[MULT] Pitboss Worldbuilding Challenge

Update:

Crraaaap.

Uh.

Well,
I played my turn and wrote 2 paragraphs, then I saved my turn and went to the main menu. It did not turn out well. It never prompted me to upload my save, so I'm forced to now go and restart the game from my end.
Hope you guys get good start locations,
I'm out.
 
While I rewrite my portion in a new (better?) starting location, here's the first few entries of an old worldbuild I did a month ago. I'm not terribly proud of it. I'm going to write more than this for sure, and definitely add to it when it isn't my turn. Remember:

DON'T RENAME STUFF! Keep city names, and name rivers, mountains, steppes, etc. When we reach ancient era we might overwrite this names with others, and begin the official city-naming process.

Spoiler :
4000 BC: The small farming community of Jakarta is established where the Long Anda river flows into the sea. The land is hot and full of tallgrass plains. Wheat fields swish in the fields as coyotes and gazelle run. Jakarta sits on a hill, named after the founder. Close by, the hills continue into the south and frankincense and myrrh cover the river banks.

3960 BC: Maps stolen from the hands of the indigenous plains-people reveal that these savannas continue up to a cold rocky bank where deer graze. The coast is mostly straight, going south to north, up to the tundra. Water buffalo graze to the east, where a river flows. If one were to follow that river, the plains-people click at the Indonesian scouts, one would find fields of elephants and meerkats. The people here eat the meerkats, roast them. The Indonesians are vegetarians, sometimes catching redfish in the Long Anda.

3880 BC: The many coastal plains-people have moved into the camps of Jakarta, singing all the time and storytelling the Indonesian citizens of their myths and romances. The land is rough and barren but yet these people find ways to tell secrets through smoke and morals through stories of spiders and fish.

3800 BC: To live in the savanna-village of Jakarta is no easy task. To survive and, more, to thrive, is honorable. Boys, before they turn to men, are walked out into the savanna and must roam for three fortnights before turning into the village. In roaming, they will prove themselves to their communities and to themselves. There have been whispers of brutish tribes migrating along the savanna. If any approach, these tough and honorable men will be the first to be dispatched.

3720 BC: A monument, appearing the village square near the coast, was erected after months of tireless work. It depicts the heaven all true Indonesians will go to once they pass off into the next world. Above the clouds, on a floating archipelago, every man and woman will reach a great garden that provides succulent fruit and life for eternity. The villagers dream because it is better than what is current. Sorghum and some basic foods are grown, but Jakarta is a tiring and dusty village to call a home.

3680 BC: The first of allegedly many tribes has been discovered to the north. A river--some speculate the Long River Anda itself--borders the brutes, separating the tough brigade of plain-spearmen from the ugly tribe. The brutes sit on an old graveyard, ancient and sacred to the plains-people. The spearmen will fight for their ancestors. It is the way.
Back in Jakarta, citizens have begun to settle against the fields of wheatgrass in order to grow and breed the best varieties. Andawheat, wheat grown against the banks of the Long Anda, is being domesticated in a tasty and easy-rising variety. Currently the farmers and bakers eat hardbread and trout.
 
Ah, no renaming? Well, there goes my secret plan. I might have been planning on naming my capital city Goldenrod (actually makes a ton of sense with Portugal, I mean, golden=money, rod=fish and cost), and make my entire pokemon-game worshipping (most likely in an atheist/spiritual sense) peoples about having one dream: to eventually earn enough money to buy a bicycle. I still might do that unless you object tremendously. Just won't rename my city until the ancient era.
 
Alright, here we go!

Do we just post our notes in this thread until(and if)we get a subforum for this?
 
It wont let me take a turn?

In my original concept, people could all take turns simultaneously, but hottest forces players to go person-by-person. This will slow us down. CPM was JUST online when my turn started, but then stopped playing Tropica and left. I'm sure you'll all get through a turn tomorrow. At least, I hope.

On a worldbuilding note (this applies to you redwings!): don't think of your civs and cultures yet. When I wrote my first two paragraphs, Madrid was a China-like isolated country of insect-paste eaters, but in the next they were an underground whale-singing settlement. It really varies. And even though my UA should play into my civ, the lore behind the UA will only be developed as it appears. This example may not work for some other civs with restrictive playstyles, but just know that everything is really open for the first while. I can just as easily see Persia as a mason-working deer-pickling forest community as I can see it as a plantation monopoly on a river delta. A lot of stuff can happen.

