General Planning Thread

[Aeson]

Use this thread for any discussion about how we should be doing the planning for the CivBE DG.

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For the load out, it may not lend itself well to a poll given how many combinations there are, and also be dependant on the faction chosen. Many of the combinations probably aren't worth considering, and there are synergies and anti-synergies to take into account.

Perhaps we could have a thread to nominate specific combinations (eg. Scientists, Machinery, Retrograde) and if necessary qualify them for the faction chosen? Then have a poll to decide which nominated combination to use once the faction is decided.

[N35t0r]

How are we planning to actually play the game? Vote on every move? Nominate an executive with ultimate power to decide? Something in between?


As for the starting load-out, maybe have three polls (or doing it combined in a multiple choice poll) and then see what happens? I'm not entirely against having a sub-optimal build, in any case. After all, the idea of the DG would be to get to know the game and have fun, no?

[Aeson]

Yah, fun and learning is the main point. People might have different views on what is fun though. If some players want specific builds and others don't care I think it makes sense to allow for specific combinations somehow. I would be ok with voting on each separately, or even going with random load-out. There's something to learn in each case. Testing perceived synergies to see how they work out, or taking what you're given and finding ways to make it work best.

I don't have much experience with SP Demogames, so hopefully someone with more experience can chime in about what works as far as how to manage player input. I think past SP DGs have had an elected turn player with elected advisors in different roles. Ultimately the turn player was responsible for carrying out the directives from the advisors.

So far there hasn't been any mention of a pitboss server shipping with CivBE, so we might have to manage the old-fashioned way of a turn player posting saves every turn.

[Kuciwalker]

It's been a while (read: 10 years) since I've actually participated in a demogame, so I'm planning on going through some archived ones later this week to see how they tended to organize eg constitution, parties, etc. Assuming there is a "preserve random seed" option (there should be!) we shouldn't have much difficulty even without an MP server with observer mode - players can just play along with moves posted in IRC. Or we could use a Twitch stream.

I think that at some point between T-1w and T-0 (T = CivBE launch) we should hold elections for the position of President. Each candidate would lay out a platform that includes the choices of load-outs (and possibly Civ choice? although I expect we'll have had that nailed down by then) plus some less specific general strategy. Once the game is loaded we would get a map of the visible area and the President would present a report to the members on the various city location options, to be voted on. (Similarly he would present reports on tech choices, etc.)

~10-20 turns in (or maybe even from the start?) we could devolve individual responsibilities of the president to ministers of science, colonization, interior, and so on and the president would be more of the turn player / political leader.

[Aeson]

Yah, the preserve random seed option was specifically mentioned in one of the developer interviews.

[A Space Ostrich]

I assume that we'll be calling the Capital Apolyton, no? And I like the elections based on making a case for yourself idea. Might I suggest a position of Affinity Advisor for each affinity. They can focus their efforts on swaying the other ministers and president to their cause. I'm going to make a Q&A thread for noobs like myself to ask more general Demogame questions.

[Aeson]

We can have nominations and vote on a name. I'd think Apolyton would have a good shot of winning, but you never know.

That's a cool idea to have Affinity Advisors!

[N35t0r]

Let's call our capital CFC.

[The Mad Monk]

No. Centrol.

[A Space Ostrich]

The dreadfort.

[regexcellent]

Plantain City

[Donegeal]

Well, there is a poll going for the first choice we have to make, that being which faction to be.

After that, we will need to elect one person to actually play the game. Who actually plays the game really makes little difference.

The settings will need to be discussed. I never played Alpha Centari, so I don't know what kind of setting they have. If its like previous versions of civ, we will need to figure out map size, land/water ratio, humid/arid ratio, archipeligo vs pangea vs continents. Maybe completely random. Barbarian levels. Difficulty level. A lot will need to be selected, and at this point we just can't know what those setting option are (or at least I don't know). Hell, we should even discuss whether we even need to discuss these things. We could just say we'll leave it up to the the game player or president (I'm personally against that as that sort of thing is more of a succession game rather than a Demo game).

[Aeson]

The latest round of playthrough videos shows the start options pretty well. Check out Solar Gamer's overview of the game start:

[A Space Ostrich]

We'd also want to vote on the Biome. I'd say we should set all of these polls up sooner rather than later. But give the option to change your vote if possible.

[Donegeal]

Thanks for that Aeson. Watching it makes me think we should wait until the game comes out to pick settings as we really don't know for sure what each one means. It does, however, tell us what the polls should be:
Map Type
Map Size
Map Terrain
Difficulty
Game Pace
World Age
Temperature
Rainfall
Resources
Sea level

Hmm... I see Sea level wasn't even an option if an equatorial world is used.

Once again, I am inclined to wait until the game come out.