Next Demogame Discussions

[TimTheEnchanter]

Maybe we could go with the 20 (or whatever number) city rule as a hard ceiling like the OCC limit of one - you can NEVER have more than 20. Then, a key decision is going to be whether it's worth it to build all 20, or stop a few short of 20 so we can capture key cities when necessary. Once we hit 20, we'll have to consider whether it's worth it to disband existing cities so that other, more strategic or more productive ones can be built or catptured instead.

 

[funxus]

I'm in for a new game
I'd like to play a game on a single continent with all the civs on. I'm not sure I like having a limit on cities, but will accept whatever is decided.

 

[Leowind]

DoM, I've not been involved in the Civ3 demo game, so don't know of the dynamics you speak of there, but I am not yet convinced that parties or some way of enhancing the "demo" part of the game would necessarily devolve into flame wars and problems. I agree it is a danger, but I don't think that is reason to unilaterally declare that it won't happen. Can we not at least discuss ways we might allow it to happen and safeguard against the dangers you speak of? Discussing how we might make it work is not the same thing as saying we're going to do it.

Here's a thought: citizens have assigned themselves to home cities, but this has meant nothing to the game. In real life one of the real conflicts in democracy is region vs. region and local vs. national. If players somehow were encouraged to develop strong ties to a particular city/region they might find themselves arguing/voting for things that would help their city/region but not necessarily be in the best interests of the nation as a whole. Advisors would be asked to consider national interests and have to convice the populace of the good of their plans even if it meant trouble for a particular region. Make sense? (I feel like I'm not explaining it well). It would mean assuming a bit of a role-playing stance for everybody.

The essence of interest is conflict. If there is no conflict, there is generally no interest. The end stage of a Civ game loses interest for many because the conflict is essentially over. All that is left is administration, and nobody (well, few people) enjoy debating over minutia. A system such as this would provide an arena of conflict that has no bearing on real life--it's not based in different approaches to the game or different real-life political outlooks--and would provide for conflict even late into a game, as cities/regions vie to be the one to build a late wonder, for example. This, I think, would largely diminish the chance for conflict to cross over into the personal and become a problem. What do you all think?

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

In the Civ 3 game we tried a quasi system of 'guilds'. This allowed people to focus on an element they wanted in the game and try to convince others of that view point. Once the guilds started PM'ing their 'members' and giving them an 'election guideline' it went to hell.

As I said, I'm open to suggestions, but there are certain things that I will need convincing of before I'm willing to try them again. When I said there would be no parties, it was based upon the posts that I had seen thus far. What had been suggested had, for the most part, already been tried and failed.

I like Tim's way of maintaining the city cap. If we want to keep a city later on and are already at the cap, we will have to disband an existing one first.

 

[Jayne]

Touching on what Leowind wrote, I like the idea of people taking a little responsibility for their town. Advisors would suggest what needs building eg more settlers, caravans. Then each member would say what the build queue for their town should be, and where workers should be. Of course, the domestic advisor can over-rule this (with good reason) and in times if war, the military advisor. The domestic advisor would also be responsible for any unclaimed cities. Members with overlapping towns may need to negotiate for tiles for workers!!

 

[Talar]

Good ideas Leowind. Creating a local vs national conflict could probably work just as well as conflicting policies. As you say a conflict of some sort is necessary to create interest. That's the point I was going for too even if I'm not as fluent in the english language as you are.

As for a city cap, the idea of making it harder for ourselves by gameplay restrictions I think is basically good, especially if we won't have any kind of party or regional conflicts. But I don't think a city cap of 20 would do much difference. By the time we reach that many cities we will most likely already be at the point where we can see that we are going to win the game.

I sometimes disband one of my starting settlers and then walk around some with the remaining one before settling to give the AI a head start. That makes the early game much more challenging without putting limitations on my choice of strategy. I also never bribe AI cities. The problem as I see it is to keep the game challenging after it reaches the point where we get the upper hand, because I'm sure it will sooner or later. The most fun games I've had with civ (and the ones I have actually finished) is the ones where I had tough competition from the AI all the way to the end and sometimes even lost. The only way the AI can give such competition is by being the largest empire around and at same time having other AI:s to trade tech with.

Maybe a combination of a slower start and a city cap could give us the challenge we want. Unless we want to try some kind of party/region idea and take the risk that we all become degraded to flamewar-fighting 12 year olds

It's only a game after all, and supposed to be fun for everyone involved. Maybe we should take a vote to see what we would get the most players for. If we make one of those polls where you can chose multiple options we can include OCC and everything else discussed and vote for the ones we most would like to play.

 

[Jayne]

I love all these ideas that keep coming!! We definately will need lots of polls about how the set up the next game once President Civ has erradicated everyone else. Should be next week the way he's playing?!!!

I like the delayed start idea. We can either explore until a certain year, then settle. Or not move at all!!!

 

[Leowind]

I, too, like the delayed start idea. How about the auto-start option (or whatever it's called)? Civ will play the first few turns for us, then we have to make do with what the game gave us to start with. It would be less than ideal, I would assume, and might be easier in some ways then just sitting on a settler for 15 turns or whatever.

 

[Octavian X]

The worse job the game does in playing the first few turns of our civ, the better.

That's an interesting option. The few times I've used the accelerated start weren't all that bad.

