On the one hand, an RPG might be more complex, with formulas working in the background and all, but I think it should be easier for newcomers to actually enjoy the game than in the regular demogame, because you can start doing things right away.
If we had a "roleplay focus" game what rules?
- Thread starter DaveShack
- Start date
Provolution
Sage of Quatronia
First out, killing off over-technical language would be the first victory for a game with more soul.
For the accumulation of material wealth for player dynasties, these should be measured by income per city per turn, by the land improvements around a city and the city improvements themselves. Increased autonomy should be given to the individual cities, so that units produced in a particular city belongs to citizens of that city. This will prevent gamey speciality "game-technique cities" using terms like settler farms, worker farms and other game technical language. This will also make individual citizens with adopted units more important. Now the warlord or general would have to persuade a citizen to send out troops to a war, not just send them, effectively transferring control of said unit for the duration of the war. This would also stop meddlesome citizens to meddle with the supreme general strategy (but if they do not trust the judgement of the warlord or simply dislike him, the troops will stay home).
There should be a cap of the number of units per citizen (I suggest two or three), this will avoid us flooding the game with units and avoid concepts like "mass produce cavalry and flood them with numbers". Strategy discussions get one sided and boring if there is no personal interest in separate units and that the end outcome is a given. "We know the outcome anyways, so why bother, we win the next battle - so please shut up". With limited numbers of forces, pegged to the number of players, each battle will count way more than what it normally does. We get the drama back. Each citizen should also decide on his/her promotions and follow that units development. A more pacifist type of player could run three workers or three transports instead, being a sort of building entrepeneur or transport tycoon.
Each city should have a maximum of 8 players (each owning on the average of 2 tiles). A citizen should never own less land than one tile.
With this reform, each player would have:
2-3 units named after himself and the city code
1-12 tiles of land around his home city.
Affiliation with a political faction within each Civic Period
A number of buildings in his/her home city
A Citizen thread to post history (why not call it noble instead?)
A treasury based on the economic performance of land improvements,
Pillage and military victories have an economic benefit for the owner of the unit, 25 % of the pillage value, as well as 1 gold per experience point gained by his/her unit from battle.
Land improvements represents for the following:
The gold income value minus one gold per turn per tile, as a measurement of economic performance for that tile.
The hammers produced by the tile is transferred to Industrial Influence Points, giving "hammer votes" for voting for that city builds. Industrial Influence Points decide on who is elected mayor for the city. The mayor decides on the sequencing of city improvements. Ownership on a building is decided on the votes for the ownership of that particular building (done in the city thread).
The food produced by the tile is transferred to Agrarian Influence Points. Agrarian Influence Points decide on who is elected Land Developer of the city, operating workers and settlers, as well as the sequencing of land improvements. Land Developer decides where the settler should locate a new city, as long as the settler comes from his own city. A city should be given a colonial charter, only be allowed to settle 1-3 new cities depending on city role.
City Improvements count for the following:
The culture notes produced by the tile is transferred to cultural influence points. Culture points may be used to get part of the ownership in a new city taken by cultural flip. Citizens surrounding the city flipped can make their claims by the sequencing of culture points.
Great Persons are handled by a city election, where each players vote count as the same, and with the mayor breaking eventual ties. Great Persons should be rooted to the city they came from, not from some veteran telling the rest of the players how to use the great person, or some arbitrary collective decision by vote including the entire nation. The national leadership could pay the city some gold compensation for the great person, but would have to negotiate for that.
These are some ideas on how to make a simplistic economic model for the RPG subgame, making the citizens concentrate on making their city and their wealth key to their strategy.
For the accumulation of material wealth for player dynasties, these should be measured by income per city per turn, by the land improvements around a city and the city improvements themselves. Increased autonomy should be given to the individual cities, so that units produced in a particular city belongs to citizens of that city. This will prevent gamey speciality "game-technique cities" using terms like settler farms, worker farms and other game technical language. This will also make individual citizens with adopted units more important. Now the warlord or general would have to persuade a citizen to send out troops to a war, not just send them, effectively transferring control of said unit for the duration of the war. This would also stop meddlesome citizens to meddle with the supreme general strategy (but if they do not trust the judgement of the warlord or simply dislike him, the troops will stay home).
