Conquest Alliance PBEM

predesad

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Interested? I have several ideas in mind. This game would not start for a while, so we could get everything worked out.

Scenario 1: 4 players, each player controls 2 civs for a total of 8 civs, each player's civ has a locked alliance w/ each other

Scenario 2: 8 players, each player has a locked alliance with one other player, alliance victory option to ensure that the players in the alliance are fully motivated to work together

Scenario 3: 8 players, no locked alliances, but an outside party would somehow randomly choose to match up each player w/ another so that there is a secret alliance between them, then pm each player to let them know who they were allied with. The victory option would have to be individual because of a lack of locked alliance, however, no matter who wins, both parties would get the credit, again to promote full cooperation within the teams. Each of the 4 teams would try to keep their alliance secret, help keep everyone guessing about who is allied with who. At the end of the game the alliances would be revealed to the other players. If both players from a team are eliminated, they would still need to keep their alliance secret so that the other players in the game are still unsure about the alliance state of remaining players

Any other ideas in mind?
 
Definitely interested.
Id go for scenario 2.
Could also do a 6 player game with 3 locked alliances, which wuold be a bit quicker than the 8 player one.
 
Me too!

Option 3 seems interesting. I've been thinking though, the secret alliances of the other players wouldn't make much difference to me anyway since I'd strive to destroy everyone else except my ally.

Well, option 2 or 3 are what I'd prefer.
 
The problem I see is one of logistical fairness. If the randomly chosen allies were adjoining they would have a great advantage over allies on different continents. Whether, we speak of trading techs, resources, or mutually exploring while protecting one another's flank and combining military action, this would make it impossible for a third adjacent civ to stand a chance against them, which makes it less likely that their (fourth player) ally could survive later in the game.

Perhaps the solution wouild be to use one of the premade scenario maps. I am currently in a Fall of Rome game with another player where we play Rome and Constantinople allied against the barbarians (who, 20 turns in, are not presenting much of a challenge). By using a premade map, a neutral arbiter could assign the starting civs and alliances in such a way as to balance the staring teams and ensure a better game for everyone.
 
By using a premade map, a neutral arbiter could assign the starting civs and alliances in such a way as to balance the staring teams and ensure a better game for everyone

the map would be one of the factors to be worked out once it was decided which of the alliance suggestions were going to be used. this could be a very complicated game to get off the ground because of issues like this
 
I've been thinking though, the secret alliances of the other players wouldn't make much difference to me anyway since I'd strive to destroy everyone else except my ally

i think this type of game would really test diplomatic abilities and really raise quesitons about who you can trust. it would be a game of deceit, never knowing who is allied w/ who. imagina a situation where greece approaches you and says, 'come help me, the French are killing me' You are already ticked of at france anyway so you agree to an alliance with greece against france. you send your armies to france and find greek troops there ready for an attack, only you've been lead into an ambush because france & greece are really allied & even though they declared war on each other, they're not fighting at all.

but then, this probably would not work to well, because it would probably be too easy to figure out who was allied with who.


Could also do a 6 player game with 3 locked alliances

would not work well for same reason three player games dont, two of the teams could just agree to gang up on the third team
 
i'd be interested in 1), 2 and 3 are fine but 8 people are, in my experience, too many in a PBEM and the game gradually peters out
 
3) sounds intriguing but not sure how well it would work..

2) sounds good - if it's possible to have a neutral outsider place the allied civs on the map in interesting starting positions that might work.

I would be interested to play either of those two, but option 1 doesn't appeal to me.

I do think we can make it work as an 8 player game if people are committed.
 
we can make it work as an 8 player game if people are committed

that's assuming there are 8 committed civvers remaining in the world, and considering our current divorce rate, seems doubtful if there are 8 committed people in the world AND they are all playing Conquests :)
 
okay, we have two votes for option #1

dogboy & zurichuk if you both can hang around until we get another player interested in this option and then get all the details worked out I'll start another thread and we'll do this game. Keep in mind considering the complicated nature of this type of game it will take considerable time to put together all the details for a game everyone would be happy with.

For anyone interested in options 2 or 3, I'd like to do this game also, but it will take even more time to put it together.

Wondering if anyone has done a similar PBEM?
 
Put me down for option 1 too.

I did something similar in SMAC a 3 player game each controlling 2 civilizations. We did it in a role playing style, telling a story and as such didnt necessarily ally our two civilzations together, unless it fitted well with the story.
 
Ask and you shall receive, I started a new thread for a four player game, each player controlling 2 civs w/ a locked alliance.

PBEM Four Players w/ Self Alliance

zurichuk, dogboy, & apricorn, we can begin discussing the setup there.

Anyone interested in an 8 player game w/ alliances can continue posting in this thread.
 
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