The Struggles of Man (OOC)

[Heerlo]

So I've been wanting to do another story here. I haven't really done much of one since that wacky fluke-of-a-story Into The Future ended, if anyone remembers that. I briefly tried my hand at writing a sort of comedy story, only to realize that this was not at all my style. My style lies more in writing the story of a civilization in a non-gamey history-book form. I am by no means saying I am good at it, but it is more up-my-alley.

But having been a part of both the Pitboss Worldbuilding game and the Dawn of Civilization(both of which unfortunately died out)I decided I'd give this idea a go myself. So, bear with me!

Basically, in this game I will be using the Giant Multiplayer Robot app to host a game where every player writes the story of their respective civ. Each player may write in any style they would like. You can go into any level of creativity you would like. You can write about every detail of your society, just the general history, or anything in between.

We will be using G&K and BNW, and possibly some DLC. I will also be using the Raze Capitals mod to eliminate this unrealistic mechanic. That is, if I can figure out how!
All victories will be off except Science and Time. However, winning is not meant to be the focus of the game. You may pursue a victory if you'd like, but please focus on the story.


Rules:

Spoiler :

Off Limits Story: At any time a player may choose to make a section of their story off-limits to read by other players. When you make a section off limits, please use spoiler tags and specify that you are invoking this rule. All participants are expected to abide by this.

Canon Rule: The first player to write about something in game(such as land areas, natural wonders, city states, etc)establishes canon for whatever it is they are writing about. Other players must not contradict the first canon writing. When interactions between players are being written, I encourage them to jointly write these interactions so that no one's civ is portrayed in a manner they do not desire.

God-Modding: God Modding(controlling someone else's civ without their permission)is not allowed, unless one player consents with another to allow this. This should not be a problem as long as you keep your GMR password secret.

Monthly Story Contest: Each month, we will hold a vote to decide who has written the best stories during the previous month. This vote will begin on the first day of each new month, with a 48 hour period of voting. Each player will be given five stars to award to the other players they believe have written the best stories of the previous month. You do not have to award all your stars to one player. You may not award stars to yourself. Please post your votes in thread so they can be tallied.

And please keep in mind that this is my first time hosting something like this. I by no means have the skill and creativity that my predecessors did in hosting a game such as this.

 

[Et_Absoluti]

I'm occupied running another worldbuilding-ish game at the moment, but this looks interesting. Subscribed!

 

[Gurra09]

I'm intrigued by the concept, read through the Dawn of Civilization thread and it seems like a fun thing. I might be interested in joining, just not entirely sure if I have it in me to write anything good.

All I'm wondering is, wouldn't reading each other's stories essentially be spying on the other civs?

 

[Heerlo]

I'm intrigued by the concept, read through the Dawn of Civilization thread and it seems like a fun thing. I might be interested in joining, just not entirely sure if I have it in me to write anything good.

Ah, I'm sure you'll do fine. I'm no great writer, either, by the way.

All I'm wondering is, wouldn't reading each other's stories essentially be spying on the other civs?

That's a good point. Maybe players could leave out information that would be important to other players?

Or we could even have certain parts where the player could specify that it shouldn't be read by other players.

Thoughts?

 

[Gurra09]

Edit: Rewording what I said here first.

I don't think it's too much of an issue as I may have posed it to be. Perhaps if one wants to write about something major like a wonder that is under construction or a secret war plan, then like you said specify parts that other players shouldn't read - spoiler tags are our friend. Even in a normal game of Civ a lot of information is public if you know where to look.

Edit2: Also, you said the story should be the goal rather than victory so this is probably not a big deal. I would say leave it up to the players what they want to share.

 

[cpm4001]

Am in.

 

[Heerlo]

Edit: Rewording what I said here first.

I don't think it's too much of an issue as I may have posed it to be. Perhaps if one wants to write about something major like a wonder that is under construction or a secret war plan, then like you said specify parts that other players shouldn't read - spoiler tags are our friend. Even in a normal game of Civ a lot of information is public if you know where to look.

Edit2: Also, you said the story should be the goal rather than victory so this is probably not a big deal. I would say leave it up to the players what they want to share.

That should work. I'll probably add a rule about this in the OP.

Edit: Rule added. Just need to wait for more people now......

 

[sh3baproject]

i'll join in. been a while since i did civ5

 

[Wang Lung]

Hello! Believe it or not, I joined just for this thread. Games similar to this have been done on Apolyton Civilization Site and they look to be a blast. I'd be very interested in participating.

 

[Heerlo]

i'll join in. been a while since i did civ5

Good to have you back, Sh3b!

Hello! Believe it or not, I joined just for this thread. Games similar to this have been done on Apolyton Civilization Site and they look to be a blast. I'd be very interested in participating.

Great to have you, and welcome to Civfanatics!

Spoiler :

Which is way better than Apolyton, by the way.

Anyway, I was hoping to have a full twelve players for this game, but that's beginning to look like an unrealistic goal. So I was just wondering if you guys would want to start with less people on a smaller map, or wait to see if more will join.

Thoughts?

 

[cpm4001]

Anyway, I was hoping to have a full twelve players for this game, but that's beginning to look like an unrealistic goal. So I was just wondering if you guys would want to start with less people on a smaller map, or wait to see if more will join.

Thoughts?

Thinking about how well the 12-player thing worked for the other hotseat worldbuilding games we've tried, I think let's run with maybe 6 players and a substitute or two.

 

[Heerlo]

You mean a couple of AIs, right? That could work, I guess.

 

[cpm4001]

You mean a couple of AIs, right? That could work, I guess.

No, I'm suggesting we do like we thought about doing the other times; having people available to jump in in case one of the original players drops.
Sorry if I didn't explain that well; I'm pretty tired as I type this.