There should be a cap of the number of units per citizen (I suggest two or three), this will avoid us flooding the game with units and avoid concepts like "mass produce cavalry and flood them with numbers". Strategy discussions get one sided and boring if there is no personal interest in separate units and that the end outcome is a given. "We know the outcome anyways, so why bother, we win the next battle - so please shut up". With limited numbers of forces, pegged to the number of players, each battle will count way more than what it normally does. We get the drama back. Each citizen should also decide on his/her promotions and follow that units development. A more pacifist type of player could run three workers or three transports instead, being a sort of building entrepeneur or transport tycoon.
Each city should have a maximum of 8 players (each owning on the average of 2 tiles). A citizen should never own less land than one tile.
With this reform, each player would have:
2-3 units named after himself and the city code
1-12 tiles of land around his home city.
Affiliation with a political faction within each Civic Period
A number of buildings in his/her home city
A Citizen thread to post history (why not call it noble instead?)
A treasury based on the economic performance of land improvements,
Pillage and military victories have an economic benefit for the owner of the unit, 25 % of the pillage value, as well as 1 gold per experience point gained by his/her unit from battle.
Land improvements represents for the following:
The gold income value minus one gold per turn per tile, as a measurement of economic performance for that tile.
The hammers produced by the tile is transferred to Industrial Influence Points, giving "hammer votes" for voting for that city builds. Industrial Influence Points decide on who is elected mayor for the city. The mayor decides on the sequencing of city improvements. Ownership on a building is decided on the votes for the ownership of that particular building (done in the city thread).
The food produced by the tile is transferred to Agrarian Influence Points. Agrarian Influence Points decide on who is elected Land Developer of the city, operating workers and settlers, as well as the sequencing of land improvements. Land Developer decides where the settler should locate a new city, as long as the settler comes from his own city. A city should be given a colonial charter, only be allowed to settle 1-3 new cities depending on city role.
City Improvements count for the following:
The culture notes produced by the tile is transferred to cultural influence points. Culture points may be used to get part of the ownership in a new city taken by cultural flip. Citizens surrounding the city flipped can make their claims by the sequencing of culture points.
Great Persons are handled by a city election, where each players vote count as the same, and with the mayor breaking eventual ties. Great Persons should be rooted to the city they came from, not from some veteran telling the rest of the players how to use the great person, or some arbitrary collective decision by vote including the entire nation. The national leadership could pay the city some gold compensation for the great person, but would have to negotiate for that.
These are some ideas on how to make a simplistic economic model for the RPG subgame, making the citizens concentrate on making their city and their wealth key to their strategy.
Didn't disorganizer or someone suggest that in Civ3 DG2?
I think one distinct advantage Civ3 had over Civ4 (and partially why I think Civ3 is more fit for a demogame, especially with a roleplaying element) is that Civ3 allows you to make mistakes, and still recover in time. Civ4 is much more restrictive, and the AI is much better defensively than Civ4. Plus, Civ4 has less turns that Civ3, which means things move slightly faster (also because eras weren't bottlenecked).
Civ4 is indeed more difficult because you can actually lose the game by a slightly wrong strategy in the beginning of the game. To be honest, if we hadn't had these 3 gold mines in our starting 3 cities this game, I guess we would have had a hard time recovering from all the early capturing we did.
donsig
Low level intermediary
DaveShack, I think you have some good ideas but you're getting way too complicated for me for a Sunday morning. There's also way too much voting in your system for my taste. Also, too many restrictions. Why the heck should there be limits (either upper or lower) on how much land a character / family / player can own? Also, it looks like you are envisioning a system that will be in place the whole game. Such a system divorces the RPG from the ![[civ4]](/images/smilies/civ4.gif "Civ4 [civ4]")
civics. Take land ownership for example. If we adopt state property we wouldn't want players owning land, would we?
I also think we need much more local autonomy that you're thinking. We do not need to enforce a uniform system on each city. We start out with tribal and despotism. That pretty much implies we have a cheiftan running alot of things on the national level. Cities could also be run with local chieftans but one city might have lots of fights for control with characters even dying while another city may be composed of players who talk rationally and choose a cheiftan by consensus. The only universal type rules we need for this system is a mechanism to allow players to try to seize control if they want it, and a mechanism for ascertaining who wins control if there are multiple contestants. This system would change as the game progresses. In the beginning it's based on the strength skill. Later on it can be based on money (more money means the ability to hire more mercenaries, etc.). But until we get currency we don't have money. So one thing we can be doing as we play is forming the rules for the next step in our game.
