Next Demogame Discussions

[Zwelgje]

With the lack of interest showing in this game I doubt we should start a new game, sorry....
When the first Civ2 demo game started we had something like 50 active posters which declined to about 15 at the end because of the beginning of Civ3 demo game. When this demo game began we had something like 15-20 active posters but at the moment I don't see more than 5-6 posters who are actively involved in the game.
More people show up occaisionally but that's not enough to keep the game going, more people need to show up a few times a week and actively participate in discussions and not only voting and leaving.
Don't get me wrong here, I'm glad there are people that will vote but I would be more happy if there would be more posters actually discussing stuff with eachother.

 

[Jayne]

Maybe we can get a bit more interest at the beginning of a new game. I wonder how many look at this game and feel a bit lost. I remember I looked at the first game towards the end and decided it all looked a bit complicated. When the second game started, I thought I'd join as an observer... but look at me now!

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Originally posted by Jayne
I wonder how many look at this game and feel a bit lost.

Definitely put me in this category. I'm trying to catch up, but I am quite overwhelmed by the whole setup. I find it hard to look at someone else's game and try and figure out what their intentions were, and the democracy just convolutes it even more. I was hoping to learn enough through the end of this game to be of more use in the next one.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Participation is usually up during the beginning, but then, as the game progresses, people usually drop off becasue they lose interest or lose focus of the game. Both Civ II Demo games have ended with a small core group of dedicated players.

If there is a third game, I will not be able to Mod it alone (or maybe not at all). I plan to start my Masters Degree program in the Fall, so I will be even less available than I am now.

 

[Leowind]

As this seems to be turning into a "will there be a next game" thread, I thought I'd ask: any intereste in a succession game as an alternative, or perhaps they are still happening somewhere else in the forum?

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

I think succession games are in the Stories and Tales forum

 

[naervod]

I think if we can spread the word out to others it would be easy to garner more intrest. If we send PM's to old DGers or people who signed the registry but don't participate we could get many people. I know the Community Civ3 DG used this tactic when not enough people ran for office and they got a few members back in action. Also, I will be proud to lead NUF in conquering the world.

 

[Jayne]

DoM wrote:If there is a third game, I will not be able to Mod it alone

I've probably time to take over duke 'o yorks role if that helps - post elections etc

 

[GaryNemo]

I may start having a bit more time, not sure. I think participation has fallen off because the game is so complicated, so near the end. Well, appears to complicated. We have had some great Presidents, and they make it quite a bit simpler for the rest of us. And exciting
The duke and Duke were a great team, loosing them both will be a huge blow.

 

[Talar]

Yes, the game getting/looking complicated sure is one reason why people have dropped off. I also think having too good presidents and other ministers may actually have scared people away from participating. Everyone isn't a civ expert or have the patience to plan caravans and city production with the all details for example you do GaryNemo. Don't get me wrong here, you are doing a great job at it, I just don't think people should be scared to take a major position in the game just because they are not good enough at civ. The point of all this isn't to beat the poor AI as efficiently as possible, is it? It's to have fun by combining our model of real democracy with civ. I haven't been too active in this game myself, but I got the feeling that it has become much more of an opting-game of always making the best decision and doesn't leave much room for plain personal preference of a certain strategy compared to the first demogame. Of course people still have different opinions and such, but what I'm getting at is that people with limited civ skill may feel very left-out in discussions that are all about "technical" issues like IRPB:ing and tech-path opting. Not sure I manage to make it clear what I'm getting at, but I would guess people interested more in the "demo" part than the "game" part may have dropped off.

That's not my personal reason for not being more active btw, I just don't have enough time to play more demogames than the mp one I'm already involved in over at GC.

Anyway, maybe letting less experienced players hold high government positions just as much as experienced ones and not focusing as much on winning the game would make it more fun for more people to play.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Originally posted by Talar
Anyway, maybe letting less experienced players hold high government positions just as much as experienced ones and not focusing as much on winning the game would make it more fun for more people to play.

Everyone is welcome to run for a position, whether they are an 'expert' or not. I also think most people vote for people based upon their activity in the game more than their skill level.

Everyone has their own style of holding a position. For example, GaryNemo happened to be a very detailed Domestic Advisor, other people may not be. Whatever is not detailed out by the Advisors will be decided by the President.

From chatting with people about the game, the main problem seems to be getting into it. If they find the game is at a complicated part, then they don't think they can offer any assistance to the game and don't participate.

The seond problem is just the fact that the game goes on for months. Some people get tired of the game becasue it moves too slowly for them, some people say it moves too fast. Most say they get busy for a little while and find it hard to get back into the game since they feel they have lost perspective of it.

Generally, all that is needed to see where the game is is to download the save, browse through it and read the last turns thread. All that has happened before that point is basically mute.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

In addition to that, even if people are not elected, they are more than welcome to post in threads and offer advice and opinions.

I have seen people browsing the forum and I have been told that they do not post because they agree with what was said and had no contrary ideas. They didn't feel it was necessary for them to post just to confirm an idea that was already suported by others.

 

[Octavian X]

Perhaps we should consider the level that the game is played on. You have to admit, a new player would be scared by the deity level we're playing. I know I was, and if it we'ren't for that scared attitude, I may have joined the democracy game when I first registered at CFC last year.

Sheer complexity of the democracy game and it's mechanics may also be a point. I will say, that compared to the Civ3 game, this is simple.

A lot of it is probably a fact we all have to face up to - Civ2 isn't as new as it once was. As easily demonstarted by the Civ3 forums vs. the Civ2 forums, people tend to gravitate to the new and shiny. Perhaps we could have an advertising run bigger than just a few sigs. Does someone want to write about the game, and DoM, do you think you could get TF to post these reports on the homepage w/links?