Also, when the game starts, the only major tech you have us agriculture. So just think about how the will relate to your civ. You still WORK two tiles during your first round, but you don't have improvements on them such as quarries or farms. In past playthroughs, I made unimproved but worked tiles become a less sophiscated or populated industry. If I was working a fish tile, but I had not yet discovered sailing, I'd make the fishermen be coastal-based, using nets and floating out on driftwood, perhaps.
Or, if I began working a furs tile after animal husbandry but before trapping, I'd have to make the tile yields relate with the technology. For this example, furs provide 1 food, hammer, and two gold. Perhaps the foxes and dogs are being bred and sold as animals, causing an influx of gold to that community. Dogs also help around the nearby sheep-filled hills, increasing productivity. However, it is in poor judgement to eat a pet, therefore lowering the amount of food being able to be hauled away from the fox-ridden forest.

These are just a few examples. I have a bunch more, tell me if you need anything. Read stuff on stuff as well if you have time.

Did you know geometry was developed in Egypt to correctly divvy up the fertile delta lands?

Also, a steep, fast running river usually erodes the land when it exits, creating a fjord or inlet. A slow moving, sometimes winding river will create a delta, with silt deposits. After exploring, decide what your nearby rivers are. If you don't spawn next to a river, best of luck.
 
What type of restrictions should we follow? Strictly pseudo-historical/alt-history? Was anyone going to explore any "fantasy" elements like non-human races or something?
 
No, no. It's alright. Don't drop out. I'm getting a little busy anyway. I might be able to work with arexander but it might be difficult. Just play. Have fun!

Arexander, what time zone are you in? I'm in pacific usa

I'm on GMT +2 so we might be online at the same time either early in your morning if you have time before work/school/whatever or very, very late in the evening or even night.

This will be a challenge. :lol:
 
What type of restrictions should we follow? Strictly pseudo-historical/alt-history? Was anyone going to explore any "fantasy" elements like non-human races or something?

Non-human races might be a bit much, but you can have some magic.
My deal is that some of it should be closely related to real life and skills. For example, the Muslim healers of Delhi can sense thousands of illnesses and changes using just someone's heartbeat. This could easily be referred to as magic, but perhaps it is just decades of practice and ancient books outlining how-to. If there is some magic, perhaps it needs to be debunked. You can have non-debunkable magic, but in those cases you should restrict it by use or size or power. Perhaps it is incredibly hard to use, or only possible after years of meditation. Perhaps some element needed for magic is restrictive in size. Perhaps magic just can't do that much on it's own.
I like to go with a quasi-Game of Thrones style of magic, where there are multiple magical systems, but only one is "real" or "really works".

You can create species of flora or fauna, but don't make too much, have it be grounded in reality. I'm having trouble thinking of other fantastical elements, give me a reply with some elements that I can elaborate on if needed.
 
Sorry about all that...sorta remembered my Seahawks were playing and went and watched them...
Anyway, will take turn in a very short while. Not trying to slow anyone down.

And in regards renaming - I was planning on holding off on that until after Writing, figuring that different groups of people would probably call a city by different names until a language was "standardized".

What type of restrictions should we follow? Strictly pseudo-historical/alt-history? Was anyone going to explore any "fantasy" elements like non-human races or something?

I'm sticking with pseudo-historical, but I think a bit of semi-fantasy (I'm thinking Greek mythology-type explanations for events) wouldn't go amiss. Especially if you took a Pantheon like "Oral Tradition."

Alright, here we go!

Do we just post our notes in this thread until(and if)we get a subforum for this?

That's why we have the SG for now. If you want to post notes, you can do so in there.
 
I think I should probably make a post explaining exactly how long this game could take, and highlighting what we've signed up for and what we should prepare for, even if we don't know it yet.

We have 12 players. With this system, we aren't all going to be able to take a turn a day. This game is going to be slow. I'm not exactly sure how many turns quick games normally take, but I just read that it's a maximum of 300 or 330. Now, we're all decent players, so I'm going to say we're pretty efficient and get this game over with in 200 turns, even as this might be difficult with 12 civs and only CV and domination victory achievable. With 12 players, this is 2400 turns total.

