CivVI Multiplayer Roleplay

[dot80]

Hey everyone! Just wondering if there would be any interest for a play by cloud or multiplayer session game where we roleplay our civilizations, rather than just play to win? Not sure if there is already a group for something like this.

Could be fun to potentially also post stories in the forum related to the game and the roleplay.

Let me know if anyone is interested.

 

[Nighthawk419]

Hello there! I saw this post and figured I'd bump it since I'm looking for the same thing. I very active in Civ 4 PBEM games, and one of my favorite past-times was writing a story to go along with my game. One of my most favorite games involved creating characters and backstories and everything to bring even more color to the game. Not playing to win, but playing to play.

If any others are interested in doing something like this, let's talk. We can play by cloud and write some stories while we wait for turns... PM me or post here or whatever works.

 

[dot80]

Always interested in this type of game. Can never seem to find enough people interested at the same time to get it going. Would be willing to give it another go.

 

[Nighthawk419]

Cool, let's do it dot80. Let's give it another day or two and see if anyone else wants to join. Then we can start something up just the two of us if need be. I have all the expansions and all kinds of mods, so whatever version you'd like to play, I'm in!

 

[dot80]

Sounds good! I have all the expansions as well (not all the DLC). Maybe let’s give it until next weekend, and start then even if no one else expresses interest. I will post in a few other places to try and generate some interest.

In the meantime, what were you thinking in terms of type of game? The idea of a Terra map always appeals to me. Random so we don’t get stuck in real Earth ruts, but still good for some mid game colonization. Thinking quick speed might make sense just to keep things moving. But also would consider slower speed to accommodate more time in each era.


Also curious to know your thoughts on RP rules (e.g. Casus Belli, wars of conquests, AI or no, etc).

 

[Nighthawk419]

Yeah I always like a Terra map as well, I am the same in liking the colonization mid-game, especially for role playing. Most other map related settings can/should be random to give us a true fairly unknown map.

I was thinking normal speed for the same reason you mention - it gives length in each era. I generally only do quick speed or faster if the map is fairly small, but I would think we'd want to have a standard sized map for this. And yes, plenty AI and city states, max for all actually! There are mods which help with some of the pace issues - either "8 ages of pace" or "real tech tree" both help. If we use either of those, we can do quick speed. If not, I'd suggest standard speed.

As for RP rules, I'm fine with it being wide open. The only rule would be that we can't actually fully eliminate each other from the game. There's stories to be written even as a small 1 city empire and also a huge world spanning empire! Maybe our rule is we MUST post a mini-story every other turn at least. 1 turn I can see maybe not having enough motivation, but every other turn there should be SOMETHING worth writing about!

Oh - and no time victory or turn limit... IF there is a winner here, it will be a traditional well earned victory. Its about the story and the journey though, not the victory!

 

[dot80]

Agreed on the settings. Hesitant to use mods, so I think standard speed and map size sound good. I was thinking maybe the opposite on the victory conditions, turn off all victory settings except for time. The point of the game isn’t to win in this sort of setting, so don’t want to bring us to an early close because someone beelines and finishes a victory, or the AI randomly gets one. Willing to compromise on this however.


Also a thought; I haven’t looked into using the cloud based play, but I assume there is some kind of turn timer. Thinking we can keep things moving by setting it to 24 hrs.

For RP rules I think my main concern is a valid Casus Belli to attack other players, and no wars of elimination. Not as big of a deal with the AI as the game has the war grievances system in place already. Player v. Player conflicts though should keep to the available Casus Belli (or perhaps one coming directly out of a storyline), and surprise war should be off limits. Similarly, player surprise war on the AI should be supported through some sort of story.

Also a standard sort of rule would be no god modding or making your characters/nation unrealistically amazing, and/or using the stories in the thread as “intel” for some kind of strategic advantage in the game. Similarly, no “controlling” developments in other people’s nations without explicit consent.

Just knowing my own schedule, I think it reasonable to ask for at minimum one good story a week (or a few mini stories throughout the week). I can commit to playing a turn each day (assuming we can have synchronous play), but am going to be primarily writing on the weekends.

 

[Nighthawk419]

That's a good idea on victory conditions actually. You're right, we won't want someone accidently "winning" before they are able. Maybe we can set the turns to something way in the future - 1000 turns maybe? Realistically this will likely die off well before we finish all of the stories and writing, but at least we will know when the end is coming.

For play by cloud turns are not synchronous. Its similar to the old play by email - I play a turn and it sends it over to you, then you play a turn and it sends it back to me, etc. There is no turn timer though, that's the downside, it can sit with someone for as long as needed for them to play. But if its just the two of us, that shouldn't be a problem, since if one of us leaves, its just a single player story anyway! I can definitely commit to 1 turn/day at a minimum, possibly more some days, and on rare occasions I might have to skip a day, likely with some warning.

Agree on Player vs Player wars - either a valid Casus Belli in-game, or some story driven reason which will be obvious in my mind. Same with wars against the AI, there has to be a story. I guess this was my assumption, that every move in the game will have some sort of story to it!

This is for fun, so yeah, let's make it fun. Obviously no god modding, agree on all that. I'm not playing this to win, I'm playing for the creative endevour! Whatever writing commitment you can provide is great, no need to haggle. I might be once a week then, or maybe multiple in a week, depending on how my work schedule evolves over the coming months!