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

TF has no problem with posting Demo game news on the main page. I even tried to have our newspaper reporters write stuff up for the main site page. I believe it happened once that way. I use to do them when I could, unfortunately, I haven't been able to do it in quite long time.

I think if people understood how the Demo game is played, they would realize that the difficulty level is irrelevant to their abilities. They don't have to play the game by themselves. Also, remember, all the game settings were voted on prior to the game starting, so it reflected what people thought would be best.

 

[Octavian X]

I think if people understood how the Demo game is played, they would realize that the difficulty level is irrelevant to their abilities. They don't have to play the game by themselves. Also, remember, all the game settings were voted on prior to the game starting, so it reflected what people thought would be best.

That gives me an idea. Perhaps, for now, rather than a news post on the main page, someone could write up an explanation of the demogame for posting. This article could contain information about how the game is played, etc., plus anything we think will calm newbie fears. I can testify this has been more a learning experience than anything else.
Perhaps a more veteran player can write this up - I'm not exactly well known.

As to a weekly update, I'd be willing to do that. I did that at one time with the old newspaper...

 

[Jayne]

Talar wrote:I just don't think people should be scared to take a major position in the game just because they are not good enough at civ.

I am definately not the best player, as my GOTM scores show, but I still get nominated for President! I definately recommend the demogame as a way to learn from other players.

I must admit I first looked at the demogame towards the end of the first game and thought it looked too complicated, but I'm glad I decided to take the plunge at the beginning of the second.

I definately think we need a good advertising campaign at the beginning of the third game, and get more people involved in the decision making by having more (maybe smaller) provinces with governers. A good write-up of this game for the main page may help (maybe the stories and tales thread too). I'm getting excited about the third game already!!!

 

[Leowind]

Jayne, you were an EXCELLENT Queen, which is why you kept getting re-elected I think playing as the President would be an excellent way to learn. I only wish I had the time to do so

I think Talar has made some very insightful comments about participation in the demogame. Other things (darn that job) have curtailed my participation in this game, but even when browsing, often everything had already been summed up/planned by some key people, so there was less urgency for me to post any ideas/comments. Towards the end, of course, I didn't even take the time to read through all of GN's excellent city reviews and suggestions. It's hard to take the time to review that many cities and then debate micromanagement decisions.

This leads to a suggestion for the next game. Let's make it on a smaller map, so there will be fewer cities to fuss over and the game will go quicker and be easier to take in for newbies and those with less time to browse (like me ).

 

[Talar]

I joined this game myself somewhere in the midgame stage. Despite being an experienced civ player I found it somewhat diffuse to grasp everything that was going on. I did download the savegame and even posted a few suggestions and after following the game for a while I got into it. Still there was a higher treshold than I had imagined because of the many plans and things going on that required extensive browsing through old threads to figure out what exactly people were talking about.

I didn't have the time nor the dedication to get fully involved in this game and start running for government positions, so I have just been occasionally dropping by to post some minor comment since then.

There seems to have been plenty of new members who have registrered in the registry thread since I join, but how many of them has stayed as active players? I don't know, but I guess not very many of them. I'm not totally sure of the reason why not more people stay to become active or drop off the game, but like I said the treshold might be higher tahn you who are involved in the game think it is, so doing something about that could help. Also getting more players to participate from start would also be a good idea

About playing on lower difficulty I think it would make the game even less challenging than it is now. In sp games many people (myself included) tend to not finish most of their games because they are certain of victory, so there is no challenge. Same goes for the demogame to some extent even if the democracy part of the game still can be fun even after everyone know the game will be won.

A more challenging game can be had by playing team demo game as we do on GC, but that also bring other sorts of problems like smaller teams and the democracy part of the game becoming a bit suffering.

I don't have a perfect solution for the best form of playing demogames, but I still like them enough to play them as they are. If we want to attract more players however we will probably need to improve the current form of demogame to make it more attractive. I'm not sure how, but maybe add some competitive element outside of the actual game. It could for example be having all players divided in 3 parties with certain opposing agendas set from start, like one military party, science/trade party and isolationist party. Just wildly tossing around ideas now, but my thought with this is to add more of a political/democracy game in addition to the civ game. I'd like to see more "political maneuvering" and give people some reasons for making decisions not necessarily for the best of the country, but also for the best of their party, just like in real democracy

To be honest the fun of playing demogames isn't really the game part as in smacking around a few AI civs, it's the democracy part played here on the fora.

 

[Octavian X]

Here's an idea.

We have obviously found that at this point, playing Civ2 is rather easy. If we go into a Democracy Game 3, perhaps we could place some restrictions on oursleves to make the game more challenging. A more challenging game encouarges wider conflicting opinions, which always serves to drum up interest. Heck, the fact we're playing a modified version of the game would draw up interest in itself.

As for this challenge, I could only suggest using a scenario, or placing an interesting restriction, like staying in the same government all game, or something.

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

I would definately like to do more for the Demo game, but the main problems are lack of time and people. In the first Demo game I was sending out PM's to people who had registered to get them to come back into the game for at least a little while. Even then we had the last 2 or 3 months of the game go with the same volunteers for the positions.

This demo game is ending stronger than the first game, with a larger group of 'core' players.

Unfortunately, there is a point where the demogame becomes too much 'demo' and not enough 'game'. The Civ 3 game went too far to the 'demo' side very early on. I tried to keep the Civ II one on the 'game' side.

I can't tell you how many people I've asked about the games and why they stopped playing. Most just got bored or lost track of it and didn't want to spend the time to get back into it.

I'm open to suggestions......?