In addition to that, perhaps we could change other game rules. Simplified combat and flat world would make for some more interest...

 

[Talar]

Originally posted by Octavian X
The worse job the game does in playing the first few turns of our civ, the better.

I started a game with accelerated start just to see the results, it was horrible, ehhh... perfect I mean

I noticed another option as I did this - Bloodlust. What about combining a no spaceship game with a city cap. That would give us some real challenge I think.

 

[Leowind]

As trying to play for a SS win would certainly kill interest in the end game, I think bloodlust makes good sense. That coupled with no bribing cities would certainly be a challenge. Auto start with a cap to number of cities we can own at any one point, slightly smaller map. All sounds good.

I'm not sure what the advantage..err...disadvantage of simplified combat would be. Flat world would be different; I have no strong feelings either way on that.

 

[Talar]

Seems like Leowind and I are totally agreed on how we want the demogame I prefer the same settings, unless we are going to use some party/region system.

How many active players do we have for the next game anyway, anyone have a good estimation?

 

[Leowind]

Originally posted by Talar
Seems like Leowind and I are totally agreed on how we want the demogame I prefer the same settings, unless we are going to use some party/region system.

Then I guess we're ready to set it up and do it

How many active players do we have for the next game anyway, anyone have a good estimation?

Perhaps someone should start a preliminary registration? If there is enough support expressed here for that idea I could do that later; or someone else could do it sooner

 

[Kev]

So many good ideas on DGIII!

I'm pretty late to my $0.02 in, but that never stopped me before

I like the idea of simplifying the game by fewer cities. Too many cities make the game very tedious - something that those from DGI will testify to I'm sure. It may be found that even 20 cities will be a lot - especially on a smaller map, but restricting the size of the players' civilization is definitely the way to go I think.

In Civ3 forums - especially with their succession games - various games put restrictions on them to make them that much more interesting. I remember some where attacks could only be made by 1-move units. In another no wonders could be built (though they could be captured). This is a great facet to add to the CivII demo games for various reasons:
- The AI is so dopey that it can sometimes be no challenge even on Deity
- CivII is so well known that strategies can become rote. Retrictions will force new thinking and the development new strategies
- It can add a bit of simplicity where needed and possibly generate more interest thereby

I'm sure that there will be polls aplenty to discuss some of these possible restrictions. I see that some are already up. I like the city cap (as mentioned), but we can also take this further and play pure isolationist (i.e. keep to a certain land mass or area, only fight if attacked, only fight to defend, only fight on own land/own waters, etc.) We should definitely curtail the purchasing of cities as that is one way the player civ can easlily exploit the inept AI. Other than that, the choices can be many and varied. Not building but being able to capture wonders could lend a great bit of difficulty - especially when combined with a city cap and a 'no-purchase' agreement on a higher level. Imagine having to sit around waiting for the AI to build Mike's Chapel or JS Bachs (the AI never seems to get Theology) and then performing a surgical strike to take the city - and then defend it for the game in the middle of an enemy civ....

Well, those are just a few thoughts.

Regarding parties or conflicting groups. At first I thought 'what fun'. Perhaps we can have an impartial 3rd party to set up a specific map whereby our civ can start with 3 cities - one each on an island that can hold about 5 or 6 cities each (of course, each AI would also have to start with 3 cities) There can be 3 parties each representing an island, but we'd all still be one single civilization with survival as the key component. I thought it would be cool to have each clamoring for things to ensure survival, and different playing styles by different island/parties could show interestingly different results. Sure, you'd like to have the SSC on your own island, but it would be for the good of the civilzation in general to have it in the best city no matter what.

Anyway, I'm not sure if this would work, and the reason is simply attrition. We've tried having competitive succession games and even several Demo Games going on at the same time, but people drop out and all of a sudden one group has 5 memebers and the others have 2 and 1. I realize we could have people shift when necessary, but it might just get all too confusing.

OK, I'll stop typing now. I will try to stay abreast of what's going on here and try my best to participate in the game wherever I can.

 

[SpikeSpiegelJKD]

+1 to participation. I'm kind of a civ2 newb (had it for a few days), but have played civ3 alot, so I don't think the change will be all too difficult. I'll just read the threads and do as much as I can. Is there anyplace I really have to officially register in this, or will that come later?

 

[Octavian X]

No need to officially register yet. The last Democracy Game just ended in our glourious victory, so we are in the process of organizing the next. You'll see a new registration thread soon.

BTW, welcome to the game! Please, participate often, and thanks for taking the name of one of my favorite anime characters.

 

[puglover]

I'm join the Demo game!

 

[DvR]

Originally posted by Duke of Marlbrough
I like Tim's way of maintaining the city cap. If we want to keep a city later on and are already at the cap, we will have to disband an existing one first.

Okay, ehm, i'm kinda lost here.. how does one disband a city??

 

[Jayne]

To disband a city, you just keep building settlers (or starve your population) until you are back at city size 1. When you build the next settler it will ask you if you want to disband the city.

 

[DvR]

hehe, ok
I was hoping for an answer like: 'well, easy: just click the 'Disband City' button'

So what happens when you're capturing several cities? Imediatly start building settlers in other cities or build settlers in the cities you just captured?
Also: is (for instance) 20 cities an absolute maximum, or is it ok to have like 21 or 22 cities for a few turns when you're invading another country, meaning the city cap isn't very strict?