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Bump!
A few thoughts, and wondering if we're ever going to try this. Obviously, we need to think a bit smaller than in the beginning. 8-10 players is more realistic, probably on the lower side of that too. Now, to make the game more interesting, we can have tons of warfare and conquest, and outright elimination. That will help keep interest up and give plenty of fodder for stories. Yet, we can also make sure that no one is eliminated or hobbled. We can also make it so there are a ton of nations to have diplo relations with and to use for storytelling. How? Oh, AI of course.
I don't know if it's been tried in the diplo style, but why not do the GEM thing, but everyone starts a little apart? Maybe every human has 1 human neighbor and the rest are AIs? For example, we can have an England-Viking start for 2 players, a China-China start for another, an India-Central Asian, and a couple Africans (the New World shall remain as such, or be outright eliminated from the map to make it lighter for the players/server). Or, we can spread these starts out a bit. Say, a Korea-Khmer such that eventually the two will come into contact as they take apart China, and they are expected to work together in the early-mid game to make that common conquest.
We could eliminate continents to keep it simple (or just turn them to all deserts): Australia and the Americas could be excluded. Or not.
Or we can work with a smaller map with fewer AIs, be it an Earth map, a regional map, or a fictional (toroidal) map.
Using AIs this way encourages players to work together, and as such outright competition with the "good AIs" is downplayed while cooperative domination is highlighted. Tons of story-telling can be had from this, and by the late game there will be some serious (mostly human) world powers and power centers with far more human-human competition once we all have nice, big empires to play with, with all their connected AI vassals (that perhaps others can steal), if not an AI major power or two mixed in.
Using an improved AI script could help. I think GEM includes the BUG one, but if not we can try that (better BUG AI) or something similar. Perhaps everyone starting on Noble is a bit too easy, so a Prince/Monarch start would be better (doesn't need to be THAT hard, though).
What do you guys think?
A few thoughts, and wondering if we're ever going to try this. Obviously, we need to think a bit smaller than in the beginning. 8-10 players is more realistic, probably on the lower side of that too. Now, to make the game more interesting, we can have tons of warfare and conquest, and outright elimination. That will help keep interest up and give plenty of fodder for stories. Yet, we can also make sure that no one is eliminated or hobbled. We can also make it so there are a ton of nations to have diplo relations with and to use for storytelling. How? Oh, AI of course.
I don't know if it's been tried in the diplo style, but why not do the GEM thing, but everyone starts a little apart? Maybe every human has 1 human neighbor and the rest are AIs? For example, we can have an England-Viking start for 2 players, a China-China start for another, an India-Central Asian, and a couple Africans (the New World shall remain as such, or be outright eliminated from the map to make it lighter for the players/server). Or, we can spread these starts out a bit. Say, a Korea-Khmer such that eventually the two will come into contact as they take apart China, and they are expected to work together in the early-mid game to make that common conquest.
We could eliminate continents to keep it simple (or just turn them to all deserts): Australia and the Americas could be excluded. Or not.
Or we can work with a smaller map with fewer AIs, be it an Earth map, a regional map, or a fictional (toroidal) map.
Using AIs this way encourages players to work together, and as such outright competition with the "good AIs" is downplayed while cooperative domination is highlighted. Tons of story-telling can be had from this, and by the late game there will be some serious (mostly human) world powers and power centers with far more human-human competition once we all have nice, big empires to play with, with all their connected AI vassals (that perhaps others can steal), if not an AI major power or two mixed in.
Using an improved AI script could help. I think GEM includes the BUG one, but if not we can try that (better BUG AI) or something similar. Perhaps everyone starting on Noble is a bit too easy, so a Prince/Monarch start would be better (doesn't need to be THAT hard, though).
What do you guys think?
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