"A History of the World XII" Planning/Sign-Up Thread...

[arvcran]

I could be able to go for a 7:30am EST Saturday morning for 3 hours.

Would be 12:30pm GMT - correct?

The VVV clan I was in a while back determined the best time was early mornings EST for world play.

[Asmodeous]

I agree with Capo on the victory thing. Might as well use Ozzy's victory points system, but frankly... who cares?

It's not about winning, it's about the story.

How about trying one without the concept of a "winner"? Might change a lot of the views that people have about it, don't you think?

Me.

[Heraclitus]

@arvcran That is a very good time for me.
@Asmodeus

[Robert]

Capo:

Am I NOT allowed to suggest a challenge to something simply because I have been gone for a year?

that's not what I said.

I just suggested that you should restrain yourself a bit more.
A good example of that is asking some questions first, like you did in this post.

I mean, playing anonymously will remove many aspects from the diplomacy of the game

It removes nothing from the diplomacy part of the game. It focusses everything on the diplomacy part since the OOC element is gone.
If people are just only their IC personallity, they''ll chat in character during the game, to not unveil their character.

How am I to contact the other nation between sessions?

You send them a PM to their diplo-apolyton handle.
(ie. Diplogame-Romans, Diplogame-Aztecs, Diplogame-America).
Ming will set these handles up for us. After the game is over we ask Ming to scramble the passwords, and hand them over again when a new game has been started.

Obviously these handles can't be used anywhere else on Apolyton except in the diplo game threads.

We also create an AIM name for every diplo-civ (same name type) and a gamespy name for each civ (same name type again)

And not through e-mail either, through some sort of instant messager.

I have a mailserver, I can setup a mail alias for everyone. ie. diplogame-aztecs[#]plompweb.nl.
We can also create hotmail mail addresses.

I mean, I don't think it will work the way we want it to work, and ultimately our true identities will be revealed.

If I'll play anonymously, I'll do everything to try to keep my identity hidden.
I'll chat "turn" immediately after every turn to act like I'm toni.
I'll post "The Washington Tribune" story posts in your style to act like I'm you.
I'll start talking about youth rights to act like I'm Ozzy.
I'll say: "Genea Pig crisis" to make you guys think that I'm Deity.
I'll all go: "Remove your troops or I'll unleash a war upon you" to do the Frank thing.
I'll go all: "<< >>" all the time to play Kuno.
And I'll talk about all those girls that left me and how I'm never going to make it in time for my next date to play LzPrst.
Obviously I'll also screem "need to change some dipers" now and then to act like I'm CyberShy.

Maybe our identities will be revealed, but not easily. And if it's been revealed, then still nothing has been lost since the game still continues.

And again, your pointless response to my post has yet again wasted even more time. You could have easily responded to the points I made in an attempt to further this game and to organize our efforts.

Dear The Capo, all these points have been discussed months ago. We've gone through all your arguments.
If you would've done a simple search, or at least just asked in a humble way, we could've explained that to you.

My point is just that if you return after 1,5 years of absence, the best attitude is to check out what's happened in the between time first before swooping away everything from the table.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by Asmodeous
I agree with Capo on the victory thing. Might as well use Ozzy's victory points system, but frankly... who cares?

It's not about winning, it's about the story.

How about trying one without the concept of a "winner"? Might change a lot of the views that people have about it, don't you think?

Me.

That's the whole point. The game is supposed to be about the playing and not about winning. But every game so far has been impacted by the desire to win in the traditional sense. Old habits die hard. People will stick with alliances that don't make sense story wise because it is strategically better for them to win the game. Plus many other game decisions change when we are chasing a goal. It is unfortunate and no amount of telling ourselves that winning doesn't matter seems to fix it.

So my hope was to try and channel that winning impulse into a path that encourages true diplogaming (so it becomes very difficult to win if you don't engage in diplomacy and write good stories, etc), instead of just trying to ignore or fight against that winning impulse.

People look at that score chart and it informs everything about their play. "So and so is 300 points ahead of me! Crap, I have to catch up!" or "So and so is in 2nd place, if we ally together we'll be unstoppable". It really drives the game play and I believe to the detriment of the game.

The dirty little secret of diplogaming is that many games fall apart at the end. People might be in the true diplospirit early on when the end game is so far off, but as the end gets closer people focus more and more on winning. Not everyone, but it only takes two or three to entirely change the character of a game. The most epic diplogame in our history, HOTWII fell apart and never finished because of a lot of bickering and war during the end game. There were lots of arguing, people quit, some people didn't come back to the genre for a while. The game ended up just not finishing because of bad blood.

