Next DG Discussion

[Snoddasmannen]

Originally posted by arginine

Since when is the AI ever able to be consistent with ITS threats and boasts? A player will be an upgrade in intelligence. Instead of being an increadibly stupid faction, the faction will be just somewhat stupid and difficult for humans to easily exploit.

My point is simply that a partially automated faction is probably considerably worse than a manually run faction, or more importantly, considerably less fun to play with/against. Of course I agree that both of these options are far better than an AI team.

But for instance, how do you carry out an invasion or respond to unexpected events if you have to automate your moves with a certain degree of probability? It just seems too limiting...

Perhaps if you explain the main advantages of using automation extensively, rather than controlling the factions manually, you could convince me that this is a better path.

By using lots of automation, the human spends a little amount of time playing. If someone has to play a turn, but misses a deadline, a mod can play it and everything that needs to move will be put on 'automate unit'. Heck, a person might opt to let a mod play a turn, hitting 'automate unit' on all the units that need to move.

Another way to solve this without resorting to automation (which I consider too restrictive) is to use a pool of players (mods and volounteers) who are all roughly equally capable of playing the turns for the limited teams. Read the discussions earlier in the thread for more details on this approach.

It is possible to give some of the human factions some secret goals, or hidden agendas. (ie the Spartans are promised transcendence by the Usurpers in exchange for their cooperation).

I always liked having hidden goals for factions. But I rather prefer to think of the limited factions as actors, who are not trying to win the game at all, but are only played to act their part and add to the experience. This would be their only purpose, not to win the game.

There are lots of possibilites between the two extremes - "finding out which team is best" (current) and just "having a good time together" (first?).

Wow. For me, it's having a good time. I hadn't even considered any other option, even for this game

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Mead
Perhaps we are seeing the same thing happen in these ACDG games. Allowing collaborative victories could delay the point where the game is decided, but that point would still eventually come.
...
It's even worse for factions that are second, third, or fouth place (again allowing collaborative victory could help this, but won't remove it).

I have very little PBEM experience, but wouldn't collaborate victory place the point when the game is decided earlier instead of later? After all, with more than one faction it's easier to reach the critical mass necessary to beat or hold off all remaining opposition.

[GeoModder]

Last DG, by this year the losing side already knew they were doomed and interest in general dropped all over. Even the Hive had trouble manning their departments.

In a way the endgame came down to 2-3 players in the Hive, 1-2 in the 'Borgs and 1 in the Pirates, save for the 'obligatory' comments towards the people really playing.

This one seems to hold on way longer, and I think a strong AI faction and no obvious faction blocks are the reason for this.


In general I think we're better off with a faster progressing play, and this means a lot less teams in the game given the time generally needed to run a turn.

[AndiD]

So how about something radically different:

No AI, large map, up to 7 teams, all human, all with a faction size of about 5-6 people and a turnplaying time of 24 hours sharp - maybe 1 or 2 turns that may take 48 hours are allowed every ten years ("critical turns").

Each team would consist of people that are roughly online at the same time (timezone, working hours etc.)

Roleplaying gets a strong emphasis - Cooperative victory would have to be debated (no? 2 max? 3 max? all?).

General Advantages could be:
+ smaller faction size => less "fading" interest towards midgame

+ shorter turnplay time makes for faster game (7*24 h = 168 h; 4*48 = 192 h now!)

+ more factions => more ideologies => more diplomacy => more chance of switching sides => less idea of actual game outcome

+ even with little roleplay from some factions there would still be some roleplay. Heck, with six or seven people representing their factions, we could even do kind of weekly council or something.

+ Cooperative victory off would ensure fierce battle till the end

+ Cooperative victory with up to 2 (3?) teams would allow long-term diplomacy (although long-term diplomacy might be still feasible wihout coop just to crush five teams first and then turn against each other)

I don't know whether techstag or blind research would add or spoil the fun...

(Imagine something like Pirates, Drones, Sparta, Morgan, CyCon, Gaia, Believers thrown together and being actively roleplayed...)

[AndiD]

Maybe even better: Every team gets 300 (350?) hours of turnplaying time per ten years and may decide how many time they invest at each turn. Every team keeps track in the turn tracking thread when posting the current turn.

So if they are slacking or take time for critical turns they have to rush through the latter turns of a decade.

[Hercules]

I agree with keeping a record of turnplay time and even an allocation of hours as suggested. We would just need to be careful about time zones and allow a little flexibility in that regard.

I mean if the turn for my faction was posted at 05.00GMT, it would be a few hours later before I would be able to play it.

