Next DG Discussion

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Illuminatus
Just a question: what about using Aldebaran mode?

It's a completely different setting. I'm not sure this could lead to lots of roleplay.

My proposal:

SMAX
SMAniaC mod
Transcend
standard sized map
Conclave (Believer) faction

Reason for Conclave: it's together with the Cult the only faction that hasn't been played yet in any ACDG. Also as Sparta proved this game: war is fun and maintains the interest longer!

Re standard sized map, on larger maps you can just build in peace far away from any AI. That doesn't lead to an interesting game. See the experience with ACDG1 and our "war" with the Hive... Especially if we're going for a momentum faction like the Conclave, we need some targets nearby.

On a standard sized map, we also won't have the possibility to expand endlessly by colonization. This is actually good. In ACDG1 in the end there were more bases and regions than there were people enthusiastic about being governor.

[Mead]

Originally posted by Maniac


It's a completely different setting. I'm not sure this could lead to lots of roleplay.

My proposal:

***
Conclave (Believer) faction

***

Believer?

I guess that would work, but most folks don't like being the Believer's. I think because they consider then too weak (low research).

I guess it would be a good handicap.


Mead

[Snoddasmannen]

I have a fun idea for the next game. How about the CMN:s giving individuals, or groups of individuals, secret goals to accomplish in the game? Keeping these secret should also be part of the game, if for no other reason than to stop others from thwarting them being attained.

This will give more incentive for politics and intrigue. For example, being a turn-player will be very important if you want to accomplish your goals.

I can only speculate in what kind of goals can be given, but I won't since that might spoil the fun I would even volounteer to help set these up.

[fed1943]

Believers?I will be there.
Best regards,

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Mead
Believer?

I guess that would work, but most folks don't like being the Believer's. I think because they consider then too weak (low research).

I haven't ever played a full game with them myself. But then again, it was ago I played a game with the Spartans before this ACDG. And now it's my favourite faction (in standard SMAC, not SMAniaC). So never better way to get to appreciate them than trying them out.

The research penalty of the Conclave is also softened in SMAniaC in a way. All factions already start the game with the Technocrat ruling elite, basically the Knowledge SE Value. -2 Research +2 Research = 0 Research => you don't have to wait ten years to start researching.

Originally posted by Snoddasmannen
I have a fun idea for the next game. How about the CMN:s giving individuals, or groups of individuals, secret goals to accomplish in the game?

Could be fun.
On the other side, in ACDG1 people gave themselves goals, even if those were not necessarily the best from a pure gameplay perspective. For example, keep Akiria free from boreholes for environmental reasons, do not build genejack factories as that's not humanitarian, run a planned economy as running free market is so evil capitalist...
I already have something in mind myself, though it will only fit in a Conclave SMAniaC setting.

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Snoddasmannen
I have a fun idea for the next game. How about the CMN:s giving individuals, or groups of individuals, secret goals to accomplish in the game? Keeping these secret should also be part of the game, if for no other reason than to stop others from thwarting them being attained.

I've been contemplating something similar, especially after CT's approach in his "Almost Winter Solstice" where he had some text files available that you accessed once you reached certain positions on the map. My thoughts on this were to design a challenge that would echo Homer's Iliad where the ACDG players are given a group of "Hero" units to start with, which then need to be navigated across the map and back to "home" in order to "win" the game. Along the way these Hero Units would encounter various situations that need to be "solved" in order to move on. Examples of this could be encountering a naval battle, assisting/ saving an ally in need with your Hero Units, navigating a maze and killing the "Minotaur", etc.

Anyone think this would be a good idea?

D

[Snoddasmannen]

Originally posted by Maniac
Could be fun.
On the other side, in ACDG1 people gave themselves goals, even if those were not necessarily the best from a pure gameplay perspective. For example, keep Akiria free from boreholes for environmental reasons, do not build genejack factories as that's not humanitarian, run a planned economy as running free market is so evil capitalist...

Setting up your own goals seems like fun as well People will always set those up, and have fun doing it. But I think adding arbitrarily assigned goals will complement this in a nice way.

My idea, we should gather a list of people who want to be assigned secret goals, then assign them goals, some individually, some in groups. You might find yourself with new friends, trying trying to achieve some absurd goal, completely unknown to everyone else.

After the game, all these alliegances should be revealed, and prizes (probably bragging rights ) given out to the people who best completed their goals.

Should be fun methinks.

[Snoddasmannen]

Originally posted by Darsnan
Anyone think this would be a good idea?

D

Sure, this sounds like fun as well

I did something similar back when me and my IRL friends were playing Civ2. I created a scenario for them, along with a "sacred text", from which they were supposed to figure out how to play the game without angering the gods (and thus getting penalty points ). It was very ambiguously phrased, with hidden codes and everything.

At certain check-points, they were to stop playing until all the others were there, and I would simulate something happening in the world. They would get new scriptures and stuff like that.

In the end I tallied all the points to see who won. That was a blast

[Illuminatus]

Full support for Alpha Centauri Fundamentalist Game. We should always strive for something new.

[GeoModder]

And I put my support for "missions" ingame if they could be made appear with the screen. (you know, like the assistant required to bring mw samples elsewhere, the regentank dream,...)

[vyeh]

I'll add my support for SMAniaC. It has several advantages:

(1) It is very recent, so no one is very familiar with all the strategic nuances (that will make for fun discussions -- nothing kills RP like someone saying that is not the best gameplay).

(2) it's creator is very much around and can fix any issues that come up.

