CIV4 MTDG , 3 Teams + some AI civs (not Civ3)

[Provolution]

Civ4 , 3 teams + some AI Civs

This is only a discussion thread for a game with a 3 team game (1 civ each) and 9 AI Civs (large map). I think we can have both a Civ3 demogame and a new Civ4 game, but please keep the Civ3 discussion in a separate thread from this.

Proposed settings:
Landmass: Terra
Sealevel: Normal
Difficulty: Prince
Number of civs: 12 (3 team civs, 9 AI)

We can either have randomized civs for all, or that each team picks a civ and a leader internally.

The advantage with Terra is that we keep the initial part of the game more focused on less land, and when we finally get astronomy in the game, it really counts, observing barbarian cities as legitimate targets we can conquer in the New World.

I think this game should be run by a turn per day (24 h) pitboss, and failure to comply with the turn simply forfeits the turn, and a delay must be declared by 2 of 3 teams if that is necessary. This enables the game a steady flow, and the need to keep discussions alive and vibrant. This automatically makes the game last 365 days for 365 turns, and could last up to 16 months or so if needed. This would be a manageable pace for most players.

Each team would have a private forum, and only after


There should be a few global rules with citizen rights, elections and so on.
Elections should be kept on the same day for all civs, and results presented in the main forum on who was elected for which position should be posted there. I suggest that there is elections every two months, on the first of that month, or we get election fatigue, plus we can more easier accommodate seasons.

Technologies should always be voted on by all citizens, tech should never be a government only issue (to abstract that very few governments could directly manage innovation) .

City settlement should always be voted on by all citizens, city location should never be a government only issue (to abstract that very few governments could directly manage migrations)

Civics should only be voted on once every election, among with the main candidates, but could have a mid term (first in the month) vote where the change of only one civic is legitimate from the government side, to reflect government reform. This limitation of civic change is there both for the realism, the predictability, the organization and the challenge.

All members should be voted on individually, not as factions, but the civic choice should be the only clear remnant from the faction system, to make civic changes handled more smoothly, predictably and to emulate a government shift. There should also be less positions than in a normal demogame, as there will be three separate civ teams to be in (only one at a time).

Early Game Positions (Ancient and Medieval eras)

There should be a leader for each civ, handling overall strategy discussions, city management (builds and tile working). The leader would also have the sole responsibility and be the only one that can nominate the build wonders (to be approved by the people) on his/her discretion. The Leader would also handle foreign policy and trade in this period.

There should be a military leader for each civ, handling all military movements and promotion of units, and being solely responsible for all military actions, be it pillaging, razing, capturing units and so on.

There should be a civilian leader for each civ, handling all worker, missionary and explorer actions, as well as making sure that city settlement and technology research are handled in a way that allows for both citizen discussion and voting.

There should be a religious leader, handling all missionaries and great people, as well as being the court function in the demogame, settling disputes between players and finally making sure that cultural borders are properly handled.

Mid Game Positions (Age of Discovery)


Later into the game, when more options are opened, we can create two more positions triggered by Astronomy to be reached before or right after the elections.

Since this is a Terra Map, as proposed, there should also be a colonial leader/admiral to be voted into place ahead of researching Astronomy. This player would handle all activities in the new world as a sort of Viceroy, handling city settlement, military actions and land development in The New World.

There should also be a foreign affairs leader handling all treaties and trades in this phase of the game, as well as tech trades, all foreign relations.
This leader would handle missionaries and spies as well.

Late Game Positions (Industrial Age)

The industrial age represents the addition of two new positions, based on the invention of Espionage.

There should be a Head of Intelligence, to operate the spy actions from this stage.

Final Game Positions (Modern Age) triggered by Flight

This period reforms one position and add two final positions.

The Colonial/Admiral/Viceroy position is disbanded here, and should now only be a position to operate naval units as an Admiral.

There should also be a leader operating the airforce, the Airmarshall, who controls both airforces as well as the space program, or space-related activities.

Finally, this era should have a corporate leader, controlling all corporations, and deciding on all use of cash, as well as handling all commercial trades.

__________________________________________________________
For every fifth new city beyond the original five (run by national leader), there could also be appointed governors. The national leader appoints governors.


This model lends both from the "traditional" style of demogames and the factions, but has clearly defined term limits and position powers. The main part that is retained from the Factions system, is the handling of civics by the term, as originally intended, but now as a proposed "bill" everyone votes on, regardless of affiliation. Another part of the Factions system that is retained, is the scalable historicity, that we add positions as we evolve, and do not prematurely label these in modern terms, or ethnically/culturally in only "American civics terms". The judiciary is also omitted, unlike "traditional", as we only use the religious leader to arbitrate in-game conflicts.

 

[thecommonnate]

Hold on. I thought the purpose of creating 3 teams (or whatever number is later agreed upon) was to section off players who wanted to play in the traditional style from players who wanted to continue or rework the factional system.

