Front page of Kuro5hin!

[MattH]

Apolyton and the ISDG have made it to the front page of kuro5hin (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/6/18/81827/3874), a popular news site. It's a long, informative article about the Intersite Democracy game. Great work whoever wrote it!

[sabrewolf]

:b: thanks for the link... good text!

With over three million posts among the fan sites, it almost seems like the players prefer talking about Civilization to actually playing it, and it's not without truth, either.

nothing new, but it somehow must hurt hearing that ;)

[alva]

Nah, people talk more about football than playing it too, goes for many other things too, come to think of it. ;)

[Solver]

They say that Poly and CFC have 39 and 34k users respectively. When was that, a year ago?

[MattH]

The bottom of the article says
Since this article was written in late 2003, three teams have been knocked out of the game: the Creative Design Group, the Grenouille team... and Firaxis.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Solver
They say that Poly and CFC have 39 and 34k users respectively. When was that, a year ago?

Last September.

[alva]

Good article :b:

[:) Smiley]

From the article:

While a tank is likely to beat a group of cavalry in battle, based on their relative attack and defence strengths, there's still a small probability that the cavalry could emerge victorious, in effect by getting lucky and rolling two sixes.

Or a spearman rolling a full freight train of boxcars...

[Ming]

Actually a good story. A good read!

[Theben]

Very interesting. Has anyone heard of the concept of Demo games at another gaming forum (outside the Civ ones)?

[Arnelos]

Arian Hon is the author and a member of the Apolyton ISDG Team. He thought to post a link in the ISDG private forum, but I'm glad someone noticed and posted a link out here in public. :b:

Needless to say, I'm glad his article made it in there.

- Consul Arnelos

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by MattH
The bottom of the article says
Since this article was written in late 2003, three teams have been knocked out of the game: the Creative Design Group, the Grenouille team... and Firaxis.


And both GCA and CGN are effectively out of the running for winning the game.

The game has ultimately come down to two alliances: One lead by Apolyton, the other lead by the German Webring Team (GWT). The allies of Apolyton are CFC and CGN. The allies of the Germans are GCA.

[MattH]

Is there anywhere I, as an outsider, can go to get the story on the game so far?

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by MattH
Is there anywhere I, as an outsider, can go to get the story on the game so far?

You could always, as a member of Apolyton, join the team (http://www.apolyton.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=2730112#post2730112). :cute:

Post in that thread and PM Beta if you want to join.

If you're just looking for a public story, I know we've had a few News updates on the Civ3 page, but I forget how long ago the last one went out. Lemme go look.

[MattH]

The thing is I don't have time or experience to add to the team so I won't waste anybody's time.

[Arnelos]

Geesh, the last one was a long time ago and I'm not entirely sure whether this made it on the front page because Togas sent it to MarkG when he was off on army duty. Anyhow, here's the last one that we tried to post back in December, 2003 on about Turn 140 (230 AD):

Originally posted by Togas
Heading into Turn 140 (230ad) of the Intersite Civ3 Competition (using PTW), Team Apolyton is still in the hunt and going strong against teams from the other major civilization sites!

On Apolyton's continent, the team from the Creative Design Group was the first eliminated. They were destroyed by the Gamecatcher Alliance team.

At present Apolyton and the Civ Fanatics Center are both at war with the Gamecatchers, and the Gamecatchers are close to defeat. Apolyton has conquered most of the former Gamecatcher territory on one side of a continental chokepoint, and the Civfanatics have conquered most of the territory on the other.

On another continent the Civilization Gaming Network and the Civilization Webring Team (aka German Webring Team) have both defeated their neighbors (Grenouille and Firaxis) and now face off as the world's top two powers. Relations are tense between the two super powers.

The Apolyton Intersite Team is now lead by a trio of "Consuls": NotYouEither, Arnelos, and Trip. Every month one of the Consuls is up for election. Most recently Trip won the election, replacing the retired former Consul BigFree.

The ministers who advise them are: Aggie (Minister of War), E_T (Domestic Minister), and Togas (Foreign Affairs Minister).

[Arnelos]

I'm going to see if we can get something of a "story thusfar" out here in public. Working on that now.

[Harry Tuttle]

and now I know the story about the modders at CDG. I've always wondered why they have so many WW2 mods...

