Civ III Demogame Multiplayer PTW Game Discussion thread

[Falcon02]

So far I see only a few practical choices (some can be combined)

Anti-spies

A.) Passwords to the forums and careful citizen registration to prevent "spying"

B.) Have Mods patroling the sites for "priviliged information." However, this could result in punishing those who accurately and legally assess the situation and figure out what the other civ is doing.

C.) Forcing Peaceful cooperation between the two human civs. However, this gets rid of the Human vs. Human challenge from all possibility, but gets rid of the need for spies, since both sides will be in an information alliance with the other.

Structure

A.) CFC with Apolyonia

B.) Two CFC Demogames

C.) CFC with an Elite Player (Aeson, Bamspeedy, Sir Ralph, etc.), restricted from viewing the Demogame forum.

D.) Several Clan like Demogames playing, where it would be just small teams, but this reduces the "democracy" feel and setup and makes it more of an oligarchy.

 

[Falcon02]

Discussion in the interest Poll can be found at the following URL

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=27981

 

[Lovro]

Option D has been done (once that I know of) in the succesion game forum under the name of RBD23 - the competitors.

Here are the links: main thread, team A, team B, team C

I wouldn't mind doing another one of those.

 

[Cyc]

Lovro, that does seem to be a great way to handle a game. I was wondering if for security the passing and discussing of information, screenshots, zips, whatever could be done through the PM system. This would eliminate the possibility of another team looking at your work. (if this PM idea actually works) Security seems to be the key issue in a game like Falc is trying to put together. I'm not sure passwords would work.

Anyway, I was thinking that the buddy mailing system of PM's could ease the mailing process while still allowing individual pm's.

 

[Falcon02]

Originally posted by Cyc
Anyway, I was thinking that the buddy mailing system of PM's could ease the mailing process while still allowing individual pm's.

What exactly do you mean? I understand in a vast Demogame vs. Demogame like the current scale of Phoenetica, strictly PM communications wouldn't be practical. Of course in a "Clan-like" team based Demogame it would be possible and alot of the discussion could be done in that chatrooms. However, I'd prefer the larger scale first if we can figure out how to get security to work right, and I hold simular reservations about a Forum Password system myself.

 

[Cyc]

Exactly, Falc. I'd much prefer to see a large scale Demo Game than anything else. We've put all this work into making a great experience for a large group of people and I think that should be the main focus. The problem you are going to face is security. Doesn't matter if you play a Mod (who have the power of the Force ), or a different site or a different Political team of CFC's.

I meant that the buddy system of PM's would be good in the small team aspect. You're right, in that it's the only application it would work in. The Honor system is fine and dandy, but I only have enough faith in that to play in the current style game. Hopefully someone can come up with the answer.

 

[Falcon02]

Originally posted by Cyc
I meant that the buddy system of PM's would be good in the small team aspect. You're right, in that it's the only application it would work in. The Honor system is fine and dandy, but I only have enough faith in that to play in the current style game. Hopefully someone can come up with the answer.

My feelings exactly. And I'm also hoping someone else can figure out a better anwser than what I have so far, that's part of the reason for this thread, try to bring together all our minds to try to find the solution.

 

[Shaitan]

There's a workable alternative but it eliminates the competitive aspect of a multi-team game. If the player civs are forbidden from attacking each other then there is much less problems with spies.

 

[Falcon02]

I had that before in the intrest poll, but forgot it when posting this thread. Thanks for reminding me.

It's now added in the First post.

 

[Myartar]

my concern w/ the option of dividing up into team, how will it be done? If everyone just chooses what team they wanna be on, you'll have everyone joining the team that's winning or possibly have all the good players join a team which would completely unbalance the game. Teams would have to either be made randomly or by everyone rating themselves and the be divided by a mod or something. If the teams are uneven by numbers or by skill, it will get real boring real fast.

 

[Falcon02]

Well Option (D) is more like teams of 5-10 people, I'm talking SMALL there, not a true demogame and such concerns wouldn't be as big an issue, you'd just gather together your team, likely of online friends and just have fun.

With two large CFC demogames it's a larger concern. We could do it randomly or force them to be equal, but I don't think that's such a great Idea. I think both "teams" would have to do their own recuiting, and just deal with the situation that comes their way, and try to get some more good players if possible.

But I do understand your concern.
Anyway, the point of this isn't to "win" but to have fun, even if you have fun getting crushed to a pulp, so long as you accept the challenge.

 

[Chieftess]

You could have a mixure, kind of like real life, not all governments are the same. There's democracies, republics, monoarchies, desoptism, etc.
Maybe a civ with a few players (say, 5-10) could be a repbublic or communism (just the cabinet, and 'city-states'). Succession Games are your "Monoarchy Games" of sorts, since there's 'eras' of rule. A 1 person-game could be a despotism. (the likes of Aeson, Sir Pleb, bamspeedy)...

 

[Chieftess]

If we do have that sort of setup, it might look something like this:

Democracies: Site Demogame such as: CFC, 'Poly, GC
Despotisms: Elite players such as: Aeson, Sir Pleb, Bamspeey
Monoarchies: SGs players/teams.
Communiams/Republics: Smaller civ sites banded together.

 

[Falcon02]

I think the bigger the scale the more seceracy is a concern. The small team and despot members chould be just vastly trusted people and banned from being in the "subforums." Maybe we could get a Mod's view on this for banning certian people from certian forums or subforums

 

[Almightyjosh]

Why not just ban them from CFC altogether?? Oh, wait...

 

[Falcon02]

~BUMP~

no more thoughts or comments?

 

[Shaitan]

I think mixing team types is a recipe for disaster. Remember that competition isn't the focus of a Demo game. While we're designating park land, an elite player like Bamspeedy would be pointing his finely wrought weapon of a civ at the back of our collective head.

 

[Falcon02]

I'm not so much looking at "competition" in particular. But gereral Interaction, the two sides could be Allied, perfectly peaceful, neutral, cautious or agressive with eachother.

Just like any Human and AI interaction except it would be humans on each side.

Kinda like Risk or Diplomacy... you can ally with each other against a greater threat, ignore eachother, or duke it out with each other.

However, with Civ III there is actually a "peacetime" where you could be allied in trade. You could even set it up so that each of you trade a different tech and sell or give it to the other to quicken progress.

Though, competition could become a bigger, more challenging part, making anti-productive role playing activities such as National parks, potentially hurtful if done on a large scale.

 

[Chieftess]

Originally posted by Falcon02
I think the bigger the scale the more seceracy is a concern. The small team and despot members chould be just vastly trusted people and banned from being in the "subforums." Maybe we could get a Mod's view on this for banning certian people from certian forums or subforums

I wonder if the forum tells you who's been in what forums/threads. Almost like how the main page keeps track of everyone. The board could probably be tweaked to write down the names of people who were in that forum on any given day.

 

[Falcon02]

CT good Idea, that way we could look for specific names. I'll forward TF to this thread in hopes he will read it and make comments on what the Mods are actually ABLE to do, not to mention his own suggestions on the idea.