DG6: 2 Team Demogame?

[Black_Hole]

The only options in our poll that had atleast 50% were C3C epic game(regular game in conquests) and a 2 team C3C game.
Basically what this would be is a multiplayer game(probably not PBEM also) where we have 2 teams playing in this game. There would be a forum for each, and also a 'World Court'/ General forum which is where both teams could discuss general things.

Also we would have the same amount of forums.... 1 for each team(2), + RPG(if we even have it) and 1 general forum for both teams.

Pros:
We don't know whos going to win.
Should lessen bickering as 'enemies' are going to be on different teams most likely
People will always be tring to win, instead of just sitting around knowing we will win
Teams can be creative, there would be competition between teams for things like motto and flag
Its not just a regular boring game
RPG could be better because it adds a whole new level of role playing with 2 opposing forces(the 2 teams players)

Cons:
If we have little active people than we might have problems
Thunderfall may not like to set up each forum's permissions for each member joining that team
RPG would be a little different, because we cant have teams talking about in some game events
A few offices may have to be merged or allow players to be in different offices.

Overall I am definetly for this, as it would be a great change to the DG.

Your thoughts?

 

[Ginger_Ale]

How is this any different than the ISDG? It just has less teams...

If you want a MP DG, we have one -> the ISDG. We need some SP aspect. If we use C3C and up the difficulty, is that not enough, or do we need to have 2 MP DGs instead of 1 SP and 1 MP?

PS: If it's not PBEM, is it over the internet?

 

[Black_Hole]

How is this any different than the ISDG? It just has less teams...

If you want a MP DG, we have one -> the ISDG. We need some SP aspect. If we use C3C and up the difficulty, is that not enough, or do we need to have 2 MP DGs instead of 1 SP and 1 MP?

PS: If it's not PBEM, is it over the internet?

it could possibly be on regular interent multiplayer. We could have both DPs online at once and play 10 turns. Might be a bit hard... but it could be done

 

[Cyc]

I think the 2 team aspect with private forums is good. It might be a wise idea to wait for DG7 for this, but it would enhance the Civ3 game in the Democracy Game world. It would let us see the workings of our system against other humans, instead of dumb AI.

DG4 will get its own forum, so we won't have to worry about losing any of this to the new version. A 2 team (maybe more) private forum Civ3 Demogame might just be the cat's pajama's as far as entertainment goes. Whether to wait for DG7 or not (with the C3C and emperor upgrade) is the question.

 

[invy]

DGV had about 30 or less (i'm not sure) active players in the end, divide it at 2 and you have at most 15 people in a team. That would mean everyone would have to get active position..
It could be great or catastrophic... I like the idea but there might be lack of players.
We should first try standard Conquest game and see how it goes. If it proves that there are more players interested in conquest demogames, then DGVII would be perfect for Human vs Human fight.

 

[YNCS]

Has anyone asked Thunderfall if he'll go along with the two-forum requirement? This might be something that requires some negotiation.

 

[Black_Hole]

DGV had about 30 or less (i'm not sure) active players in the end, divide it at 2 and you have at most 15 people in a team. That would mean everyone would have to get active position..
It could be great or catastrophic... I like the idea but there might be lack of players.
We should first try standard Conquest game and see how it goes. If it proves that there are more players interested in conquest demogames, then DGVII would be perfect for Human vs Human fight.

well there could be a few fixes....
1. Make provinces larger thus requiring less governors, and giving each governor more power!
2. Combine a few departments... Like trade and foreign or culture and science.
3. Allow people to be in 2 positions at once, or let them be in 1 leadership and 1 deputy...

Waiting is an option, we might have better luck waiting a game so we dont change everything in 1 game.
Also no one has talked to TF yet, partly because we arent sure how much support we have for this thing.

 

[Octavian X]

I think it's a workable idea, really. Two things...

For one, don't set governmental structure for each team ahead of time. That's a bad idea. Instead, let each team decide on it's own how it wants to run itself, so as to add more flavor to the game.

Two, don't run it as a full-fledged game come DG6. A team game might work best if we played on an 'experimental' basis come next game. That is, we use a shortened game - maybe on of the Conquests - in a non-private forum working on the honor system (each time specifically marks a thread private, trusting the other not to peek). As stated above, we may not get a private forum for such a game, but we could be in better shape for the next round if a shorter game proves workable without private forums.

 

[Gres]

Where to start...
I like the idea of a 2 team DG. It sounds very interesting.
Though, it hasn't been done before and would require a lot of planning and figuring things out. So I like the idea of waiting until DG 7 to do it. We could be discussing how we will do it through out DG6. Furthermore, I think switching to C3C is a good enough change for now.
I also like the idea of making sure our first 2 team DG is a small short one. We can see how we like it and figure out what needs to be changed for DG 8; which won't be far from 7 if it is a short game.

