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As the Civ3 Demo game comes to a conclusion, many are nostalgic, some are melancholy, some are relieved, some are disinterested, and some are asking - what next? Aro has started a poll asking exactly that. And the other thread proposes other options, including the Double Your Pleasure option or AU mods.
I have been thinking of a few ideas, and would like to throw them on the table to add to the discussion, and to invigorate people's interest. This is not meant to replace Aro's poll or the other discussion. but just to generate some extra thought. In many respects, I think it is an extension of the idea GhengisFarb suggested in the 'future' thread. I had prepared this over a week ago, so thought it was timely to post it now, given the discussion.
A PTW demo game. Pbem. But three human teams only. The other 5 are AI civs. And we stick with a theme - all European civs, or all classical civs. Something like that. Standard or large map. Pangaea. Monarch - or even one of the higher levels to make the AI's significant players. The game would be set up by an independent 3rd party, so that the three human teams would be sufficiently far apart, and that all have similar starts. No out of game contact allowed, until teams actually meet on the board.
This should go faster than the present PTW-demo game. It would, in the early stages, be similar to the Civ3 democracy game when it was young, which by everything I read, was a hoot. Duken' it out in the rex stage with the AI. Then just when you climb to the top of your local AI crowd you run into the challenge of a human player, also trying to do the same thing. The next set of challenges will likely keep the game interesting through to the end. You will be facing the question of whether to conquer or co-opt the aid of the remaining AI civs. Three teams should create a tense stand-off situation at that point. Or will two take out the third, and then race or fight to the finish? The middle and later stages of such a game should be more interesting.
There is a large enough crowd currently involved in the demo game that making three teams should not be a problem. Each team can develop its own rules and history, much like the PTW-Demo game.
Now - as to teams - I would suggest that everybody sign up on one big list. Then nominations are held for team leaders. 3 nominations get you in the election. Then everybody gets 3 votes (yes that could be a few hundred cast) and the top 3 vote getters would become initial team leaders. They would then draft players, similar to sand lot baseball but in two rounds. To start with, they, by random order, would draft two players each (leader one getting the 1st and 6th pick, leader two getting the 2nd and 5th, etc). This core group then, likely via a closed chat, would have a draft where the remaining players all get picked. This would ensure the talent gets spread around and leaders could mix different skills knowing the membership. All players who signed up would get chosen for a team. The closed draft would remove any stigma from being chosen at or near the bottom.
The independent 3rd party would act as a referee, to make sure the game runs well, and to adjudicate on disputes.
This approach could be modified - 2 teams? 4 teams? If it is more, it would be too similar to the current PTW-demo game. As mentioned above, I am trying to come up with a game which will involve the best aspects of the demo-game, combined with the interest which can be injected by a PTW approach, and a set-up which hopefully will keep the fun and uncertainty well into the later stages of the game, which has been a problem with the Demo game.
The major downside of course, is that it becomes difficult to have the kind of public forum that exists for the current demo game. And therein lies its greatest flaw. However, to overcome this, I propose a few more additions.
First - each team must have a cultural ministry responsible for developing a theme, history, mythology, in short - a culture for that team.
Secondly - a common forum for sharing this information. Less secrecy than in the PTW game.
Thirdly - a UN. When the 3 civs have met in the game and have writing - the United Nations is formed. Each team will have two members at the United Nations. I am also thinking that 5 players who don't want to be involved, but would like to observe, could be the UN reps for the AI civs. Just a thought.
Another approach is to develop an overall theme for the game - something like this. Apolytonia (in the current SPDG) has grown to a significant size. World tensions rise. Nuclear holocaust ensues. The world is pitched back into the stone age. A thousand years later, the various tribes on the continent start to piece the world back together. A common heritage, but distant memories.
Or, an Apolytonian civil war. Maybe we pre-set the map and city set-ups so that each team has a moderately established, and equal, starting position at the start of the middle ages, or some other appropriate time. Each is an Apolytonian state. Each wants to dominate the nation.
My preference would be for a classical civ set-up, the three human civs being Rome, Greece and Babylon. Not only are they three of the classics, but they are three of the worst ranked civs according to this thread:
This will further handicap the human teams. And they are three evenly ranked civs. No one has indistrious or expansionist traits. If you rank the traits from top to bottom, with the best trait getting 6 and the worst trait 1, Rome gets a total of 4, Greece 4, and Babylon 5. Each has OK unique units - all of which come early. And each has a symbolic leader - Markos for the Greeks, Danius for the Romans, and Ming for the Babs.
Or - we go similar to the above - but only two teams - who start on either end of a continent, with 6 AI civs in between.
Anyways ... those were just some thoughts. I understand the problems associated with certain aspects of my ideas, but as I said, I am trying to stimulate thought and discussion.