 

[Wang Lung]

I have just a few thoughts on the rules and game settings proposed so far. Not that it makes much of a difference to me, I think this will be fun either way:

• Victory Conditions: My initial thought would be that we would have only time, with all of the others disabled. The reason I say this is because by enabling any of the more competitive victory conditions, I think we incentivize game-ey play, rather than story-based play. Time, on the other hand, is simply who has the highest score by the end of the game. Score, being comprised of all of the things that make a civilization--in the game and in the real world--successful and powerful, is a much more neutral incentive to do well than any of the other conditions. If it is a fear that we will make it to the end of time and want to keep playing that has made you opposed to the time victory , I think we could always just start over! At that point we most certainly will be ready to have a new and fresh start to create a new world anyway! If everyone disagrees with me that is fine as well. In the end all that matters is how we all play. Anyone signing up for this will not single-mindedly seek victory. We all just want a nice story.
• Speed: You didn't mention this in your opening post, but I'll assume this means we will just be going with normal speed. I think that normal is probably best in this case. Though one would think a slower setting might be better for story-telling, I think the snail pace that it would produce in game would be discouraging, especially early on. Faster speeds, on the contrary, may be too fast, to the point that it destroys any story arcs.
• Canon Rule: I think to help prevent future discrepancies we should set out a few rules for interactions between players in their stories. Though these rules might seem redundant and assumed, I think having them set out beforehand will prevent any disagreements from breaking out. One I think that is imperative to any game such as this is what I have decided to call the "Canon Rule." Simply, if another player has written about something first, whatever they have written is already game canon. Conversely, you cannot change something that someone else has created in the game world. Right now I'm thinking specifically about descriptions of landscapes, specific barbarian camps and city states, ect. While this doesn't mean we cannot give two different accounts of the same event, they need to be reasonably similar. I think it also follows that when anything happens between two players' civilizations, they discuss the factual particulars of it before posting their own civilization's interpretation.
• God Mod Rule: You cannot control another person's civilization without their permission. Again, seems obvious, but I think it becomes a lot easier to slip into the grey area when we are writing stories about CIVILIZATIONS of people. That is potentially thousands, millions, even billions, of people. Again, with permission of course, it is fine to be creative with an aspect of someone else's civ.
• Story Points: Lastly, I'd be interested in establishing some sort of point system for stories. For instance, everyone gets 5 points in a month to award to others for good story telling. Each month we tally up the points to have a monthly winner. I, for one, am competitive, and a point system for me will encourage more rather than less posting. (And we can always use more posting!)

That's the sum of it. Again, I am not super attached to adopting these rules. I understand the appeal of simplicity to the rules. I think no matter the rules, the game will be what we make of it.

EDIT: I forgot to address the substitute proposals. I think 6 is a practical amount of players that will still provide a lot of opportunity for interesting stories. Not sure how the pitboss works, but if we could set it so that AIs will take control of civilizations if a player doesn't play them that should be fine. That way if we don't have a substitute right away, we can keep the game playing. Otherwise, I think we should all take shifts playing the abandoned civ until we can find somebody.

That being said, I don't think we will be able to find someone willing to wait around as a substitute while the rest of us play. If at the start we can get more than 6 people to play, we should start with more than 6.

 

[Heerlo]

I have just a few thoughts on the rules and game settings proposed so far.....

That's some good points. I might implement a rule of canon, and possibly the story points as well.

And god-modding shouldn't be a problem. We're using Giant Multiplayer Robot, which has passwords set for all players. Therefore, no one can access someone else's civ without their password.

Also, about the substitutes, GMR has a turn timer, so that if a player doesn't play their turn within that time limit, it will be played by an AI. Still that leaves us with the problem of players perhaps dropping out. But like you said, I don't know if we'll be able to get any sub-players that would be willing to wait and jump in when needed. We're doing good just to get as many players as we have!

 

[Heerlo]

Okay, I've pretty much overhauled the OP. I've stolen implemented some of your suggestions, Wang Lung; I hope you don't mind.

One thing I wanted to leave for further discussion was your proposal that Time be the only victory. The main VC that I wanted left on was science, the reason being this: I thought that once we begin reaching the space age, if the science VC is turned off, then no one will have any incentive to engage in a space race. And that just didn't seem realistic to me.

Then again, I could be wrong, and players may very well engage in a space race without the VC. Maybe that whole idea was going against the purpose of not playing to win, anyway. But I'd still like to hear everyone's thoughts.

 

[cpm4001]

One thing I wanted to leave for further discussion was your proposal that Time be the only victory. The main VC that I wanted left on was science, the reason being this: I thought that once we begin reaching the space age, if the science VC is turned off, then no one will have any incentive to engage in a space race. And that just didn't seem realistic to me.

Then again, I could be wrong, and players may very well engage in a space race without the VC. Maybe that whole idea was going against the purpose of not playing to win, anyway. But I'd still like to hear everyone's thoughts.

I'm inclined to say put the Science VC on; by the time anyone would be able to achieve that victory we'd probably be getting close to the 2050 Time Victory cut-off point anyway. So, even if someone launched the spaceship, we wouldn't "lose" that much story-writing time - and it could even provide for some cool wrap-up stories, as the populaces of the civs that didn't get to space (i.e., Poland) deal with the aftereffects of the launch.

 

[Heerlo]

That's kinda what I was thinking, that it could provide some good opportunities for stories. There could potentially be two superpower civs in a heated race into space, which could prove very interesting.

 

[Wyverncraft]

I just noticed this!
Totally in.
Sort of anxious about actually having to write something good, but, eh.
Will we eventually choose our own civilizations, or are they random?

 

[Heerlo]

Ah, you'll do fine, Senator Richertson!

You will get to choose your civ. Right now we're just discussing rules and such. I would appreciate your feedback as well.