Have you all considered how we will keep each team private? If Team A is AGAINST Team B than by the middle of the game their will certainly be atleast a small rivalry. Whats stopping a crazy person from Team A from going to Team B's TC and posing as a new person? Not much. I can see a nasty mess.
That is just something to think about. Perhaps there is a way around it. Though, I still think we should just stick with C3C as our change-up for DG6

 

[DaveShack]

I would support an in-house 2 (or more) team game in parallel with a "single player" game, that is two demogames at once. This would essentially replace the failed msdg with a multi player game where all the participants are at least acquaintances, if not friends.

A republic vs a democracy would be interesting.

 

[Crimso]

YES. This would make the game much more interesting. Since our ultimate goal would be to defeat the other human nation, then so much more discussion and thought would have to go into the game. No matter how high we set the difficulty level, we'll always have a good idea of what the AI will do next just because it's so 'routine'.

To make teams, we should definitely divide people up randomly. As blackhole mentioned, many people have their enemies, as well as their friends. My biggest problems with the DG were the bickering between hateful citizens, and the sometimes rampant favourtism, and that could only get worse if we allowed ourselves to choose the teams.

 

[Black_Hole]

YES. This would make the game much more interesting. Since our ultimate goal would be to defeat the other human nation, then so much more discussion and thought would have to go into the game. No matter how high we set the difficulty level, we'll always have a good idea of what the AI will do next just because it's so 'routine'.

To make teams, we should definitely divide people up randomly. As blackhole mentioned, many people have their enemies, as well as their friends. My biggest problems with the DG were the bickering between hateful citizens, and the sometimes rampant favourtism, and that could only get worse if we allowed ourselves to choose the teams.

well it could also lessen the bickering, usually you will yell at your friend for making a mistake less then your enemy... it also is a bit interesting if we have 2 teams that dont like each other...

 

[classical_hero]

I would support an in-house 2 (or more) team game in parallel with a "single player" game, that is two demogames at once. This would essentially replace the failed msdg with a multi player game where all the participants are at least acquaintances, if not friends.

A republic vs a democracy would be interesting.

Yet is would, and I started this whole discussion on another thread.

 

[MOTH]

I think this should run in parallel with the SPDG and can start at any time.

I think the honor system (enhanced via PM or email) would be fine. The honor system seems to work well in the SGOTM forum. I suppose we could ask the Moderators to check if any members of another team has viewed another teams thread if we suspect that someone is cheating. We can ask Thunderfall to take the ISDG private forum and open it up to all. Each team would have as many threads as they like, and would preface any private threads' title with "PRIVATE <team x>:"

As for team selection, we should allow multiple teams (more than 2). Number of players could be variable based on how well the teammates know each other.
3 person teams (tri-umvirate?): all must be randomly assigned
5 person teams (republic?): must have at least 2 random persons assigned.
7+ person teams (democracy?): must have at least 1 random person assigned.
Once the game has started, we could assign new people joining to a random team.

 

[MOTH]

Actually, screw the honor system. Let the forums be open (and any info can be posted except for mini-maps (until world maps are traded)). Let each team have full spying ability on the other teams. PM would be used for sharing the team password only. Actually require that any strategic discussions (regarding war, techs, settling, queues, etc) be held and voted on in the teams public threads. It would be apparent if any team made moves without publically discussing first then they could be CC'd by people from other teams.

Judiciary would be made up of one person from each team plus a number of at-large elected positions.

This would tend to allow the teams to remain balanced as each team could note the status of the others. It would take a very good team to be able to achieve a military victory given the openness. They would have to plan the strategics of this far enough in advance (and with generalities) to be able to survive the scrutiny of the other teams after an attack.

I could see a team stating early on: We will go to war with our nearest neighbor as soon as we have 10 Swords in position to capture 2 cites. And then 2 months later that comes to pass and they attack with little to no warning.

 

[invy]

We could play 2 demogames at same time to avoid waiting for DG7.
We would make 2 teams and let people join teams (we should keep number of players even) and let each teams decides for its structure.
And forums should be private, whats the point if the teams can read each others plans.

 

[Black_Hole]

We could play 2 demogames at same time to avoid waiting for DG7.
We would make 2 teams and let people join teams (we should keep number of players even) and let each teams decides for its structure.
And forums should be private, whats the point if the teams can read each others plans.

well if this isnt the actual DG, then there will be less interest and such. Also TF would have to create more than the current # of forums, so this is somewhat unlikely

 

[YNCS]

Since we're talking two different games, what Team 1 does wouldn't effect Team A's actions, because after the first 20 or so turns the RNG would be forcing each team to make different decisions. Therefore, I don't think there's a real requirement for private threads.

 

[Black_Hole]

Since we're talking two different games, what Team 1 does wouldn't effect Team A's actions, because after the first 20 or so turns the RNG would be forcing each team to make different decisions. Therefore, I don't think there's a real requirement for private threads.

but if for example the teams are at war, they each have knowledge of what each other's units are and where they are placed. They also know how many cities they have, their income, science rate, etc

 

[YNCS]

I had a misunderstanding of how this 2 Team Game is to work. I didn't realize that you were talking about an MP game.