Thanks for reading.
I have been thinking of a few ideas, and would like to throw them on the table to add to the discussion, and to invigorate people's interest. This is not meant to replace Aro's poll or the other discussion. but just to generate some extra thought. In many respects, I think it is an extension of the idea GhengisFarb suggested in the 'future' thread. I had prepared this over a week ago, so thought it was timely to post it now, given the discussion.
A PTW demo game. Pbem. But three human teams only. The other 5 are AI civs. And we stick with a theme - all European civs, or all classical civs. Something like that. Standard or large map. Pangaea. Monarch - or even one of the higher levels to make the AI's significant players. The game would be set up by an independent 3rd party, so that the three human teams would be sufficiently far apart, and that all have similar starts. No out of game contact allowed, until teams actually meet on the board.
This should go faster than the present PTW-demo game. It would, in the early stages, be similar to the Civ3 democracy game when it was young, which by everything I read, was a hoot. Duken' it out in the rex stage with the AI. Then just when you climb to the top of your local AI crowd you run into the challenge of a human player, also trying to do the same thing. The next set of challenges will likely keep the game interesting through to the end. You will be facing the question of whether to conquer or co-opt the aid of the remaining AI civs. Three teams should create a tense stand-off situation at that point. Or will two take out the third, and then race or fight to the finish? The middle and later stages of such a game should be more interesting.
There is a large enough crowd currently involved in the demo game that making three teams should not be a problem. Each team can develop its own rules and history, much like the PTW-Demo game.
Now - as to teams - I would suggest that everybody sign up on one big list. Then nominations are held for team leaders. 3 nominations get you in the election. Then everybody gets 3 votes (yes that could be a few hundred cast) and the top 3 vote getters would become initial team leaders. They would then draft players, similar to sand lot baseball but in two rounds. To start with, they, by random order, would draft two players each (leader one getting the 1st and 6th pick, leader two getting the 2nd and 5th, etc). This core group then, likely via a closed chat, would have a draft where the remaining players all get picked. This would ensure the talent gets spread around and leaders could mix different skills knowing the membership. All players who signed up would get chosen for a team. The closed draft would remove any stigma from being chosen at or near the bottom.
The independent 3rd party would act as a referee, to make sure the game runs well, and to adjudicate on disputes.
This approach could be modified - 2 teams? 4 teams? If it is more, it would be too similar to the current PTW-demo game. As mentioned above, I am trying to come up with a game which will involve the best aspects of the demo-game, combined with the interest which can be injected by a PTW approach, and a set-up which hopefully will keep the fun and uncertainty well into the later stages of the game, which has been a problem with the Demo game.
The major downside of course, is that it becomes difficult to have the kind of public forum that exists for the current demo game. And therein lies its greatest flaw. However, to overcome this, I propose a few more additions.
First - each team must have a cultural ministry responsible for developing a theme, history, mythology, in short - a culture for that team.
Secondly - a common forum for sharing this information. Less secrecy than in the PTW game.
Thirdly - a UN. When the 3 civs have met in the game and have writing - the United Nations is formed. Each team will have two members at the United Nations. I am also thinking that 5 players who don't want to be involved, but would like to observe, could be the UN reps for the AI civs. Just a thought.
Another approach is to develop an overall theme for the game - something like this. Apolytonia (in the current SPDG) has grown to a significant size. World tensions rise. Nuclear holocaust ensues. The world is pitched back into the stone age. A thousand years later, the various tribes on the continent start to piece the world back together. A common heritage, but distant memories.
Or, an Apolytonian civil war. Maybe we pre-set the map and city set-ups so that each team has a moderately established, and equal, starting position at the start of the middle ages, or some other appropriate time. Each is an Apolytonian state. Each wants to dominate the nation.
My preference would be for a classical civ set-up, the three human civs being Rome, Greece and Babylon. Not only are they three of the classics, but they are three of the worst ranked civs according to this thread:
This will further handicap the human teams. And they are three evenly ranked civs. No one has indistrious or expansionist traits. If you rank the traits from top to bottom, with the best trait getting 6 and the worst trait 1, Rome gets a total of 4, Greece 4, and Babylon 5. Each has OK unique units - all of which come early. And each has a symbolic leader - Markos for the Greeks, Danius for the Romans, and Ming for the Babs.
Or - we go similar to the above - but only two teams - who start on either end of a continent, with 6 AI civs in between.
Anyways ... those were just some thoughts. I understand the problems associated with certain aspects of my ideas, but as I said, I am trying to stimulate thought and discussion.
Thanks for reading.
"
). As this game has worked for me. I've learned a lot.
Honestly, if you think turnchats take forever here to get a couple of turns done, you should see how much discussion over ONE turn goes on in there, and it's only about 1300BC!
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