Shall we just pick a time to get started? The challenge for play by cloud is that we need to get online at the same time in order to start it. We have a 10 minute window to join and accept settings. Stupid multiplayer cloud setup!

 

[dot80]

Agreed on first point.

Bummer on the second point. I’ll look around a bit over the next couple days. The problem with the asynchronous play is that it will take so long to go through the turns. If that’s the only option we can work with it! Just hoping I there might be some kind of pitboss equivalent...

For getting started, can we target for this weekend or early next week? I put out some feelers this morning so hoping we can have 1-2 more participants. Once we start are we able to add people to take over the ai players? Would be nice to be able to add people later (please excuse my ignorance, I haven’t used any of the multiplayer features in Civ 6).

 

[Nighthawk419]

Well with two people (or even 3 or 4) its not too bad. I play a couple of games with friends. I have a 4 player game that gets 1 full turn per day, another with 2 players we can get easily 2-3 turns a day depending on schedule. I plan to write every turn or every other turn to really get immersed in it, so more than 1 turn per day is probably unrealistic on my end.

Once we start, we are stuck with the same number of human players. If someone drops on us, we can theoretically restart from a save file, but we'd all have to log on at the same time in order to get in the room and launch. So, definitely not ideal. The play by cloud feature is cool, but Firaxis did a TERRIBLE job of making it easy to launch a game or replace players.

I'm going to IM you for some dates and times next week when you might be available to be online at the same time for launch!

 

[OzzyKP]

Howdy folks!

Thanks for the heads up, dot. I was just thinking about diplogames the other day and read a bit through the archives of past games. I don’t have all that much time, but I’m a both a bit nostalgic and a bit curious to try out a diplogame in Civ6.

I’m not committing to anything yet, but hold off on your start a bit and I’ll see if I can round up some of the old crew.

In the meantime, Nighthawk, check out the Diplogame FAQ:
https://apolyton.net/forum/civiliza...ing/172400-diplogame-faq-and-reference-manual

It was written long before Civ6 was a glimmer in Sid’s eye, but most of the guidelines and rules for how to merge storytelling, civ, and realistic diplomacy are still valid.

Also, I do have Gathering Storm (though I’ve only played like 3 games), but I’ve never played multiplayer with Civ6 so I may need some hand holding there.

A ping for @Sommerswerd & @Aussie_Lurker

 

[Sommerswerd]

Thanks for the invite Ozzy. I'm a little wrapped up right now for a diplogame but I'll keep lurking in case anything changes.

Glad to see you're still around.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hiya @OzzyKP . Thanks for the ping. I would love to take part, but I am unsure if I can devote the time needed to do a Diplogame justice. Can anyone let me know how many hours per week we would need to set apart? Thanks in advance.

 

[dot80]

Hey everyone! Glad to see there is some additional interest. I'd be ok holding off another week if it means we can have a couple more players! (Nighthawk thoughts?)

I think the idea me and Nighthawk have been discussing might require a bit less in terms of a time commitment. We really wanted to focus on story and keeping things moving. So the expectation would be one good story post a week. or a few smaller ones. Obviously, in addition, interactions with other players should be kept in character.

In terms of the format we might play, Civ 6 doesn't have a pitboss server. I have read online two alternatives:

1. Use "playyourdamnturn.com" to pass the save around via email using a turn timer. This at least would ensure things keep moving.
2. Create a private multiplayer game and have an "observer" slot with someone always running the game. This could help things move a bit faster. We could even have the turn timer set to 86400 seconds (just tested) so the game moves forward at least one turn each day. I have an old laptop we could potentially use for this purpose. I'd have to do some testing to make sure it all works. Leaning towards this one at this point.

Excited to hear everyone's thoughts.

 

[OzzyKP]

Yikes, those are the only options? That’s a pain. So no simultaneous turns? Hmmm.

 

[dot80]

I think the multiplayer option should allow us to play simultaneous turns. Would need to test it out though. I think it would be similar to running a pitboss game, but instead of running a pitboss client, the observer would have to always have the game running.

 

[vodot]

I play on Switch, wish I could join you guys. I'm harassing Aspyr for "play-by-cloud" to be enabled on that platform, but until then I'll be
/lurk

 

[Nighthawk419]

I'm only really aware of playing by cloud. I can't commit to anything else unfortunately. I guess a really slow moving live game, but what happens when one of us disconnects? There's no way I can keep connected to any sort of live game for more than a couple days at most. Play by cloud works for me because I get an alert when the turn arrives, I play it, and it sends it along automatically. The only headache is having to be online at the same time for the start of it. But I'm willing to try my hand in whatever format works for the group. Worst case I just won't play, but if many of you are playing, you don't need me!

 

[dot80]

Hmm my understanding is that everyone else except the "observer" can connect and disconnect as needed. So essentially you would log in each day, join the game at your discretion, play your turn, then disconnect. You wouldn't need to stay connected indefinitely. Only the observer host would need to. That's why I was offering up my extra laptop to do so.

If we could get confirmation from everyone they are still interested, I will test it out. Potentially we have:
1. Me
2. Nighthawk
3. Ozzy
4. Sommersword
5. Aussie Lurker

I'd be happy with a game of 5 players, 1-2 ai players, and city states.

Let me know what you all think.

 

[Nighthawk419]

If that's how it works I would be glad to play! Count me in.