Divine Intervention: Garden of the Gods (Bullpen)

[TheForestAuro]

Divine Intervention

The Purpose of this Thread is the organize the rapid evolving Divine Intervention games, as well as provide a place for the gods and myself to discuss rules changes and/or story points without disrupting the thread itself too terribly much.

Current Intervention

Divine Intervention VI: Caliph of Catastrophe by TheForestAuro


Previous Divine Interventions


Divine Intervention I: Mansa the Immortal by Mice
Divine Intervention II: Hannibal's Spite by TheForestAuro
Divine Intervention III : Ragnar's Reign of Terror by TheForestAuro
Divine Intervention IV: The Wisdom of Pericles by PaulusIII
Divine Intervention V: Montezuma's Madness by Trynthalas


The Divine Intervention Games

Here's the idea - The mortal will play 50 turns. Then, they will post a save, and you - the god - shall make any number of changes that are in accordance with the rules. Your Divine Intervention, as it were. Then, you'll upload the save, and the mortal plays 50 more turns!

We tend to enjoy the story aspect of this game moreso than the actual game; we are not using these games to improve our skill at Civilization, so information provided is often less accurate than many sample games. Each game commonly has an evolving storyline that, while you are not expected to contribute to, you are expected not to just pointlessly derail

All Divine Intervention games are played with Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword, with the 3.17 patch.

 

[TheForestAuro]

The Eleven Commandments of Deityhood

I.Thou shalt announce your intentions.
--(Be sure to "got it" so we don't run into continuim errors. We reserve the right to ignore not announced updates)

II. Thou shalt not Intervene if you were the last deity to intervene, and thou shalt only intervene once per waking
--(You may only intervene once per my update, and you must wait for another God to intervene before intervening again.)

III. Thou shalt not reveal the secrets of knowledge or the heavens to mortals.
--(No units or techs should be revealed to any civilization if they are not in the current or previous era of the player)

IV. Thou shalt not use your powers for cataclysmic destruction
--(Remember, less is more. Be subtle. It is far more interesting for everyone if you make subtle, interesting changes like forming a choke with mountains than if you just tear giant swathes of ice through my cities. I reserve the right to reject saves I think are unnecessarily apocalyptic.)

V. Thou shalt reveal yourself to the mortal with grace.
--(Everyone loves a good story, and if you decide to contribute to it, be creative! Choose a name and domain [i.e., Winston, the Sea God] that you govern, even if the characters don't know it's you acting)

VI. Thou shalt not be vindictive, and thou shalt not halt progress.
--(You are not allowed to strip techs away from me. Anything I research is mine permanently. You are also not allowed to remove any named unit, for any reason.)

VII. Thou shalt not be unnecessarily nice to the puny mortal.
--(I do not need a stack of thirty Level 9 Praetorians to win my fights. You do not need to fill my BFC with flood-plain grassland goldmine hills next to rivers. The only exception to this is if you genuinely make me work my ass off to get it, and even then it not ought to be as good as the dream city outlined above.)

VIII. Thou shalt reward him for piety, and thou shalt offer him redemption for his punishments.
--(If you give me a quest and I succeed, reward me! If it was easy don't give me a big bonus, and if it was hard I am going to be miffed if I get another Great Prophet for all my hard work. Likewise, if you punish me, tell me how I can fix it!)

IX. Thou shalt not war with the other gods. Much.
--(Obviously there's going to be some strife between those who would support Ragnar's Conquest, and those who would seek to protect the world from his tyranny. Having said that, Gods are not allowed to reverse the effects of an intervention without waiting for the update after the effects have been felt. This includes quests. In fact, you would do well to leave the other god's quests alone entirely. If you want me to do yours instead, make it more interesting or more lucritive)

X. Thou shalt obey the natural order of things, and of time, and of destiny.
--(There is a storyline going on here. Do try and fit in. Do not take great lengths to completely detract from it. Be smart.)

XI. Thou shalt not abuse your architectural omniscient nature.
--(Don't add wonders that don't already exist.)

FAQ

Q: Another God has already edited the save this turn. Can I do it too?
A: Yes, but you may not undo their changes. Take their save and edit it. Also, you may only edit once per turn.

Q: I have this cool idea that only slightly violates your rules, but it's really cool!
A: Just keep in mind I have the ability to reject any save I deem over-the-top.

 

[TheForestAuro]

Reserved
(XCL)

 

[NoDot]

OK, should I copy and paste my material form the Ragnar thread (mostly the second one) to here for reference? More importantly, should that material be brushed off or added to canon?

