Next DG Discussion

[GeoModder]

(No, there isn't. )

[vyeh]

There seems to be a consensus since March 10th. (I've fleshed out details, especially under point 7)

1. SMAX

2. SMAniaC mod

3. Transcend

4. Standard size map

5. Conclave (Believer) faction

6. CMN's giving individuals or groups secret goals

6a. Voluntary (individuals would sign up)


7. Two level government

7a. Faction-wide
7ai. Faction leader ("First Bishop"): declares vendetta, truce, treaty, pact; decides on secret projects (which ones and where); designates turnplayer.

7aii. Military commander(s) ("Hand(s) of God"): Moves nationalized military units, conducts combat, designs new military units, disbands old military units, upgrade current military units.

7aiii. Technology coordinator ("Brain of God"):Chooses tech to research, decides what to do with alien artifacts.

7aiv. Social engineering coordinator ("Soul of God"):Handles social engineering, colonizing from HQ, runs parishes without players

7av. All faction-wide officials must live at HQ base.


7b.Bases ("parishes") and regions ("diocese")

7bi. Players in parishes can voluntarily join their parishes together in one diocese and elect a bishop for the entire diocese and have diocesan law

7bii. If a parish or diocese has at least three players, they can vote by a 50% + 1 majority to forbid migration of a player to their region.

7biii. There can be only as many parishes in a region as there are players.

7biv. Each player would choose one parish to live in. And only players living in that base could vote on who would become governor for that parish or diocese.

7bv. HQ is under the control of the Soul of God.

7bvi. Parishes or diocese control everything in their base screens, placement of workers, specialists, facility and unit construction, build queues, movement and activities of all units.

7bvii. Military units are under control of the parish or diocese that support them unless there is a vendetta (when they would be under control of the Hand(s) of God) or the parish or diocese cedes control to the Conclave.

My recommendation going forward:

Objections or amendments should reference the specific point. When the viewers of this thread are in agreement, Maniac should post a new thread with our final document and do a poll (I suspect a new thread would draw more viewers than a thread with 9 pages). With the permission of the moderators, there could be posts in the AC General, AC Creation and AC Multi-player alerting viewers of those forums to the poll.

If we can get enough people on board through that poll, we should get the ball rolling. I think the best way to get interest in ACDGIV is to get it started.

Ideally, we would need a CMN to create a map (and possibly to help the AI), someone who is into RP to draft the Conclaves sacred text and recruitment of players.

I hope this post is helpful. Apologies to anyone who sees this as presumptious.

[binTravkin]

Ouch, how come I missed all this!

Im in.

[fed1943]

I am in.
But I must say partners that I don't know SMAX or the mod,while have some experience with SMAC and the Believers.So I don't know if there are great diferences.
If our game is similar to SMAC let me wish the Brain of God always have the Pious Probe Teams with him.
Best regards,

[vyeh]

Originally posted by binTravkin
Ouch, how come I missed all this!

It's not just you. Unless there are a lot of players cruising the private forums, my guess is that a lot of ACDG players disappeared while waiting for ACDGIII to end.

In last post, I was trying to summarize (and flesh out) a developing consensus. Part of the reason for the structure of the posts with enumerated points was to let people find their objections.

While not everyone will have SMAX or want to download SMAniaC (here, Maniac is going to wonder why), I'm hoping we can develop the RP aspect enough that these players can enjoy themselves.

Maniac's rules give an incentive for people interested in the game and who want to (micro)manage a diocese to recruit the RP players. E.g. I'd like to build a 5-parish diocese. I would need 4 other players to be (nominally) the other parish's citizens. In gameplaying terms, I would be the one giving orders to the "Soul of God" who would collect all these orders and transmit them to the turnplayer.

The four parish citizens could get as much involved or as little involved in (micro)managing as they wish. Suppose fed1943's real interest was in roleplaying diplomacy. Then fed1943 could be our diocesan representative to other diocese and the Conclave. ("If God wants Throne of God to create five Blessed Convoy for the Sacred Project, surely He believes the Throne should expand into the Blessed Mountains.")

I'd like to see a fun cooperative game. For those interested in game playing, there will eventually be a new parish (base). If the player manages poorly, that's part of the challenge of being First Bishop. For those interested in roleplaying, we should have some Conclave positions (e.g. head of the Doctrine of Faith who can remove any official for nonperformance) that are elected faction wide. Other positions can be created at the diocesan level.