[Arnelos]

Well, a few notes I can make right now in public:

* We just played Turn 185 (690 AD).

* Apolyton is 2nd in the world in most demographic statistics, behind the German Webring Team (GWT), which has 1st in most categories.

* CGN, previously the world's dominant economic and cultural power, has been all but wiped out by GWT's sizable army of Ansar Warriors over the past 20-30 turns.

* Apolyton has recently been involved in a massive REX effort to resettle the lands conquered from GCA. I don't think I've ever played a game where I was moving around that many settlers all at the same time. :)

*Apolyton and GWT are the dominant world powers now, with CFC in a distant 3rd and GCA in an incredibly distant 4th (having been gifted lands by GWT on their continent to save them from destruction at the hands of Apolyton and CFC). CGN has only two cities left, one on their home continent (whose days are most certainly numbered) and one on our continent which was gifted to them by Apolyton to keep them in the game.

That's probably all I should say out here until we can draft up a news report for public consumption. :)

[DarkCloud]

Great work whoever wrote it!

it is pretty good ;)

funny to see the people who don't play civ (those who wrote back) wondering whether this might promote real life diplomatic activity... and all the concern about cheating ;)
-
by the way, adrianhon actually posts here at apolyton MattH, so you can send him a PM to congratulate him if you like ;)

[Arnelos]

Hey, DarkCloud, *you* should check out last turn's report, seeing as your name appears in it. :)

[MattH]

Is there any chance that saves etc. from the various teams will be made public when the game is over? Screenshots maybe?

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Arnelos
Geesh, the last one was a long time ago and I'm not entirely sure whether this made it on the front page
well you do have a civgroup where you can post news yourself ;)

[Adrian Hon]

Thanks guys, I'm glad you liked the article. As soon as I heard of the ISDG I knew I had to write about it to get the word out to as many people as possible; hopefully I should be able to write up another article when the game finishes.

[MarkG]

Thank you for the article Adrian :b:

[Solver]

Yes, again, it was a good read. I am not a fan of democracy games myself, but I have to admit that they are a very interesting phenomena and definitely worthy of attention.

[Donegeal]

Originally posted by MattH
Is there any chance that saves etc. from the various teams will be made public when the game is over? Screenshots maybe?

I hope my teammates don't mind, but here is an edited screenshot for turn 140.

Map removed for security purposes.

Originally posted by Togas
Heading into Turn 140 (230ad) of the Intersite Civ3 Competition (using PTW), Team Apolyton is still in the hunt and going strong against teams from the other major civilization sites!

On Apolyton's continent, the team from the Creative Design Group was the first eliminated. They were destroyed by the Gamecatcher Alliance team.

At present Apolyton and the Civ Fanatics Center are both at war with the Gamecatchers, and the Gamecatchers are close to defeat. Apolyton has conquered most of the former Gamecatcher territory on one side of a continental chokepoint, and the Civfanatics have conquered most of the territory on the other.

On another continent the Civilization Gaming Network and the Civilization Webring Team (aka German Webring Team) have both defeated their neighbors (Grenouille and Firaxis) and now face off as the world's top two powers. Relations are tense between the two super powers.

The Apolyton Intersite Team is now lead by a trio of "Consuls": NotYouEither, Arnelos, and Trip. Every month one of the Consuls is up for election. Most recently Trip won the election, replacing the retired former Consul BigFree.

The ministers who advise them are: Aggie (Minister of War), E_T (Domestic Minister), and Togas (Foreign Affairs Minister).

(PS, If you guys think this is too much, post here or PM me and I'll remove it)

[Kloreep]

Originally posted by MattH
The thing is I don't have time or experience to add to the team so I won't waste anybody's time.

You wouldn't be wasting anyone's time. :) You're not required to contribute, just follow certain rules like not spying for other teams etc. ;)

Feel free to join.

[Arnelos]

Donegeal,

Posting here. Please remove map. GCA and GWT do not have maps of that entire territory and publicly posting it would allow them to see parts of our territory they cannot see in-game (basically everything north of about Karina).

If we could create a map that showed everything SOUTH of about Karina (which they already know) and left the areas north of it blacked out, that would be acceptable since it would reveal no new in-game info.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by MattH
Is there any chance that saves etc. from the various teams will be made public when the game is over? Screenshots maybe?

Just join up!!!