(3) It might be a nice wake-up for people who have played a lot of standard SMAC/X

The disadvantage is that a SMAC/X newcomer might be put off playing a mod. (But how many newcomers are there with the games out of print?)

For secret missions, the CMNs could easily fit that in with the Conclave (Believer) faction. There could be different sects within the faction with their own agendas. Modifying the idea of Heroes, how about some alien artifacts that start the game "held" in a location that is known only to one sect (divine revelation?) Each of these sects would want to retrieve its sacred object before the object was lost to an AI faction.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Darsnan
Anyone think this would be a good idea?

How about both? An ACDG, but when there's a dull moment, someone can add a quest to fulfill. Since it's a single player, it's easy to do this with the scenario editor even in the middle of the game.

[Maniac]

I agree with everything vyeh says.

Originally posted by vyeh
The disadvantage is that a SMAC/X newcomer might be put off playing a mod. (But how many newcomers are there with the games out of print?)

That's indeed a good argument.
On the other side, there are many people who just participate in an ACDG without ever opening a turn.
And of course it's possible to open a SMAniaC turn for a quick view to check it out in your normal SMAC install. You'll just have weird tech lists etc.

***

Assuming we play with a faction and not a bunch of hero units, might I bring back into memoty the political system I proposed a couple months back?

Basically I was thinking we could have a two-level-government.
Level one: the faction as a whole
Level two: bases and regions

On the factional level everyone could vote on affairs affecting the whole faction. Kinda obvious of course.

However besides communal decision making, personally I also find it fun to be able to lay your own accents to some part of the faction. Regions such as in ACDG1 are perfect for this (Jedinica ). However the governor elections there were not very fun IMO. Everyone could vote for each region who became governor. Personally I would prefer instead that each member would have to choose one base to live in. And only the members living in that base could vote who would become governor for that base. People who don't specify a base to live in (eg new members who have just joined the game) would by default live in our headquarters - neutral ground - which would always be under common control of everyone.

Having a base to live in would allow the "veteran" people to identify more with (part of) the faction I believe. It would encourage roleplay around that base, and simply create more fun. At the same time, people who have just joined can at first only keep them busy with factional politics, before being overwhelmed by the more complex regions.

To make it more fun, a couple rules could be added, eg:

1. People living in bases can voluntarily choose to join their bases together in one region, and have one governor election for the entire region, and have factional law (eg you must spend x% of your resources on colony pod production) apply to your entire region, instead of bases seperately.

2. If a base or region has at least three citizens, they can vote by a 50%+1 majority to forbid migration of someone to their region. This is to prevent hostile takeover, and provides continuity. Eg without this rule it would be possible as in ACDG1 that someone chooses not to build boreholes as a principle, but then a "stranger" gets voted in and destroy a century's work.

3. There can only be at most as many bases in a region as it has citizens. Eg a region containing four citizens can have at most four bases. This is a counter against rule number two, which without this rule would allow endless colonization and eternal control over a region from the moment it has three citizens. With this rule, you need to recruit as many members as possible in your region/party/order if you want control over more bases. At the same time, it will allow small groups to eventually gain their own base or region as well.

In ACDG1, once our faction had reached a certain size, regions were just artificially created. But with these three rules as described above, regions could organically grow. The headquarters would always be under common control. Once a second base is founded, all active people would probably migrate to it, with as result the biggest group could elect their governor. The third base would go to the second largest group, and so on...

With the Maniac Manoeuvre, trading between regions could also become possible. Eg if one region had specialized in military production (by building a command center), a second region could ask "if you build me that unit, I'll give you a crawler in return".

Me thinks it would be fun.

[vyeh]

I like Maniac's suggestion (and not just because he agreed with my last post). Let the regions control everything in their bases' screens (placement of workers, specialists, facility and unit constructions) and all activities by units supported by their bases. (Military units would be considered "national guard" and used for defense against native life unless activated -- maybe the faction leader could only activate non-garrison units when there is a vendetta.)

We could require the faction leader to move to headquarters base for the duration of his tenure (reflects that he has to be at HQ to perform factionwide functions). This would deny him any power base from participating in control of his party's region.

Would it make sense under Maniac's regional structure that votes for faction leader would be by the number of pop points? So a region with more pop points would have more votes no matter how many players live there.

If there are enough players, all of the central government ministers could be required to live at HQ. E.g. the military commander(s). So if you want to command the military forces during a vendetta, you could only participate in the HQ's decisions. Other positions that might be interesting to play: a science director (gets to choose which technologies to research), foreign minister (handles all diplomatic screens and probe units), an economics minister (handles everything in the social engineering window).

The faction leader's power would include: declaring vendetta (or truce or treaty or pact), deciding on secret projects (which ones and which city they'd be built in), designation of the turnplayer.

And the only poll would be election of the central government ministers (or possibly only the faction leader who would appoint the ministers). So faction leaders could run on platforms and make deals for votes (e.g. would authorize construction of the Merchant Exchange at your base for your region's votes).

IMO, this would give a lot of room for RP and for GP. There would be a burden of the turnplayer to execute the instructions from the various ministers and regions (the turnplayer could be any government minister or the faction leader or anyone else living at HQ).

The object of the next ACDG should be to give everyone a chance to be involved either in GP (even if it is controlling one base screen) or in RP (and there should be elected RP positions).

[Maniac]

Quick post:

For reference purposes, here's the constitution of the first ACDG1. If we'd have a constitution in ACDG4, personally I'd prefer it not to be so detailed in polling requirements and job descriptions, but I thought I'd post it as an example of possible government minister positions as vyeh mentions.

(Btw, there doesn't seem to be much interest in discussing ACDG4...)