Most diplogames have had some big argument at one point or another. We have to find a solution to this.

[The Capo]

Look, I understand that you guys discussed this anonymous play situation. But it doesn't seem to me at all that you guys have unanimously decided to do it, nor does it seem that it has been proven to work or offer any advantage to playing with identities.

I am just going to come out and say it, and people like Ozzy and Kuno and some people who aren't around right now (like Frank and Chris, and others from the past) know that I need to be able to talk to you out of character to play in these games. Its part of my style, the ability to talk to you between sessions in an OOC fashion is part of my game.

Diplogames did not begin as roleplaying games, and they shouldn't continue to be overhyped roleplaying games. The in character part is for the benefit of the people reading our storylines, there is no necessity to conduct diplomacy completely in character.

I would also forward the idea that personal grudges have and still do effect diplomacy to this day.

I just don't see the point in creating extra effort for what I predict will hardly have the effect we want it to, and for something that I am sure will ultimately fail.

I don't see why I have to pretend like I'm other people just so we can play anonymously. I mean, nobody has yet to explain to me why we are doing this other than the tired "Well OOC stuff complicates and ruins the game."

If that's the case those people shouldn't play. It doesn't matter if we are anonymous or not, I guarantee you within the first two sessions I will be able to identify everyone, and I know that will be the case for most of us (at least the ones willing to admit it).

We shouldn't be talking about this though. What we should be talking about is when we are going to start, who is playing, and what the time-slot is going to be becuase as far as I can tell that is not definite at this point and THAT is more important than this anonymous business.

[The Capo]

And BTW, if you think I am going to go around looking through all the threads just to find out what you guys thought about anonymous play you're kidding yourself.

You can just tell me now, what's the difference?

Besides, you know how stubborn I am, reading posts from a year ago won't shut me up.

[The Capo]

I know it sounds harsh, but I think the only way to totally fix the problem of the big argument at the end is the ability to vote people out. This includes, sadly enough, the winning member.

Often, and despite the fact that I've been gone for 1.5 years aso CS put it I can comment on this, the game winds up ending because one player is so far behind and another player is so far ahead that the ensuing argument effects both sides of the spectrum and splits people into groups.

I remember HOTW V that almost happened. Remember when the Americans and Germans were complaining that there was no way to come back and that the Russians, Indians, and their allies were so far ahead and so well entrenched with one another that the possibility of the "southern" states rising from the rubble was near impossible?

Now this isnt' exactly what happened; this is generally what went down and the people in the game should remember that.

Now, I'm not suggesting we simply kick someone out because they are too powerful, or too weak. But the idea is simple; if someone is *****ing about something that they really shouldn't be *****ing about (in the case of weakness or an alliance system), the rest of the group should be able to kick you out by vote.

I understand, people are going to think this is a terrible idea. I agree in that I don't think we should be going around kicking people out, and I wouldn't want to be kicked out for voicing my opinion over something I think is wrong.

BUT - it has to be done.

Anonymous play will not work, I am telling you right now. Deity, I don't mean to pick on you, but I am going to so please take it the right way...

I remember in HOTW V, again, I was Spain and was aligned with China, although somewhat secretly. We decided to engage in "terrorism" against India in order to prevent her from getting to space (ie I was blowing up her space ship stuff), I brilliantly (if I may say so myself) had the world convinced, or at least pretty sure, that England was behind the attacks. Now, this issue went on for about two weeks (there was one session where it was being "investigated" and then the prior session where the bombings occured). England became angry, because obviously it wasn't them and they knew it, I used the UN to NEARLY take India and England to war which would have benefitted our efforts against both India and England. But guess what happened?

You were there Cybershy, don't you remember?

Yeah, deity whined and literally in the game broke out of character and demanded that the REAL bombers come to light, he promised Ozzy that he didn't do it, and he said it wasn't fair that he was being set up. It was not the right thing to do then, and I don't think it is the right thing to do now.

THAT is precisely why anonymity won't work.

THAT is why we should be able to kick people out.