[Drogue]

Single player Most people here haven't tried an SMAC SP DG, and we've just had two multiplayer options. Having a human AI still gives us the biggest problem, that of turnplay - we can only do one turn at a time. The 7 turn turnchats we're great, playing as a team was nice, and gave us more discussions and a more activity, and the RP element was *much* greater.

SP with parties, we haven't tried it for ages while we've been having team DGs, and since most here haven't tried it, surely we should give it a chance?

Beef up the AI, bring back the peacekeepers and let democracy florish

[Drogue]

Originally posted by AndiD
Question is - which goals do we want to achieve with ACDG4?

There are lots of possibilites between the two extremes - "finding out which team is best" (current) and just "having a good time together" (first?).

Not really. The first was run like a democracy game - elections, parties, agenda's, everyone competing for power, but us all debating and discussing, and then playing the turn in a turnchat, so we did 7 turns every week. Yes, towards the end (we're talking 2200+) interest dropped off a lot, but less so, IMHO, than the last DG.

An SP DG avoids the main problems - slow turnplaying, not being able to converse until 6 months into the game, lack of discussion, very few people in a team, leading to less diversity of playing styles, and vastly less RP. Plus the main thing for me, the nastiness. In both DGs people have been trying to do bad to other teams, things like trying to put penalties on them, asking mods to punish them, etc. It's not sportsmanlike, and more importantly, it's not pleasant. ACDG2 was much worse than 3, which is why I refused to play in a team in a DG again - I got nasty emails and personal crap.

I'm enjoying modding this, having a birds-eye view of everything, seeing how different factions work and play the turn, the strategies involved, etc. However there's a huge lack of any RP, any anything communal. It'snot a patch in terms of involvement, fun and activity on ACDG1, with parties, voting, elections, huge debates about the philosophy behind decisions, and learning a lot more about playing the game, as there were many more people in your team to learn from.

Yes activity dropped off a lot at the end, but you must remember this was in 2200 something, and activity was still very high at 2160, as it is in this. Of course when the result is obvious interest drops off, but it was much higher at the same times in ACDG1. Moreover, even right at the end with 10 people, that's still more active people than in any team currently. Having 5 active people makes the game pretty boring, IMHO. Having ~25, as we'd expect all being in one faction, is a lot more interesting.

Please, most people here haven't tried the SP DG and seen how it worked, at least give it an opportunity. Maybe it's just me, but the enjoyment seems to have been seriously lacking from the last two ACDGs.

[GeoModder]

It has my vote for sure.

[Net Warrior]

I'll sign on for a SPDG

[Drogue]

AndiD: Even with 48 hour turns, we constantly have problems and extensions. Smaller teams usually mean more people losing interest, and dramatically increase the consequences when it happens - we've had teams close to dropping out due to lack of interest in both team DGs. We don't have 6 or 7 people per team, we currently have on average about 4 or 5 active in each, and that's with 4. 7 teams would mean we'd end up with 2 or 3 people playing each team, no roleplay (we can't communicate on the main forum until all 7 meet each other), teams having to drop out and, IMHO, a pretty boring game.

I can see the reasoning for having two teams, but we still have the nastiness and splitting of the group and we still have to play one turn at a time, so it's slow play. SP DGs remove that, and with a beefed up AI, it'd be great. I learned so much for ACDGI and I'd love to try and hold one again.

[arginine]

The standard computer AI is increadibly stupid. I just want the next demo game to include some opponents smarter than the average AI.

I must say, playing against an unpredictable, yet intelligent opponent (human) makes the gameplay more interesting and, albeit, more demanding... No computer could have pulled off the surgical strike on Morgan Industries.

[Net Warrior]

In addition to beefing up the AI in the proposed SPDG, we could try something like forbidding the team from building crawlers. That would give the AI a real chance to get any special project (which the team would then have to try to steal away from them) and in general make the AI much more competitive.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Net Warrior
In addition to beefing up the AI in the proposed SPDG, we could try something like forbidding the team from building crawlers.

If you want to take away strategies that benefit the human over the AI, you should also take away popbooming, podbooming, unit upgrading, stealing technology... actually, everything that makes the game fun and gives it strategical diversity. If you want to give the AI a better chance by making the game boring, why not play Civ3?

[GeoModder]

Originally posted by arginine
The standard computer AI is increadibly stupid. I just want the next demo game to include some opponents smarter than the average AI.

What you want is an PBEM then. A democracy game is in the first place a lot of interaction between players, something that even weares off between players in the typical PBEM.