Sorry for the rambling - have homework to do and work around the house. Not much time to devote to this interesting project right now.
civics. Take land ownership for example. If we adopt state property we wouldn't want players owning land, would we?I also think we need much more local autonomy that you're thinking. We do not need to enforce a uniform system on each city. We start out with tribal and despotism. That pretty much implies we have a cheiftan running alot of things on the national level. Cities could also be run with local chieftans but one city might have lots of fights for control with characters even dying while another city may be composed of players who talk rationally and choose a cheiftan by consensus. The only universal type rules we need for this system is a mechanism to allow players to try to seize control if they want it, and a mechanism for ascertaining who wins control if there are multiple contestants. This system would change as the game progresses. In the beginning it's based on the strength skill. Later on it can be based on money (more money means the ability to hire more mercenaries, etc.). But until we get currency we don't have money. So one thing we can be doing as we play is forming the rules for the next step in our game.
Sorry for the rambling - have homework to do and work around the house. Not much time to devote to this interesting project right now.
donsig
Low level intermediary
Was this in reply to Provolution's post?
What do you expect from me on a Sunday morning before 
?Yes, it was Provolution that had some good ideas. Though you have had one or two also, Dave.
Provolution
Sage of Quatronia
Donsig, hey there?
What if we got Civics as a key driver for elections and organization of offices, would that add some historicity and roleplay aspect to the game?
At least we would leave that Civ3 demogame tradition of a super powered supreme court and some advisor posts (which lately had no powers at all).
What if we got Civics as a key driver for elections and organization of offices, would that add some historicity and roleplay aspect to the game?
At least we would leave that Civ3 demogame tradition of a super powered supreme court and some advisor posts (which lately had no powers at all).
Provolution
Sage of Quatronia
I got a civics-centric system that does the job neatly for this purpose, inspired by this very post. This removes the need to work with a lot of lawmaking en route. Some players do not grasp it yet, and the reason for that is that all time periods are covered, not only the first or a generic traditional demogame with modern democracy all over.
Provolution
Sage of Quatronia
This GM-position as you call it, will be covered by the elected Historian, which will be a dedicated function elected per term.
Provolution
Sage of Quatronia
We need to make the civics an active choice players make for other reasons, our nation will lead its own life. But you hit the nail about the civics being the key for roleplay here.
Provolution
Sage of Quatronia
I think we're starting to make progress.
One way to handle the duality of having a democracy game but not having "democracy" would be to make different people's votes count differently, depending on their "stats" and the type of decision. Someone with a high value for a "strength" stat might get more votes on wartime questions, and less votes for research. An organization stat might give more influence over city builds, and a spiritual stat more influence over religion and perhaps research.
The tough guy approach with winner takes all isn't as appealing to the masses (that concept turns me off instantly if you didn't notice), but an overall influence game might work. Relatively balanced powers and the ability to specialize would help the game, and so would the need to actually participate, since merely voting without participation might give the least influence. And it's quite realistic for ancient societies.
Some way would be needed for people to change their stats. Random events could be one way. Another is to reward accurate predictions about the civ game. Yet another way would be to hold civ related contests and give proportional numbers of points based on results in the contest. We could even hold the occasional election, where the results of the election don't choose the official, but rather they modify the influence parameters.
Donsig, hope my post doesn't steal your thunder. I'm gettingenough that if I don't write it down today, it might be gone tomorrow.
I think we should introduce stats gradually, beginning of term 2, when we got enough players to expand their registries.
For my particular proposal, we could have 5 main character features as well as four simple stats.
City Location (in-game city based)
Source of Income (in-game tile based)
Religion (in-game based)
Class (out of 8 general social classes)
Military Unit (in-game military unit renamed)
Stats (inspired by Rome Total War):
Political Influence
Administrative Influence
Religious Influence
Military Influence
The player is given 10 points to distribute freely after area of interest, with a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 5.
For example
Political Influence 2
Administrative Influence 2
Religious Influence 1
Military Influence 5
These influence votes would be applied when handling in-game BTS events and other predefined situations not covered by the main rules, as well as for the military 5 star influence, give a player direct ownership over a military unit, for a 5 star administrative a city to run, a 5 star religious the a missionary to run or a place of decision in the Apostolic Palace and finally a 5 star political influence could be given a key role in negotiating peace treaties, provincial borders and so on. Influences is a way to assess what decisions interests a particular player much better, and let the person decide more there.
Provolution
Sage of Quatronia
You are right, a lot of things will take place in the background, formulas and all. But the main reason is that some players here want a very simple ruleset and an immersive roleplay-strategic experience at the same time. Those things are very hard to combine, and as Grant2004 said, we need a sort of elective GM person each term. I called this GM "Historian" in the civic set-up-