This setup sounds traditional in its purest form.

....Reading a bit deeper into the original post now, I might have been the only one who thought that.

 

[Provolution]

The idea is to make the rules very simple and accessible, yet historical and true to the combination of civics changes and "elections" also read as power shifts. The civic packages and the change of structure by the modernization level is very much in line with the factions, whereas a traditional player group would simply poll everything at the most confusing stages. The good thing with the traditional system was its simplicity, the bad thing was the lack of historicity and the correct emulation of historical changes. The tech poll and city location polls would insure player participation, but clear powers to official would assure that officials have real powers, and cannot be overruled at every single crossroad. A simple arbitration mechanism get rid of the cumbersome court system, which I do not want to play under.

 

[DaveShack]

I refrained from posting last night because I did not know if this was complete.

The setting of elected positions and how the civ is run should be done by each semi-independent civ. The "core" rules should cover the "box" that contains the game and the mechanics of how to integrate play.

Should I be more specific, or do you want to take another crack at it?

Don't forget my comment in the other thread. My interest is in having what we play work, not in attacking any player or style. This can work, if it's done right.

 

[Provolution]

I refrained from posting last night because I did not know if this was complete.

The setting of elected positions and how the civ is run should be done by each semi-independent civ. The "core" rules should cover the "box" that contains the game and the mechanics of how to integrate play.

Should I be more specific, or do you want to take another crack at it?

Don't forget my comment in the other thread. My interest is in having what we play work, not in attacking any player or style. This can work, if it's done right.

Its not yet complete, but good you take a view into it. The semi-independent civs could themselves change the positions a bit around, but must guarantee the players that technologies and city locations are to be voted on, as well as guaranteeing that civic changes are only to happen on specified dates along with elections (with one governmental civic reform mid term, with only one civic to be changed). There should also be a minimum of positions, all of them to be nominated and elected on an individual basis, the only thing left from the civics system is the civics handling, in order to make this happen along with elections for the sake of simplicity and election drama, everyone can propose civics packages on an individual level to vote on.

The migration rule should be there in order to protect the work done inside a civ, so if a civ team does good work on its own within the duration of 2 months, they will have a better chance of attracting new players, without seeing plagiarism, or directly "sabotage" of a proposal by someone more interested in running another civ, but someone who would get a pot shot on the civ and people they do not like. A civ people leave from, lose player skills, lose entertainment value and lose overall credibility, so most people would like to have nice and functional teams.

So, individual positions, as I do not trust players here anymore to handle factions the way I hoped for, but the civic changes are handled in an orderly manner emulating real historical power shifts along with elections.

There should also be opened for having more/less positions for each election, to reflect how many players they have, what era they are in (I hope I do not see a Secretary of Commerce, or a Vice President by 3000 BC, but if a civ insists on it, let them). The genius with the traditional system, we may want back, is individual elections for key positions, and some people rights to ensure immersion and participation. However, these rights should be more gameplay rights, such as the right to handle techs and city locations for the civ, whereas some rights should be reserved to the officials, who after all, do the tedious work of reporting etc.).

 

[DaveShack]

Each of the human civs should be able to do most things completely independently of the others. The most obvious area in which this independence is really needed is civics. The gameplay civ will almost certainly want to switch to slavery as soon as it makes sense to whip, and the other civs probably won't want to. It would seriously impact fundamentals of gameplay to require civics changes only on election boundaries.

 

[Furiey]

I agree with DaveShack's comments with regard to Civics changes.

I also feel that the teams should be able to organise their government positions as they wish, If one team wants to start out Dictator style and change according to their Civics, they should be able to do so, same as if one team wants to run a Presidential style from day 1. These are aspects that will differentiate the teams and give a reason for choosing one team over another for people who are new to all this and don't know the individuals concerned.

Perhaps the only thing that should be timed the same with everyone is in my opinion the elections for government positions. That will give a common timeframe for movements between teams and give a period of continuity rather than having one team or another changing officials then the next and the next without having time to stabalise an remember who you're meant to be discussing with this week.

On the subject of discussions between teams, I would guess we would need embassy threads for that, otherwise we would have team members from one team posting in another team's area giving the impression of people wandering from one team to another. Would we want to say no discussion before the teams have met?

Would we want the teams to be located randomly on a map or adjacent to each other?

 

[DaveShack]

More comments

A term should be 1 month, not the 2 months that was suggested somewhere. (don't remember where)

I'm still not sold on the migration period thing. Not allowing someone to leave their current place if they are unhappy with it and go somewhere else is exclusionary. I don't want the mere existence of a rule to cause any lost people. Even if someone manages to convince me that a migration period is good (honestly an uphill battle to be sure), it has to start well before the election and last well after it, to give people the opportunity to be elected in their new place, or move on if not elected.

