( folks who seek to balance every aspect of the game.) Then everyone else.

AS to the individual civs and how they might appeal to individual player personalities, well that depends on the person. Some folks like pure domination, others might prefer more peaceful means of playing. Most folks after a while, tend to develop favorite civs to play due to their preferred style(s) of play. They find what works for them then they roll with it.

 

[Hyperion529]

Timmy: Egypt (because lots of people enjoy wonderspamming), Huns (getting that early Battery Ram from a goodie hut and going on a conquering spree is very cool), England ("no one can reach my murderbows!")

Spike: civs with a science bonus (e.g. Babylon, Korea, Maya) or a ranged UU (China, England) are probably his favorite choice

Johnny: Polynesia, Austria, Sweden all allow experimenting with strategies that are a bit out of the box (and Venice in BNW, ofc!)