So, because it takes time for each player to take his or her turn, I think we're going to average 2 turns a day. This is somewhat pessimistic, and we might figure out a way to do more than that a lot of the time, but we're also going to get stuck in a few days at a time when nobody takes a turn, or a week or two long break where the game isn't running. This will drop our average considerably, and I think time zone differences will also slow us down a little, as there could easily be long delays between turns because of different sleep/work/school schedules.

So, this could mean that this will take us approximately 1200 days to complete. By my estimation at least, this game could easily last for 3.28 years or longer.

Now, I'm saying this because we need to be prepared for the slow long game. If my 2 turns per day is correct, you only need to take a turn once or twice a week. Just keep the game in the back of your mind and make sure you respond quickly when it is your turn. You can take a little bit of time on the write ups though, just make sure that they get done. I am planning on taking a bunch of screenshots on the important aspects of each turn, and then looking at them after I upload my turn.

Anyway, I think we can and will do this, because everyone in here is awesome and committed. I just want people to be prepared and adjust expectations, because if are on turn 6 in a month, I don't want people going away because the game is just going too slowly. It's just going to be slow, and we will need to accept this.
 
Also, if you haven't already, make sure you sign up for email notifications on this game, and check your email frequently if you don't already.

It took me a little while to figure out how to do this, so in case you don't know, click your profile picture on the upper right after you have logged in, and then you can enter an email address in the menu that pops up afterwards.
 
I'm on GMT +2 so we might be online at the same time either early in your morning if you have time before work/school/whatever or very, very late in the evening or even night.

This will be a challenge. :lol:

Ooh. Then I don't think that's gonna work, bro. Especially since I been getting real busy lately. I believe we are -8 over here. Just go ahead.
 
Also, if you haven't already, make sure you sign up for email notifications on this game, and check your email frequently if you don't already.

It took me a little while to figure out how to do this, so in case you don't know, click your profile picture on the upper right after you have logged in, and then you can enter an email address in the menu that pops up afterwards.

Also turn off multiplayer auto-end turn.
 
I think I should probably make a post explaining exactly how long this game could take, and highlighting what we've signed up for and what we should prepare for, even if we don't know it yet.

We have 12 players. With this system, we aren't all going to be able to take a turn a day. This game is going to be slow. I'm not exactly sure how many turns quick games normally take, but I just read that it's a maximum of 300 or 330. Now, we're all decent players, so I'm going to say we're pretty efficient and get this game over with in 200 turns, even as this might be difficult with 12 civs and only CV and domination victory achievable. With 12 players, this is 2400 turns total.

So, because it takes time for each player to take his or her turn, I think we're going to average 2 turns a day. This is somewhat pessimistic, and we might figure out a way to do more than that a lot of the time, but we're also going to get stuck in a few days at a time when nobody takes a turn, or a week or two long break where the game isn't running. This will drop our average considerably, and I think time zone differences will also slow us down a little, as there could easily be long delays between turns because of different sleep/work/school schedules.

So, this could mean that this will take us approximately 1200 days to complete. By my estimation at least, this game could easily last for 3.28 years or longer.

Now, I'm saying this because we need to be prepared for the slow long game. If my 2 turns per day is correct, you only need to take a turn once or twice a week. Just keep the game in the back of your mind and make sure you respond quickly when it is your turn. You can take a little bit of time on the write ups though, just make sure that they get done. I am planning on taking a bunch of screenshots on the important aspects of each turn, and then looking at them after I upload my turn.

Anyway, I think we can and will do this, because everyone in here is awesome and committed. I just want people to be prepared and adjust expectations, because if are on turn 6 in a month, I don't want people going away because the game is just going too slowly. It's just going to be slow, and we will need to accept this.

We'll begin creating a regiment and prioritizing in a bit. We've gotten up to the fourth player so far! New record! And people have very interesting starts so far. This is gonna be a crazy world.
 
Thanks, cpm. So are we going to post our updates as soon as we can, or are we going to wait until a certain era to post our notes on the site?
 
Thanks, cpm. So are we going to post our updates as soon as we can, or are we going to wait until a certain era to post our notes on the site?

I'm planning on posting the beginning of my story very shortly here (in a separate thread) and will then post updates pretty much whenever something interesting happens. I think you can pretty much post whenever and whatever you want, though. In addition, @sillsworth was planning on creating a Google Doc and linking to it in the SG so we can anonymously share information.

Also, @Pydgie - I saw in the Language Translation thread that you know Arabic. I'd like to create some pseudo-Arabic names for landforms and (much later) cities, so would you maybe be willing to lend a hand?
 
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