 

[TheForestAuro]

I think we definitely should establish official Divine Intervention Canon rules as far as how all the Divinity actually works. How powerful are gods, what are the extent of their origins, etc, etc, etc?

My take on the issue is as such:

In each Divine Intervention, the Immortal leader being played by the player is trying to Ascend before the beast awakens fully and destroys the world entirely, which is convienantly always the year 2050. Therefore, a Time Victory/Defeat in DI games is always a storyline defeat. Each "Victory" is associated with a certain type of Ascension. NoDot is largely responsible for the fleshing, but the idea is as follows:

The Immortal Ascends; in order for him to quell the beast, he must purge his deityhood to create a Realm. Realms are, by and large, what the deity represents manifested in a whole new plane of creation. a God of the Sea would manifest his/her realm as a waterworld with no air or land. However, since the Ascended Mortal has no domain other than the world itself, the Realm it manifests is merely another world filled with mortals. The Ascended God becomes a Lord; consequentially, the beast expends it's energy to taint this next world but destroys itself in the process.

The "Gods" who edit the DI games are by and large either entities who are being recreated in the memories of the Ascended Mortal who is projecting his image of his previous world onto a brand new realm, thus creating deities who only exist in the fabric of this new realm.

Either that, or a Ascended Mortal whose Immortal Form Ascends within the Realm created by him or herself, thus creating a feedback loop, destroying the beast and establishing the Ascendant as an actual god that doesn't need to immediately create a new realm to destroy the beast.

Contextually, this would explain Hannibal's presence in Divine Intervention III - we are all just a part of Hannibal's Realm right now. But the Hannibal leader is not the Lord who created the realm; merely that when Hannibal created the Realm, he was an integral part of it in his memory and therefore would certainly manifest in the Realm as he remembered himself. This also explains Runner's strict alliance with Hannibal; the Runner had always been with Hannibal in Ascendant Hannibal's Memory.

Other Gods are persistant; our present Overdeity appears to be Rolo. Other gods, such as NoDot, appear to be either Lords of worlds that were not threatened by the Beast or Gods that Double-Ascended.

Whatcha think?

 

[Winston Hughes]

Whatcha think?

This all seems a bit overcomplicated to me, especially the way it runs from game-to-game. There's no harm in such things being mentioned within a game, or some participants acting according to these principles. But, imo, making it an overarching ruleset is a bad idea for two major reasons.

Firstly, it'll be hard for many people (esp. newcomers) to understand what it's all about.

Secondly, and more importantly, it's likely to limit the creativity of the gods when it comes to building interesting stories. Much better to let each game's story evolve as it goes along. In particular, the beast is a great idea for this game, but there are plenty of other ways in which the time limit could be explained in subsequent games. In other words, there's a danger that the games could become rather samey.

The great virtue of Divine Intervention as medium for creating stories is that, while civ4 itself imposes quite strict limitations on what can happen, the freedom for a whole load of people to play dungeon master means there should always be plenty of variety.

By imposing 'Canon rules' on the format, my fear is that you risk undermining the very thing that makes it so attractive.

One last thing... The DivInt format really doesn't belong on this particular forum, given that it has nothing to do with strategy or tips. I think Stories and Tales would be a much more appropriate home.

 

[TheForestAuro]

Well, the idea is that random newcomers don't need to understand the cannonical rules. They can just play gods and not worry about it. This is here for the people who stick around and enjoy the idea of a persistant universe, and enjoy little niggling details of something so far from reality.

The simplified version is that the beast always is, as it is the gods powers that create/fuel him. The only way to rid the world of the beast is to create a new one by having a mortal ascend to godhood and use this power to create a world without the beast.

What everyone doesn't know is why the beast always returns in one form or another. This is because when the new God of the People creates the new world, the beast, being fueled by divine power, basically jumps ship to the next world, destroying itself in the process. The beast then remanifests in a completely different way. This time, it's Cthulhu. Maybe next time it will be a Plague that infects divinity. Whatever explains the time limit IS the beast

This is highly irrelevant to the Mortal's actions or uninterested gods and won't noticibly affect them.

As for the forum relocation, I am beginning to think that you are right

 

[Eldarion]

I absolutely think that newcomers should be taught that cannon rules! Especially if your enemies only have macemen!

*stops*

*re-reads prior posts*

Oh right. That kind of canon.