If people know they will be kicked out, we can prevent this type of bull****. These types of squabbles are going to come out even if people are anonymous. I understand that being anonymous would probably fix the two examples I've used, but that is only in theory. I know in practice if we had played HOTW V anonymously we would have found out LzPrst was Germany, we would have found out CyberShy was America and we would have found out deity was England. There's no way they would have kept those issues in character because they notoriously got out of character to complain about what was happening IN GAME.

What leads us to believe this won't happen again?

If people know they can be kicked out, no matter how good they are doing, I think they will behave more along the lines we need them to for a successful game.

So I don't know, its a difficult situation, but Ozzy is right. The games normally end over arguments. I just don't think anonymity is enough to prevent them.

[Toni]

1) Anonymous play or not – DON”T CARE – WILL GO WITH THE GROUP ON THIS

2) Random or premade map – A PREMADE WOULD BE NICE (HAVE OZZY DISPERSE RESOURCES AROUND, THUS MAKE FOR A BETTER DIPLO

LARGE MAP WOULD BE NICE – DIMINISH LAGGING

3) Time Slot – OK PLAYING US Saturday Night/Sunday Morning @ 12am, or MAYBE ARVS US 7:30am EST Saturday morning for 3 hours

4) 8 to 10 guys would be nice (RELIABILITY SHOULD BE CONFIRMED THOUGH) many games are hurt when ppl don’t show up. SO if ppl know that they can’t commit pls don’t play

[Toni]

Lets test connections this sat. I say we start this game as soon as possible maybe 26th or Feb 2nd?

Also we should start picking civs as well guys! How do we do that?

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by The Capo
So I don't know, its a difficult situation, but Ozzy is right. The games normally end over arguments. I just don't think anonymity is enough to prevent them.

I think my diplogame victory condition is the best proposal for preventing them.

The reason "weak" civs complain about "strong" civs is because they feel hoplessly "behind" and unable to ever challenge for the "lead". All those terms are defined by victory in the traditional sense. If we remove that traditional victory (not that it'll be easy) then a lot of those concerns will fade away.

Then the small, weak civ that doesn't have a hope of being first to launch the ship could WIN the game. And they'd be more focused on telling good stories and cunning diplomacy than on whinning about who is the biggest and who has what alliances. Or if they had objections to such things they'd be more likely to handle it in character (which is the goal of the anonymous play folks) because it'll impact their final score. Handling things OOC wouldn't be good for the score.

I've seen these games from the vantage point of the strong and the weak civ. If you are playing to win (as most of us are) you start making non-diplo decisions as a leading power and you start getting frustrated and either not caring about the game or whining about it as a losing power. In pretty much every game that has not just been a possibility it has been an eventuality. It WILL happen again. That is human nature and the nature of these games.

Just kicking people out doesn't solve anything at all. Who are you going to kick out? The strong player who has shed the semblance of a diplogame so he can win or the weak player who is whining and complaining about it OOC? What if there is one really strong player and all the whiners vote him out because they don't want him to win?

Plus, I can be damn sure that if you, Capo, ever got voted out of a game you'd take it very personally and probably leave diplogaming for a while and be pissed off at us. Many other players would react that way too. We need to be building our pool of players not alienating people.

Lets address the root reasons that cause people to act the way they do, not just simply punish them for responding to those reasons.

[Robert]

Maybe we should also start some vote at the end of each session. Where you can vote for the top 3 players who did the best IC job during that session.

[Pinchak]

Where you can vote for the top 3 players who did the best IC job during that session.

Incorporate it into the Ozzy's point system.

[deity]

Capo, I think your posts tend to suggest that playing anonymously will solve many of the problems.

Before your arrival on the scene the following players had all voted for anonymous play:

Beta
Toni
lz
deity
Aussie_Lurker
cyber (if he played)
Arvcran
Asmo I think
Pincak I think

Mr L ?

ozzy voted against but is not playing
Capo now against
Heraclitus now against

Help me straighten out this vote please.

For Capo's diplomacy to depend upon an OOC element is surprising. But we have all used OOC behavior in our diplomacy but I want it stopped please.

[Toni]

Players HOTW 12

US Saturday Night/Sunday Morning @ EST 12am - 3am

Lz (Confirmed)
Capo (Confirmed)
Deity (Confirmed)
Toni (Confirmed)
Pinchak (Confirmed)
Heraclitus (Confirmed)
Asmo (Confirmed)

CS ?
Marcus ?
Ozzy ?
Beta ?
Arv ?

What about this: Arv proposed earlier?

US 7:30am EST Saturday morning for 3 hours