We also need some provisions within our RP framework for the inevitable drop-outs. If a player running an independent parish loses interest and no other citizen of the parish wants to take control, then the Soul of God would play the parish until a (new) player wanted to run it.

At the Conclave level, we could have provisions where the Doctrine of the Faith could remove anyone for nonperformance. The First Bishop would appoint someone to fill that position until new elections are held. If it was the First Bishop who wasn't performing, then there would be a designated successor ("Second Bishop"?).

Without steamrolling the process, the idea is to let everyone who wants a say to have one in drafting a proposal, poll potential players, and, if there is enough support, start a game. An ongoing game will attract more players and if there is an active role for everyone who wants one (whether it is gameplaying or roleplaying), players will continue to be interested in the game.

With the two-tier structure and governors able to control the production of their own regions, we might actually have a central government that will make the AI's look like geniuses! And there would be genuine diplomacy within the Conclave.

[PJayTycy]

That's all nice, but how are you going to do that practically ?

Expect everyone to open up the gameturn, move the units in their base / set the worked tiles, then take screenshots and send them to the turnplayer ?

Seems a lot of hassle to go through...


Also, some conflicts possible:
=> How much energy can each base use to hurry ?
=> What if 2 cities put workers on the same tile (in case of overlapping base radii)

[fed1943]

I downloaded SMAniaC and I have SMAC CD and SMAC installed,but I haven't SMAX.
As I know nothing of computers,someone can,please,tell me what I must do next.
Best regards,

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by fed1943
I downloaded SMAniaC and I have SMAC CD and SMAC installed,but I haven't SMAX.
As I know nothing of computers,someone can,please,tell me what I must do next.
Best regards,

AFAIK SMAniaC is SMAX only. FYI.


D

[Mead]

Originally posted by vyeh
There seems to be a consensus since March 10th. (I've fleshed out details, especially under point 7)

***

2. SMAniaC mod

***

What is SMAniaC?



Mead

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Mead


What is SMAniaC?



Mead

Look here


D

[Maniac]

Originally posted by PJayTycy
That's all nice, but how are you going to do that practically ?

Expect everyone to open up the gameturn, move the units in their base / set the worked tiles, then take screenshots and send them to the turnplayer ?

Screenshots are always nice if the base governor/bishop wants to do that, but if you want to spend less time on it, basically the main thing a governor would need to do is have a look at the turn, and tell "put that, that and that in the that base'q queue, and let those formers plant a farm there and a forest there". Then the turnplayer would execute these orders in the next playsession.

Also, some conflicts possible:
=> How much energy can each base use to hurry ?

In ACDG1 there was a director who had the last word over what was hurried. Eg a base governor would ask "Hey could I please hurry that production in the next playsession?" and then the director would say "Yeah sure." or "Rather not - you've already hurried quite a lot of stuff recently".

This is of course just one example of how it could happen. Many other ways to organize it.

=> What if 2 cities put workers on the same tile (in case of overlapping base radii)

Again possible ways to solve it. The bases could decide between each other which tile belongs to whom, or the regional borders could be decided by the faction as a whole or some government member.

Originally posted by vyeh
7ai. Faction leader ("First Bishop"): declares vendetta, truce, treaty, pact; decides on secret projects (which ones and where); designates turnplayer.

7aii. Military commander(s) ("Hand(s) of God"): Moves nationalized military units, conducts combat, designs new military units, disbands old military units, upgrade current military units.

7aiii. Technology coordinator ("Brain of God"):Chooses tech to research, decides what to do with alien artifacts.

7aiv. Social engineering coordinator ("Soul of God"):Handles social engineering, colonizing from HQ, runs parishes without players

With that amount of power for the factional government members, participants who aren't a base government would have nothing to do I fear.
To provide some background, in ACDG1 big decisions such as declaring war, signing a pact, building a secret project (with factionwide effect - Merchant Exchange would be up to local governors of course), social engineering and tech b-lines were made by the faction as a whole by poll. The roll of the government was not of independent deciders, but rather they were bound by the general guidelines decided factionwide, but still with the authority to work out these guidelines in concrete actions, and decide on stuff that wasn't brought uo by anyone for discussion and communal decision making. Depending on the domain, the independent decision power varied from almost nothing (technology, social engineering) to a lot (probe, military movements...).