 

[Furiey]

I'm also not sold on the migration period for the same reasons. We don't want people just wandering about willy nilly, but if they have to request to join a new team then that team can always say no (would that be allowed under forum rules?) or wait a while if they feel someone is not being helpful with their moves. I'm not sure not getting elected in one team is a good reason to move if it's the only reason, but then the team may be desperate for players and be prepared to accept someone even if they would prefer the team to be run differently - that should be for the team to decide not the rules. We would need to maintain a clear list of who is in what team to keep track of movements.

 

[Provolution]

Maybe each team should have a migration office. There should also be a rule that a person cannot nominate, be nominated or vote outside their team for that particular turn, or post there unless registered. Losing an election may well lead to exile, which is ok.

 

[DaveShack]

What problem are you trying to solve by limiting where people can post or vote? Can you give a hypothetical example?

 

[Provolution]

If we are to have no limits between the teams in terms of geographical limitation, I am not interested, plain and simple. The entire idea of having three different teams is to cultivate 3 unique styles of play, and make sure one player is not influencing three teams strongly at once. In a real universe, one person cannot travel to three vast regions at once, and run for elections in all of them. I know this is a point players have different views on, but we cannot get a more structured debate on this before we get a new forum.

 

[DaveShack]

IThe entire idea of having three different teams is to cultivate 3 unique styles of play, and make sure one player is not influencing three teams strongly at once.

I'm asking for a system in which their rights to post are not infringed, but they are not allowed to "strongly" influence multiple teams civs at once.

One person cannot travel to three vast regions at once, and run for elections in all of them.

I agree on the election aspect. A player can only run for office in one place, and can only be an official in one place. A rule can accomplish this without affecting their rights to movement.

I know this is a point players have different views on, but we cannot get a more structured debate on this before we get a new forum.

Typically we can't get a new forum until we have proven the concept is viable and performed most of the setup work. If we start the debate after a new forum is created then you'll see the same thing as happened this week. They'll show up looking to play a game, see people are talking about esoteric rules, and not hang around. Most people just want to know what the rules are, and start playing.

 

[DaveShack]

In all due fairness, the idea of playing a multi-civ human team vs AI team game is appealing. Here is a suggestion for the main level structure. This is going to require some work. I have tried to maintain the spirit of the idea while keeping to CFC principles. This is most certainly not an ideajack or a threadjack. I just decided it wasn't fair for me to impose a box without suggesting how to fit the stuff into it.

Civ4 DG4 Structure

This game is played in multi-player mode, with a team of n human civs vs. k teams of m AI civs. For the sake of defining a structure, we begin with n=3, k=3, and m=3, meaning there are 12 civs in the game in a 3v3v3v3 configuration.

Human Civilizations

There are three human civilizations, each of which has its own political structure, play style, and rules. To save time and internal strife, the founders of the game have pre-selected the following play styles as an initial approximation of how players may want to divide themselves.

• Traditional game play [insert short description here]
• Role play [insert short description here]
• [someone help me remember what the 3rd one is

Each human civ will be controlled from its own forum. A player can be a citizen of only one of the civilizations at any point in time. Every player may also be a guest in either or both of the other civilizations.

Rights of Citizens

Citizens may vote in elections, run for office, and contribute to binding decisions of their civilization, in the manner prescribed by that civilization's rules. They also receive whatever citizenship rights are conferred by the civ's rules. A civ may not restrict or penalize any citizen's rights as retribution for that citizen's actions as a guest of another civ.

Rights of Guests

Guests may not vote in elections, run for office (appear in election polls), hold office (other than ceremonial no-authority offices), or have binding contributions to the civilization(s) where they are not citizens. They may contribute content, comment on activities, and give advice. They may advocate their own civ's position on inter-civ relations. If the host civ places style requirements or standards on its citizens, then guests must also abide by those requirements. For example, if a role-playing civ asks its members to make gameplay comments in roleplay terms, a guest must follow the same style.

Rights of Movement

A player may leave their current civilization, if any, and migrate to a new civ. Changes in citizenship are restricted as follows:

• No migration is allowed while election polls are open.
• A player may not return to a previous civ for a period of 7 days after the effective date of their move away from that civ.
• The civ that the player left may disregard the player's input in any pending binding decisions. (votes in polls which have not closed, comments in threads about undecided items)

Elections

Elections will be held each calendar month. Nominations start on the 23rd of the month (except the 21st in February) and last for 4 days. All players shall be eligible to be nominated for all positions in all civs, but may accept a nomination in only one civ. A civ may allow a player to accept multiple nominations or hold multiple offices. A player must migrate to the civ in which s/he accepts a nomination. Election polls open on the 27th (except the 25th in February) and are open for 3 days. If an election is tied, runoff elections are held as needed. Players may concede or withdraw from an election in which case their votes are not counted. Officials take office on the 1st. All times are based on 0001 GMT, but may be adjusted up to 8 hours in either direction to accomodate players in different time zones.