There are a huge amount of members, many of who just lurk around and vote in polls. You are not required to contribute anything or post anything at all, just send Beta a PM and you'll likely be authorized.

[DarkCloud]

and vote in polls
Well... what few polls there are nowadays ;)

[MrWhereItsAt]

Yeah, I don't see why some of the saves couldn't be made public at the death. But not all, as they are painstakingly archived by some of us - and there are Zillions too! :D

Joining is pretty quick 'n' easy. And you don;t need to do anything beyond promise not to give information to our <strike>enemies</strike> noble opponents or anything. :cute:

DGs are great - I'm about 2 levels higher in Civ3 than I was before thanks to them, and 3 levels higher in Civ2. :b: A helluva way to learn.

[DanQ]

Great stuff, Adrian! Reading your article was one of the highlights of my weekend.

Well done.

----------
Dan; Apolyton CS

[Kuciwalker]

Awesome read.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Arnelos
The allies of Apolyton are CFC and CGN.

Somehow, that is not surprising. :D

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Arnelos
If we could create a map that showed everything SOUTH of about Karina (which they already know) and left the areas north of it blacked out, that would be acceptable since it would reveal no new in-game info.

That's easy. Just use an image editor to paint that whole area black. :)

[Skanky Burns]

Excellent read. :b:

I would like to see a map of the currently revealed areas, even if most of it was blacked out for security purposes. Glad to see our team is doing well. :D

[sabrewolf]

yes, i'd like to see maps too. at least the generally known parts. also, an update in score, technology race, land area, world wonders, etc.
maybe some screenies from F8 would be nice :)

in the first civ3 vanilla DG, there was a guy (finnish iirc) who kept doing maps and screenshots of the game. that was easier then because the AI didn't spy in the forum... but it made that DG a lot more interesting! after that, i never saw any more maps beside the starting location and lost complete interest in the concept of DG... :(

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by sabrewolf
in the first civ3 vanilla DG, there was a guy (finnish iirc) who kept doing maps and screenshots of the game. that was easier then because the AI didn't spy in the forum... but it made that DG a lot more interesting! after that, i never saw any more maps beside the starting location and lost complete interest in the concept of DG... :(

He was a Brazilian political cartoonist and his name was Aro. ;)

I'll see what I can get out here. Currently asking in the internal forum what people think would be ok to publish.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by sabrewolf
yes, i'd like to see maps too. at least the generally known parts. also, an update in score, technology race, land area, world wonders, etc.
maybe some screenies from F8 would be nice :)

in the first civ3 vanilla DG, there was a guy (finnish iirc) who kept doing maps and screenshots of the game. that was easier then because the AI didn't spy in the forum... but it made that DG a lot more interesting! after that, i never saw any more maps beside the starting location and lost complete interest in the concept of DG... :(

Diplogames are real good about that. We post great political maps after every session. See: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=104622

But, the article was great, good to see some press for 'poly. After reading it, I might actually stop on by the scary world of Demogames.

[sabrewolf]

yes, they really look good... despite being civ2-maps ;)

[OzzyKP]

So where do I find this big intersite demogame? The three demogames running in the Civ3 forums don't seem to be it.

[MattH]

You've got to apply. It's a private forum--- even I know that!

[DarkCloud]

PM Beta and ask him about it- he'll authorize you and give you the information!

[Kloreep]

Use the link in my sig to find the sign-up thread. :) (It's located in the Civ3 Democracy Game forum that everyone can access; think of it as the porch & front door for the ISDG's. ;))

Edit: Or just use this link (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=73702) so you don't have to look in my sig.

[Frankychan]

Fascinating article! :b:

I would love to join the ISDG, but I only picked up CivIII a few days ago, so I don't know anything about the game. :(

It's really good to hear that our site is kicking a**.

APOLYTON PRIDE, BABY!!!

[DarkCloud]

I would love to join the ISDG, but I only picked up CivIII a few days ago, so I don't know anything about the game.
...Doesn't really matter- I'm a teammember and I've never owned Civ III at all ;)

[Henrik]

Can't get the link to the article to work :(

[Kloreep]

Originally posted by DarkCloud
I would love to join the ISDG, but I only picked up CivIII a few days ago, so I don't know anything about the game.

...Doesn't really matter- I'm a teammember and I've never owned Civ III at all ;)

:):b:

Join us!

Don't be afraid! ;)