What Level of Play?

[donsig]

I don't see any reason to prevent several people from having the same platform. That by itself doesn't constitute a political party.

What's the difference between a lower form of law, and the last recorded decision on a topic?

Beats the heck out of me. I don't know how the last decision on a topic mechanism works. I know how things were back in the first few democracy games but I'm not sure how they've evolved since. I'm still in the stone ages where we wanted a constitution that was vague but difficult to change with a code of laws that was more specific but easier to change and then an even lower lever (we called them standards) that were detailed but very easy to change. It sounds as though judicial decisions are now akin to what we used to call the code of laws with this last recorded decision thing akin to the old idea of standards.

To try to get back on topic I was suggesting that we would have rules concerning our national identity but they would not be constitutional but encoded in a changeable law or decision that was not part of the constitution.

In the past (the ancient past of the DGs) our lower forms of laws always revolved around demo game laws rather than laws that shaped a national identity. In other words we were always concerned with coding laws defining how we made group decisions. We never tried (at least in the games I was part of) to encode civ game play decisions.

We could try this time to enact laws about how we play the civ game. We could try to pass a law or resolution regarding our desired victory condition. (For example, It is hereby resolved that this great nation of ours shall dominate our world.) We could get more detailed and make it illegal to keep conquered cities more than 5 turns after peace is made. Possibilites are endless and some could be quite fun to play. Also, the very act of passing these type of laws would be quite fun and constitute the democracy part of the democracy game. This would give a new life to the various citizens groups as they push to enact laws to further the ideas dear to their hearts.

Getting back on topic, if we want to do this type of thing we need a level of difficulty that allows us to play a less than perfect (or even downright sloppy) civ game and still have a chance to defeat the AI. I think lower difficulty levels would allows us to do these things.

 

[civplayah]

I am in favor of more aggresive barbarians. Maybe raging.

 

[DaveShack]

Perhaps the next level down from raging?

Themes that seem to be developing:

• Monarch or Regent (de-emphasize need for technical play)
• Medium high barb level (add spice in the form of risk and randomness)
• Self-imposed play restrictions (AKA variant) that is easy to change if circumstances or changes in public opinion warrants it (non-"game" focus)

 

[Black_Hole]

Beats the heck out of me. I don't know how the last decision on a topic mechanism works. I know how things were back in the first few democracy games but I'm not sure how they've evolved since. I'm still in the stone ages where we wanted a constitution that was vague but difficult to change with a code of laws that was more specific but easier to change and then an even lower lever (we called them standards) that were detailed but very easy to change. It sounds as though judicial decisions are now akin to what we used to call the code of laws with this last recorded decision thing akin to the old idea of standards.

To try to get back on topic I was suggesting that we would have rules concerning our national identity but they would not be constitutional but encoded in a changeable law or decision that was not part of the constitution.

In the past (the ancient past of the DGs) our lower forms of laws always revolved around demo game laws rather than laws that shaped a national identity. In other words we were always concerned with coding laws defining how we made group decisions. We never tried (at least in the games I was part of) to encode civ game play decisions.

We could try this time to enact laws about how we play the civ game. We could try to pass a law or resolution regarding our desired victory condition. (For example, It is hereby resolved that this great nation of ours shall dominate our world.) We could get more detailed and make it illegal to keep conquered cities more than 5 turns after peace is made. Possibilites are endless and some could be quite fun to play. Also, the very act of passing these type of laws would be quite fun and constitute the democracy part of the democracy game. This would give a new life to the various citizens groups as they push to enact laws to further the ideas dear to their hearts.

Getting back on topic, if we want to do this type of thing we need a level of difficulty that allows us to play a less than perfect (or even downright sloppy) civ game and still have a chance to defeat the AI. I think lower difficulty levels would allows us to do these things.

I think this is a great idea, it makes us seem like more of a government than a civilization player. I think they should still be only simple majority polls, but we could have a sticky that is separate from our Constitution and Code of Laws.

Back to the actual question, I think Monarch would be a good difficulty if we don't try to play a perfect civilization game.

 

[mickyd47]

Why don't we make a custom difficulty level? Nothing massively unbalanced to one side or the other though.

 

[CommandoBob]

Is this thread the best place to discuss VCs and Game Constraints?

 

[Cyc]

Not really, CommandoBob. I'll make a cople more discussion threads. Feel free to start any threads you like (goes out to everyone). Sometimes we get carried away with topic crossover.

@ mickyd47 - I believe that's where we're headed.

 

[DaveShack]

Why don't we make a custom difficulty level? Nothing massively unbalanced to one side or the other though.

We seem to be leaning towards using a standard difficulty level for the actual game, and playing like it's a variant to adjust.

Were you suggesting we should use the rule editor to create a difficulty level that emphasizes what we want?

 

[mickyd47]

Basically yes. I'm no expert at Civ3 so I couldn't suggest details for the rules.

 

[DaveShack]

I've made rule changes but it has been a long time. I doubt many people would go for that, but it's a valid option if they do. The one change we usually do for multi-team games is making the SoZ require horses instead of ivory.

 

[Cyc]

I'm pretty good with rule changes and bic creation if you'd like me to do this. We'd then just have the .BIC create a random map under the guidelines we set.

 

[Cyc]

I've put three polls up from this thread.
Difficulty Level?
Barbarian Level?
Custom Play Level?