Joking aside, I agree with Forest that it's more of a nice opt-in for folks who persistently join from game to game. The beast doesn't necessarily have to make an appearance in every thread; I'm sure planet-devouring behemoths get sleepy sometimes. But, it does make for an interesting backdrop for why the gods are always bickering rather than just meddling in the affairs of mortals for the fun of it. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

So, in sum, I don't think putting a bit of "lore" to the concept is a bad thing, especially since it doesn't affect the Eleven Commandments of Deityhood. I do, however, think you're right that we've probably evolved into threads more appropriate for Stories & Tales. Methinks that, subsequent to the completion of Ragnar, the next one should be started there.

 

[CCRunner]

I do, however, think you're right that we've probably evolved into threads more appropriate for Stories & Tales. Methinks that, subsequent to the completion of Ragnar, the next one should be started there.

I agree completely with this. And following what happened in the previous game should never ever ever ever be important to being a god. Some references are fine but actual important stuff is a no no.

 

[TheForestAuro]

Would anyone be interested in playing the Mortal in the Next Divine Intervention? I admit that I'm rather hankering to play God myself

 

[PaulusIII]

Heh, I'd like to take over as the mortal. Any specific ideas for civs you want me to play?

 

[TheForestAuro]

It really depends on what you'll enjoy - I was thinking, perhaps, you could settle into a more spiritual leader (which was my plan from the get-go for DI4).

Ragnar and Hannibal both viewed the gods as annoyances and children to please to get them out of their hair. Maybe if you picked like a Ghandi/Saladin type and tried for a more peaceful sort of game than Ragnar, with more of an emphasis on the different gods and spirituality?

That's just a suggestion. I know the Gods will have a freakin' blast if you decide to go warmonger again. I'd just like to mix it up to keep people interested.

 

[PaulusIII]

It really depends on what you'll enjoy - I was thinking, perhaps, you could settle into a more spiritual leader (which was my plan from the get-go for DI4).

Ragnar and Hannibal both viewed the gods as annoyances and children to please to get them out of their hair. Maybe if you picked like a Ghandi/Saladin type and tried for a more peaceful sort of game than Ragnar, with more of an emphasis on the different gods and spirituality?

That's just a suggestion. I know the Gods will have a freakin' blast if you decide to go warmonger again. I'd just like to mix it up to keep people interested.

How about Pericles? Fits well with the whole pantheon theme.
Or a more spiritual... Izzy, Sal, Justin?

 

[Eldarion]

I had a thought for the next DI thread as well - I was inspired to be more along the lines of a "genie" rather than a god per se. The "three wishes" would represent the three kinds of action you could take - military, economic (i.e. building stuff), and espionage. However, a couple of catches - the genie would "level up" certain powers a la RPG (example: level 1 economic is build an improvement, level two is build a building), and the genie is kind of inept - every time he tries to improve something, he ends up breaking something else. More of a humorous take on the divinity thing rather than wrangling with gods and beasts.

Let me know if you want me to post the idea in more detail...

 

[TheForestAuro]

I hate Izzy. I hate her. -.- That buddhism-founding . .. .. .. .. ..

I like the idea of Pericles, though. What are his traits?

Also; What difficulty do you usually play on? I know I play on Prince, which is why I downgraded to Noble, but if you're an experienced Immortal player Noble might be a little TOO easy.

 

[PaulusIII]

Pericles is Phi/Cre.

I'm going to up the difficulty to Prince at least because I usually play at Emperor (and win fairly often), maybe even Monarch. I'll have to try out the whole idea of deities messing with your every move a bit to see if I can still beat it that way.

 

[NoDot]

The primary qualm I have with TheForestAuto's take was the removal of two things I considered to be important:

1) Lords are rare.

2) What the Lord of Shadows did was anomalous.

As for rationalizations for the victory conditions:
Time: You lose.
Diplomatic, Conquest, Domination, Cultural: You are just that loved.
Space: Get everyone off the planet.

 

[digitCruncher]

I agree that having a set of canon like the one Forest mentioned would be a VERY BAD IDEA.

It is much better IMO, to have a new and different story-line each round, and each new era being added with only flimsy references to the previous one, so that prior knowledge is helpful, but not all-important.

That said, we can easily implement the whole heirachy of Gods...

Mortals -> Immortals -> Gods -> Lords.

 

[TheForestAuro]

Well, we can make a compromise, I think.

The purpose of setting up at least a loose sort of canon is that sometimes people will obviously just totally conflict with each other in a way that detracts from the story.

Questions that I think should be answered:

Why are the leaders immortal?
What do the various victories represent, or, why does killing everyone else make you a God?

etc etc etc

 

[TheForestAuro]

Feel free to start the next one, Paulos, whenever you like. Make sure you start it in the Stories and Tales section :]