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).

Suggestion: how about two polls?

One poll for the turnplayer/faction leader. He'd have to get a 50%+1 majority of the vote, if necessary in two rounds.

One poll in which people could not vote for people, but would have to choose for Orders (=political parties). Then each Order would have a negotiating weight bases on their votes, and a coalition would have to be formed that has at leat half the votes. They'd decide who gets what goverment post.

[fed1943]

The old question:central authority,locals authorities.
How many people will be in the game?If plenty,then have locals seems best(if locals don't forget the team is just one,and central balances,not try do everithing or nothing).Just my opinion.
Now I know that without SMAX I cannot have SMAniaC.
Where can I find the rules that superseed the SMAC manual,please?
Best regards,

[binTravkin]

I like the idea of Orders = parties!

Regarding parishes (= base governors), I have an idea:

How about all units built in that base are being under command of the proper parish, unless control transferred to Order Of Sword by the Decree Of Holy Crusade.
Parishes would also trade units inbetween themselves, aka rehome.
Parishes also own the energy credits produced by their bases at the start of the turn and energy credits made by their units by killing/popping.

Starting energy credits and all other sources, like e.g. interfactional trade and salvage of Unity Core would belong to Conclave.
Also, all independant units and any resources produced by them would belong to Conclave.
EDIT: however, resources like instabuilds which go to the closest base should be negotiated a reward upon, e.g., the parish of Valley Of The Saints gifts a former to the parish of The City Of Sins (captured enemy base ), for popping a 0-3t-2 crawler in his city.


Then, when time comes, Conclave issues, The Decree Of Holy Grail, which means that the parishes compete between themselves, who of them is gonna build an SP and be rewarded the Reward Of Holy Grail (a high prestige for any individual parish).
Parishes of one order could also cooperate to achieve the readiness to build an SP.

Also, a base founded by parish belonging to e.g. Order of Wisdom (or whatever our scientist party is called), belongs to that order and the founder parish is free to choose the new parish from
- the people who live in their city/base
- the people from other parishes of the same order.


For that matter I could introduce to you an idea to Orders being separate teams.
Imagine - each order has it's own private forum, where they plot secretly against other orders and decide their internal matters, e.g. would they compete for Reward Of Holy Grail and which members of it will run to be elected First Bishop and for other official positions.


Also, each member of ACDG would need to first choose in which order he would join, and secondly in which city/base he would live (thus being somewhat subject to local parish, who, for example, could pick you as the parish for newly founded base, or banish you from his domain, if you make trouble).


Next idea (aplogies if been discussed):
The Holy Crusade - all parishes must end the peaceful buildup they do and start producing military units, for the Crusade.
If a parish refuses to do so, he risks being either Excommunicated or pronounced Heretic ( ), which is a serious hit to his prestige and includes some restrictions in governmental issues.
Excommunication and Heretism can be revoked if parish takes up the Holy Cross and joins the crusade wholeheartedly.


I could think up more but I think I should now shut up..


One problem would be non-presence of parish at a needed moment, then his orders would be issued either by (in order of priority):
1.his vice parish (if there is one and is present)
2.GrandMaster of his order (if is present)
3.First Bishop (or rather turnplayer)


What do you think?

[Mart]

Looks good
I think I am completely convinced into playing Believers now.
SMAniaC, Conclave

[Maniac]

Originally posted by binTravkin
Parishes also own the energy credits produced by their bases at the start of the turn and energy credits made by their units by killing/popping.

This would keep some work to keep track what regions produce what, but I agree it would be cool.

I'd go further with this and calculate for every base/province its total production. It would be the sum of mineral, credit and lab production, each assigned a certain weight (eg 1 mineral = 2 crefits...). Then on the factional level a federal tax level could be decided, eg 33%, that each base/province has to pay. The local rulers could then decide how to pay that tax, or follow instructions from the factional level on how to pay it. Eg one province might want to focus on credit production, and pay their tax by that means. Another faction might want to focus on military production, and pay their tax by delivering military units. A third by building colony pods etc...

Would make for some great interaction between factional and local interests.