Vacant Offices

If an office is vacant after elections, it may be filled according to the civ's rules. If no office is filled for a civ or if the civ has no citizens, then its control reverts to all players as a pure democracy.

Explanation of Guests and "Binding Decisions"

If a civ uses a decision method of comments in a thread, a guest's comments may be ignored. If a civ uses public polls to make decisions, a guest's vote may be excluded from the official tally. To minimize administrative overhead, the enforcement of voting limitations in elections may be by voluntary compliance and moderator intervention in the case of suspected fraud.

Civ Inclusiveness
A civ may grant guests more rights than the overall game rules do. In particular, a civ may allow a guest to be appointed to an office with substantial non-ceremonial duties, take a guest's comments as binding input, and allow a guest to vote in polls. No civ is required to allow more than the overall game rules.

 

[Provolution]

This was a good initiative Daveshack, not far away from what many of us envisioned. Possibly "guests" to another civ should be restricted to post in dedicated threads for roleplay, proclamations and such.

 

[DaveShack]

Well, I was just thinking of keeping it simple. We'll know disruptive acts if we see them.

 

[Strider]

I was thinking of something a little bit different than either of you. If we are to play with the idea that we are "one" then it makes sense to have one central government. It would be, however, even more interesting that each faction maintains mostly self-autonomy. So the scope of the national government would have to be limited (but still powerful enough to be worth it).

National Government:
Commander - Heads up military conflicts and troop orders during war.
Ambassador - Decides on which direction our foreign affairs go.
Architect - Organises wonder and improvement placement.

The above will act as a triad that heads the national government. It might also be reasonable to have a national level judiciary.

 

[Provolution]

I am against a judiciary of all sorts in this game. This should be more of a loose confederation game, where each team can make their own arbitration mechanisms. The three teams would have to talk together trilaterally and arbitrate. Me and many others have very bad experiences with the court system in the demogames, and we would much prefer simple arbitration mechanisms, not a court.

For the internal titles, it would be up to the teams internally to figure them out. There should be no supranational level, unless the three teams decide on that in the game in a more modern era.

 

[thecommonnate]

I say no to any sort of judiciary establishment in this DG, there's really no hugely punishable act that a player would commit that would require an entire establishment to monitor, thus we can function without one.

 

[Falcon02]

The Judiciary has had a somewhat shaky past...

I feel something needs to be there to make sure the rules are followed properly to maintain order, and this is the role the Judiciary is intended to fill.

The issue in the past (as I've seen it) is that it's been used against people who make honest mistakes.

ie. a new comer who opens up a save and plays ahead without realizing that it's not allowed. The new comer is likely to apologize for their error when they realize it's not permitted... however a investigation and sentencing still proceeds despite the fact it was a minor error and the person is apologetic.



Another issue is different interpretations of the law. The Judiciary is intended to help resolve these differences in interpretation. But again it is often taken too far.

Two people read the constitution and come away from it with two different views of what it means because it's hard to address every way someone might interpret a clause. Somebody, with a full knowledge of the constitution may honestly feels an article allows them to do something, when someone else may feel that action is forbidden by the constitution. The result of which should simply analyzing the law and determining what the proper interpretation should be as a group (ie. Public Poll) and clarifying the wording, and continue on with the game. Instead, it gets turned into an investigation into the individual and sentencing process to determine what "punishment" if any should be given to the "accused."



95% of all issues brought before the Judiciary should not result in any finger pointing or discussion of possible punishment. But I saw it happen far too often when I was playing.


The remaining 5% is for when someone knowingly breaks the law for one reason or another... intentionally ignoring valid instructions, intentionally ignoring the will of the people to make sure the game goes the way they want it to regardless of what the citizens want. This is what the "investigations" and "punishments" are intended for... but there's still a problem.... How do you judge "intent" of someone who you never see or hear? How do you "prove" it's an honest mistake when all you can offer is your word? The problem is you can't.

The Judiciary is intended to try to prevent the demogame from delving into chaos, by ensuring that everyone knows the rules. For that reason it can't simply be ignored otherwise chaos may arise if an issue arises.

Also, to be clear I'm not saying the Judiciary needs to be structured like it has been traditionally (to me a "simple arbitration mechanism" is just another type of Judiciary), in fact I think there's definitely room for improvement given the amount of finger pointing in the past and the length of investigations that can clog down the demogame. However, whatever mechanism is used to resolve such issues of rule breaches and interpretations it needs to be in place beforehand to ensure the process of deciding how to resolve those issues does not in of itself bog down progress.


Edit: I think this quote is appropriate for the Judiciary discussion...
“It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.” - Voltaire